The 1828 Noah Webster Dictionary defines clutter as a heap or assemblage of things lying in confusion; a word of domestic application.

I define it as part of my life. It seems that I struggle daily to keep control of it often losing the battle. Now that is not to say that our home is a total disaster area; far from it. But I fret over what I call organized clutter. The basket of magazines I hope to get to read someday, the stacking trays of unfiled receipts, the weekly grocery sales circulars sitting on the counter waiting for me to make a list, the stack of books that need to have a home, the baskets of laundry ready to be washed. When I open the kitchen cabinets, I have appliance clutter, kitchen gadgets that I use occasionally and can’t bear to part with and my pantry is a constant battle. My night stand has a catchall basket with who knows what in it and don’t look under the bathroom sinks.

I think I have narrowed down the problem. We live in our home and we have stuff. Lots of stuff. Now I’m not talking about junk, just the everyday stuff that fills most homes. And because we live in our home and have stuff sometimes we don’t get a chance to deal with our stuff piles right away, so then they become the definition of clutter. As I re-read Noah Webster’s definition of clutter, I believe the last part fits literally, “a word of domestic application”, because clutter in our home is surely domestic in its application to our day to day. I think I will no longer look at our clutter as a battle to be won but as something to be kept organized and contained and accepted as a fact of life. I guess being a clutter bug is not so bad as long as I don’t become a clutter giant.