Junk drawer? Junk room? Junkie?

[cheerful_deviant]

And the fucking button habit! (Thanks a bunch, grandma. )

I have cookie tins full of old buttons. Actually inherited a few of 'em. No one gets rid of clothing in this family without harvesting the buttons.

As a kid, I used to sort them -- match by color, number of holes, size -- but some asshole (probably my brother) would mix 'em all up again.

If you ever lose a button, lemme know. I'm pretty sure I've got a spare to match.

Aaahhhh... memories. My grandmother has several tins of old buttons that I used to play with when I was little. Did the same thing, sort by color, size etc.

Do your old button tins have a certain smell? Old dust, slightly metalic from the old tin? Everytime I get a wiff of that smell it immediatly make me remember the button tin.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Moi? (with faux look of innocence on my face)

What, with that leering grin

 

[rgraham666]

What, with that leering grin

Not much gets past you, does it?

 

[SensualCealy]

Shereads, I had a problem with your poll, you should have had - all of the above as the last item!

I have well, two junk drawers in the kitchen, three if you count the china cabnet drawer. See one has scissors, screw drivers, tape, cards, you know, stuff you use. The other has warentee cards for all the appliances and stuff only used once in a blue moon. This too is where I keep those odd things that you "may need some day". The extra screws from something you put together, the pieces you didnt use cause you just didnt build it the way they told you to! lol

Now the china cabinet drawer has pictures, writing paper, old letters, pens, pencils, and school art work from the kids, none of which I can get rid of right?

Now I have a junk room, everything you dont have a place for goes in there. When I did the kids rooms all their stuff went back there, and yes, as they have put things back in there are boxes of stuff they dont want in their room. SO the pile gets bigger! I have about 12 of the LARGE rubbermaid buckets full of fabrics (with at least two cookie tins of buttons, one inherited from grandma and one I started on my own ) back there, two I know have scraps in them. The neighbour lady gives my daughter garbage bags full for making barbie clothes. I have yet to tell her, she hasn't played barbies in a couple years! Eeeks! I know, they will be thrown out after I get the boxes of kids crap out of the way. Now I have a sun room that is also a junkier room, it has stuff saved up for spring clean up, or second hand stores. Once the warm weather gets here- if it ever does, that stuff is OUTTA HERE!

I too have an ancient home, approximately 165 yrs old, and NO FRIGGING closets! So of course everything is every where. My living room is of course a living room, but it also serves as the computer room and my sewing room. The last two in the same area. No matter how hard I try the house always looks junky. And you are right Joe, I gotta move, but who will pack for me? Uggg! Time for a clean sweep- yet again!
C

 

[CharleyH]

All pens are in the pen bin, all magazines organized by date. Food and Drink over there, Vanity Fair over there, assored pop culture over there, and writing over there. All binders colour coded, all notebooks together with labels on whats inside. Papers in files, red, blue or brown depending. However, bills have a special place in several plastic bags, shoved into the closet unopened and waiting to be shredded. Still, they are organized insofar as they are in the closet. Needless and childish baubles that a particular someone feels the need to place on shelves in the livingroom always end up in my "special hiding place", which I would much rather say is the garbage, but I am not THAT cruel.

 

[rgraham666]

Needless and childish baubles that a particular someone feels the need to place on shelves in the livingroom always end up in my "special hiding place", which I would much rather say is the garbage, but I am not THAT cruel.

My image of you is shattered.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

All pens are in the pen bin, all magazines organized by date. Food and Drink over there, Vanity Fair over there, assored pop culture over there, and writing over there. All binders colour coded, all notebooks together with labels on whats inside. Papers in files, red, blue or brown depending. However, bills have a special place in several plastic bags, shoved into the closet unopened and waiting to be shredded. Still, they are organized insofar as they are in the closet. Needless and childish baubles that a particular someone feels the need to place on shelves in the livingroom always end up in my "special hiding place", which I would much rather say is the garbage, but I am not THAT cruel.

CharleyH aka Martha Stewart.

Got any share tips?

 

[CharleyH]

My image of you is shattered.

lol - I promised myself as a young girl that my home would never look like my Gran's, which means all porceline Red Rose tea baubles get garbaged. Living with a guy who enjoys saving key chains, toy cars, flashing lights, special edition alcohol bottles, and personalized liscence plates (non of which are condusive to the decor) become mysteriously 'lost' in the abyss of 'Sock-land'. lol

 

[CharleyH]

Got any share tips?

Stay out of jail!

 

[elfin_odalisque]

Stay out of jail!

Isn't that a Monopoly card?

Girls can be untidy but guys can take it a new high of messy AND sordid. Why can't they distinguish between clean and dirty clothes?

 

[dr_mabeuse]

What you want is a good amphetamine habit so you can spend hours in the basement wire-brushing the rust off old screws you'll never use and organzing other people's junk you bought into baby food jars labelled "string", "thin string", and "bits of string".

It's pitiful. I've got a space in the basement cluttered with stacks of empty organzers or all size and description. That's how I clean. I don't throw anything away, I just buy more organizers and throw them in the basement.

I'm waiting for the end of the universe when entropy reverses itself.

 

[impressive]

lol - I promised myself as a young girl that my home would never look like my Gran's, which means all porceline Red Rose tea baubles get garbaged. Living with a guy who enjoys saving key chains, toy cars, flashing lights, special edition alcohol bottles, and personalized liscence plates (non of which are condusive to the decor) become mysteriously 'lost' in the abyss of 'Sock-land'. lol

My grandmother (the OTHER one -- not the button one) collected clay/porcelain/glass animals. Not little things, either. It got so out of hand that it became kitsch-cool. When she died, my brother and I fought over the black glass panther with green gemstone eyes. (He got it, but I got the golden cobra -- poised to strike.)

So bad it's good ...

 

[impressive]

What you want is a good amphetamine habit so you can spend hours in the basement wire-brushing the rust off old screws you'll never use and organzing other people's junk you bought into baby food jars labelled "string", "thin string", and "bits of string".

It's pitiful. I've got a space in the basement cluttered with stacks of empty organzers or all size and description. That's how I clean. I don't throw anything away, I just buy more organizers and throw them in the basement.

I'm waiting for the end of the universe when entropy reverses itself.

Let's take your screws and my buttons and a gallon or two of epoxy and make a masterpiece of mixed media erotic art.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

What you want is a good amphetamine habit so you can spend hours in the basement wire-brushing the rust off old screws you'll never use and organzing other people's junk you bought into baby food jars labelled "string", "thin string", and "bits of string".

It's pitiful. I've got a space in the basement cluttered with stacks of empty organzers or all size and description. That's how I clean. I don't throw anything away, I just buy more organizers and throw them in the basement.

I'm waiting for the end of the universe when entropy reverses itself.

Too organized! You need a jar labelled "string-various".

 

[rgraham666]

lol - I promised myself as a young girl that my home would never look like my Gran's, which means all porceline Red Rose tea baubles get garbaged. Living with a guy who enjoys saving key chains, toy cars, flashing lights, special edition alcohol bottles, and personalized liscence plates (non of which are condusive to the decor) become mysteriously 'lost' in the abyss of 'Sock-land'. lol

You must have a ton of wire coat hangers then. Everything that disappears into 'Sock-land' is transmorgified into wire coat hangers.

Girls can be untidy but guys can take it a new high of messy AND sordid. Why can't they distinguish between clean and dirty clothes?

I can. Even do my own laundry. I can sort it by colours as well. Tsk. Hate stereotypes. Grumble, mumble.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Girls can be untidy but guys can take it a new high of messy AND sordid. Why can't they distinguish between clean and dirty clothes?

We appreciate the deep metaphysical nuances of the clean/dirty dichotomy. If you put on a tee-shirt in the morning but then shower and put on another shirt, is the tee clean or dirty? It was on your unwashed skin, but did it have enough time to absorb significant dirt? Shouldn't it more properly be saved for tomorrow's pre-showering period?

And if it's not dirty, what's to be done with it? You can't fold it and put it away next to your clean tee-shirts. You certainly can't hang it on a hanger. Ah, yes! It goes on the back of that chair: the holding pen for transitional clothes.

But then what happens if it gets covered with some genuinely dirty clothes? Does it absorb their dirtiness like guilt through association? Is it fair to the tee shirt to wash it when it's not actually dirty, or is that clothes-abuse?

And what about cleanish clothes that fall off the chair and spend the night on the floor? Have they been kissed by the devil? Even if the floor's clean?

So you see, it's not that we're slobs. It's just that we're philosophers.

 

[Guest]

 

[cheerful_deviant]

We appreciate the deep metaphysical nuances of the clean/dirty dichotomy. If you put on a tee-shirt in the morning but then shower and put on another shirt, is the tee clean or dirty? It was on your unwashed skin, but did it have enough time to absorb significant dirt? Shouldn't it more properly be saved for tomorrow's pre-showering period?

And if it's not dirty, what's to be done with it? You can't fold it and put it away next to your clean tee-shirts. You certainly can't hang it on a hanger. Ah, yes! It goes on the back of that chair: the holding pen for transitional clothes.

But then what happens if it gets covered with some genuinely dirty clothes? Does it absorb their dirtiness like guilt through association? Is it fair to the tee shirt to wash it when it's not actually dirty, or is that clothes-abuse?

And what about cleanish clothes that fall off the chair and spend the night on the floor? Have they been kissed by the devil? Even if the floor's clean?

So you see, it's not that we're slobs. It's just that we're philosophers.

You are a strange and fascinating man.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

You are a strange and fascinating man.

Nah! He's just making the same silly noises that all guys make when they can't differentiate between the washing hamper and their love of body odours.

Spare me naked male bonding and unmatched socks!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Guest]

 

[shereads]

Is there any other kind?

Yes, I'm afraid so.

There's cafeteria cornbread.
There's wooden cornbread (coodbread).
There's my mom's jalapeno cornbread, which is creamy in the center like a souffle.
There's sweet gummy cornbread, which I don't much like.

I'm for non-sweet cornbread, which is served in places where the waitress asks if you want your iced tea "sweet or un-sweet."

Unsweet, thank you. And crispy.

 

[shereads]

Ah, yes! It goes on the back of that chair: the holding pen for transitional clothes.

<slaps forhead as if thinking, "Eureka.">

Whoa. Enlightment.

When I'm depressed, I think like a man! Thank you, Zoot.

When my meds are working properly, clothes are either clean or dirty. Transitional clothes are rounded down to dirty.

When I'm depressed, I don't trust myself to decide whether to re-wear a shirt before it goes to the cleaners, so it gets loosely folded and tossed on top of the others on a convenient, easily forgotten transitional-clothing shelf in my closet. (Next time I'm depressed, I should put a chair in the bedroom for spillovers from the transitional clothes shelf.)

It's not just clothes, though. Transitional bills and letters are the ones that were ready to mail three weeks ago, if I had had some stamps. Transitional cereal is any cereal that I'm tired of, but can't throw away because the box is too full.

Ergo, clutter.

Oddly, there's one thing that's less likely to become transitional when I'm depressed: a pint of Haagen Daas Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream. That's all-or-nothing. Unless I'm at Level Orange and can't enjoy food anymore. Fortunately for the Haagen Daas people, I've only reached Level Orange twice.

 

[minsue]

Fortunately for the Haagen Daas people, I've only reached Level Orange twice.

I've only reached Level Orange once so far. On the upside, I lost over 40 lbs. Now if I only could do that without the deep-seated need to die.


Can I call this my transitional house then?

 

[shereads]

I've only reached Level Orange once so far. On the upside, I lost over 40 lbs. Now if I only could do that without the deep-seated need to die.


Can I call this my transitional house then?

Are the cats transitional?

 

[minsue]

Are the cats transitional?

No, they're theoretical.