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. 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]PLACE ORGANIZATIONAL 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!
Linz– is this where I enter?? Is that really your house?? or did you finally come to NJ & and I could not find you amongst all my ‘stuff’. This is so to the moment for me too Finding the biggest problem is papers & things I might need also the stuff i keep incase NJ falls off the map– or Staples goes out of business – or we run out if all school/work related supplies. i love Peter Walsh & pray to get thru it all & be organized like my neighbors & everyone else I know….. Just today I went downstairs for 1 thing & ended coming back up 3 yes 3 times without it………………. SORRY for the rant … miss ya doll but so glad I have ya here now xoxox doe
YES! Doe this is where you comment – I use a program to randomly pick from one of these comments! So you have issues too with “stuff”… whew I’m not alone. For the most part I have the “together” appearance but if you scratch my surface a little you’ll see I’m in complete disarray. 🙁 Today was “the day” to clean out my office and instead I posted about it! ACK the irony… WE will BOTH get there God willing.
I’m thinking I need a mini blog about this. hmmmm
Lindsay, You are a SHE, a sidetracked home executive. I have been using the site flylady.net for about two years now and I want to tell you it’s saved my sanity/marriage/life many times over.
It’s not a gimmick, just sign up for their emails and follow their missions. Basically, it’s tackling things fifteen minutes at a time, loving yourself and ditching perfection. It’s great for people with ADD or just people like me who don’t seem to have a knack. Check it out!
.-= Kelly von Hemert´s last blog ..Shady Vegetables at Zov’s =-.
Kelly I TOTALLY know the flylady.com – never signed up but I think maybe I should. The irony is that I have read all the books, I know what I have to do… I just find something else more pressing…. I’m mental.
Lindsey, why do you think I have someone here to help me 2-3 times a week…….
She goes through my “piles” and helps me keep things together. It’s terrible I know but Sam knows what the alternative is and he likes it better this way. I have to say last night though is the first time he said ” I think you have a shopping problem “. I have given myself a time-out and decided no more, nada, at least until vacay time…..Hee Hee 🙂
Good Luck, and may the force……….Well you know!
I think there is definitely a link between the two Leticia. I’ll join you in that self imposed time out 🙂
We should have an organizing party! Invite your most marvelous organizing friends over for food and drink some Saturday or Sunday with new mission that each must organize a drawer, closet, etc. I will RSVP yes in advance. Your honesty in these last two posts are moving. My honesty is that my closet has sweatshirts from College. Yikes. My hall closet, which cannot fit any guests coat,*insert nervous laugh* is stuffed to the brim resembling a cartoon punch line if opened. CRASH…..
.-= Kathleen´s last blog ..We still kinda hate her =-.
I am drowning in a sea of papers. I have saved every school paper (including preschool and church school) ALL 3 of my children have EVER worked on!! Why? Because my Mom did and she was a great mom, so isn’t that what great moms do?!? UHG!! From my basement storage closet, it slowly leaked to my office, and now because the desk is full, it’s moved to the kitchen island (I’m still trying to decide whether or not it’s a good thing I don’t have a small desk in my kitchen area!?) So, I will take this as motivation–once school is out–to start my PAPER PURGE. 🙂 Thanks for your honesty and a small kick in the pants for the rest of us. Good luck to you.
p.s. So my kids don’t get all the blame, I also have every receipt, bill, statement, etc. from the last 6+ years of our lives … holding on to it just in case seems so much easier than letting go.
You are a brave woman to take those pictures and post them. Truly. I got my messed cleaned up just a week and a half ago. My motivation…nothing like major surgery and the fear of death to get you motivated. I was even more terrified that my friends or family would have to sort through the mess in my room and realize that I am not the brilliant, organized, smart woman they thought I was (yet another of my many delusions). So, I struggled through and just got it done. I’ve even managed to keep it that way for a week now. (OK, so 5 days I was in the hospital and I haven’t done much since except sit and look at my laptop and take narcotics, but still…I’ll take whatever positive motivation that I can get.)
You are not alone. You eat an elephant one bite at a time…just remember that!
Linz…I’ve got 3 words for you…. OMG!!! Haha…
3 more words.. I need help
Thank God I’m not the only one with clutter clutter clutter.
My motto is “nothing says clean like company”. That’s the only way I can get myself in clean up/declutter mode.
I love the Flylady but would also recommend tons of plastic bins. I just don’t have enough $$$ to buy as many as I need, lol.
me too – I purposely scheduled a trunk show – that’s how the whole laundry baskets came to be and then they sat there … and they haven’t been touched since March. 🙁
Lindsey, I have officially just fallen in love with you (i.e. myself). I may be your “Rock Goddess,” but you are my Hero AND the wind beneath my wings LMAO! I wouldn’t even KNOW where to start answering this!
thanks Nicole… I don’t know where to “start” either! LOL!
So this is how we find each other! Same place at the same time tackling the same clutter. I happened to find your blog by being on Peter Walsh’s fanpage on FB. Why was I there? Because today is Day 1 of a total house (plus 3 storage shed) clean out.
We have hired a professional organizer (well worth it) who is actually working with us long distance because she couldn’t fly in. I won’t say where I am from, but I will say the area is small enough that using someone local wasn’t comfortable enough for me.
It’s INSANE. Today we were scheduled for 11 hours of PULL OUT DAY. That means everything was to come out of every room and shed to be sorted into multiple different piles with the appropriate labels (just like on TV).
Well, needless to say, we are WAY behind!! Why? Because we have S O M U C H S T U F F. Luckily our organizer has been of great assistance helping us prepare mentally for how it would feel. There is so much psychology to all of this it’s amazing! REALLY!
It’s way more about the mind than it is about the stuff. And I first heard of that from Peter Walsh. I would love to win your set for sure, but I also wanted to share. It’s real important for people to know… you gotta prep for this. If you are serious about getting in control you gotta prep big time. Not just check lists and schedules for your clean out, but your mind prep, that’s key.
I can’t even count the number of times I have started on this journey, only to get overwhelmed and fail. This time is different. YES, we are behind. YES, it’s just as hard as before. And YES, I want to pay someone else to do it, or just escape when no ones looking. But THIS TIME, those feelings are significantly less than the feeling I have driving me to finish.
I have never run a marathon, so I can only imagine it must be similar. I feel crazy now that I have started, my body is aching and I’m tired. BUT but but THIS time, I am prepared for these feelings, I have tools (tactics) of how to approach the difficult situations and not get stuck, and mainly, I get the concept that it’s more about me and my feelings than it is about the stuff. It doesn’t change how hard it is, but it teaches me to manage it.
Sorry this post has been so long. Just wanted to share, and your pics inspired me to. If all goes according to plan, by this time next week, I will be CLUTTER FREE!!! Well mostly 🙂
thank you everyone for sharing I’m kinda speechless at my computer right now. I guess this must look horribly dysfunctional to most people and yet (the clutter) seems so normal to me. Such a good wake up call for me – thank you EVERYONE for sharing your story. and the emails…. wow!
Hi Modchik! Sorry if I made it sound like I thought your situation was dysfunctional. I think I got caught up in the moment and projected my frustration and feelings. I neglected to mention one VERY important key issue in my case…. We have moved 9 times in 11 years (not recommended) and are finally back at my family property, the one I grew up on. We got here with all of our stuff and moved into a house that was fully furnished and already storing two generations of stuff. Holy clean outs! But because everything was so personal/sentimental and had so many family ties, we couldn’t just clean out. And honestly, the thought of dealing with all of it (especially the sentimental stuff) made me just want to sleep.
So… ours really isn’t just about clutter, it’s about stacks of furniture and generations of stuff…. compounded by our family of four’s clutter and my constant need to run from it! And you can find all in a house that is 1937 original and in need of a complete overhaul.
Thanks for making it easy to share and to vent! Much appreciated :::smile::: (and the opportunity to enter the contest is really fun too!) Now if I could just figure out how to hire someone to upkeep it after we get it under control! 😀
Lisa do not worry I did not get that feeing from your comment at all 🙂 if anything I felt like you totally understood my position, at the begin, the daunting task of just STARTING the BIG PURGE. I think there could be a part 1 2, 3 and 4 of this story. What you don’t know is that I did a HUGE room swap which I talked about here. That was the first bad move I made. I was effectively eliminating most of my storage (by moving my office) and I didn’t have a plan of attack for what I was going to do with all the “stuff” I was storing. Everything went to the center of the house (talk about bad feng shui) and only half of it ever made it back out of the room – you can find the link to the “carnage” as I call it in the story – it was bad. I couldn’t have people over for months and my family thought I was losin it. I did clean out that space, it took me 3 days of not having my toddler here so I could work round the clock AAAAAAND I have ordered 3 dumpsters in the last 6 months. I am purging but not at a fast enough rate any more. I noticed the piles are starting to creep back in those same rooms again… *sigh*. (another red flag)
and it is for sure dysfunctional, all of it. I am NOT functioning well living in chaos, nor is this family. I owe it to myself, my kids and my husband to get my act together. 🙂
Oh girl, we are soul clutter sisters. I am very similar to you and I was recently, unprofessionally, diagnosed with ADD too. We live in a small townhome with NO STORAGE and I have two kids and stuff/crap EVERYWHERE. I need to de-clutter again. I do it once a year or so, but it’s not enough. And I def need tips on how to keep it all organized. What gets me are the random things like extra buttons and random things like that.
.-= Mama Mary´s last blog ..the bane of second child status =-.
I hope you achieve your goal. My house is not cluttered like yours but I am struggling in some areas with rooms being a mess. I actually just did a post for a company on an organizer and my friend thought I staged the photo as she is a neat freak. To her surprise I said there are lots of areas in my house like this because Im trying to figure out how to blance everything in my life.
It was nice to meet you at boot camp and I hope your daughter is feeling better.
remove 2000 square feet and the clutter naturally is removed with it.
Oh Lindsay, I wish I’d known this when I met you at Bloggy Boot Camp. We would have had a LOT to talk about. I am a “reforming” messy. I can’t quite say reformed, but I have definitely made some big strides over the years. When I was first married – about a million years ago – my house looked a lot like yours. Now, thanks to Flylady, Peter Walsh, and Pam & Peggy, I have made at least an 80% improvement. I have a whole series of posts on my blog that you might find helpful. Just click on the Clutterbugs tag for a whole list of quick & simple ideas. I am always on the lookout for additional ideas for my posts, so I would love to win the DVD.
Oh my. My desk. Piles all around the house of papers. Hall closet. I have so much clutter.
Oh my word, we must be related!!!
You said you are in California, not in Orange County are you? Maybe we can help one another???
yes I am !! so I’m not alone in this cluttered space I take it? I have made some progress – got rid of 6 huge shopping bags of old clothes over the weekend!
I had to come look at this after we spoke about it the other day. This post has endeared me to you even more.
.-= Suz Broughton´s last blog ..LOST without LOST? I’m here for you =-.
thanks Suz! I kinda put it all out there… hoping the outing would inspire change.
For me, setting the timer for 6 minutes a time really helps. I am always surprised at how much I can get done in that short amount of time, and I feel less overwhelmed.
thank you Margaret I realize that the consistency factor is a huge part of the problem keeping up – timer is a great idea.