Wouldn't you rather have me than a clean house?

That title is an actual quote uttered by me just yesterday. The occasion? Since my return yesterday morning, and the resulting partial unpacking of all the goodies that I brought back from "the homeland," there are things scattered all over the bedroom floor and living room. The "things" include everything from suitcases to Christmas presents to shoes, and yesterday Danny tripped over one or another of those items as he attempted to traverse our bedroom. He indicated his disapproval of the messiness of the room, to which I replied (in all seriousness) with the quote above. We both, of course, promptly burst out laughing that I would think that was an appropriate response to his frustration with my stuff lying all over the floor.

The sad thing is that for most of the time that we've been married, having me does equal not having a clean house. The brief three months during which I wasn't working was about the only time that I actually kept up with keeping things neat, but I can't totally blame my job for the fact that I've never cared too much about neatness. I don't like dirtiness, but some piles of things lying around really don't faze me. I often don't even notice.

When Danny went TDY for a couple of months last year, it took me three days of cleaning up after work to put away the piles of stuff that had accumulated in his absence, and even then he started cleaning up the morning after he got back. My sister at some point bought a book entitled "How Not to be a Messy," which I should probably have brought here rather than storing. Of course, I've had it for six and a half years now without it seeming to make much of a difference...