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A SLOB COMES CLEAN

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The Wonderbra Avalanche

March 29, 2010 By Dana White | 12 Comments

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The Wonderbra Avalanche at ASlobcomesClean.com

No, not an avalanche of Wonderbras.

In this metaphor, the Wonderbra is not the snow, it is the idiot who whistles or claps or whatever and causes the avalanche.

Actually, it is probably the whistle itself . . . and I am the idiot.

Last week was a bit crazy, but I was holding on. I did enough of my daily tasks to keep things sane, and did each day’s major cleaning task. I was pretty proud of myself. I even made a small amount of progress in the master bedroom.

But as a slob, I have always known that crazy weeks, days, or whatever can throw the entire house down the slippery slope of chaos, or cause an avalanche, or whatever visual picture helps you understand how out-of-my-control it feels.

I was proud of myself for clearing off the rug in the master. And I legitimately cleared it. I found a place (mostly the trashcan) for each item on it, and didn’t move anything to a “later” pile.

But the parts of the room not pictured in recent posts contain many “later” piles. And one of those “later” piles was on top of the trunk at the end of our bed. It’s a pile of all the clothes to be put up “later.” And the pile was getting huge. I did make it a non-negotiable a while back, but had been negotiating it away for months.

Somewhere in that pile was buried the dress and necessary accompanying Wonderbra for the show I was in Saturday night. I found the dress easily, but couldn’t find the Wonderbra. And being in a hurry, I deemed the finding more important than order and started throwing the piled clothes everywhere as I searched.

If things had been put away properly, I would have gone right to the item I needed, and being in a hurry wouldn’t have caused my room to go from “much better” to “total disaster” in 30 seconds flat. And of course in the name of my frantic schedule, I still haven’t moved the now-spread-out-all-over-the-floor pile back onto the trunk.

We are almost to April, and my goal is to have the Master Bedroom fully decluttered, little bit by little bit, by the end of the month of April.

This has been an excellent reminder that as long as I leave pockets of chaos, the slightest thing can cause an avalanche, and the chaos will spread.

Related Posts:

Read Newer Post Daily Checklist – Lacking Motivation
Read Older Post Off the Subject – Frugal Vacation Planning with Kids

Filed Under: a place for everything, failures, master bedroom, Out of the routine | 12 Comments

Comments

  1. leigh7911 says

    May 25, 2011 at 8:46 pm

    Am going through your archives, and after reading the post after this I felt compelled to come back to this one and leave a (slightly rude) comment. I must admit, when I read the title of this I wondered for half a second if the avalanche referred to taking the wonderbra *off*. 😉

    Reply
    • hestia74 says

      October 30, 2013 at 5:16 pm

      LOL!!! (Sorry Nony, it was funny!)

      Reply
  2. Nony the Slob says

    May 25, 2011 at 8:54 pm

    Thank you thank you thank you for being the one who finally commented on this post! If anyone ever asks you if you ever won anything, tell them that on May 25, 2011, you were Nony the Slob's favorite reader!

    Reply
    • Brittani A. says

      May 15, 2014 at 8:32 pm

      I suppose my brain is too everywhere to go in order, or maybe i just dont want to go from front to back like you tell me to. I would have commented immediately!

      Reply
    • Claire says

      April 19, 2024 at 12:38 pm

      Total bird walk, but as I’m reading through from the beginning, it’s so interesting to me how many comments on “old posts” happen around Memorial Day! I always notice May 25, 26 and 27 because they are, respectively, my brother’s, dad’s, and my birthday. And I keep seeing them pop up a few years after a post was originally written. It made me wonder if people find your blog in a frantic search right before summer vacation, or if you were featured somewhere major right around Memorial Day of a certain year, and so gained lots of new readers…(I haven’t been watching the years on those comments to see if they’re all the same year…) Just a funny, random thought!

      Reply
  3. Jennifer says

    August 17, 2011 at 4:28 pm

    I just found your blog and I am loving it! It is going onto my bookmarks tab 🙂

    This post was a reflection of my life too. I live with a neat freak husband and I am not so neat. I am trying to refine my ways and redefine my version of housework being done. (Laundry is the absolute bane of my existence!) But it is hard because I do daycare from home AND homeschool. I lack energy and sufficient motivation to get much of anything done!

    Thanks for telling it like it is 🙂

    Reply
    • Nony says

      August 17, 2011 at 7:41 pm

      Thanks Jen! I’m so glad you found me!

      Reply
  4. Dawn says

    November 12, 2011 at 3:53 pm

    I can sooo relate to this but for me it usually something for Cub Scouts or a church project (I know “it” is in this pile “somewhere”…)

    *sigh*

    Baby steps…

    Reply
  5. tascha says

    October 15, 2012 at 2:23 pm

    so, i finally made it to this post… i have to say my thoughts mimicked the first commenters’… and it took over a whole year for someone to say that? !?! lol… but i totally relate… we’re late for something and the baby needs his shoes… that didnt get out in the basket…and we find one here and never the other before we HAVE to leave… so we HAVE to carry him… and i come home to a “huger” mess than normal… from our haphazard searching.

    Reply
  6. Penelope says

    May 31, 2013 at 12:04 pm

    Okay, so the pile of clothes to be hung up later is on the rocking chair in my bedroom. Last night I was planning ahead for today and dug through it to find the capri pants I wanted to wear….hopelessly wrinkled. BUT I had a load of gone-cold-in-the-dryer clothes that were spinning at the time. Update the dryer setting from “wrinkle release” to “refresh+ steam” and threw those bad boys in there (along with 2 other pair that were excavated) and I’m golden. I did at least hang them all up when they came out of the dryer….not the rest of the load though, I pay the housekeeper to fold laundry every other Friday.
    Mental note, buy little girl more underpants so she can make it 2 weeks!
    See, I don’t have a clever way with words like you do, but a similar level of chaos!

    Reply
  7. Heather says

    October 16, 2013 at 5:04 pm

    That last sentence is golden! And so true!

    Reply
  8. Heather says

    January 23, 2015 at 11:43 pm

    I really relate to this post. Thank you for summing it up so well. I deal with those avalanches all too often!

    Reply

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