Walking through the kitchen, you catch your thigh on a cabinet door which is slightly ajar. After a few choice words, you try to push the door shut, only to find that the door won't close all the way. Even a couple of hard slams don't manage to completely shut the cabinet door.

Only then do you pull the door open to see what is keeping the door from closing properly. That is when all the Tupperware bowls, cottage cheese containers, Rubbermaid lids and quality to-go containers that you just couldn't bring yourself to throw away come tumbling out onto the floor.

Every time this happens to me I realize that I am a Want-To-Be-Organized-But-Can't-Find-A-Matching-Lid-Anywhere type of person.

I really want to be organized and start with the best of intentions. I have purchased innumerable storage boxes, baskets in every shape and size and plastic bags that zip, fold and crease. Yet, my organization always manages to get out of control as soon as I turn my back.

Those numerous storage containers in my kitchen are a perfect example.

I have a hard time throwing away plastic containers because you never know when you're going to need eight small yogurt containers or three sour cream cups again. So the containers are relegated to the mass chaos of "Storage Containers" which encompasses two entire cabinets in my kitchen.

Every few months, I grow tired of searching for a matching bowl and lid and decide to organize the containers. I've even developed a system of putting all the lids on one shelf, while the other three are designated for everything else.

(Not once during these organizational binges does it occur to me that I don't need all these containers. If I managed to fill every one of these containers at the same time, they would fill up my fridge, every square inch of counter space and half the kitchen floor. Back into the cabinet they return.)

While this system works initially, I eventually will have a bowl with no lid or a lid which will never fit any of the containers in the cabinet. Things quic-kly spiral out of control and I begin placing the lids with their assigned containers or I recycle the container but put the lid in storage.

Pretty soon, I'm just shoving the containers in the cabinets, not bothering to look if it's the right shelf.

The next thing I know, I'm banging my leg on the open cabinet door and plastic lids are littering my kitchen floor.

While it may seem that you are continually reorganizing the same kitchen junk drawer or clearing off the same living room coffee table, occasionally it's good to venture into organizing unfamiliar territory.

For me, this is the bathroom and, in particular, my junk basket. While most people have a junk drawer, I have a junk basket which sits on an open shelf which is highly accessible -- too accessible. In theory, the basket is supposed to hold regular bathroom items such as a brushes and combs, bottles of lotion, and hair accessories. The basket does hold these items, but it also contains much, much more.

After failing to find a brush in the basket after a three-minute search, I decided the basket needed an overhaul.

By the end, I found everything but the kitchen sink in the basket because it ends up as a catchall for everything that winds up in the bathroom.

For starters, the basket held a Rollerblade replacement wheel, although I can't remember the last time I was in-line skating in my bathroom.

I found 13 pens, which explains why I can never find one by the phone to take a message. There were eight contact lens cases even through my husband and I tend to only wear one set of lenses at a time.

And the toys ... Superman, Batman and Barbie, along with all their accessories, had taken up residence in my bathroom basket.

Half an hour later, that basket was cleaned out and organized. Anything that didn't belong in a bathroom was gone and my hairbrush was laying in plain sight in the middle of the basket.

I may be the only person who can see that the basket is now organized, but at least my pen collection has grown substantially.

-- Ronda Graff realizes that there are collapsible storage containers to replace the plastic bowls spilling out of her cabinets. But she's not willing to spend her children's college tuition just so her cabinet will close.