Combating the creeping disaster

Perhaps some can relate to this tale …

Being two people who work full time and have three animals, Jeff and I have an ongoing battle with the Mess. We do try to clean things pretty regularly, it’s not that. It’s the ongoing mess of life, the junk that collects, the stuff that’s hard to put away, the errant crashes when you know the kitten has done something again. I think sometimes … well, maybe I’ll see to that stack of papers that’s putting down roots in the dining table. Corral some of those cat toys? Put away one of the crochet projects lurking about the couch in the living room? The dishes and laundry are another story - they are the Mess That Never Ends. Of course, there’s also the bag sitting somewhere in my living space full of stuff I don’t know what to do with, stuff that has no place and sits there mocking me week after week (at least in my head).

Sometimes the Mess gets to me. It should never be a surprise when I start making things to fix disaster areas.

One.

Trash bags for the car. Two of them. Actually, I made two of each “just in case” (of what, I ask you? I don’t know), but mostly because I like making bags and I like the fabric I picked. We do have some car-trash issues. We accumulate cups, water bottles, useless receipts and, strangely enough, labels from skeins of yarn. Who would do that, I ask you?

They’re inspired by car litter bag design that Allyson Hill mentioned on her blog. I saw it and thought maybe if I made something for the car we’d have some success in overcoming our apparently overwhelming urge to put things on the floor of the backseat. My designs differ from hers in that (1) they’re not the same sizes, they’re made for my car, (2) I got nuts with the red cloth details and (3) the smaller one actually has a removable, washable oilcloth interior.

The left, larger bag is for hanging over the back of a headrest and is sized for bottles and cups. It’s lined, but I can also put a grocery bag in it and just toss when it’s full.

The one on the right is for smaller items, to be strung about the oddly-placed gear shift. It is washable due to the oilcloth. Washable because whatever you have in your car in the Texas summer is bound to melt. I don’t care what it is, it will melt. You will melt.

There’s quite a bit of detail in these - what you can see and what you can’t. I was sort of in a meditative mood, making these, so they got a lot more attention than one might normally pay to what are essentially pretty trash bags.

Two.

So let’s be honest: THE CAT IS A MESS. That would be Callie the Demon Kitty. I’m just not going to tell you her other nicknames, because then the rest of this post would be profanity. She is the cat that gets repeated time-outs in the office after becoming a fuzzy little vortex of destruction at least twice a day. And one of her favorite targets is the toilet paper. So I’ve done something about it with the help of an idea from Just Tutes: the Toilet Paper Cozy.

Jeff laughed when I first suggested this and vetoed the idea. No, he said, that’s silly. That was several shredded rolls of toilet paper ago. Now he thinks I’m brilliant.

My mom, while staying with us, said, “what ridiculous bag do you have hanging here?” and removed the TP and set it on the bathroom counter. She’d have none of that!! The next day she remarked, “well, I put it back in the bag. Last night she ran off with and shredded about half of the toilet paper I left on the counter. I spent 15 minutes cleaning it up. I’m a convert.”

Moral of the Story: I may not be able to make the laundry self-washing, but I do have some powers of neatness in my sewing machine.