TRGX4!: The Spring Cleaning Edition, or "The Airing of the Dirty Laundry"

I took a quiz this week and found out what I already know:

You Are Very Messy

You are a slob, and you really don't care if other people know it.
You don't love messes, but you just can't be bothered to clean on a regular basis.
While being messy and disorganized feels easy, it's probably making your life harder.
Maybe it's time for you to get a maid.

Are You Messy?

Well, heck, it didn't tell my anything I didn't already know!

Lol..anyway. I'm hesitant to do this. But I figure, what the heck, we're all family huh? lol

No, these are NOT photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. No, these are NOT photos of the aftermath of a tornado. These are NOT crime scene photos of a ransacked home. These are photos of what happened to my house between Christmas and Spring Break when I have had NO time and NO help around the place. And these ARE photos of what I had to face this week for my Spring Break. lol. I really let things go sometimes. BUT - I am glad to have times like Spring Break to CATCH UP on all this mess. GEEZZZZZ!!!!!!!

*Disclaimer: Don't feel sorry for me and don't judge me by these photos lol. I'm not the greatest housekeeper in the world, but we usually have it better than this. I'm just having fun with myself here, and only showing it cuz I know only family is seeing it. And I guess I'm just comfortable enough in the world that I'm not afraid to show the bad stuff too lol. ANyway, none of it is really as bad as it looks on here lol. I just thought this would be a FUN way to make light of my recent situation and having NO TIME to do ANYTHING!!!!

Anyway, now that all my apologies are out of the way.....

First, a few photos of my laundry room and my wonderful organization skills and storage arrangements.These are the before photos, then I did a major overhaul to be shown at the end.

In photo 1, notice how I have meticulously designed a walking trail from the door to the dryer area. Walk straight in until you reach the fallen over lawn chairs, then move to the right til you bump into the laundry basket, then move 1 step forward to reach the dryer. The fallen over lawn chairs make an easy step up to reach into the washer for clothing.

Notice the clear plastic tub I use to put laundry detergent in. And the empty detergent box, well I just use that as a "garbage can" for the dryer lint. Impeccable planning skills if you ask me. Also visible in photo 1 are my Christmas decorations (boxes to the right), dog food ( lower left), and ironing board I use once a year and space heater that is never used.

MOving on to photo 2. CAn you tell we are game fanatics? Or, actually, we USED to be game fanatics. We have played in board games in a hundred years, but we've got loads of them should we ever need them I tell ya! And some of them we even have TWO of just in case we need TWO. Notice the vintage 1964 shelving - totally antique. Can't forget to mention the jigsaw puzzles, which I am considering donating to the lakehouse - Mom? Whaddya say? ANy room in those new kitchen cabinets?

Photo 3 - Underneath the vintage 1964 shelving is fantastic organization skills at their finest. All masterminded by myself you can plainly see my Halloween decor, numerous camping gear items, the before mentioned ironing board and space heater, a tile saw, and gosh knows what else. My decorating and storage styles were inspired by Sanford & Son.

In photo #4 you can see the stacks of Christmas decorations I mentioned earlier. This one I am proudest of. lol.

IN photo 5, my laundry room light fixture which I HATE with a passion. No civilized home in 2007 should have a single bulb, uncovered fixture in it in any room of the house. UNACCEPTABLE.

Last but not least, the terrific paint job done by the people who owned the place before us:

Gotta love it. At least some of that mess can be blamed on bad decorating and shelving before we bought the house. The following messes I have no excuses for other than I've been too busy living to clean up or to make anybody else clean up. This is my kitchen in the state that it was in the day we began Spring Break:

Next is my beloved living room which somehow has gotten turned into a laundry folding room. Notice the highly expensive laundry folding "tables". Only the BEST for our laundry I say.

Next is the DEN, aka "Rusty's Room". In my defense, I have not been allowed to touch anything in this room for the last 2 weeks. Rusty had an amplifier go out on him and he's taken it totally apart and is trying to replace parts and fix it and whatever else he's doing. It's really just best that I not go in there because if something goes missing he'll automatically blame me if I have straightened up. So I guess this room stays "as is" until the amp gets fixed:

Moving down the hallway.....we have Tanner's room. Don't even know WHAT to say about this one. But anyway, this is how it looked when Spring Break began:

I was going to post a before picture of my own bedroom too. However, I never got around to cleaning mine so I don't have an "after" picture - so just leaving that one off lol. Tyler's room was actually the best looking room, but when he realized I took a picture of it he made my PROMISE I would not put it on the internet. So rather than scar him for life by embarassing him and showing his room, I'll just leave it off also. My bathroom was in immaculate shape because I had just cleaned it from top to bottom the Wednesday before Spring Break. So I didn't worry with a picture there.

I took a little inventory outside the house to see what work the winter left for us out there. Gotta clean all the leaves out of our drainage ditch:

Found a limb hanging on our cable wire - got that off myself:

But my clover bed is sprouting rather nicely this year. I'm being sarcastic there. This is actually the very spot that I WANT TO PLANT BUSHES and I still have not figured out what I want or how to do it and all that stuff. So for now I still have an empty flower bed - full of wild clover.

Initial photos were taken Saturday March 10. Follow up photos were taken Wednesday March 21.
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AFTER SHOTS:

I single handedly redid my entire laundry room. Actually, Rusty put up the new shelves :). But I ripped out the old shelves and painted the whole room and cleaned it up. That took most of my week really. I also replaced the dryer vent hose by myself, which I am very proud of. Notice how I CAN be organized when I really try. I'm not a TOTAL slob lol. Anyway, I'm very proud of my hard work in the laundry room. Our initial efforts to unclog the stopped up washer drain pipe failed. We had just decided that we were going to have to call in the "big guns" (Papaw Pat and Papaw Tommy) when, all of a sudden, the thing fixed itself. I just started doing laundry and on about the 3rd load it quit leaking out in the floor. Crossing my fingers that it stays fixed. Anyway, on with the pics.....

I even have a few extra shelves to spare, with nothing to go on them. Bet that doesn't last long though.

Christmas decorations are much more organized:

And so are the games. We still have too many games, but at least I sorted through them some:

Camping equipment is in much better arrangement as well. And the path through the door to the washer and dryer is much better laid out lol.

Now, for the rest of the house. I cleaned the kitchen pretty decent and took a picture as fast as I could because I knew it would not stay straightened up - and it didn't. I got the laundry done and put away from the living room. And we got Tanner's room cleaned up pretty decent too. Rusty's den is still in the same condition as above, possibly even worse. The amp is still not fixed and is in pieces all over the floor. I am not allowed to clean the room any until he is finished, which could be this summer at this rate lol. I never made it to my room, and Tyler did not do much in his either. But oh well, I still feel like I accomplished some things over Spring Break.