I.

HAVE.

HAD IT.

I cannot, cannot, spend another single day, hour, or minute living  the way I have been living for about the last year and a half. Can. Not.

I really don’t even know what happened. You know those people on Hoarders or Hoarding: Buried Alive who have reduced their livable space to about two square feet?  Watching that show used to reassure me that I might be a slob, but at least I don’t have a rodent and bug-infested kitchen and a toilet full of old poop. Except now? I can’t judge those people at all.

Okay, I’m exaggerating, it’s not like I have entire rooms full to the ceiling or anything, but every single room in my house has more stuff than it needs, which means “storage” consists of “throw it wherever and then step around it like it’s not there.”

I have always been a piler. My idea of straightening up has always been to make neat piles. The problem with piles is, you can’t see what’s in any of them, right? So you pile more stuff on top, until you have piles everywhere and no idea where anything actually is.

I’ve been having bad allergy attacks for three days now, and this morning, while sitting on the couch watching the last episode of CSI:Miami onDemand, I fell asleep. Sitting up. So when I woke up, I decided to get in bed and take a nap. Only I went from being obviously tired to having my brain start churning a mile a minute, and then my phone rang. It was a bill collector,  of course, because they have some kind of signal that flashes in their office when someone they need to contact has just gone to sleep/started nursing a baby/sat down on the toilet/is driving down the highway at 70 mph.

Anyway, I wanted to find the bill he was calling about because I was pretty sure Chris had paid it last week. And I couldn’t find it.  After telling the guy I would call him back, I hung up the phone…and looked around. REALLY looked around. No wonder I couldn’t find anything! I grabbed my camera and started shooting.  THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is my house:

My "dining room"

There’s actually more stuff piled up behind these boxes. The sideboard is old and the drawer sticks, so apparently someone gave up trying to close it. Classy.

The "living room".

Won’t you please come in and make yourself at home? I’ll just clear a space for your coffee on this coffee table-slash-crap receptacle here in the middle of the room.

The kitchen table

Note the dog food bucket, there was a line of ants headed towards it. Sickening.

The stove and the two miniscule "countertops" I have on this side.

The stove. At least there’s nothing plastic directly touching a burner.

The right side of the kitchen sink

We have never owned a house with a dishwasher. We buy tiny houses and somehow they never have enough kitchen space for one. The boys take turns doing the dinner dishes, but on weekends it all goes to hell pretty much. I like the straight line of coffee mugs, like they are standing guard or something.

The other side of the kitchen counter

This is the only place in the kitchen for the coffeemaker, sodastream,  and toaster. That under-counter CD player hasn’t worked in years.

Another view of the dining room

In order to wind the grandfather clock, Chris or Nathan (the self-designated clock keepers) have to step over my piles. That makes me feel bad. Also, this is where Kaitlyn’s amazing fort we got from Toydle. You can see the pieces of white PVC in the red storage bag sitting in front of the clock. She’s been asking me for a WEEK to clean up my review stuff so she can build that fort.

My side of the bedroom

Why yes, it is kind of difficult to get to and from the bed, what with that fan there and the laundry and the shoes that I could totally stumble on in the middle of the night if I get up to pee. Yep, I could fall face first into that standing mirrored jewelry organizer thing that I have never used even once and could seriously hurt myself.  Just one of the many pieces of straw I mentioned in the title of this post.

The top of my dresser

Wanna guess how long it took me to find a pair of matching earrings to wear yesterday? Of COURSE I don’t store my jewelry in the huge standing mirrored jewelry organizer shown in the last photo, that would be…um.

The playroom table

This was our dining room table in our old house, it doesn’t really fit in our kitchen and isn’t big enough for the five of us anyway. It’s been sitting in the playroom since we moved in, I envisioned it as a sort of desk for the kids but it’s morphed into a place to put DVDs, extra school supplies, and random crap. It’s another crap receptacle, is what it is.

Playroom corner

Stuff I got to review that I’ve been holding on to because maybe some day the kids might want to use it or something (except for that Girl Gourmet cupcake maker, Kaitlyn loves it).  Not sure what’s in the trash bag. This is directly in front of our sliding glass door to the back patio.

Playroom desks

On the far left there is an old computer table that Ryan now uses for homework and drawing. On the right is an old vanity table that has become basically a printer stand. Giant blue tub is full of stuffed animals Kaitlyn can’t bear to part with, the thing in the foreground is Ryan’s old bookshelf that he took out of his room last weekend.

So, yeah. Like I said, it’s not the worst ever, but it’s exhausting.  I’m just tired right down to my bones of never looking in a room and just seeing a simple, restful space.  Yes, the kids should keep their playroom neat themselves, but when someone is coming over and the living room absolutely has to be presentable, I usually start shoving things into the kids’ hands and tell them to just go put it in the back room “for now”.

And, I do not like getting rid of things. I just always think something might be useful “some day”.  Well I am declaring that some day is never going to come, and if it does, and there’s one thing we need that we don’t have, I’d rather buy it again.  It’s a question of maintaining my sanity here, people.

I’m wearing one of Chris’ old t-shirts, shorts, gym socks, and tennis shoes. I have my hair in a serious ponytail.

Empty Swiffer Dusters box, sad face. Chris' t-shirt, SERIOUS PONYTAIL.

I’m going to start, and I’m not going to stop until the very sight of my own rooms no longer makes me sick. Think of this post as “before”.  When I’m done  I’ll take more pictures and post them as an “after”.

Damn, this was a long post. Thanks for reading it.