A Confession- of Sorts

This made me laugh out loud, but a friend once asked me how I had everything together, how I "looked perfect, cooked all the time, and had a clean house."  Um, wow.  It helped that I was reading her email while standing in an incredibly messy kitchen in my pjs- at 2pm.  And, it cracked me up bc that's rarely how I think of myself- or my house, for that matter.  Especially not my house- it's embarrassing, but it's never in order!  I feel that my biggest problem is letting things build up by not dealing w/them immediately, so that I end up w/a huge unmanageable mess that takes forever to fix.

So, after insanely cleaning/organizing my house last week to host a women's Bible study/book club, I thought I'd take before-and-after pictures, just to show some true photographic evidence of how "neat" I really am!  (Also, Ezra already saw these- well, he "sees" them all the time bc he lives here- and seemed just as shocked as I was!  Things look so much worse in a picture than in person!)

Just look at this!  The middle shelf, in particular, gets me bc none of the things on it are things I normally keep there- they've just been stashed for the moment.  Ugh...

Wow, could the top of this fridge get any more packed??  And, could we even fit any more pictures on the front of it?

Yes, yes...this is where the cooking "magic" happens...

Sadly, even if the rest of the room was picture-perfect, this table typically wouldn't be- we need an organized system for mail, among other things:

I have no words for this one- well, I have one defense, at least.  There should be blinds on this window, to hide all the junk from the mudroom on the other side- stuff like the life jackets, for instance!  (Oh, and that's Eve's bike helmet hanging on the door- Ezra stuck it there, I'm guessing as a joke the other day, and neither one of us thought of actually putting it in a proper place):

And, that's just one room!  But, this was the one room that (for obvious reasons!) was the biggest issue for me- I mean, everyone was coming over for lunch, they were going to be spending most of their time in this mess!

But, the rest of the house was just as chaotic.  I present the mantle in our living room:

And, the stairs.  There are a few things to explain in this- the clothes are clean, they'd been drying on the kitchen chairs, so they're just stashed here for me to take the next time I went upstairs.  Still, it's a mess:

So, I got to work, and things radically changed- over the course of a solid ten-hour cleaning/organizing day!

New table linens, thanks to a quick trip to Bed, Bath & Beyond:

Whew!  Whirlwind day!  It makes me sad that it takes a big event to make me get organized, so I've been trying to keep this neatness up.  I've been fairly successful, and things look generally pretty good around here.  Ugh, just wish I was inherently neat, and not...a huge mess!  ;)

[On a side note: we were talking about this issue at Easter- my mom and other family members- and it seems like the "neat" gene is skipping generations!  My mom is crazy-neat, and is always running around cleaning stuff.  I went against this, and now have a huge mess on my hands.  Eve, however, is even worse than my mom, and always tells me that our house is messy...is this normal for a 3-yr old to notice?  She also cleans, sweeps, and gets super-excited when she sees me cleaning- she also always tells my mom that her (insanely neat) house is messy...I think I've created a monster!]

Ah, so cathartic!  Just remember that it's soooo easy to make things look nice and sweet in a picture, bc you can't see what's lurking just at the picture's edge!