Eat Your Clutter

Though I would never be considered a meticulous housekeeper--let's not talk about the last time I cleaned behind the television, for instance--I do have some serious issues with clutter. It adversely affects me in a very noticeable way. Emotionally, mostly.

This is very unfortunate, considering that I live in a two-bedroom house with four other people, three of whom are small children. And that there will shortly be another small child in this already-crowded house.

I spend a lot of time picking up, putting away, and throwing things out when I can get away with it.

My absolute least-favorite kind is the kitchen counter clutter. My children are forbidden from putting any of their toys, pencils, papers, or other junk on the kitchen counters. That's my work space. My cubicle desk, if you like. It drives me crazy to have to work around non-essential items.

But this time of year, I don't mind a certain kind of kitchen counter clutter.

Tomato clutter is A-OK. Also, carrots, pears, garlic, and shallots. Worth the counter real estate.

It makes me happy to see my counter filling up with tomatoes. It also makes A. happy, because it means that we all have to be appropriately congratulatory about his woodchuck greenhouse, without which I doubt there would be enough ripe tomatoes to clutter up anything.

Of course, this kind of clutter is much more satisfying to take care of than, say, picking up a thousand small pieces of cardboard from Cubby's latest complicated cardboard creation*. Because this kind of clutter gets turned into Finny's tomato sauce. Also, at the command of Prince Jack, some apple/pear sauce.

Don't cross the boy with the crown.

Then most of the clutter turns into food for the freezer.

Actually, the apple and pear sauce (in the jar) will probably all get eaten before I have to freeze any. But some of the tomato sauce will get to the freezer. Hooray.

The only downside? More clutter in the form of this:

Dishes are absolutely the worst part of food preservation. Jack agrees.

* That kid makes everything out of cardboard. Crowns (he made the one Jack is wearing in the photo), robots, castles, and, lately, a smartphone. Yes, out of cardboard. He made little letter pieces that can be arranged to type things out. He informed me quite earnestly that he's been puzzling over how to add Minecraft to it next. And this is why I will never buy him a real smartphone like his friend from school has, which constitutes his sole exposure to the addicting devices. Much better to make them out of cardboard. At least when you're seven years old.