Survey #253—Full Response from Lee

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PronounsShe/her
Which of the following statements describe your living situation with respect to a dining room and dining-room furniture?
  • My home includes a formal dining room that I/we use for multiple purposes, but rarely or never for dining.
If you checked “Other” or wish to elaborate on your answers, please feel free to do so in the space below.

1.) My husband would like the dining room to be used primarily for dining. Sadly, my paper and other clutter make that impossible. Worse is that the dining room is completely visible from the living room, so my mess in the dining room also causes diminished peacefulness in the living room.
2.) Using the dining room table for sorting mail and reading the newspaper (in addition to dining) would be acceptable if cleaned up promptly afterward.
3.) It takes a lot of stuff shuffling to have the dining table available for guests to dine at. This risks the misplacement of bills and other important paperwork.
4.) I hope that I can use Ed's example of committing to a certain amount of time per week to work on the backlog of paper. Over the past 30+ years, paper clutter has taken over 2 complete rooms + a significant portion of 2 other rooms! 🙁

Please complete the following statement: “Members of my household and I eat most of our meals _____.”My husband eats most meals in the living room, some in restaurants.
I eat most meals standing in the kitchen, some in restaurants.
Please complete the following statement: “When I want to entertain guests for a meal, we usually eat _____.”at the dining room table.
(In summer, we might eat on the deck, but the dining room table is used for buffet style serving.)
What feelings or memories—positive, negative, or in-between—does the phrase “dining room” evoke for you? How have your attitudes, beliefs, or practices around dining and entertaining changed over time? What impact, if any, do dining and entertaining have on the clutter in your space?No emotions associated with "dining room." (But my attitude is that it should be a place where one eats. Again, it's ok to use the dining room for additional functions as long as they don't interfere with the primary function of the room. Unfortunately, I don't live up to that ideal.)

Entertaining necessitates stuff shuffling to clear the dinng room table. This results in worsening of organization of the stacks of papers that must be removed. I never look forward to entertaining, although I think I would if I could get things under control. Aging seems to have made things take longer so I am getting farther and farther behind.
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