Bless My Mess

I'm meant to be upstairs, tidying my room. But I'm not. I'm sitting in front of the computer.

Tidying rooms is such a boring thing to do. You're faced with stacks of paper, files, books, little notes that you don't really want but can't really throw away and all the bits and pieces which end up underneath your knee when you reach for something on the other side of the floor. You spend hours sorting through the mess, trying to decided what to keep and what to throw away. You are left with at least a dozen different piles that have to go in an absolute maximum of six different places. At last you get to the end and you are left with three separate items that just don't fit in any of your draws or boxes - and they conveniently form a starting point for your next pile-up of stuff, which will need sorting through in another months time ...

People say that you are either messy or a cleany. Apparently messy people always marry clean people and clean people always marry messy people. I don't think I will ever find out whether or not that's true. You see, I am one of those excessively awkward people who absolutely hates mess and dirt and gets fussed by piles of stuff hanging around, but just can't seem to put things away and has a habit of leaving random bits of paper around in even more random places.

That is my other problem. I end up hording bits of paper. I just might need the 'phone number again ... the envelope has the date on it ... the drawing was very original ... my great-grandchildren might want to read a rhyme written by their great-grandmother decades ago when they still used fountain pens ... one day I might become famous and someone will want to publish my letters ...

The even bigger problem is that it doesn't stop at bits of paper. It includes pictures, photos, paper-clips, presents from friends, bookmarks, pretty bits of wrapping-paper, knick-knacks that I loved as a child and just about anything else that used to have, currently has, or might one day in the future have, any sentimental value. Of course, somehow or other that ends up stretching over a lot of stuff that I would really rather be without.

I am, however, seriously fed up of the mess and the clutter and the dust. So I am going to be ruthless. I have decided. I am going to stick firmly to my resolve. I am going to go upstairs to my room with a trash bag, I am going to sort through every last scrap of paper, every last item and I am going to throw out anything that is not either necessary, genuinely ornamental or has real and sincere sentimental value.

Now, how can I make a second copy of a free, give-away poster of a cow fit into one of those categories?