Blooming: The honeysuckle that grows wild in the alley behind our house is loaded with flowers. Though the blossoms aren't quite open yet, I can already smell their heady scent when we walk back there.

Drinking: A Coffee Coolatta from Dunkin' Donuts. I finally succumbed to their advertising and my curiosity and bought one. Besides, we had a coupon about to expire. It's OK, but I don't think I'll be buying any at full price.

Weather: Summer is definitely here. Hot and humid today, with temps in the 90s. It doesn't bother me, though. I much prefer summer to winter.

Clutter

Tab spent the morning working on the yard before the weather became too unpleasant to work outside. In the afternoon he installed the upstairs air conditioners. We have a large air conditioner in the living room downstairs that takes care of the first floor and smaller room air conditioners for each of the three bedrooms upstairs.

To make his job a little easier, I offered to tackle the colossal mound of clutter on the floor on my side of the bed. Once upon a time, there were three separate stacks of books, magazines, and miscellaneous papers. They had long since coalesced into a two foot high miniature mountain under the window where the air conditioner was to be installed. I didn't want Tab to trip over it, and he's been complaining about the mess for months now.

A frequent source of conflict between Tab and me is my inaction on various cleanup projects that need to be done. Our house is very cluttered. It doesn't help that it is really too small for a family of five. There just doesn't seem to be any place to put things, so there are piles of stuff everywhere: boxes of clothes to sort, kids' toys, papers, magazines, and scads of books.

The other problem besides lack of space is lack of time. I find it hard enough to keep up with day-to-day tasks of meal planning and preparation, dish washing, and a bit of housecleaning on top of taking care of the kids and doing my freelance work. But as Tab points out, if we want to get this place ready to show prospective buyers, these piles of clutter need to be eliminated. Most of the stuff lying around is mine, so it really is my responsibility to deal with it.

So I sat myself down in the bedroom this morning and began working on the pile. The process was akin to an archaeological dig. As I sorted through the mess, I worked backward through the months and years, finally discovering magazines that dated all the way back to 1996(!) at the bottom of the stack. A three-year old mountain of clutter had been demolished. I filled three paper shopping bags with paper and magazines for recycling, retaining only my past Entertainment Weeklys and alumnae magazines. I moved the books I uncovered to the twins' room for sorting on the bookshelves there, another project that needs to be done.

I felt so motivated by getting rid of all that junk that I sat down and made a list of projects and the estimated time it will take me to complete them. I want to try to accomplish one or two of these projects a week, so we'll be able to put this house on the market soon.

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