Baring my soul, and my house, to the reading world...

   I have a bit of a stress disorder.  I’ve never really learned to handle stress at all.  I get freaked out, overwhelmed, and then I shut down.  Once I shut down, it’s very hard for me to get back in the game.  I need to rant and rant, to sort out my head, but when it comes down to getting back in the game, no matter how settled my brain is, it’s just not happening. 

   A symptom of this issue is my home.  Well, actually, my home, my car, my work space… pretty much any area I can call “mine”.  Except my pumpkin patch.  I did a very good job keeping that lovely so far.  But for the sake of this story, we’ll simply focus on my home.  It’s a mess.  There are no two ways around it.  My house is a pig sty. 

   In my defense, it’s all clutter, however misplaced.  I live in complete clutter.  But when it hits the point of filth, I’m done.  I can’t handle filth.  As filthy as my house looks, I have extensive UV air and surface cleaning, and am often found moving my clutter around to get to the filth.  Problem is, even after I get to the filth, I find no place to put the clutter. 

   I have recently learned there is a whole population of people just like me.  One thing I have in common with them is the constant feeling of overwhelmed.  I have learned that when you walk into someone’s home and find the same kind of clutter I live in, they are likely perfectionists.  We get so obsessed with getting everything perfectly clean, that when we can’t reach perfection, we quit.  We hate ourselves for it, and the hate is so heavy that we decide living in the mess is much easier, so we shut down. 

   Often I think I get more out of Cub Scouts than my son does.  This time, we as a family joined the Scouts on a weekend camp out.  For the week before, I found myself so insanely stressed out from other issues, I gave in and shut down so badly, I find myself right now living in the dreaded filth.  Sure built up quickly.  I got to the point where even I, who has had several guests visit me in this mess, wouldn’t allow people not just inside my door, but even to the top of my driveway. 

   At this camp-out, I found myself admitting my hidden humiliation to a fellow Mom.  I learned very quickly that I was talking to the right person.  She too has handled the guilt of endless clutter.  She introduced me to a website I’d heard of before… www.flylady.net  I had visited it before, but never made much sense of it and gave up quickly.  This time, I get it.

   So I found the first step.  I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed all day long, and I have a beautifully clean kitchen sink.  But how do I hold myself accountable.  Well, dear reader, prepare to be appalled, because I’m letting you, and the rest of the blog accessing world, into my home.  It’s humiliating and terrifying.  I can’t bring myself to do a “tour of my home” video or anything like that, but as I set my sights on a new spot, I’ll take before and after pictures.  I am going to embarrass myself into not going back!  And hopefully I’ll do it and make it work, because I know many of my friends are living in very much the same way.  If I can find this program successful, and can help inspire them… and if I can reclaim my life, then it’s totally worth it.  I

   So, the theory of the sink is that it’s the central spot for cleaning.  Fly Lady says she doesn’t care if you have to pile your dirty dishes on the floor…. To which I answer, what if I don’t even have room on my floor?  But hey, if I want to make this work, I won’t argue, I’ll make it happen.  Then, the maintained shined sink is a pride point.  Something to look at, know you did and can take pride in, and eventually after making taking care of that one little thing habit, something you can build on.  Sadly, I didn’t get the brilliant idea of before and after pictures before I started the process, but I got bad enough “during” pictures to get the point across; they are pretty rough to the average person.

   I’m terrified to show.  Only a selected and trusted few have seen inside my house, because I am fully self aware to how abnormal it is.  I’m not quite to the point of “Hoarders”…. But it’s not far from. 

   Okay, so without further adieu, here is my sink… during and after.  I’m not proud of the before and during, but very proud of the after.  I even took toothpicks and tooth brushes, bleach, S.O.S. pads, Comet, and Windex too it.  And damnit!  I’m going to keep it clean if it kills us all!!!

I don't know why it won't let me rotate this shot.  This is the during.  I had already soaked the one side in bleach water, and cleared out most of the crap from the other side....

Looking down into the mess.  Again, most has been removed at this point...

Behind the sink sits all the not so clean "cleaning tools"...

All the drips of coffee and such around the edges....

The "Layer of Ooze" left under the pile in the sink.

Even the drain strainer doesn't have the ability to do its job!

BIIIIIG difference!!!

Freaking spotless!  I even got the plastic bits of the strainer degunked!

So much nicer.  And I have something, so small as it may be, to take a little pride in.  Still a very long way to go, but it feels good to get this far.