I think that at this exact moment in time, all of my dishtowels and dishcloths are clean.

A good thing, right?

Hmmm.

I don’t know how to answer that exactly, because when they’re all clean, the cute little basket where they’re supposed to go . . . overflows and looks awful.

I have a lot of them.

And yet, somehow, there are many, many . . . many times when I can’t find a clean one.

Hmmm.

When I was in college, my mother bought me a package of about 100 washcloths for washing my face. She was being realistic. She had accepted the fact that I would not do laundry until every last item of clothing I owned was dirty. I’m assuming I must have had 100 pairs of underwear too.

She was compensating for my fault, and it was a brilliant solution. Accept her daughter for exactly who she is, but don’t let her walk around with a dirty face.

I really think that it was the best way to go at that time. After all, I had much better things to do in college than spend a few hours doing laundry.

But now I’m a grown-up. And I have my very own washing machine and dryer. No quarters required.

And I’m a mommy who has 4 other people who need clean undies. Every single day.

So my question is whether or not it’s a good thing that I have so many dishcloths. If I could conquer laundry, there would always be a clean one, and I could whittle down the stack to just what looks pretty in the basket.

There are times when I need to be realistic about who I am and how my brain works. I should balance a checkbook, but I don’t, so I’ve set up a system that keeps me from ever spending more than our budgeted household amount. In that case, it totally works, and is much smarter than lamenting my organizational skills while checks bounce everywhere.

I am not knocking being realistic about myself and coming up with systems that make things run smoothly. In most cases, it’s the right thing to do.

But there has to be balance, and I have to analyze how it’s really working.

Having so many dishcloths means that I can go quite a long time without washing, drying, folding and putting back any of them. But if I didn’t have so many, would it motivate me to do better?

My resolution/change of thinking for 2010 is to find a place for everything. This has to be a place in a neat home.

So I should probably get rid of some dishcloths.

But I’m scared.