I have my ways of doing things in the house and I’ve tried to make things as easy as possible for my family to comply. If whatever system I’ve put in place seems too difficult, I’ll often relax it just to save my sanity from having to repeat myself over and over trying to get them to do it my way.

I’m really not a controlling person, but I like things to be fairly organized; a place for everything and everything in its place. I like the towels at the end of the hall to be on the shelves for whichever bathroom they belong to, not just crammed on willy-nilly. I like the ceramic cups on the kitchen garden window to be on their respective saucers and next to their respective teapots, not stacked in a precarious pile. I like the leftover food to be placed in plastic containers and put in the fridge, not in the pot it’s cooked in. I like the dishes to be put away where they belong, not in random places where I have to search for them.

I try really hard not to make putting things away puzzle-like; where you have to remove one item to get another out, then reverse it to put it away. I know things would rarely get put away if was stored in such a manner.

Right now, in the lives of my children, I am the chief cook and bottle washer only because they are in school and need to concentrate on homework. But there’s the rare weekend, like last weekend, when I ask them to do the dishes because I cooked all day.

So I opened the cupboard this morning and the medium sized mixing bowl was shoved on top of the large and small mixing bowls. Come on people! They nest inside each other so they fit properly.

I’m wondering if more thought was put into deciding not to pull out the large mixing bowl and doing it right than it would’ve taken to actually do it. It really doesn’t take that long and considering the medium mixing bowl on top of the whole contraption doesn’t fit that well, it was a minor chore to stash it that way. Probably about as much energy as taking the large bowl off the shelf, picking the small bowl out of it and nesting the medium one in between or at least no more time than I’ve spent contemplating why they didn’t do it.

There are other things. I buy a boneless ham from the store so they can slice it themselves and use it as lunchmeat. It’s cheaper than deli meat. However, they apparently have an issue with slicing meat themselves.

They are not fooling me by telling me they really had a hankering for a peanut butter sandwich – five days in a row – over a ham sandwich. In the past I have sliced up the whole ham roast and what do you know? They eat it up. I’ve had that particular chore on my list for several days now and haven’t gotten to it, because unlike just taking the whole ham out and slicing one piece off, it will take me some time to slice the entire ham.

I don’t get after them too much because like I mentioned above, I hate repeating myself. They get their due when they’re eating peanut butter sandwiches for a week instead of a nice ham sandwich. It’s my reward for having to look at a mess of towels and chaotically stacked cups.

But they know, I know and you know, they’re not even trying.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website livingwithgleigh.com, on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”or follow her on Twitter @livewithgleigh. Her column is available every week at maplevalleyreporter.com under the Lifestyles section.