For The Love Of An Imaginary Friend
Monday, May 31, 2010 at 5:17PM (Attention Readers: I am receiving reports that not everyone can comment here. This is QUITE distressing to me becaue I heart comments.
I lve for them actually.
If you are having such plroblems please email me: m2min@neb.rr.com and let me know. Any info about error messages or copying and pasting the URLs to such messages would be even more helpful. Thank you!)
Christina, my blog friend, has had a tough year.
I think we've all been there. One of those periods of life where the kids and the house and the activities and the yada, yada, yada just become too much. Those are the times where it's the little things that add up and then multiply and life threatens to overwhelm.
It happens.
Fortunately Christina has real life friends who pitched in to help her out this week. They turned up at her door with mops and buckets. They left their judgements behind and brought only smiles and elbow grease.
I was touched and tearful and oh so glad for her.
Also?
I was inspired.
Because, I too have a messy house.
The difference is that it doesn't bother me. Because I know I could have a cleaner house if I wanted to but I can always find things I would rather do than clean.
Always.
After I saw Christina's house though, I decided that I wanted my house to look better too and I thought maybe I could make her feel better about her mess if I took pictures of the mess in my house.
Pictures I was going to e-mail to her.
Because I did not want to post them for everyone to see - just Christina.
But then Lumberjack's Wife went and had the same idea but she DID post her pictures of her messy kitchen.
She's kind of a show off like that. :)
And so the bar has been set. The glove thrown down.
It is ON, people!
I now have no choice but to show you my bedroom. I chose the bedroom because in this room the mess is all my fault. Yes, Rich shares it with me but I am responsible for the mess.
Not that he isn't messy, he just chooses other rooms for it.
That pile of clothes in the left, foreground does in fact fall under the category of "clean". Our washer and dryer are in the master bath so our room suffers the laundry overflow.
Yes, the covers are pulled up on the bed but that's only because I can't sleep unless the sheets are smooth.
There beside the door lies most of my shoe wardrobe. I have a shoe tree in my closet but it's mostly empty. It's so much more convenient to just dig through the pile than to walk an extra 10 feet to the closet.
Here you have the dusty fan which is pointed at Rich's side of the bed because he can't sleep without it or he spontaneously combusts. In the corner under the window is the quilt which I used to have on the bed but now I don't know where to put it because I'd have to clean out the linen closet to fit it in there and that won't happen in this decade. Also, you're seeing more laundry. Could be clean, could be dirty. Who knows? Also, I believe that plastic bag is what Faith's recital costume came in. It's been lying on the floor there for a good while.
This poorly lit shot is of my side of the bed. That's the electric blanket that the cats and I fight over. I just leave it there on the floor because I'm never sure when I'll need it.
Except that I haven't really needed it for several weeks so maybe it's time to put it away now.
And we're back around to the dresser. With all the drawers hanging open because their contents were not properly put away.
I don't know why the bathroom cleaner or shaving cream are up there but I will defend the presence of the sock pile. We fold laundry on our bed so the stray socks have to go somewhere.
"Somewhere" is on top of our dresser.
So I took some time this weekend and cleaned the whole mess up. I was not looking forward to it, the task seemed formidable.
Do you know what? It probably only took little over an hour. That includes dusting every inch of wood, and cleaning under the bed and dresser. Getting through all the laundry plus the accumulation I do every Saturday took a lot longer but that's a separate task.
So chin up Christina.
There are others of us out in blog land with messy, messy houses. There are others who are afraid to start the task because it seems like too much.
There are others who would rather chat with their "imaginary" friends than clean. :)
Love to you!
And just so you know - the kids' rooms are even worse!
and 
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Reader Comments (22)
You are a brave women!! Good job though. Isn't it amazing how long we will put off tasks that really wouldn't take too long? :)
Marla @ www.asthefarmturns.wordpress.com
You are a brave soul. Our bedroom could rival yours sans the electric blanket for a dog bed. Winter clothes thrown over a trunk to be put away until next winter... just haven't made it there yet... Pictures? ....maybe..... later..... much.... later.
Gone for the last couple days & didn't get your message about the dog and now I see it has a home. Good thing! I might have been tempted or at least tempted to give it to someone I know! LOL!
Yes, lets ride sometime. I haven't been to Pioneer Park in ages! Ball games kind of fill the schedule the next couple of weeks but end of month looks good. Perhaps some weekday evening? Lets keep in touch via FB & make it happen.
At first I thought those were pictures of our bedroom haha! I'm very relieved to know that I am not the only one that has a messy bedroom and I will confess it is mostly my fault.
Way to go, ladies! My blog photos from my redone bedroom are soooo outdated...we cleaned the rest of the house and all the 'stuff to go through' ended up in there...again. So it looks like, twenty times worse than yours. We'll get it done!
Thanks for the inspiration, transparency and vulnerability. We women need to stop hiding and start bringing our shortcomings into the light, because only then can they be truly fixed!!
I was over at a friends house today and her house was spic and span! I also have another friend who's house is like that all the time as well, but they're just neat freaks. You saw my bed... I was afraid to even show that!! But the truth is, is that most people have houses like that. It's just keepin' it real and it's good to put it out there because then everybody else feels a little better that their house looks like that, too. And sometimes it's really not that big of a deal!
Mindee, I so love you. I love that your bedroom looked like that and you posted it for the world. My bedroom has days like that for sure. I try to keep it picked up because my husband is a complete neat freak. It must be the Soldier in him.
My closet is a complete mess, I have shoes all over the floor. The dust is ridiculous. I could take pics but I'd just use the excuse that we're moving in a few weeks and I refuse to put things away.
I have to make my bed no matter how bad the rest of the room is. I too, must have smooth sheets to get into at night. Besides, even when the room is a mess, the whole thing looks better if the bed is made. How's that for rationalization?!!
Okay, No.1? I love your bedroom furniture! Love it.
No. 2: Thanks for making me feel NORMAL!!! YAY!!
Ok, I can't talk anymore, I have to go load the dishwasher. ;-D
Jules
You comfort me so. I feel so much better about the state of boxes in our house. Especially when I consider the fact that there are boxes everywhere because they belong in the attic, which has no floor on which to put boxes. Thank you for making me realize that magazine covers are a lie.
You are a true friend. I have to tell you, my friends and I do the same thing. When one of us is in tears because our house is a disaster, then the other 2 take pictures of various rooms in our house and send them over to the sad one. It just make us feel better.
Show-off?! Well, that's uncalled for. :) I think everyone's houses look messy from time to time and people who say theirs is clean all the time are fibbers.
Squarespace test comment
I should totally show you my house...my office and upstairs is the worse. Oh my office is upstairs. Can someone come over and help me clean mine?
OH wow, I just read Christina's blog and now I feel even more horribly because well my home is even messier, like ten times worse. I mean, I have plenty of time to clean, but choose to do other things like leave comments.
Mindee, I left a comment last night...it was number 3! Now it is gone. Well. I said thanks for the solidarity. :) I can't remember what else. haha My house is straightened, but my head is still cluttered. :)
I'm glad you took the time to clean it up, that it didn't take that long, and that you are inspiring others! I think you are great!
thank you, i feel better now. except i have a social worker coming to my messy house in 3 and 1/2 hours. and i am sorry to say that i'm not going to show up to your house with mops and such to clean like christina's friends did. but if you had kept the puppy, i would have shown up with our green machine for all the spots you would have had on your carpet.
Another way that we are soul sisters. Not just the poodle but the messy rooms. We actually have an extra empty bedroom and we stack our clean clothes there :-P I'd post about the mess, but my mom would have a panic attack hop on a plane and come clean.
Oh. Thank. God. Now I have physical proof that I am not the only one to shift "cleaning the bedroom" to the back burner. And the poor hubby sits amongst the dirty clothing, water glasses, wet towels, discarded shoes and clean laundry all day long as he earns the family paycheck. Funny observation, though. He never feels compelled to clean it up.
Love this post! :)
Mindy
www.thesuburbanlife.com
Yep. My house is incredibly messy and I struggle with balancing work and life and...cleaning. Thank you for your honesty and letting the rest of us know that we are not alone. That there are others who aren't afraid of a little clutter.
I have had no trouble commenting.
My house is quite messy right now too. I've been working very random shifts and been working on some online projects with my brother in my free time and the housecleaning started to slip. I did go through all my clothing drawers this afternoon though as some people were coming to pick up unused clothing for charity tomorrow morning... Hopefully I can get more done tomorrow.
Good for you! I'd post photos of my dirtiness, but have been far too lazy to take photos of it.
Isn't it weird how deadly sins pile up like that?
And I can't believe you didn't post after shots - I wanna see!