And How Clean Is Your House?

(If you read all of this very long babbling post...I will be impressed. And your bloggy friend forever!) :)

I'm not one to hide my life or be ashamed of anything or try to be something I'm not. It's an open book around here and I tend to tell it like it is. Most people don't want to hear that, but I do have a few friends that admire my being bold and honest.

So that takes me to our mess.

We've been here about seven years now, I guess. Remodelling took a back seat to three boys playing competition hockey, two girls dancing, five racing motocross....you get the idea.... that we paid for exclusively so there wasn't much left over. Like I said...remodelling took a back seat to raising eight kids.

Oh, and they were a messy eight kids. 'S' was famous for shoving everything under the bed. Emily put everything in dozens of different purses and bags. And I mean everything! 'A' put it all...dirty, clean or otherwise...in drawers, trunks and under the bed. Nick and Elijah just left it laying wherever they were....they didn't care enough to hide their mess. Of course, Olivia and Lucas were just babies so that puts their mess on me. 'C' was the only one who was actually clean. He just didn't keep anything therefore he had no mess. Homer is extremely unorganized and drops his stuff wherever he is standing. I am a container freak and love organization, but somehow the other nine people in our house wore me down to the point of not caring and I became as messy as them.

And not caring has been our life the last few years. It's a disaster. We are in a constant state of remodelling so things are shuffled from here to there a dozen times. Add to that a bunch of naturally messy people and it's a landfill. Plus, we've doubled the square footage from 1600 to 3200 sq. feet and I can't keep up. At. All.

That is about to change for good one square foot at a time. And if you read my blog you know I actually started this awhile ago. Several times, but never seemed to make it all the way through. I'm a lot more determined now.

I figured the only way to truly clean it up is to get rid of all the junk. Then box up our stuff so it doesn't slow down the building process. I will have to organize for the kids if I want them to keep it that way...it's just too much for them to take on from zero.

The other day I tackled this area which involved all the drawers and areas you can't see...under the desk and to the left/right. I re-potted the two plants and then cleaned. It was a several hour project, but it is done. And it stayed that way today as well. :) I'll have the boys move the wrestling mat (yes, we have a full-size wrestling mat; no, we don't have any wrestlers. We're just those people).

What I've discovered is it is things like this that impede the progress. You would not believe how long it took to cut the heads off the stems, store them and clean up. Mind you, I have to raise kids while doing all this. Oh, and those time consuming dogs! LOL

The jar on the left is full of strawflowers grown by me this summer. The jar on the right is flowers grown by my mother 20+ years ago. Cool, huh? (Oh, and I got my recycling together for Homer to drop off).

Some time (a lot) was also spent doing Senior photos. My son refused getting a photographer... he said if I wanted to waste several hundred dollars then I should just give it to him and he'd take his own photo. (My son actually hangs out with a group of kids who are anti-spending money. Seriously, his jeans are falling apart and he asked me to just sew up the holes...refuses to buy new pants).

So I took a whole bunch of photos of an extremely non-cooperative 17-year old (and his friend) and am now editing them. Another reason I live in a mess. Do you have any idea how long it takes to doctor up a crappy photo when you don't know your editing program and the book is literally two inches thick? Ya, a long time.

This is one of them and although he isn't smiling, this is Nick.
Oh, and the another thing to do...you know, besides take care of six people, 3 dogs, 30-some chickens and a sheep...is go watch basketball. Interior Youth Basketball started tonight with a 9:00 game (Ug!). It was fun to watch the boys. This is a lot like school-yard ball with some referring. They were having some fun doggin' each other and takin' it to the hoop. Elijah walked away with 16 points and Nick with 7. I'm not sure what I hit on the camera, but all my photos sucked. They were blurry, but here is one of both boys...first time playing together. Elijah in grey shorts and Nick in pink. I could watch ball all day long....

And I will. Guess what? They have a game tomorrow. Then next week they have five! Monday, Wednesday, Friday and two on Saturday night. Really. And ya'll wonder why my house is a mess! :)

Let's see if an new area improves and the first area maintains. (If I were a betting gal...and I am...I'd bet no. But you never can tell).