MAMACADABRA

It’s a bright and sunny Saturday morning and I’m looking around my kitchen wondering when, exactly, I allowed things to get THIS bad.  The dishwasher has been run, but nobody has bothered to unload it, resulting in piles of dirty dishes in and around the sink.  There are empty cereal boxes lined up, I assume, so I can cut out the Box Tops for Education labels…because I’m the only one who can what…use a scissors?  Break down the boxes for recycling?  Throw away the empty bag inside the boxes that once held cereal?  Speaking of recycling there is a bag of recycling on a stool waiting to be taken out on our “next trip” out of the house.  It’s been there for three days and we have, in fact, left the house several times in those three days.

The clincher, though, is the kitchen table.  Our puppy has a best friend that lives next door.  He comes over to our back deck door and barks for Sullivan to come out to play.  They wrestle, run around, investigate, bark at each other, bark at passersby, lay down to rest, and then start over.  When they are out, and I’m working or writing, I bring my laptop up to the kitchen table so I can check on the dogs from time to time.

I’m sitting at my kitchen table and surrounding my laptop are:

• One black little girls flat.
• One gold little girls flat.
• One pink little girls slipper.
• The Nancy Drew book we’re currently reading.
• Large bag of colored pencils.
• A pair of my husband’s dirty socks.
• An empty napkin holder on its side.
• An art project brought home by my littlest little girl.
• A pad of paper with my work notes scribbled on it.
• Three place mats (one was a casualty of yesterday’s juice fiasco).
• One black marker.
• Work documents of my husband’s.
• A partially competed drawing.

My kitchen table isn’t even big!  How, or better question, WHY is there so much sh-t sitting on it?!!  And does anybody else find it a teensy bit disconcerting that there are two shoes, a slipper, and dirty socks on the table at which we EAT OUR MEALS?  Anyone???

If I told you about the kitchen counter you’d have a nervous breakdown, which I’m on the verge of, but I’m trying to hold it together.  Here’s the deal.  We do not have the little girls this weekend so we should be able to get everything organized, and cleaned, and put away, but as I’ve mentioned ambition runs strong in this household.  While I drank wine last night to keep myself sane (Lord knows staying at home wouldn’t have done anything for my sanity), my husband was in school.  He’s in school this morning.  And then, have I mentioned (?), he has a small business on the side that he’s owned since he was 18 years old.  He has a trade show this weekend meaning that after he bolts from school today we will be frantically preparing for tomorrow’s event.  Any time otherwise used for sanity-saving-house-organization will instead be spent on trade-show-preparation-in-hopes-of-finding-new-clients.  Ugh.

Our dog is even looking at me with disgust.  Yeah…YOU’RE one to talk Sullivan…I believe that pile of firewood on our back deck is YOUR doing.  It looks like the frigging Blair Witch Project out there.

I take issue with a disastrous house for many reasons.  A for one, if it’s disastrous as it is now, I feel totally out of sorts and stressed.  B for two, it tends to be disastrous in ways it doesn’t have to, because some people refuse to put dishes in the dishwasher, unload the dishwasher, hang-up their coats, put away their shoes, and so on, and so on, and so on.  C for three, we don’t have the square footage to allow for unusable space…and as far as I’m concerned this kitchen is NOT USABLE, nor is the living room (blankets, card tables, nail polish bin…I admit that’s mine, boxes of trade show flyers).  And in a house this tiny the kitchen and living room are virtually our only options.  D for four, it’s FREEZING outside which relegates our home time to INSIDE this war zone of a house.  And finally, E for five, I believe our home is supposed to feel safe, and cozy, and comfortable, and lovely…you know…as opposed to chaotic, and dirty, and cluttered, and filled to the brim with crap people haven’t put away.

I believe I mentioned yesterday my need to be at the top of my game?  Yeah, well this house is slowly but surely making me postal.

So on a day I technically could have slept in, I’ve been up since 6:30 trying to slowly get this house back in order.  I’d rather be sleepy because I had a late night and an early morning than be CRAZY because the house is so awful.  For me, sleepy is less dangerous than crazy.

My question is this…is this REALLY going to be my gig from now on?  Husband in school, swamped at work, busy with small business.  Little girls here half the time so while they are willing and eager to do chores it only happens every other weekend.  So I have to take this on to be sure that this house IS in fact a home and I AM in fact sane?  No seriously…REALLY?  

Chalk this up to a question for which I did NOT want the answer.

TODAY:  What if in order to satisfy my need for order in my household I actually have to step-up and make it orderly myself?  What if, due to the ambition and hard work of my husband (which I truly adore) I have to add the house to the list of things I need to take care of?

Wait, wait, wait…WHAT IF I escape to Paris and live alone in a glorious apartment with a cleaning lady???

PS – I first visited McDonald’s for Diet Coke this morning at 7:24am and I can guarantee I will be back there no less than four times today.  If I can’t have Paris you bet your a-s I’m going to consume Diet Coke today like it’s oxygen.