Idiosyncracies....

we all have them.

This one made me smile....

"I hope you don't mind taking your shoes off," she said...."it's an Alaskan tradition to keep the dust and dirt out of our homes."

We didn't mind at all...we were happy to do it. But the irony of that statement hit me when we climbed the stairs and arrived in the living quarters of her town home.

For you see, the townhome was probably the most cluttered home I've really ever been in.

For example, there was a little walkway into her kitchen. The ENTIRE kitchen floor, except for a teeny footpath leading to the sink, was covered in sacks. It looked like she would just put all the groceries on her floor when she arrived home from the grocery store. There was no space on the kitchen counter at all - for anything - as every little space was taken with something...books, papers, cans, food, spices, more papers, boxes, knick knacks, just stuff.

The other room we saw was very similar....items, papers, boxes, DVDs, knick knacks, magazines, sacks, stuff was everywhere.

She was delightful, wonderful, and obviously a collector of things, but certainly NOT Alaskan dust and dirt!