Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Bad Habits and my Hilarious Husband



This comic showed up on my desk a few days ago. The morning after we had a conversation about a chair in our bedroom. Correction: make that a chair that used to be in our bedroom. I moved it to another room a week or so ago. To make way for step stool and tools and the mess of wallpaper removal. (I know. Ick.) Husband had asked "Where are you going to put your piles?", referring of course to the odds and ends, bits and pieces of wardrobe and handbag contents and shopping bags and folded-but-not-yet-put-away laundry that inevitably found a temporary home on that particular chair. All the time. To his smarty-pants question, I replied "Nowhere, I guess" realizing that I hadn't left a "pile" of anything in the bedroom since moving that chair. There is another chair in the room but we use it as a chair should be used, for reading and shoe-tying and the like, so it has never been a way station. Always a chair. I never developed the habit of dropping things there. So I'm thinking now, if the only real "purpose" the currently absent chair ever had was to attract piles, and if I'm not making piles since it's been gone, shouldn't it just stay gone? I think so.

Is there anything in your home that has proved more useful as a developer of bad habits than for its intended purpose? A convenient table or chair that makes it too easy to simply drop things and leave them for later, but later never comes? A basket meant to be a transition spot for shoes or newspapers that rarely gets emptied? A home office "in" box that's become a "leave it here forever" box? I'll bet there is. And, honestly, I think we all have a spot like that. Maybe a few. But I'll tell you, getting rid of that chair, which inadvertently helped me kick a bad habit, is feeling pretty good right now. So I'm going to take a look around the house, as I prepare for fall maintenance and repairs and nesting, to see if I can find any other "bad habit makers" to get rid of.

Tell me about your "bad habit makers". Or the one you had that you removed and kicked. I'd really like to know that I'm not the only one with this "problem". And as the husband reads the blog, you'd be doing me a big favor if he could see it's not just me! Oh, and tell me too if you think he's as hilarious as he thinks he is for having clipped this comic, leaving it "anonymously" for me to find. He's a regular laugh riot, that one.


I'll confess that I did enjoy the cartoon enough to add it to my growing "gallery of chairs" on the right sidebar. Scroll down, down, down, a little bit further, there it is! If I can't fill my house with great chairs, I'll just have to collect them here.

18 comments:

Maria Killam said...

That is a great comic! I have a long hallway from the backdoor and no table to drop anything on so what happens instead is I stick stuff on the side of the hallway to go 'out the door' either stuff I'm bringing to clients, or stuff that needs to go into storage from the backdoor, etc. Once in a while I run around and put it all away but in the meantime it gathers dust.

Kim @ Twice Remembered said...

What a great post! Yes, I have little {and big} piles, unfortunately. What do you do when you drop things on your bed? See, we did at one time have a chair that collected things as well, but after it was removed, the bed became its substitute. I clearly have issues. :)

Very cute comic!

Anonymous said...

Very fun comic and, yes, I do think your husband was pretty clever to leave it for you anonomously! :-) I have a chair in my bedroom that also gets used for dropping things but I love it so much that I will probably never take it out of there. Does that mean that I have a problem because I refuse to give up my bad habit?

Anonymous said...

so funny...i'll have to show that to my husband, although he would probably think that of me...i could totally relate to having piles on chairs and unfortunately our dining room table seems to be a catch all for everything. :)

Anonymous said...

Just so you know....that photo of my dog on the chair....in my bedroom.

HUGS
KAREN EILEEN

Michelle said...

That's too funny Tracy...right now I have two wicker arm chiars in my bedroom, and BOTH are full of clean laundry piles, night clothes from the past week, and right now sheets that I can't fit in my linen closet...I need a kick in the but to just get it all DONE. You have inspired me to address my habits...thanks! (I think%^&*@#$%@#$)

Best,
Michelle

Rebecca Corvese said...

Junk and clutter everywhere are my vices. I'm constantly trying to clean up the clutter! And, you should definitely visit Catalina. Stay at the Aurora hotel. We have a boat, but one night it was too rocky, so I stayed at the Aurora and it was heavenly (and I think the newest hotel on the island).

Janet said...

Yep, I have a "laundry chair" in our bedroom as well. I am so glad my husband didn't see this cartoon, it certainly would have been clipped to my calendar, which is another catch all spot for bills to pay etc... you can't even read the dates for the first half of the month.

Maria Killam said...

Okay, I finished your colour personality post. They were fun questions but I'm not left with what my 'colour personality' is though? Were you? I still have to answer your 'red' question. It's a good one.

DesignTies said...

Oh yeah, I have a "bad habit" piece of furniture -- our dining room table!! The DR is next to the front door, so things that come into the house get dumped on the table and sit there for ages, because we never actually eat at our DR table.

Currently, I have 5 boxes with 100 pounds of tile samples sitting on it.... plus a roll of painters tape, scotch tape, my latest HomeSense buys, and a screwdriver.

The chair comic is cute :-) If we had a chair in the bedroom, that's exactly what it would be used for!!

Thanks for visiting our blog -- good to hear you like what you saw :-) I'm looking forward to checking out more of your blog posts -- I see that your next one is the colour personality test, which will be fun to read :-)

Kelly

Verdigris Vie said...

you are soooo not alone.. i bought this bamboo shelf for my kitchen counter - so i could organize some spices, and other tools. No spices on it - it's a catch all for pens paper vitamins - even some small books - in fact - that entire side of the counter.. blah blah blah.. Tomorrow IT GOES!

Unknown said...

Oh yes. We have THAT chair in our bedroom. I don't think it has EVER been used as a chair. It has always been a blanket, clothes, paraphernalia, and stuff catcher. LOL! And when THAT chair gets over decorated with clothes they start piling up onto the dresser. Its horrid. Thanks so much for stopping by!! Come again.

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Cute cartoon! I enjoyed this post Tracy, and "guilty as charged" as far as my dropping things for later on my bedroom chair.

My husband's bad habit is cluttering up the dining room table with piles of "don't touch these, as they are important reminders" piles of papers. He has two desks but he must use the dining room table too.
Miscellaneous paper does have a way of taking over one's life, doesn't it?

the gardeners cottage said...

Hi Tracy,

My house is so small that when you enter the front door you see directly to the back. I don't have any hidden spots for clutter. NONE. So the wicker table in the entry/dining room is where things get dumped but it bugs me to come home and see that so I'm forever trying to keep it cleared. So it's hard for clutter of any kind to build up. In our old house, now that's a different story. Great questions!

Janet

Room Service ~ Decorating 101 said...

Loved that and anit the truff...I know my own is like that most of the time. Thanks for encouraging me, I just may do it.

cotedetexas said...

that is hysterical! i love it!!!! i have piles that have their own piles.

and yes - there is always plenty to talk about it, isn't there!!!
Joni

Catherine said...

I have a small table next to our clawfoot bath/shower that I like to keep fresh flowers on. There's just enough room for this cute little antique saucer (cup was missing) with a sweet bird pattern on it. It was intended to just be 'seen' not used but hubby got in the habit of using it as a 'saucer' (how could he?!) for his coffee cup when he showered - and which would inevitably get forgotten and left there. I got frustrated and told him that the 'saucer' wasn't there for putting his coffee cup in...but it sounded funny as I said it. : + And I have 'projects' stacked throughout the house. They get stored on desktops, tabletops, chairs and couches - I can't seem to shake my tendency to pile.

Unknown said...

You're not alone, my bedroom sofa currently has three piles on it. There is also a suitcase left over from my last out of town excursion. Don't do as I do , do as I say!