One of my favorite blogs has posts about “Household Truths” from time to time. The posts generally provide pithy insights on the ins and outs of household management.

I’ve discovered my own household truth this week.

A household area in chaos will remain chaotic and accelerate into further chaos until every chaotic element is removed from said area.

I had a garage sale last weekend. Lack of time management meant that I was rather, um, focused on last minute preparations for the sale the two days preceding it. As such, my house experienced higher than usual disorder, with dishes piled in the sink and clean laundry languishing on the sofa.

The garage sale went well for the most part, but a rain storm decided to crash the party before we closed for the day. Thus, all of the sale items were hurriedly crammed into my living room and kitchen to get them out of the rain.

And there they stayed. I had several other engagements over the weekend, so I only had time to make a few small dents in the chaos of garage sale leftovers. And gradually I realized that the chaos was growing. Yes, I was adding to the chaos. Me! Structure girl!

I would walk through the kitchen and set my purse down on the table among twenty other things that also did not belong on the table. Random household items not involved in the sale started appearing amidst the chaos. It was as if a switch had flipped in my brain — everything is not in its place, so why bother to put anything in its place?

Then my house decided to join the fun. Part of my attic collapsed. Okay, that’s not nearly as dramatic as it sounds, but it was quite an annoyance. An old access panel leading to our attic fell open, showering about a cubic foot of old, dusty insulation over my hall closet. After Paul fixed the access panel, I got to take everything out of the closet so I could remove all the bits of insulation.

I’m seeing signs of hope today. Most of the garage sale leftovers are bundled up, ready to be donated. The closet contents have been reorganized and reshelved. I should be in good shape, as long as my dishwasher cooperates….