A Chinese New Year Story

I was sick all weekend, along with the kids. blah. Still fighting it off. Wish I could have enjoyed the snow, but I was grateful that my husband worked from home on Friday, even though I spent the whole day in bed instead of with him :(

By yesterday, my husband was going a little stir crazy, having been trapped in the (messy) den of sickness. He decided it was time to get organized.

Here is part of his project: peg boards! yay.

Peg boards for world peace

While I appreciate the sentiment, these fits of sudden organization tend to stress me out. For one, it often creates a bigger mess than was there originally, at least for the short term. I don't pretend to be a very clean person. I keep things tidy for the most part, but I don't worry if the kids spill things on the floor, or if the picture frames are not dusted. I feel like if I tried to keep everything perfectly clean, I wouldn't have time for anything else! So I am willing the make the trade off and spend my time doing other, more enjoyable things. It's not like we live in squaller!
But I'm one of those people who even though things are a mess, I know where everything is. So when my husband comes in and re-organizes everything, certain things tend to get lost, which brings me to my point.

This morning as we were going through some mail (after trying to figure out a better place and system for it), my husband handed me my address book, "find some place to put this" he suggested.

"Oh, I like to keep this in my..." I glanced over at the counter, where there used to be a basket shaped like a turkey. Kitschy, I know, but my mother gave it to me, it used to hold all of the Christmas cards during the holidays in my house growing up.

"where is my turkey basket?" I asked suspiciously.

"I threw it away" he said.

AHHHHH!!! How could he throw away my turkey basket?? My reaction was similar to the father in "A Christmas Story" when his beloved "leg lamp" gets broken, and quite the same level of absurd attachment.

"You were always jealous of my basket!"

My husband likes things clean, minimal

source

"get rid of those apples and the candle...too much clutter!"

But I like the more cozy, "lived-in" approach. i like my little nick-knacks. 

sourceI think it needs more candles...

I think we need one of those design intervention shows.

but the real dilemma is...

Do I go dig my turkey basket out of the trash???