Keeping It Real

Have I ever mentioned that I'm an obsessive compulsive neat freak?  I inherited it honestly from my Grandma Molly (who made her bed every day of her life) and there's probably a good bit of Grandpa Tommy thrown into the mix as well.  He was a perfectionist.  I like having a home for everything and everything in it's home.  Normally our house is neat and tidy.  It might not pass a germ swab test, but it looks good.  Last week threw me for quite a loop.  I gave up on all household duties in favor of staying in bed wallowing in self pity.  Dan did awesome trying to pick up the slack.  He even did the dishes several times, but it doesn't matter how many times you do the dishes.  They multiply faster than (I need a good clique here, but nothing is coming to me).  Anyway, you get the picture and in honor of keeping it real, I took pictures to show you what my house looked like before and after this weekend.

Jaelyn helped me and we cleaned our house from top to bottom.

Before...the sink was overflowing so that dirty pots, pans and dishes covered every surface of the kitchen.  Gross! 

It took 2 loads in the dishwasher and washing many by hand, but we got the kitchen pretty and clean!!!

The end of the kitchen counter is the dumping ground for anything and everything.  It drives me crazy as it spreads and seeps onto my working space.

Pretty clean counter...it makes me want to roll out cookies or knead dough or something.

There were piles of stuff in every corner of the living room.  We had bags, coats, boots, toys, books, JUNK!  Even my coat was in the middle of the floor.  You had to step over it to get to the door.  Craziness!

All picked up

That's just the tip of the laundry iceberg.  In all, I think we folded 8 loads of laundry.

So, that's just a little bit of my house.  The rest looked pretty much the same.  You could barely walk down the steps because of the toy obstacles.  The craft table was over flowing with art supplies.  Rooms were a wreck. A toy bomb exploded in the basement. 

It literally took about 6 hours of Jaelyn and I working together (she's such a good helper when she wants to be).  We cleaned the bathrooms, picked up, dusted, vacuumed and mopped, changed the sheets on beds, folded and put away laundry and sorted and put away toys.

It was not a "purging day," but Jaelyn is learning the joy of purging from me.  When she was done cleaning her stuff, she had a bag to donate.  I took 2 big boxes of books to a retirement home and a load of stuff to Goodwill yesterday.  I love the light feeling I get when I get rid of stuff.



So there you have it.  I double dog dare you to post pictures of your house (just as it is) on your blog.  Leave me a comment and let me know if you are up for the challenge!