time to clean

*Twinkle, twinkle.* Those are our Christmas lights, still up and twinkling...but for how long? Last year I made it until February before the decorations got to me and I ran around the apartment ripping all signs of Christmas from the walls - it might not last that long this year.

Already I'm starting to twitch. Already I'm planning what decorations to put in what boxes to make it easier for next year. Already I'm sensing how relaxing it will be to get back to a less-cluttered apartment life. Already I'm thinking...maybe tomorrow is the day. Maybe I should just give in. Take down the (3 foot, fake) Christmas tree, box up the snow globes and village houses and nativities, coil the lights and unhang the ornaments. Put the holiday movies back on the shelf and let my Christmas spirit have a rest. I had a good run. I'd been ho-ho-ho-ing since September so there's nothing to be ashamed of, right? Still...I feel a little sad that I'm so ready to toss the holiday cheer into a box and throw it in the closet until Christmas 2008.

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Feeding this desire to return to 'normal' living is finally finishing our honeymoon scrapbook. I love scrapbooking and we have a tonnage of pictures from our honeymoon adventure...so since September 2006 I've been scrapping away...two HUGE 12x12 albums later I am done. Finished. I have to stick down the last two pages of pictures I've set in place and that's it.

Anyway, my point is that we have a cute little one bedroom apartment, and nearly the entire time we've lived here I've had the card-table up in the middle of the living room with my scrapbooking stuff on it. I love the size of our apartment, it's perfect for us...unless I put up the card-table and then the living room shrinks dramatically. It drives me crazy, but what can I do? I have to scrap...I must...I am compelled to by forces stronger than my need for open space. So now, at long last, my big scrapbooking challenge is completed. Tomorrow I will collapse the table and our living room will be back. For practically the first time since we've been married we will not have to walk in circles around it, or be careful not to trip over the extension cord connected to the lamp on it. We will have a big, open room of greatness!

At least until one of us decides to do a puzzle...

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It struck me as I was typing about decluttering our home of the Christmas decorations that our rooms will be essentially just as cluttered. A few less nick-knacks perhaps, but I'm talking about our obsession with books. Our five bookshelves are crammed full, with volumes stacked sideways on top of neat rows, on some shelves we've stacked them to the top two books deep; in the past few months we've taken to stacking them wherever there's space.

As I sit typing this I look up and see a stack of 11 classic novels on the desk...wait I just scanned to the left and noticed 30 more books stacked next to the computer speakers. There are books on our table, a large stack on my dresser, next to the TV, and on the floor beneath our console table. Our little Christmas tree has been sitting on a covered box...a box filled with books.

You would think this would make us stop buying them, but we can't. We just can't go to the library and turn down a 25 cent edition we don't own. Every time we think we've completed a collection of a classic author we find something else they've written. We've tried to slow down, but the fact is we still have quite a bit of money on two different Barnes & Noble gift cards...and so no matter how we watch our money the madness continues. We are enabled by friends and relatives to bow to our sick need for literature.

I can't imagine not being married to a fellow nerd. J hears it from me quite often...I adore the fact that both love to turn pages and smell new and used books and I love that while it clutters our apartment that I can look anywhere in our place and find a story waiting.