My mother is random

[wendyzski]

My mother loves to organize things. She also loves QVC. This is really really bad combination come holiday time....

For the past elebenty years, at least one gift-ish holiday has presented me with at least one "oh lordy" moment.

I remember the "locking storage boxes - stackable!" They looked like those styrofoam takeout containers, but long and narrow, and made of flimsy clear plastic.

There was also the "Roll-Up Tool Organizer" - which was bunch of a hinged compartmented containers that rolled up into a kind of Star Trek-Looking tote. I think I inflicted it on pensnuggles.

There were "Cord Organizers" and "PopUp Laundry Bags", the "Atomic Clock" that never worked and a kind of clear lucite thingie that sat under the answering machine so you had a place to put a pad, a pencil, and a phone book

I have patiently explained to my mother again and again that when she insists that things "will be great for your sewing stuff!" that "There is a REASON I have a workroom. So I don't HAVE to put things away! I can hang them where I can GET to them!".

She is the kind of woman who would hapily live in the Container Store. I remember when she discovered the place. That kind of glee is frightening to me. I'm the one who packed for college by shoveling the piles of things on my bedroom floor into boxes with both hands.

Or as ashtalet put it once, "Has your mother ever MET you?"

Well this year it is some Vacuum Storage Bags. You know, for your "out of season clothes" (that consist of 2 cardboard boxes of tank tops and shorts/long sleeved sweaters) or bedding (I have a blanket chest)

Also, I don't own a vacuum. I have a Roomba but I suspect that won't quite work.

Oh, and inside the blobby bag is a set of new sheets. She did ask me what colors my bedroom was. She got the blue part right. But she must have missed the part about the black/navy gloss furniture, the black rug and the Star Wars posters and Hubble photos, because now I have white sheets with large blue flowers on them.

I think the only thing I might possibly own that has flowers on it are some clearance underpants....

I think my favorite part of this whole box might be the pillow liner. The used pillow liner. With a post-it on it that says "I needed filling - cover me with something nice". I've been pondering the various pronoun permutations of that statement all afternoon.

I love my mother dearly, but she is clearly an alien.

Comments

[petmoosie.livejournal.com]

We love our pop-up laundry bags.

I don't get the used pillow liner. And that note sounds like my mom's sense of humor (which I don't get).

Yeh, not right for you.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I think she was looking around for something to fill the box with and remembered that old pillow that had the torn cover or something. She pulled the cover off and stuffed the innards in. Then she thought "My daughter's going to think I'm an idiot for packing a used pillow so I'll write a cute note. She sews - maybe she can make a new cover for it!"

[eacole72.livejournal.com]

If you need something to do with the SpaceBags, I'll buy them from you. I'm under orders not to buy any more clothes until I condense what I have.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I think this is just one heavy-duty one - like for a comforter or something. You can have it if you want.

[dragonsblog.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think your mom and my mom would get along. My mom is thinking of being a professional organizer. She was great when I was moving into and out of various dorm rooms- she could somehow manage to find a place for everything. And when I moved into my apartment she had about a billion tupperware containers to store everything- even my poptarts. There is a labeled container in my cabinet for my poptarts.

Fortunately she does not buy me things like that. Usually. Though I did get a lighted makeup mirror with different lighting settings when I was in middle school. I didn't start wearing makeup until college.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

There is a labeled container in my cabinet for my poptarts.

ROFL!!!(wheeze)

[msimon777.livejournal.com]

Your mom and my dad would have gotten along famously. Dad was a manufacturer's rep who kept samples from EVERY account he ever repped (the Ronco samples will always be the prime example). A friend of mine once said, "If there were a nuclear war, my dad could open up a five and dime store. YOUR dad could open up a K-Mart."

We spent springs and summers moving the stuff up to the garage so he could organize the basement. We spent falls and winters moving the stuff back into the basement so he could park the cars inside the garage. There was always some massive organizational project at my house.

And, of course, I got some of his samples as a gift every year.

I recommend you buy your mom a gift box from http://tinyurl.com/5kouuq Hopefully, that will help...

[ashtalet.livejournal.com]

Based on this year's items, I stand by my previous commentary regarding your mother.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

There is a Target gift card in there. Tucked in next to an very embarrassing photo of myself at age 3. I really thought I had found all of those when I was 10 or 11 and poured Drano on them.....

[ashtalet.livejournal.com]

Neither of those proves anything. Particularly if you don't show the photo. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. :-)

[mustang-bex1126.livejournal.com]

I just want you to know, all of my status updates have now been changed to say "I need filling, cover me with something nice."

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

I think that the "I" in the first part refers to my mother and the "I" in the second refers to the pillow itself, but I can never be sure.

[mustang-bex1126.livejournal.com]

Yeah- I couldn't resist making it into something COMPLETELY dirty...

[cozit.livejournal.com]

Well... I known people who have bought the Roll-up organizer and use it for their sewing/embroidery supplies... And the Pop-up laundry bags would make an interesting Pepper hidie-hole...

but...

(btw... for the record, I think that the Container Store is a neat idea... but I know that almost nothing I'd consider buying there would get used much/properly... though I'll admit that I'm tempted to get this just to be "silly/different": http://www.containerstore.com/browse/Product.jhtml?CATID=74950&PRODID=10023643

[stealthbunny.livejournal.com]

I have three of the generic-K-mart roll-ups for my embroidery stuff. Although I will also point out that it does not include my floss chest or my bead/metallics chest.

And I still have embroidery stuff laying around in every room of the house.

I gave up organizing about two years into the eBay business. The only thing organized is the listed inventory, which HAS to be out of sheer self-defense.

[cozit.livejournal.com]

*g* Yeah, I resemble that variation of "organized" as well... though I'm making an attempt at getting stuff straightened out right now - mostly because I'd like to use the one chair... I'd *love* to see more of my desk available for use... and... the floor's "OK", but I'd much rather be able to use the dining room table to cut and pin stuff again...

[stealthbunny.livejournal.com]

You can see your floor? Oooooo, envy!!

[cozit.livejournal.com]

*g* Depends on the room. Currently the kitchen, family room, and living room (ok, that's more like family study / music room, but...) have clear floors (not including laundry baskets - laundry for the week started yesterday), and *mostly* clear otherwise... well, there are a few things to be sorted out and some put back, some tossed, some put away in a *small* box from clearing my corner dumping spot before guests this weekend...

Otherwise.. You can walk a U around the dining room table, if I don't need much space behind the machine, it's usable (hey, finished my livery on it this fall, haven't mucked with it since, beyond a "quick mend"). My little room? Just stuck some magazines on the chair, otherwise I *could* use the computer, if it was working... but no desk open right now (well, move about 10 pieces of mail and I'd have a pull-out wing available)... and I can walk from door to desk to one window, even sit on the floor next to the dresser by the window (very important - it's nearly empty, and about to be loaded with my WIPs... at least... next step of the tidy).

Kids' bedrooms vary by the day. Not touching DH's study/ guest room until I *have* to... mostly book clean up and luggage shifting in there (*he's* supposed to put the luggage into the closet there... but hasn't bothered, so it's scattered all over, taking up at least 5 times the space).

My bedroom? Well... I need to get another dresser (only one I have is only big enough for one wardrobe, but I've had to collect enough clothes to last for a week's worth of teaching/work/museum, a week+ worth of "comfy", and a half a week of fancier... and a few nicer than comfy for family stuff, but more comfy than work stuff... doesn't fit in one smallish dresser that takes up twice the space it needs to because of poor design. ... and I still have three boxes to sort through that haven't been touched since shortly after I moved (having *just* had a baby, couldn't wear it then... don't know how much would fit now... I'm up 6 pounds from just before that kids was born right now... but was down 6 from that point two years ago... stress stinks)


*g* Did I cure the envy??

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's a perfectly good organizy thingie if you like that sort of thing.

See above, however. Specifically "Has your mother ever MET you?"

[pensnuggles.livejournal.com]

I have not yet heard any convincing evidence that your mother has ever met you, but at least she does think of you.

[agladstone.livejournal.com]

Remember that she is at least thinking of you even if she does not know what you would like. At least that is what I keep telling myself when I get a gift from my mom.

I don't like visual clutter, but I like having stuff, so I am one of those people with lots of storage containers -- even in my work room. X3non has a Japanese asthetic. So our walls tend to bare, and not a lot of doo-dads on the tables. My mom is always giving me stuff that would need to be dusted, and art for our walls. At least now she is painting Sumi style so it matches DH's style a bit more.

Then there was the time, that my mom gave us a set of king-size flannel sheets with cats on them. DH told me not to ever put them on a bed that I expected him to sleep in. When I pointed out that they were the wrong size, he sighed with relief. My mom's note said that she knew we slept on a double, but that we should have a king size bed, so these sheets would start us off. As if it was the sheets that was stopping us from "up-grading" and not the room size and my love of my antique brass bed.

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

*Nods* I sleep with a duvet! The only time I use a top sheet is when it's so hot in the summer that everything else is too heavy.

If there is a "dust ruffle" in there I may cry...

[stealthbunny.livejournal.com]

Oh, but Pepper would LOVE to play hidey under a dust ruffle. TP has decided that the tent that a blanket makes over the footrest of the softie chair is actually rather fun. Since he still somewhat treats the softie as Suspicious, this is a big step!

[wendyzski.livejournal.com]

No dust ruffle, but there are TWO sets of sheets in there. One is powder blue and the other is the white with clue flowers. And they are FLANNEL. *headdesk*

[rileybear67.livejournal.com]

Personally, I wouldn't care what the sheets look like if they have a high thread count and are soft and comfy!

After all, you are usually asleep when using them or they are covered by your comforter.

But I do agree with ashtalet... Has your mom met you?

[starstraf.livejournal.com]

AH - I understand now - we were switched at birth - I am the compulsivly organized child of your mom.