My kitchen counters tend to be a magnet for clutter.  

Mail that needs to be opened and sorted.  Paperwork coming home from school.  Random odds and ends that are going to some other final destination.  During baseball season, I probably remove at least three baseballs per week from the counter.  (I’m pretty sure that baseballs are breeding and reproducing somewhere nearby – that is the only explanation for their seemingly ever-increasing numbers.)

My boys come home from school and my kitchen island is instantly full of binders, books, reading logs, lunch boxes, water bottles and whatever else they pull out of their clown-car-esque backpacks.