Attacking the Mess!

I wish I could tell you we had a nice, easy weekend here with the family, playing games and eating chocolate.

But no, we had a work filled weekend.  The kind that makes you wish for Monday when all there is to do it some school work with the kids and dinner in the crockpot.

Since coming home from my parent’s house last week with some new chairs and an exercise machine, I have been on a mission to find a way to make it all fit in the house.  Finally on Saturday I decided to get rid of the sofa in my bedroom and the rocker in the nursery, to which my daughters promptly said they wanted to keep for their future houses.  This is a lovely idea, but would require a major cleanout of the storage building in 100° weather.  Or a magic wand.

I told the girls that if they really wanted to keep the furniture then they would have to clean out the storage building to make them fit.  This would be the true measure of how much they wanted it since the storage building hasn’t been cleaned out since time began.

They decided to go for it and went to work outside while the little boys and I worked on the house.  We cleaned out the old nursery, which I am sad to say, has now become the exercise room with our treadmill and my parent’s old elliptical machine.  I had lady dreams of that room becoming my sanctuary someday, but it will have to wait for some of these kids to leave home so I can move the ugliness that is 2 exercise machines into their old rooms.  We also cleaned out the study room and my bedroom.  It sounds easy, but when all you have is a 10 and 6 year old to help you lift dressers and big chairs to move them into other rooms it’s not a simple process.  I love my 10 year old, but he’s doesn’t quite have the instinct needed to move furniture.

I’d say, “You lift that end and we will carry it into the other room,” and he would look around like he didn’t know what I was talking about.  He’d drop his side unexpectedly, he would pull the wrong way, not know how to make his end fit through the door…..I had a few Calgon-take-me-away moments.

The older kids did manage to get the storage into some kind of order (I was amazed!) and got the extra furniture in there.  At this point I could fill an entire house with the stuff out there, which I believe is what my girls are hoping.  Not the boys.  They don’t even think about their future houses.  Viva la difference!

Sunday was a little more restful, even though there was a huge pile of junk left to be put away on the school table.  It nearly reached the ceiling and this neat freak mamma gets pretty out of sorts when her house is a gigantic mess.  I told the kids they could rest if they PROMISED to put it all away on Monday.

So early this morning I declared it to be a “Getting the House Back in Order and Clean Up the Mess Day”  We are putting away the huge pile and all of the little piles that have accumulated over the past few weeks, including the new pool float that wouldn’t inflate that has been in the corner of the kitchen for the past month and a half waiting for me to return it to Walmart.  I go there at least once a week.  Seriously.  Why do I not take care of these things?

That sucker is going back TO-DAY.

Once all of the stuff is put where it belongs, including the wok that my mother gave us that is so huge we may need to build a new kitchen cabinet to house it, we will feel back to normal.  Or I will.  One of the boys just said to me, “What mess are you talking about?”

Wow.