The Ugly Truth

So if you have been paying any attention at all you have noticed that I am a little (okay, a lot) OCD about cleaning and organizing. You know I like things where they go and if they don't have a place we must not need them. You might not know (but I'm sure it won't surprise you) that things left on the counter for more than 15 minutes usually end up in the garbage. Clutter and messes stress me out and the only time I can relax is when it is all put away.

I am about to let you in on a deep dark secret. Yesterday I was finally able to relax. We have lived in this house for ten months now. And before that I lived in my mother-in-law's basement for a year and a half. And before that my house was being packed and there were boxes in the corners. So it is safe to say that April 2008 was the last time that everything was put away in suitable fashion. I know I had all of you fooled. To an outsider, it would appear that everything is where it should be. But few people have had the opportunity to venture into my storage room. It is upstairs, in the corner of the house off the playroom. The door is always closed. When we designed the house, there was no attic or crawl space or basement so I knew I would have to have someplace to store things. You know, Christmas things, tubs of things from our childhoods, the kinds of things you are supposed to put in an attic or crawl space or basement. So we added a storage room to the plans. I thought it was a perfect solution. But then the tubs were stacked on top of each other and in front of each other and all of the things that I wanted to get to were always in the back on the bottom, no matter how arranged it. And so to get to anything I had to move everything. And more stuff just kept ending up that room and before I knew it my storage room looked like Monica's closet. I can't believe I just showed you that. I guess the first step is admitting you have a problem. Well even though it was way upstairs and the door was always shut I always knew it was there. And even though the rest of the house has been neatly organized since 48 hours after we received our occupancy permit, this room has been haunting me. We have looked at shelves and thought about building some of our own but the cost was always so high and we (well Robbie) could always think of something more pressing that the money could be used for. So no shelves for me and my nightmare continued.

Sure I could pretend that it wasn't there but deep in my heart I knew the ugly truth. It was really starting to eat at me. I couldn't find anything that would work for us. Until my stroke of genius...CRAIGSLIST!! The third thing I clicked on Sunday evening looked perfect. I handed the phone to Robbie and he called and arranged to go see it the next morning. By noon on Monday I had received a text that said "got em" and I can't remember the last time I was so giddy. I tried to concentrate at work but all I could think about was the evening of organizing that lay ahead of me. After swimming lessons, with the kids in bed I FINALLY got to begin. In just a few hours the disaster that was my storage room turned into this...

Now, I can relax. I can sleep easily at night and I can find pretty much anything I own in under 5 minutes. That, my friends, is true happiness.