Mess!

Every year, around this time, I go into a bit of a cleaning/sorting frenzy (hmm, could this coincide with the upcoming family get-together we host in honour of a certain bambina's b'day?) First I make a list. Then I go shopping, for one needs to contain the mess, with what, containers and storage boxes (more stuff!) It all goes swimmingly at first. I feel proud and in control. A place for everything and everything in ... the laundry room? Yes, somehow all the extra that cannot be contained ends up in the laundry room. Just shut the door and no one will know. But after the party's over, the decorations taken down, the last few balloons "accidentally" deflated, the big tables dismantled and slid back into the crawl space, there's all the laundry room overflow to deal with. Not to mention the gazillion new toys a certain someone has acquired. I wonder sometimes how I lived, for so many years, in a one-bedroom apartment, or even in a bachelor. I was a student, of course, so my furniture was of the use-for-a-year-and-leave-for-the-next-tenant variety. But still! And this garbage strike is really getting me down. We are running out of outside storage space for our recyclable and non-compostable garbage. I'm trying to find the upside to all this -- maybe we've become less wasteful because the service we are still paying for in property taxes is actually now our responsibility? No paper plates at this birthday party, for sure, but would it be gauche to ask our Oshawa and Whitby-dwelling famiglia (non-strike zones) to lug home the wrapping paper and gift boxes?