Crap, crap everywhere and not a drop to drink

This is not an actual picture of my kitchen, but I can see how this happens.  And it could happen in days, if not hours.  Attack of the crap.  Crap attack.  CRAP!

The downstairs has been de-cluttered and has been fairly easy to keep "neat," on a daily basis.

But the upstairs.  Oh, the upstairs.

I just don't get it.  Why is there always so much CRAP around?  Didn't I just go through all my clothes and haul out bags to Goodwill?  Didn't I do that with the kids as well?  So what, are there clothes trees that I don't know about?  And do the clothes fall from them like ripe apples and start to rot?

Yeah, I think that's what is going on.

As I plowed through a mountain of laundry first thing this morning, I vowed to stop putting things in piles and walking away.  The entire hallway ledge is one pile of clothes after another.  The laundry room itself is a disaster that I've been ignoring for months and months and months.  So I decided to take charge today and get it over with, once and for all.

Except, it's so daunting!  As I folded sheets to put into the linen closet, the linen closet was a wreck.  DAMN IT, I screamed (really, I screamed) I just cleaned this thing.  Who the hell is jamming things that don't belong here on these stupidly tiny shelves?

There was no one to hear my words of frustration, unless of course you count a cowering dog who takes everything I do or say personally, or a teenager who had her head underneath a pillow and probably won't surface for many more hours.  But does it matter?  We clean and organize and neaten and fix, only to have it undone.  I am always torn between just letting it all go to pot because that's where it's headed anyway; or trying to keep ahead of the pot-going inevitability, always foolishly believing that THIS TIME I will beat it.

I never do.

Even as I sit here, at once was a clean desk, I see piles of piles that I don't even recognize.  Oh, okay, that is Charlie's homework, a bunch of CD's that contain pictures I no longer need, a water bottle that for some reason sits here instead of finding its way into the dishwasher because it is new and needs a washing ... and of course that pile of magazines, mail and other crap I pile up to deal with later.  ::::::::::::::sigh:::::::::::::::::

And all it will take is about ten minutes to get it taken care of.  But I have only just begun the upstairs and there are only so many ten minute stints in a day; and because I was so frustrated I woke up sleeping teenager and took her out to breakfast.

I have read that the surest way to halt all creative and industrious progress is to eat bad food.

I am always into research.