Mommy Confessional - I'm a Slob

Okay, here goes. I admit it. I'm a slob. Well, not exactly a slob. More like a recovering slob. You see, I want to clean, I try to clean, I spend what seems like the majority of my life cleaning, but my house is never actually clean. It's like I'm always taking one step forward, two steps back. I clean the counters, someone tracks dirt across the floor. I clean the floor, someone pees all around, but somehow not in, the toilet. I clean around the toilet, someone spits a mouthful of toothpaste all over the mirror and faucet.  It's like a never ending battle of the slobs and I am seriously losing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to put the blame on everybody else. I may clean a lot, but I also make much of the mess. My problem, pretty much the essence of the entire problem, is that I and my family don't put things away. The counters, floor, island, bookshelf - it's all fair game. One thing gets left out, then another, then before you know it the entire house is covered with clutter.

Which leads to my next problem... Crap.

My house is practically splitting at the seams with crap - not literal crap, (though sometimes I wonder) metaphorical crap - i.e. crap. It's gotten so bad, the crap has migrated into the garage and now I can't even park there anymore. More crap is filling up half of our "computer room" (I put that in quotes because "crap room" would be a better description) and don't even get me started on the room above the garage that was supposed to be Don's music room. The poor guy is confined to a 3X3 foot space to play guitar because the rest of the room is full of... you guessed it, CRAP! Now there is a purpose behind all of this crap. I am not a hoarder or anything. I had grand plans for all of the wonderful things I might do with all of  my spare time this summer, and one of those things was to have a garage sale. Unfortunately, I've stalled at the making piles of crap stage and have a very long way to progress before hitting the getting rid of crap stage.

My laundry situation is even worse. If I actually get the clothes into the washer, more likely than not, I will forget about them. Which means I have to wash them over again. Consider that this scenario can, and has, taken place multiple times with a single load, and you can understand my need to make my own laundry detergent. Now if I do, somehow, manage to get the laundry - sans mildew - into the dryer, I will inevitably forget about it. Then, I have to run it through the dryer again to get the wrinkles out. Do you see a pattern developing here? Now, if I pass this stage and pull the clothes out of the dryer, I don't often get around to folding them immediately - hey I'm busy - so they spend a couple days decorating my couch or sitting in a basket. Now of course, they're wrinkled, so they needs to be run through the dryer again. If I, by the grace of god, do fold the laundry, I almost never get around to putting it in the kids drawers. So what happens is that we all route around in the laundry basket making such a mess of things that they end up just needing to be washed again, so hell! That is why, on any given day, the laundry pile is well above, over, around, and every which-way about the hamper. I'm lucky if I can see the damn thing, truthfully.

Now, I know what you're thinking... "Courtney just do the laundry and put things it away." It sounds simple now, but, you see, I haven't finished.. Oh yes, there is more.

Don't forget that I have two kids who seem to have inherited my slob gene. I have toys coming out my wazoo, (yes, it's a word) and I have developed a wonderful system of bins to contain that wealth of playthings, however, nothing actually gets put into the bins. Instead, the toys are often lining the floors directly adjacent to the wonderful bins. And then, I can't put the toys away because they are blocking the damn bins! I have, on more than one occasion, resorted to the "I will throw away every toy on the floor." threat with much success, but it is unfortunately short lived. Five minutes later all of the toys are strewn about the house again, and I'm trying my best not to kill myself tripping on a Barbie doll.

That leaves me with the here and now, and what is my wreck of a house. It's filled with toys, laundry and crap, covered in a thick layer of nastiness and sprinkled with filth. I am completely unable to even begin to contemplate where to start to fix this. I am overwhelmed and understaffed. I have quite frankly given up. And now that the children have gone to bed, and I actually have time to do something about the state of my house, I choose to sit and air my dirty laundry (literally) on this blog.

Why? Because I am a slob.