ACK!!! (And that's all I have to say about that!)

In my blogging, social media and in-person interactions, I always try to put positivity into the world.  As a person who is susceptible to other people's negative energy, I always aim not to add to negative energy.  But today, I find myself having to rant.  

I realize that I really have only myself to blame here, so I am mostly ranting at myself  (if that makes it better.)

I feel sort of like the Cat in the Hat.  If you've ever read this Dr. Seuss classic, you know that he balances on a ball holding a cake and a rake and a fish and a book and an assortment of other things.  He does well for a while but finally over-reaches, drops everything and falls on his head in a very undignified way.  

I usually juggle pretty well.  I honestly like my life.  It's not like I have lots of commitments which don't resonate with me or which I'm doing just because I should.  But I feel like I'd be able to keep my balls in the air a whole lot better if my house wasn't perpetually in chaos.  

It's gotten so bad that I don't even know where to begin.  Sometimes I have time and no motivation.  Sometimes the opposite is true.  Sometimes I look around and feel so overwhelmed that I. Can't. Even.

A few weeks ago, I picked up a prescription but wasn't quite out of the pill at home.  Now that I'm out, I can't find the refill.  I've misplaced two checks which I could absolutely use right now. There are clothes I want to wear which are at the bottom of some catastrophic pile.  There are books I want to read but I have piles of those in every room of the house.  I probably have 100 ballpoint pens in the house but none in any place useful.  Inexplicably, I'm feeling the urge to drag out the waffle iron I received as a wedding gift years ago.  If only I knew where it was.

Today, I couldn't find a pot holder to take something out of the oven.

"I put things away when I'm done with them," my husband said smugly

"I know," I muttered annoyed.  "I'm a terrible human being."

 "I would never say that about you," he insisted, indignant.

It's true.  He wouldn't.  He is my biggest fan even when I drive him crazy by not putting things back.  What's so hard about this for me I wonder?  Part of the problem is obviously too much stuff.  I know it.  I get it.  I swear I'm working on it.  But I suspect that even if I had a lot less stuff, I'd still have chaos because I seem completely unable to commit to any organizational system.

I'm not putting myself down here.  I know that I've done some amazing creative things.  And I'm not the kind of person who needs to be good at everything.  I recognize that Martha Stewart is not quaking in terror.  I realize that the whole clean and organized thing is never going to be my wheelhouse.  But I need to find a way to get  just a little bit better at it before I fall on my head like the Cat in the Hat.