MaryBeth delights with this weeks Friday Five at RevGals:

As noted at my own blog, my word for the year is “clear.”

One of the things to which this refers is clearing away clutter.

One of the best ways I have found to do this is to give everything that comes into my house a HOME. And I can easily tell that I have too many things when there are not enough homes for them all!

I gleaned the idea of items having homes  from my younger sister who used to say to her toddlers, “See that book on the floor there? Is that its home? No? Please put the book into its home.” Often, I am saying the same words to myself that she said to her little ones.

In my mother’s house, the Marks-A-Lot marker always went in the cupboard next to the sink. I don’t know why, I just know that’s where the Marks-A-Lot goes, still and forever, in my house many miles away.

The standard joke from my parents was: I’m stuck wondering about the here-after. I walk into a room and think, “Now what am I here after?” (Ba-Dum-Bum!) it’s funny, but it happens to me now. So yes, keepings things at “home” is important or I have no hope of finding them. Because sometimes “Seek and ye shall find” simply is not the case…

So here’s MaryBeth’s writing prompt for the week:

Tell us your favorite homes for five things, the places that you can always and reliably find them.

1. Car Keys: There’s a basket by the door. They must go there. I must not get creative.

2. Cell phone: Easily handled by keeping it near the charger in the kitchen, or in my purse. Woe betide me if I leave it with the mail/on my bed/on the couch/in the car….

3. My “Go” bag for on-call: I leave it stocked with toiletries, prayer book and pens so that I only have to put in a quick change of clothes and then I can head out to work. This includes my work ID because without it I can’t access the inner catacombs of the hospital.

4. Kitchen Junk Drawer: Always under the phone. Supposedly so that there is paper and pencil to take messages. I am an optimist.

5. My glasses at night: My glasses go from my nose to the bedside table when I go to sleep, and back on my nose as soon as I get up. I must not get creative and leave them in the bathroom when I was my face, or on my dresser. Because, you see, I am so near-sighted that when I put them down I can’t always find them quickly.

May your puzzlement with the “here-after” be easily solved today. 🙂