I do.

Every drawer in my house is a junk drawer. Okay, maybe not all of them, the dressers are pretty well organized with socks and underwear in one drawer, shirts in another and pants in still another, but all of the drawers in the communal areas of the house are junk drawers.

It was my goal over the holiday break to go through these drawers and organize them. It never happened. I would open a drawer and become completely overwhelmed by the task so I would immediately close the drawer and find something else to do.

It’s still bugging me however.

Not enough to actually go and organize the drawers but enough that I am writing a post about them.

I know how it happened which only makes it worse. I saw it coming. I could have prevented it. But I didn’t.

Before we moved to this house I lived in a pretty big place. It also had a lot of built in cabinets in it. The dining room that I used to have had a wall devoted to storage and the kitchen had so many drawers and cabinets I was never at a loss for space. The house I have lived in for the last three years is considerably smaller with no built ins and tiny little closets.

When I moved I got rid of my junk. We had a sale, I gave stuff away, and what was left was donated to Goodwill. Except for the stuff that fit in the garage. I only need to put one car in there so there was extra space. However, we aren’t talking about the garage today.

I had ample time to move so it wasn’t as if I had to hurry and pack. I knew I was moving for several months and chipped away at the packing. Until I got to the kitchen. I use the kitchen everyday so it isn’t something that can be boxed up until the last minute.

By the time the last minute rolled around I was sick of packing, I was sick of movie and I was only interested in getting what remained of my stuff from point A to point B. So everything in the kitchen drawers was thrown into several boxes marked “kitchen”.

The problem was that my new kitchen is the size of a linen closet. I have three drawers in my new kitchen as well as three cupboard. I have one cupboard for food, one for dishes and one for pots, pans and plastic containers. The drawers are dedicated to silverware and other utensils in one drawer. Dish towels, oven mitts, tin foil, plastic wrap and paper napkins fill the second drawer. The third drawer (which is larger and lined so my guess is it is the drawer where all the flour, sugar and stuff like that is supposed to go) is filled with strainers and measuring cups.

I still have about 10 boxes to unpack.

I forgot to mention that I have a cabinet above the refridgerator but I can’t reach it so all the stuff I never use goes up there. I also keep the booze up there. When I was making the Bourbon balls I had to get to it, because I keep the cereal on top of the fridge I had to move all that before I could open the cabinet. While standing on a chair to get at the booze I was able to see all the dirt and grime that had collected on top of the fridge so I had to clean that as well. Once I got into the cabinet I found a container of spaghetti noodles that I had been searching for. Obviously not too hard since I moved three years ago.

But I digress.

I don’t have enough space, or I have too much shit. Either way all the little things we collect throughout our daily lives ends up in a junk drawer, usually in the kitchen. I don’t have a junk drawer in the kitchen anymore so the dining room became my junk drawer.

I have a china cabinet with a drawer in it as well as a sideboard with two drawers in it. Presumably the drawers in both of these pieces of furniture are meant to house table linens, serving utensils and silver. They used to in my other house but now they hold candles, 27 pair of  eye glasses, batteries, dead batteries, remotes to TVs, VCRs and a fan, none of which we have the actual TV, VCR or fan that they operate anymore. There are crayons and markers in these drawers. I have a box for crayons and markers but the ones in the drawers are the ones I find on the floor while vacuuming or digging under the couch. Rather than find the box they belong in I throw them in the drawer. There is a wrist splint, pin cushion and instructions for the Rubik’s Cube. I don’t know where the Rubik’s Cube is but it will turn up and when it does I will need the instructions since I can’t do a Rubik’s Cube without them. There are old cell phone covers to long lost cell phones, cables to I don’t know what but might find a use for one day, a stack of expired coupons to Victoria’s Secret, a broken silver cup with my christening date on it, a wine pump, a package of magnets, emory boards,two safe deposit keys to a bank which no longer exists, a pedometer, a shower curtain ring, the little rubbery things that go on to ear phones to make them more comfortable, many Polly Pocket shoes, none of which match, a thingy that turns a two pronged outlet into a three pronged outlet and three night lights.

Where are all these things supposed to go? Yeah, I could put the Polly Pocket shoes up in my daughters room and I could probably throw the keys to the safe deposit box away as well as the coupons, but I need the rest of the stuff.

I’m not going to end up on Hoarders, I’m not a pack rat. My house is neat and organized as long as you don’t look in the drawers or closets or anything else that can be shut.  There are no stacks of magazines or papers lying in the hallway or on the steps. I even manage to keep the dining room table clear of stuff.

This wasn’t always the case. Last year I noticed that I would clear away the table over the weekend only to find it filled with mail, newspapers and other stuff by Sunday. I can’t fit a table in my kitchen so the dining room table is the only place to eat, except for the couch of course. I found that if one thing was placed on the cleared off table then it would be a magnet for other junk to quickly collect. I’d like to blame my kids but it was usually me who set something down and then forgot about it. So I started throwing the stuff I would normally put on the table into the drawers. Which is how we got here.

I am going to go through this stuff over the weekend and I will probably pitch most of it or box it up and throw it in the garage. Then I can take the linens out from under the Wii games and put them in the drawers.

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