Hello, I'm Sharon, and I'm an untidy Mudcatter.

I clipped a "Frank & Ernest" comic strip years ago that says "A place for everything, and everything all over the place." That's still my motto!

I also have the "Dull women have immaculate houses" wooden sign hanging in my kitchen. There's no dot on the "i", though; I'm thinking of glueing a dust-bunny there.... since I have so many to choose from.

Sandra: In the past year and a half, the office I work in has moved twice – each time to a different building! This has resulted in a neater desk surface but more cluttered drawers and file cabinets, as papers have been hastily stuffed away (and, in some cases, rescued from the trash can into which my boss has thrown them) before the movers hauled the furniture away. So now I have a pretty good idea where things are, but it would've helped if I'd had time to label the file folders I threw the papers into!

The same tactic doesn't seem to have worked in my personal life. I've changed apartments twice in the last five-and-a-half years (I've been in the present one for over a year) – both times under duress – but surfaces just seem to have gotten more cluttered as storage shelves are disassembled and left that way when the floor space needed to rebuild them is filled with boxes! I'm making it my project for 2002 to create the "away" necessary to put things away...... but, so far, every time I create a "vacuum" (as kat puts it) of space, I bring more clutter into the place to fill it. Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does stuff. And so do I; I hate that machine! (Not that there's a lot to vacuum... just the paths between the boxes and piles of stuff!)

And if I ever get my apartment in order, there's a 10' x 10' rental storage locker waiting its turn! Eek!

Sharon