[I'm also posting at MidCenturyModernMoms today. About...middle age...]
Wow. I didn't realize what a project I had taken on. The closets in the kids' rooms were a nightmare. The toys, and the clothes, and the assorted flotsam and jetsam of stray pencils, toys from the dentist, birthday party loot bags, and trash - the horror, oh the horror! During our move last year, I didn't organize the kids' possessions properly; and things have been getting worse ever since. Apparently, the trauma of relocating kept me from even attempting to stay on top of the kid chaos for the past 12 months or so - even with my bag of Flylady tricks, I felt unequal to the task. So, while I kept my kitchen sink shiny and my bathrooms wiped down, everything else in the house has devolved into utter rack and ruin.
I feel like Rip Van Winkle, waking up one year later, looking around and saying, "Where the heck did this mess come from?" I did manage to get everyone switched to their new rooms today, and the younger 4 are all excited, because it's fun to sleep in a different place. Listening to them, you'd think we had relocated to halfway around the planet. Then we went to Target - which, incidentally, has a wonderful air conditioning system - and bought Rachel an early b'day present from Grandma and Grandpa - matching twin patchwork quilts with pretty sheets for her and Susie's beds. So their room is looking pleasingly girly, which makes me feel a lot better. Just don't look in the closet...for the love of God, save yourselves.
Theo will be crashing on the sofa until we manage to haul the humongous filing cabinet out of his new room. (I don't really understand what is in it, as it certainly isn't holding our regular household files - those are overflowing a milk crate in our den, right next to the computer desk.) And then I will still have the pleasure of getting rid of/stashing all the boxes of crap we dumped in the family room. It's enough to make a girl contemplate arson.
Somehow, in between shoveling out closets and desk drawers, I found time today to tidy up and reorganize around here, too. I've been coveting what I call the "live" blog roll I've spotted on other people's blogs. So now (ta-da!) I have one! Check it out. Between that and my "Shared Items" widget, I am feeling positively tech-savvy these days.
Who knows? I may even get up the nerve to mess with my template. Ever since Memarie Lane mentioned that every time she reads my blog, she gets a craving for a Creamsicle, it's been making me sick. I hate Creamsicles.
Now, Fudgsicle. That's a -sicle.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the organizing!
Now that you mention it . . . your template does sort of remind me of a creamsicle.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, don't you feel GREAT now that you've organized the bedrooms? Nothing like organization to make you feel as if you are in control (it may be an evil trick, but I'll take that control feeling any way I can get it!).
Oh, Yes! I like the "live" blogroll MUCH better than the regular rss feeds.
ReplyDeleteI hate clutter. And the crap just grows out of nowhere. I hear your pain.
ReplyDeleteI think a movement should be started for an across the board ban on all birthday party goodie bags and dentist/doctor crap toys (lollipops still acceptable).
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better I just recently bought two big office storage boxes and crammed all of the loose papers and junk in them. I didn't even sort. Instant clean! Just don't look in the boxes. There's probably (for sure) a piece of mail for a low rate credit card offer from 1999.
Quentin Crisp once said "After two years the dust doesn't get any worse"...I try subscribe to this theory, but annoyingly the asthmatics of this house can't cope with it!
ReplyDeleteI like creamsicles.
ReplyDeleteI hate cleaning.
Sounds like my house. Everything looks clean, unless you open a closet. It's because when we moved in there were things that just needed to be stored, but Brad wouldn't get off his tush and store them. So I just shoved them into closets as best I could. And occasionally I have to go through and try to find stuff, which makes it even worse.
ReplyDeleteI love creamcicles. I enjoy your blog because it is easy to read. I have a hard time with the ones on black and the pale colors with white writing.
ReplyDeleteWe all have flinstone closets. Anyone who says differently is either lying or deluded.
My kids rooms all look like there was an explosion in them. I don't care.
ReplyDeleteNow our room is being straightened up by hubby this evening, as the exterminators will be there tomorrow. It seems someone left the exterior door to the basement. Hubby heard something in the basement sunday night and the dog was going nuts. Hubby saw something smaller than the can and bigger than a mouse in our bathroom this am. It is closed and locked until the morning.
Time to bring the dog in everyday after letting him out in the moring during the hot weather. It would be cheaper than the bill for tomorrow.
Oooh....a fellow FLYBaby!!! We moved from a 1585 square foot apartment with closets out the yingyang to an 1100 square foot house with a yard. Desperate times call for desperate measures and the small house with no mold or closets won. My FlyLady skills have seriously taken a nosedive in the four years we've been here. On the bright side I have managed to survive camping in my own house while getting new and more cabinets in the kitchen. I dare not venture to the children's closets either at the moment. I want to live! I want to live!
ReplyDelete