The clutter of my life...

People wonder at times how I can go from a season of living in clutter and chaos to needing everything to be in it's place and put away. (DISCLAIMER: My bedroom in no way is included in this statement).

My Mom has always been a pack rat. Big Red was a pack rat. I (being the sentimental fool that I am) have pack rat tendencies. None of my tendencies even compare to the legacy that I have come from.

I am easily overwhelmed by change. Heck I am just easily overwhelmed by many things...

Today was a perfect example. Lunch for Mom's birthday. I thought this would be a nice little lunch followed by cake and then since this was a restaurant we could all go on our on merry little ways afterward. Oh but wait my Mom is involved...

You see every time...EVERY TIME.... we have a get together, coffee, stop by to say Hi or anything that causes a conversation to happen my sister and I get blessed. Blessed with sitting down and going though boxes of stuff with Mom. Stuff she bought on sale, bought to many, bought and lost them but look now I found them...just stuff. The same stuff she buys every year but maybe a different color or size. The same stuff she tries to give us every year...every time we see her. The same stuff she got mad at us last week for not wanting to take.

But have mercy if we take something (that she has asked us no less than 100 times to take and we have refused) and she comes over to the house and sees it in a closet, garage sale, goodwill pile or drawer. Then it comes down to....well if you didn't want it you should not have taken it!

You can see the dilemma.

But still every time we see her we are sent home with something...unless we manage to "forget it" on the counter.

I can't remember a single time since I moved out 15 years ago that I have been able to see her without going through a box or taking something home with me.

Today after lunch we were invited (read ordered or not given a choice because I live there) back to the house to sort through a couple of totes...no more than a half hour she promised.

Two and a half hours later we had gone through a couple of totes and 9 more bags she had pulled out of the closet in the hallway. My sister, myself and a new step sister were trying to waste time and repack the boxes without taking much while she quietly pulled these other bags out.

She just waits.....
and waits....
waits.....
until we finally take a few things and she agrees that we can repack the items.

I have found myself in a unique position now that I live here. She can leave it here and I can't say anything about it. It is still her house. She does let me live here rather cheaply.

Sigh...

And that is not even touching the issue of her insisting my sister has a hysterectomy this summer (she hasn't) and a colonoscopy that discovered polyps (she didn't). One would be every other female in our family and the other could be our Dad or brother....but not her.

Sigh.....