The Piles

Sometimes I look around our house and there are piles of stuff on every available surface. Right now at least some of the piles are useful or productive and not just stacks of junk mail and pliers and magazines and vitamins and pumpkin seeds in a Ziploc (actual contents of our kitchen counter right now, thankfully not pictured). I just remind myself that I never promised anyone a spotless home, nor did I ever even imply that it would happen, even slightly. Sometimes I have to remind Trent that when we started dating I was living with Kim, my potluck roommate during my freshman year of college who matched my level of messiness, so it’s not like I tricked him.

Trent often makes fun of me for my nightstand, which is full of useful things. That’s the only box of Kleenex in the house that he hasn’t hidden in a cabinet somewhere. In Trent’s mind, only old people have Kleenex around their homes, so he takes any boxes he sees and hides them. That one has slipped past his radar so far. I find it useful to have all my stuff out: The Night Offices for all those times when I’m awake from 3-5 or 4-6 AM, which has been my standard this pregnancy; a baby name book because we’re still working on that; magazines and the BCP, obviously; and Atlas Shrugged, which split in half when I dropped it on the floor at Whataburger the other day. It’s actually made it a lot more manageable to only have to hold 500 pages at a time.

In terms of piles of productivity, here’s my cardboard box of Christmas presents, in pieces, and other various projects. I could also go to the garage and take a picture of Trent’s pile of Christmas presents in pieces, but for obvious reasons I can’t show any pictures of end results yet. I keep adding layer after layer to my box; who knows what’s on the bottom. At least it’s contained, to an extent. There are similar bags of half finished craft projects around the house…

Rush has his own piles, mainly piles of comfort in his bed. I snuck in and took this photo a few minutes ago and it looks so cozy that I’m tempted to go make my own nest of books and stuffed animals to sleep in tonight. In fact, yes, I’m going right now. The second half of Atlas Shrugged is calling.