Clutter

Coffee Table
Originally uploaded by Disentangled.

I have realized in taking photos of my own knitting projects for this blog and looking at those that others have posted as well, a significant amount of "editing" is taking place. When I want to take a picture of what I am working on, I clear all the clutter from my coffee table or foot stool so that there is a nice clean, appealing picture of my work. But would that picture be any less discriptive if it included the normal clutter that surounded the area?

When I was preparing to take pictures of my finished shrug, I realized that the clutter says a lot about me and my husband. So, I took a picture of our coffee table. Yes, this is a real picture of the current state of my coffee table. But what is interesting, is that it really captures the kind of people we are and what we are most compelled by.

So, take a gander at our clutter. You will see that there are a stack of pool and billiard related magazines to the right as well as various Playstation 2 games and a controller. As I mentioned in a previous post, my husband is an avid pool player and is doing that full-time right now. Since he takes it seriously, it ends up also being a major focus of his free time as well. He also belongs to that generation of kids who grew up on the Atari and now comprises a significant portion of the gamers out there.

Both of our current reading selections are accounted for on the coffee table (although you can only see the tail end of my book). My husband's being his latest book about mastering the mental game of pool and mine being a book written from the perspective of a 15 year old autistic boy called "The Cuious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" by Mark Haddon. Pick this book up if you can I am loving it - especially given my psych background in college.

You can also see two unfinished projects of mine (my poncho and my crochet market bag) as well as yarn for several recent projects and knitting and crochet instructions. My needle holder is also right in the center of the table (made from the pattern in the Stitch 'n Bitch book and a selection of discount fabrics at Joann's). Toward the bottom, is my little knitting bag that holds all those important accessories that you never know when you will need (and send me to secondary security inspection at the airport 1 out of every 3 flights I take).

You will also see a NetFlix envelope containing the last movie we saw - Shark Tale, which was pretty funny by the way - and represents another serious past time we enjoy. We are movie buffs and take the time to fit a good movie into our schedule at least 3 to 4 times a week (we also don't have cable, so that means there is a lot of TVless evenings available to us).

Finally, there are a stack of snap shots of our friends and a booklet about houses for sale in the San Diego area - something that we strive for, but will not be able to afford for some time given the current average home price in San Diego right now.

I think what all of these things really say about us, is that we are people who have many interests outside of our normal 9 to 5 schedule (although neither of us work that schedule anyway). We would also rather take time to enjoy our hobbies than have a clutter free environment to live in - something probably most knitters out there can relate to.

So, instead of pretending that the clutter doesn't exist, I say embrace it and look at it for what it is - a reflection of who you really are!