When You Can Laugh About It....

My dear sweet hubby and I have been married for almost 25 years. Our anniversary is in June, and that will be our Silver Anniversary!

One of the major successes to our marriage has been to know when to laugh. You know, when something is so 'bad' you really need to laugh or else you'll cry.

Please note that what you are about to see is most definitely a 'joke' among family and friends. I'm not bashing my hubby in any way, he 'knows' what I'm talking about here, and he laughs right along with us!

A little background (in case you aren't aware), I'm kinda sorta a neat freak. Not excessively so, just kinda sorta. I didn't become a neat freak overnight (just ask hubby - because that's another 'joke' in our marriage). I used to be the kind of person that could have a cluttered, dusty house; but through the years, I've transformed into a better housekeeper. And since my son has traveled off to college, I most definitely find it easier to keep things "neat and tidy."

My freakiness about being neat and organized probably transpired due to the fact that hubby is a 'collector of things.' He is an organized collector, but nonetheless, he's a collector.  I think I like to overcompensate for his, umm, well, collecting.

Sidenote: My dear, sweet mother-in-law, who has since passed away, once told me that Bill was once-upon-a-time a huge neat freak himself. She had 10 children, and she did laundry for 12 people when all the kids were living at home. She was an immaculate housekeeper. But apparently, she didn't put laundry away to my husband's liking when he was a kid living at home. She needed to put his clean laundry at the foot of his bed, and she let him put it all away, because there was a designated spot for black socks, another area for white socks and on and on. Everything had a very specific place to be properly put away.

So - sigh! You can understand why I marvel at the man that I've now been married to for almost 25 years when we get to the pics.

Bill collects old computers, printers, monitors for scraping the copper, brass and other precious metals that they contain. Did you know that a computer motherboard has a small amount of gold? Do you know the current market rate for gold? My husband can spout off the current price for any scrap metal that exists!

Sometimes Bill picks up an old washer or dryer from someone who wants to be rid of it. He breaks all these items down in our basement and garage. He removes all the scrap metals, then takes them in for hard, cold cash. It's a great side business for him. With a son in college, it really helps!

Bill can be very organized and he can 'organize' the piles of junk quite nicely. Such as this pictures depicts of the neatly stacked printers that he hasn't torn down yet:

Or take a look at this neatly stacked pile of containers and boxes that are filled to the brim with computer parts - but notice my neatly stacked laundry baskets vie for that particular spot in the basement too:

But unfortunately, through the years of my hubby's hobby, he has gotten to the point where neatness doesn't always count.  It probably has a lot to do with the fact that he's run out of room for all his collectibles, but I haven't told him that yet.  Here's another pile in my basement that lies almost (but not quite) within my pathway to the washer and dryer.  Yes, I have a precariously, narrow path leading to my washer and dryer.  I balance the laundry basket above my head (it's a great workout, girls), but sometimes when hubby knows I'm planning laundry - he carries it down to the basement for me and weaves his way through the collected parts and pieces to deposit my laundry basket right next to the washer.  Oh, yeah, right - here's the not-so-neatly piled piles:

These parts are waiting to be cut in to little pieces.  Are you laughing yet?

The next pile, I don't know - I'm not sure what he has planned for this one.  I do know that it certainly proves that he has bypassed those days when socks had a designated area in his drawer:

Are you laughing yet?

Truly, we do laugh about this.  One reason is that my hubby makes a little extra money when he turns his copper, brass, and gold in for cash.  I really like that part!  We joke that he's laughing all the way to the bank.

But one of the ways that I overcompensate for the 'mess' that I have in my basement and garage is by making sure everything that *I* have control over is neat and tidy to a fault.  Such as my washer and dryer area:

And no, I didn't tidy the area just to take the picture, it really looks that way daily.  I guess sometimes, I get trapped amongst the 'junk' and I clean that area a lot, ward off the ever encroaching mess, then I trek back through the narrow, winding path to the staircase up out of the dungeon!