Why is this pen here?

I must be incredibly frustrating to live with.

I leave a little trail of random assortments behind me that are now (well...i say 'now'. It's been going on a while) starting to bury their way into my husband's sanity.

I went to brush my teeth last night, and I saw this:

It cracked me up, but then I had to explain to my husband that his plan had a major flaw...in that I would now have to always keep a pen in that place because otherwise any visitors would think he'd literally gone mental! Needless to say, I haven't removed the pen for that very reason. 

I also explained exactly why there was a pen there (I needed to make holes in my soil to plant the seedlings out, the pen got muddy, I washed the pen, then I put it there to dry.....I didn't mention that this was nearly a week ago). It was a lame excuse. I do know that it's stupid and frustrating, and that I should just put things away, and after this frankly desperate act from Si, I realised that the very least I could do is try and work out why I'm such a mess!

Here are some possible reasons that I came up with:

1. It's just the way I am. Get over it. ;)
2. Half the time I'm walking around in a state of foggy tiredness where I have to weigh up every little thing that I do. Take the pen for example. If I was feeling fatigued, in my mind it would be 'well...if I returned this to it's rightful place now then it means going downstairs, then back upstairs. I'll just do it later. In fact, I can just make it a little home for it here instead". (Though this is often the case, on this particular day I had managed to do some gardening so the tiredness excuse doesn't really cut it!)
3. Things don't have a 'place' in our house. This is slowly being rectified, but I haven't had much energy recently to chip away at it. I clearly need a little home for pens on each floor......and maybe one for spoons (see below).
4. I'm lazy. I get tired undoubtedly, fatigued absolutely, but that doesn't mean that on the odd occasion I'm not lazy. Again, why go alllll the way downstairs to replace the pen when I can make a little home for it here? :)

But what's the solution?

1. I've given Si my permission to put post-its and encouraging messages (such as 'what the hell is this doing here?', 'Why Chloe? WHY?', 'You're doing it again', etc) onto things out of place. This could back-fire horribly...I'm very worried I'll wake up one morning with a post-it on my head saying 'Please leave.' but it's worth a try! :) It might well work, because once things are deposited by me I tend not to notice them, so it will make me more aware. Of course there is the risk that, to visitors, Si will come across as a complete ba*****d! I think he's probably prepared to take that risk for a tidy home!! :D
2. This is my solution. And I think it makes a lot of sense. 

Carry everything around with me all the time, a la the Junk Lady from the awesome 1986 film Labyrinth. I'd never be short of pens. Not sure it would do the fatigue much good though.



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So after having discussions with Si about my mess and post-its and writing on things and me agreeing I would try etc, we got into bed.

Si: "Is that a SPOON?!"

Me: "Urrr. Yep."
Si: *conducts mental forehead slap*