Here I am Again...How Do I Keep Ending Up Here?

I love being organized. I love organizing other people's things & I used to love organizing my own things & had great pride in a clean and organized home.

Here are a few pictures of what my house used to look like:

Toy drawer under the girls' bedToy shelf in the girls' roomGirls' bedroom closetStorage shelves of all my "stuff"Toy closet @ my parents' house after I was finished with itThings were good-then something happened...3 things happened to be more specific-Trinity, Brinley, & Grayden. It's like I am the super man (or woman) of organizing, but my 3 kiddos are my kryptonite!! Here is a little example:

Let's go back a few months...I was feeling a little CRAZY & decided to look into the Family Advocacy program at our Dr's office. I was excited to attend the Love & Logic classes, find out about free babysitting programs they offered & overall I was interested in learning to better myself as a parent. What I didn't realize at the time was that I was also signing up for a monthly house visit from Melba (dun dun dun!!).

Melba is the lady over the Fam. Adv. department & is super nice, but having her show up one day (I had forgotten our apt) without being able to prepare for her visit has been haunting me for the past month & a half!! The house was pretty messy, I had started to pack for our month long trip to UT, & the bedrooms were a MESS!! I wasn't too worried because the bedrooms are all in the back of the house, but before she left she asked if she could look around!!! AHH!! ....s..u..r..e...you can......look around...(GULP)

My bedroom had a huge pile of laundry I was sorting through to fold & put away or pack. She looked at it & asked me where we slept at night. I nervously replied, "Well, we just put all the clothes on the floor when it's time for bed." D'OH! Not the best response...onto the girls' room. They had been playing pretty much unattended the previous day & had every single toy out and scattered on the floor. Melba looked in & Trinity stood up, almost as if she were on cue, and announced, "We never clean and our house is ALWAYS messy." I was flabbergasted & blurted out a nervous laugh... Onto Grayden's room/the storage room.

Let me explain this one. Grayden's crib was in our bedroom for the first couple of months & the third bedroom was strictly a storage room. I had been meaning to get it all squared away and moved out so we could make it into his room. Well, he got older & I wanted him out of our room, so we organized it well enough to fit his crib in there & he began sleeping in there. Just the weekend previous to this glorious home visit I had decided it was time to tear down the wall of storage shelves we had put up & start to get rid of stuff. Well, that is as far as we got so try to picture this. As you walk in the door there is a large dresser with an entertainment center on top of it that is a foot shorter than the ceiling. (We had it secured to the wall-which I quickly told Melba) to the left is Grayden's crib & on the wall next to that is the torn down metal shelving units stacked amongst the piles and piles of boxes & stuff that was once on them. The last remaining wall has a dresser & the closet door is open to reveal everything that is stuffed to the brim! It was bad!

She looked around the room & was at a loss for words. She slowly began, "This room is...well it is...it's...not a safe environment for Grayden." My heart dropped & I thought, "Oh great-is this lady going to call Social Services on me?" She turned and started to walk back down the hallway towards the front room & told me that we had too much stuff, which I already knew, & that I needed to get rid of it. "Bag it up & give it away" were her exact words. We left for Utah a few days later & that experience has been on my mind ever since. (Oh, she also asked if any of my friends in the area had a maid? ...subtle hint I need some serious help!!)

Fast Forward to Monday morning (of this week) I had just finished hauling all of our bags up from the van & looked around at the current task at hand. Unpacking is always my least favorite part of traveling. I couldn't help but think of Melba & then a light bulb went on. I made up my mind to clean out Grayden's room and get rid of some stuff before I tried to put anything away. It started off great & I was feeling so accomplished to have everything out of Grayden's room other than the dressers, the crib, & a small bin of toys.

Matt came home and gave me a nice reality check by telling me that in my attempt to clean one room the rest of the house got trashed!! Awe CRAP-he was right! So for the past few days I have been trying to do further "deep" cleaning so that the other rooms can be clutter free. However...things just seem to be getting worse!!! The pictures from above were taken back in January & the last one is at my parents' house of their toy closet when I cleaned, purged, & organized it. I will shamelessly admit that this is what my house looks like today:

Yea, embarrassing eh? I think Jessica is one of the few people who have had the pleasure of getting a peek at my house like this!! Yikes! (Know you know why I only open my door 2 inches and peek out at you) In comparison to the first pictures both shelves are empty & don't even have the shelves in them anymore, and the big drawer has no more visible sections. Everything has been thrown into any available space & shoved under the bed.

Just thinking about the job that lies ahead is exhausting. I would much rather continue going to the pool, playing at the park, weeding our garden, or anything other than cleaning. I do need to give kudos to Matt who has been doing the laundry & cleaning the kitchen for the past 4 days. If he hadn't stepped up to the plate I may not even be able to find my way to the computer or find the camera!! What a great hubby!! I am not doing this post for sympathy or encouragement even...I just had to get it off my chest & say...what the heck? How does my house keep getting like this!!!

TO BE CONTINUED...