Justify Your Position

I keep a tidy house.   My husband likes things clean and orderly and I do too.   It stays orderly almost all the time, mostly because I have stratagems that make it fairly easy to do, as opposed to a drudgery every day.  

That means there are rules I follow, such as making sure the house is back in order before going to bed.   Another one is, "a place for everything and everything in its place."  That's one I do by default by my husband doesn't think of as often as I do.

When I get something new, be it a gift, a purchase or a rock my children found in the back yard, that thing needs to have a home defined for it.  You laugh about the rock, but we have both a stick and a rock that live in specific spots in our house because they were "important" to my children.   Everything gets a "home" assigned to it once it comes into the house.

Over time, a household evolves.   Some people call it "spring cleaning" but whatever you call it and whenever it happens, it's when you take a look at your things and decide if those things still merit having that spot in your home.

In my house, I like to think of it as things having to justify they still should be here and occupy that spot.   I don't have a problem being a hoarder, getting rid of things and cleaning up is invigorating to me.

This came up today because this afternoon, for at least the fiftieth time, I was looking at this scrub brush in the back of our minivan.   We've had the minivan for three years now, and I still don't know why we have a scrub brush in the side back pocket.  This isn't a little thing, it's one of those six-inch things you scrub the floor with.   I don't know what it's for and I've never seen my husband use it.

I knew I'd asked before why it was there, but I didn't remember what the reason was.   I asked him again today, because if it was going to stay in the car one day longer, that scrub brush needed to justify it's placement there.   My husband said, "I brush off my shoes after golf with it."    Oh.   Ah.

I don't play golf.   I have never seen him use the brush because I don't go to the golf course with him. It is a useful thing and it does have a need to be in that spot.   It just wasn't a need I had.

The Big Boy Update:  My son thinks anything that happened prior to today is, 'yesterday'.  He asked my husband the other day, "yesterday, when you were little, did you play with legos?"   Oh, and because sometimes toddlers say things that are just too strange out of the complete blue, my son said this on the way to lunch today: "If somebody turns into two mommies and two daddies and two Reeses, then they would have to be black and white."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  I was working for what felt like several hours this afternoon in the basement, at this computer,  on work for my children's school.   During that time my husband made dinner, served it to the rest of the family and was cleaning up when I came upstairs.   I saw from the dishes that he'd had a drink with dinner.   When he went off to get something in the bedroom I asked my two-year-old daughter, "how much alcohol has dad had?"   She said, "I dunno, too much."  I tried to not laugh out loud as I walked into the bedroom to tell daddy what his daughter had said.