How Not To Spring Clean...or...How To Make Others Feel Good About Their Homes

I am doing a public service today. You are guaranteed to come away from this post thinking "at least my house doesn't look as bad as hers!"

It all started last Thursday.  Actually, it started earlier than that. What began as a small loose seam on the wallpaper beside the toilet in the bathroom, would mysteriously grow to a hole. I'd mend it a couple times but it kept happening...coincidentally on days I had certain young visitors of the grand kind. This little area of missing wallpaper eventually grew to an area roughly the size of a piece of notebook paper. Something had to be done. In all truth the room had started to look a little worn and I was so ready for a change. So....last Thursday after school we cleared out the room and I told the grandkids (ages 11, 8 and 4) to go to it and start ripping off the wallpaper...legally.  They did almost the entire room by themselves and did a great job. 


Here's mess #1.

Then, over the weekend I was pulling music out of the file cabinet for my son's girlfriend who, by the way, is a fabulous singer. When I went to put it away this week I acknowledged the fact that the file cabinet was stuffed to the gills with music and some things had to go and it also had to be better organized. This resulted in the piles of music everywhere and the pool of trash in the middle of the floor.


Mess #2.

When preparing Monday evening's dinner, I wanted to fix a really good meal (especially since the house was such a mess) and needed my special recipe for pork loin with cherry sauce (I need to post that some time...it's delicious).  Well, I started rummaging through my stack of loose recipes...you know what I mean. That pile or box of recipes you have that you've printed off the computer, ripped out of magazines, quickly copied off the cooking channel, jotted on an envelope at someone's house, torn off boxes and labels. Yeah, that pile. 
I couldn't find the recipe.  That led to me pulling out the entire stack and starting to sort and organize. All over my previously cleaned off island. I'm not finished yet. 

Mess #3

In needing more light to see to sort, I had to replace 3 burned out lightbulbs in the chandelier. For which I needed a stepladder. And, while I was up there, I might as well take down the crystal swag I had wrapped around it for Christmas. And while I had the stepladder out I might as well take down the swag from the china cabinet, which led to the wreath on the wall and the one on the door. Which is why the table is full of Christmas stuff that needs to go to the attic.


Mess #4.

Which leads me to the attic. I didn't even have the nerve to take pictures of it. I'll take the Christmas stuff from the table up with me when I go up into the attic tomorrow to clear a path so my husband can replace the exhaust fan in the bathroom ceiling so I can start painting the ceiling and....isn't this where I started?  Sigh......I think I need to go lay down.......I'm tired.