How to get stuff done

On Halloween, before the big party, we had pizza for dinner. There isn't a lot of recycling/garbage storage space in the kitchen, so the pizza box was tossed onto our back porch. We do this a lot, and the theory is that one of us will see it on our way out of the house and take care of it.

Halloween night was very windy, and when we awoke the next morning the box was lying a ways from the house. A week later it was still there. Not tucked away, where we could easily forget about running out to grab it and put it in the trash, but right in the middle of the yard, very conspicuous.

When we got home from the hubs' academy graduation, I had the camera in my hands as I stepped out of the car. I saw the offending box. And I took a picture of it. He wanted to know why.

'Because we're not going to pick it up. We are the type of neighbors who will let garbage sit in their yard in plain sight for weeks at a time. And I want to document this so that I can blog about it.'

'I'm going to pick it up,' he replied, insulted.

'Oh, I'm going to pick it up too, someday. But not tonight. We are the family who grows enough dandelions for the neighborhood. And we're the ones who leave our garbage out.'

While he is uncomfortable with me sharing this information, I personally don't think there's anything wrong with the way we do house and yard work. Both of us have a sort of 'when I feel like it' credo that I find very relaxing.

This philosophy is why I still enjoy chores like raking - I only do them when the mood strikes me. And because I enjoy having a clean house, the mood strikes me pretty often. But there are always two or three tasks sitting on the back burner that I shrug off for much, much longer than would a more diligent housekeeper. Since I am moderately uptight in almost every other way, I am proud that there is one area in which I go with the flow.

So why the title of this post? The morning after I photographed it, the box had disappeared. Apparently the threat of publication is a great motivator around here. Maybe tomorrow I'll show you a photo of the kitchen sink, current home of Dish Mountain...

Love, J