New year, new house....wait what?

This is what I wanted my first blog post of 2014 to be about:

Organize My House

Believe me I had grand visions. I imagined my first blog post would be photos of the areas of my house that needed the most help. The ones I would focus on. Raw, unedited, untidied up for the camera, photos of the parts of my house that are the biggest clutter destinations. The following weeks would bring more photos of my progress and clever witticisms about the thoughtful, creative ways I would tame the clutter beast and get my house in shape. This people, is not that post.

I live a real life. With real children that make real mess. After walking my entry way and laundry area I was so overwhelmed at the scope of the project I seriously wanted to cry. So I tell you honestly I said f*(&k it. Yep. I actually said those words. In my head people I have small children. (No mom, no matter what Ryder says he really didn't hear that word from me. I swear)

A week (or three) went by and I found myself thinking more and more about the dysfunctional areas of my house. Not only where they aesthetically horrific, they were actually causing me a good deal of strife and irritation. I really thought about how much time I spent cleaning up those areas that I could have back if only they functioned better. I resolved to do something about it. OK so maybe this is that post, but I promise you it's no where near as magnificent as it was in my head.

Let's start here shall we? This is the first thing that people see when they come into my house. There is nothing under the baskets on the bottom, so the won't slide in and out. So basically they don't work and are just taking up space. The foil on top of the dresser, which looked SO cool when I first did it, has been picked at by tiny fingers and now looks a hot mess.

This is the "junk box" on top of the table. Eric and I are supposed to be able to through our keys and his wallet in there when we come home. But as you can see, everything else in the world ends up in it. A random light bulb, a nail file (which I don't even use so I have NO idea where it came from), a pencil, an old drawer pull.....you get the idea.
The top of the table also seems to be a clutter magnet. Instructions to the game the neighbor girl brought over three weeks ago, a random pack of batteries, those awesome throw up bags the labor and delivery nurse at Kaiser Sunnyside gave me. Those are supposed to go in my car. Yes, I know they were in my purse, which was in my car, and that I brought  them inside. Baby steps here.

Ugh. Here are the insides of the drawers. Hey at least my Scentsy stash is nice and organized. Don't worry it's not in alphabetical order or anything crazy. The drawer on the right is an absolute cluster. I am not even sure what all that crap is or where it came from. You also get a better picture of the clutter that gathers on top. Oh and the dog. Say hi Ein.

Remember those baskets we talked about earlier? Well see they are supposed to hold flip flops. My kids are flip flop fiends and rather than have them all over the house I designated the two baskets at the bottom of the table to hold them. Problem is the baskets are non functional, so we have this ugly flip flop basket.

Here is the other side of our entry way. See how I tried to make it all pretty with the cute hooks and the wreath. This actually isn't that bad. We have a one coat, one bag, one pair of shoes rule....that gets ignored every freaking day.
I had originally envisioned this having some sort of bench for the kids to sit and take off their shoes and put their shoes in, but that didn't work out space wise. Right now they literally walk in, sit down in the middle of the floor and take their shoes off. Let me tell you how awesome that is when I have an armload of stuff from the car. I'll need to fix that, I just have no idea how.
This area also gets insane when our five zillion neighbor kids come over. They also sit down in the middle of the floor and take their shoes off when they come to my house. Which is awesome, except that in a very short amount of time I have an enormous pile of kid shoes to be tripped over. I am not really sure how to solve this.....

This is my laundry nightmare. There is only one tiny, baby shelf and it's so tall I have to stand on my tip toes to put anything on it. The top of the dryer is constantly collecting stuff that really needs to go out to the garage but didn't quite make it. That box there? It's full of random electrical cords, chargers and I don't know what else that I just cleaned out of my desk. I don't know what most of them are, but God knows if I throw them out I will suddenly need one. So there they languish. In cord purgatory, cluttering my laundry room Ahem, laundry closet, actually. Because it's a closet next to the downstairs bath. There used to be accordian doors over the entrance, but within a month of moving in the boys ran into them and broke them. I had intended to hang some sort of curtain awesomeness, but never got around to it.

That's all I can handle sharing right now. I am going to be straight with you. Taking those photos, and making the list of things that need to be fixed/reorganized, and typing it all out here seriously stressed me out. There is more to share on the first floor. SO much more. But those two areas are all I can emotionally handle right now.
Don't worry, I'll share more later, but for now I am going to make a giant bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup, curl up into a fetal position on the couch, and watch NCIS reruns.

This is it people!

I have a confession to make. I fail at Christmas cards. 

I didn't used to suck!! I used to send them out every year with loving heartfelt messages and carefully selected photos. Over the last few years I kinda fell off the wagon. The evidence?

2011 - I run out of stamps halfway through mailing cards and ask my husband to mail the rest from work. I would write him a check for postage. I should mention I had double pneumonia and was incapable of taking myself to the store to get more stamps. Sometime in April I borrow his car and find the cards I gave him sitting in a pile in the back seat......

2012 - I order cards. They sit in the box they came in under my desk until I finally end up recycling them sometime in June. Shameful I know.

2013 - This year....well, this year I didn't even order them. 

I really do feel awful! I have received many many beautiful cards in the mail from friends and family and each one of them makes me feel super guilty. (Especially the ones from certain ridiculously talented invitation designer I know. Her cards are works of art from the envelope in, every year and I am insanely jealous.) One of my amazing neighbors came over with a plate of cookies she and her triplet girls baked and decorated together, and a beautiful card. As touched and as thankful as I am to receive each of these cards, I allow each one to twist the sharp dagger of guilt just a little more.

But then again......... This year I went to three Christmas parties at school. This year I baked three dozen sugar cookies complete with icing for a Girl Scout party. This year I put together 12 gingerbread houses. Not because we needed 12, but because I screwed up the first batch of royal icing so badly that it ruined the first 6 houses and mom and I had to make a 6 PM the night before the party run to Target to buy six more. And then assemble them. Good times people. This year I threw 3 birthday parties between November and December mostly stress free. I loved on my kids and  kept my house clean. I spent time with my husband. I laughed with my sisters over piles of wrapping paper and "a 40's Christmas" on XM radio.

I think I will cut myself some slack this year and send out this blog post instead. Maybe next year what I really need to do is hire that invitation designer .......

Merry Christmas!

From our family to yours, wishing you all the best for this holiday season and the new year to come.

Melissa, Eric, Daden, Tessa, Ryder, and good old No Name

Yep, baby wishes you a Merry Christmas too!

Thus far a success, though barely......

Today is a grayish and gloomy Monday morning. As I type these words I am proud to announce that my dishes are done!

No but really as I begin the third month of my "apparel diet" I admit with a smidgen of pride that I haven't broken my diet. That being said it has been MUCH harder then I expected, and even at times a little depressing. At every turn I am confronted with things that I would like to add to my wardrobe.

Shopping for everyday household items has become a full scale assault on my willpower. This is probably because we do SO much of our shopping at Target, but hey, stuff is cheap there. As I stand there, possible apparel purchase in hand, a sea of thoughts and emotions crash over me. The first thought is always "is it really cheating, who would know?". Followed immediately by a wave of guilt and shame that is always successful in making me put the item back. I walk away and the thoughts continue to swirl in my brain, a tangled knot like so much yarn after a kitten. I pick up a thread and try to examine it.

"Why can't you put your family first? Is having pretty things so much more important then keeping your family on budget?"

Of course not.

"Then why is your wardrobe so important?"

I want to look nice! I don't want anyone thinking I am a slob.

"So that is the answer, your vanity and pride come before the needs of your family"

NO! That's not what I said! It's not wrong for me to want to look presentable!

"Your current wardrobe is more then sufficient to accomplish that goal."

I know it is.....but.....

"But what?"

I don't know.

And that's as far as I ever get in unraveling my obsession with clothes. Phaw, maybe I need therapy. I mean who feels this way about clothes and shoes, coats and scarves. Have you ever seen confessions of a shopaholic? You know the opening scene when she is talking about how she feels about stores and shopping? Yep that's me, that's exactly how I feel. Thank the good Lord I have enough restraint not to go THAT nuts :P

I have to say that when I started this I had no idea how deeply this would affect me. I really started this thinking" eh, one year I can do it no sweat!"Maybe I was in denial of how much my clothes really meant to me. BTW I did watch all the Spring 2011 ready to wear shows on Style.com I couldn't help myself. I did stop reading Vogue and Nylon, that just makes me want to buy stuff.

At the end of the day I don't feel liberated, I just feel sad. I miss new things. I am jealous of my friends and family when they go shopping. Even before my diet I didn't need to buy anything, just the act of shopping with friends made me happy. Maybe a better choice for me would have been to reexamine how and why I shop, as opposed to going cold turkey. But given the thoughts and emotions my diet has brought out, maybe this was what I needed after all......