Ohhh this is going to be a good one. Its all relates to my whining and crying about how overwhelmed I am trying to figure out how to blog, cook, clean, launder, grocery shop, shuttle kids, vacation plan, photograph, write, bathe and breathe all at the same time.
You see I have a little bit of a confession to make.
I’m unorganized.
I mean super unorganized.
So unorganized I can’t sleep anymore (you have seen my 3 am updates cries for help on facebook). So unorganized that I am unable to take a day off and do nothing. The only time I ever watch TV anymore is if I am sick (were talking can’t move sick) or post operative which means I haven’t really watched a serious stretch of TV in 2 years.
This really doesn’t bode well for any of my family members either. No one can find a permission slip, no one can tell if the laundry on the floor is clean or dirty and no one certainly can relax around a mom who’s doing circles around each of them while repeated screaming “this place is a dump”.
I have a love/hate relationship with organization.
On the one hand I love the feeling you get when you organize a room. Clean corners, everything back in its place and restoring order to where there once was chaos. Â It’s comforting and deeply satisfying. But on the other hand I despise what it takes to KEEP that order in place. The daily grind of maintaining that clean place makes me want to run to another room and start yet another pile.
There is no middle ground with me. I’m either wading through piles of stuff just to get to my office chair or I’m deep cleaning the computer keyboard with a bottle of alcohol and a Q-tip. This alone drives my husband crazy.
Last year I was diagnosed with ADHD, that was not a shocker to me I kinda figured that. Looking back at my school years the pattern was there, never completing anything, losing homework, feeling overwhelmed by it all. My ability to stay on task now ranks pretty low compared to my ability to multi-task 10 projects at once (I’m not saying I do this well either). Medication is not an option. I tried it. Sure I felt focused and boy did it quiet those ‘creative monkeys’ in my head but it also made me quite serious and the seriousness turned to edginess a tension that was only relieved by sudden outbursts of yelling usually directed at our youngest. Not scoring any mommy points there but man did it feel good in the moment.  So medications were not continued and I reverted back to growing my piles.
Coupled with the fact that this 4 bedroom house came with zero storage (I have one linen closet) and what you have here is the perfect clutter storm. My office doesn’t even have a closet. You can see why what the floor plan calls out for a living room and dining room quickly turned into a storage area for the overflow of “stuff”. But in order to get rid of the stuff I have learned that the first order of business was to STOP the flow of INCOMING stuff. That meant no more vintage finds on eBay, no more scrapbooking supplies, no more smiling amazon boxes and no more stock piling supplies as if California was going to break off tomorrow and slide into the Pacific.
Once the bleeding stops then the carnage can be cleaned up. <– that’s what I tell myself.
I used to fantasize the house burned down to the ground essentially taking all the clutter with it. I would wonder what it would be like being forced to let go of all of my “stuff”. I almost got that wish a few years ago when the fired roared through my neighborhood in Southern California. I remember only grabbing a few photo albums along with our pets and frantically searching for the baby books that were buried under the clutter. I would have suffered greatly that night if it wasn’t for the firefighters. I dodged a bullet. The next weekend I cleaned out my office to the bones, unearthed the baby albums and secured their safety but it was only a matter of days before the office began its usual accumulation of clutter and disarray.
So here I am in “that place” again. Past due notices are making their rounds again, appointments are being left off the calendar and I feel like I am slowly succumbing, the clutter is winning.
Last weekend I wrote about the importance of taking a family vacation and since then airplane tickets have been purchased and reservations have been booked. I told myself that in order for me to truly enjoy this time with my family that I had to get my act together which includes cleaning out my office and getting caught up with my accounting (I also manage the books for my husbands practice), pay bills, organize calendars etc. If I don’t feel that things are in order and under control by the time I stepped on that plane there will be no vacation for me in my mind.
I have given myself 10 weeks to restore sanity in my home and in my head. It’s either that or I’m getting a match. JK about the latter seriously folks I don’t want emails about a pyro intervention. What I would love is some more closet space, enter contest segue.. If you follow me on facebook you saw that I entered a contest hosted by California Closets for a chance to win a number of different prizes, but the grand prize is a consultation with ORGANIZATION GURU Peter Walsh. I die. My friends have suggested to me NUMEROUS times, you should submit your pictures to Oprah, she would surely choose you for the “Clean Sweep” project. I actually submitted photos to Clean House “search for the the messiest house” on the Style network but then balked when they came back and asked for even messier photos, I was in fear that I may give up my effort to get organized all together just to appear like a hoarder. Hoarding is a slight problem with me, I don’t live in filth but I certainly don’t need to hang on to all my grade school reports.
You can see all the entries here and buried somewhere in there is my humble story.
I hope this post will propel me into getting organized AND staying organized. I know my future of me blogging depends on it. In the meantime I ordered Peter Walsh’s DVD for inspiration and guidance. Click on the image to see it in my Amazon favorites. I am also giving a copy away!
If you are in the same boat as me you might want to sumbit an entry to the California Closet Contest too! I also read you can enter more than one room, you know what I’m thinking how about my ENTIRE house? You will also get a $500 coupon off just for entering too!
Click here for my story and enter or vote for your favorite.
GIVEAWAY TIME!(closed)
I am giving away my own Peter Walsh Gift Package to get you started on your CLEANING OUT THE CLUTTER project!
Winner will receive It’s All Too Much DVD
and the [IN]PLACEÂ ORGANIZATIONALÂ SYSTEM
PLUS a few more [IN]Place items I can’t find at this very moment (yep they are buried!)
All you have to do is answer the question below:
What are your biggest Clutter issues?
full disclosure:I was not compensated by California Closets, Office Max or Peter Walsh to blog about this contest. I happen to stumble across this contest and thought what a great was for me to come clean about my hoarding issues!
Welcome to my blog, my name is Lindsey aka modchik. A former Operations Manager with a strong desire to CREATE. In 2009 I decided my 9-5 job wasn’t working for me (or my two kids). I traded my calculator for a camera and began building a blog. By the end of 2010 
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