The Missing Gene

One of the things I most admire about my parents is their tidiness and organization. They live in a tiny home, and there's a place for everything and everything is in its place, more or less. Ahem. Somehow, the combination of chromosomes that resulted in me did not pass on to me the ability to live in a small space in any sense of order.

I've tried. I've taken my best stab at being organized in 900 square feet. And I can't do it. And it's driving me nuts. Mike is much better than me at creating order, but is equally impaired at maintaining it. Our closets overflow, our kitchen cupboards are bursting. After a major tidying spree, it takes about 48 hours for things to degenerate into chaos. Having company over strikes fear into my heart.

"Establish good habits," you say. "Put things away when you're finished with them". Right. There's just nowhere to put anything. I've given living in a wee home my best shot. We've parted with a ton of our possessions to try to downsize to the point of order. And it just isn't going to happen...

And so we're going to build a house next spring. A real house with a full basement. And we'll have room for everything, with no tripping over each other, the dogs, or our stuff.

And here's the house we're going to build: