Is That A Chandelier On Your Ceiling Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

 

I’ve been a cleaning, organizing, decorating, Pinteresting Fool.

This is SO unlike me!

For some reason, cleaning out my linen closet a couple of months ago ended up lighting a fire under me. Honestly, the only reason I started there was because every time we opened the door, something would fall out. If I asked Shane to go get something out of that closet, he would look at me like I was making him walk the plank, and I’m pretty sure he’d leave “farewell” posts on his Instagram “just in case”.

Once I saw how nice and neat everything can be and how there can be “a place for everything and everything in its place” I kind of got stoked, because if I’m being 100% honest, I haven’t been living that way in a long time.

I feel like I need to take a moment, for my parents’ sake, to point out that I was NOT raised to be a slob and that growing up, our house was pretty spotless and tidy. My Dad was especially anal and if you went out into his storage room in the garage, you would find everything perfectly organized right down to different sized screws and bolts separated into their own little lined up containers.

I’m not going to lie. I rebelled when I went to college (in many ways). I became a slob because there was nobody telling me to pick up my crap, and let’s face it, when you’re in college, you have MUCH better things to do than fold your laundry and mop the floor.

I think I hit my low point when, after a night of heavy partying that didn’t end until 4 a.m., I woke up at 8 a.m. to work a shift at the bookstore before my classes, and could not locate anything clean to wear. My then boyfriend was snoring happily in bed, so I grabbed his clean shirt off the back of a chair, brushed my teeth, and went to work smelling vaguely of tequila shots and Downy Fabric Softener.

Obviously, I matured somewhat when I transitioned to my twenties and apartment life as a new teacher. Something about having a “real” job makes you realize that perpetually wrinkled clothes straight out the laundry basket and leaving a bag of potatoes to rot in your pantry while you go on Sprink Break is just not going to cut it.

And let me tell you…that smell is horrendous!

As a single woman, I kept a fairly tidy house. On any given day, you’d probably find magazines on the couch and water glasses everywhere, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t take about fifteen minutes to straighten up if I knew somebody was coming over. I carried this sensibility through the first years of my marriage until we had a baby.

Then it all just went to shit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming Shane. But I’m sure any parent, and specifically any nursing mother, can relate to the fact that the LAST thing you want to do when you’ve only had two hours of sleep at a time for three weeks, is scrub a floor.

Or dust.

Or vacuum.

Or wash a sinkful of dishes.

Or fold all those baby clothes, socks and blankets that are just going to get puked on or pooped on again in five minutes.

When I went back to work ten weeks later, it got worse.

And if I’m being perfectly honest, it has only gotten worse in the last fifteen years. Couple that with the fact that The Husband Dude and Mini-Me are hoarders “collectors”, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Actually, things were not bad when THD got laid off (twice in 8 months) and he was a stay-at-home-Dad for a while. He took care of a lot of the chores that I didn’t feel like doing after getting yelled at on the phone all day at work. When Mom got sick and I didn’t have time to do anything except spend long days/nights in the E.R. and hospital and helping her at her apartment, THD held down the fort and kept it from completely falling apart.

But then Mom passed away and we moved a large chunk of her stuff into our house and then THD finally got a good, full-time job again and I got depressed, for a variety of reasons, and the house got neglected.

In a way, it didn’t matter because nobody ever came over except the kids. But our method of cleaning when the kids would come was “stash and dash”, shoving things into drawers and closets and piling them on our bed and closing the bedroom door.

Trust me, there’s nothing more depressing than a long day of cooking, entertaining, cleaning up the dishes and pots/pans, only to open your bedroom door and be faced with a pile of crap on your bed. Can any of you relate?

I found that as long as our main living space – the living room and kitchen/dining area – was fairly straight, I could ignore the rest of it. But I don’t think I really ignored it. I just lived in a constant state of stress and believed that was “just life”.

In my case, “just life” will make you 120 lbs overweight.

Once I had my weight loss surgery and started losing weight, I found myself looking at other areas of my life. Slowly, over these last two years, I’ve cleaned out my emotional thoughts, I’ve learned to let go of stuff, and I’ve even cleaned out the people I allow into my life.

I’ve learned how to say no.

The last remaining “need to do” has been my living space. The match to the kindling was a closed bottle of rubbing alcohol falling on my toe.

That linen closet got decimated. Several garbage bags later, I felt as good as I did when I lost that first clothing size. I felt lighter, I felt healthier. I felt like I could accomplish something.

For several days after that, I would actually go open the closet just to look at it. I felt PEACEFUL when I saw it.

Yes, I know. That’s REALLY weird.

It really all snowballed from there. Since then, I’ve cleaned out my bathroom vanity, the kitchen junk drawer, the pantry, the spice cabinet, the medicine cabinet, the buffet under my china hutch, underneath our bed and THD’s side of the room where “collections” had accumulated.

I already have plans for the kitchen cabinets, the shelves in the living room, the coat closet and more. I’m also beginning to see that I’m ready for a fresh coat of paint on everything.

And I’m finally going to decorate my walls. I’m so embarrassed to admit this. I have a few pictures on the walls downstairs in the living room and our bedroom. But the kitchen, stairway and upstairs hallway have been bare for the ten years we’ve lived in this house. I have framed artwork and family photos and my mother’s collection of crosses that have been packed away all this time.

Of course, as I’m cleaning things out and thinking about paint colors, I’m also thinking about décor and things like light fixtures and drapes and even the throw pillows on the sofa.

We’ve been needing a ceiling fan in our living room. In this climate, even with central AC, ceiling fans are still needed to circulate the cool air, and our living room gets really hot.

I finally found one online that goes with some of the darker fixtures in the house, but also has my love of bling on it:

The conversation went something like this:

Me: Look! A ceiling fan with bling!!!

THD: Ummm. No. No way.

Me: What’s wrong with it?

THD: Just no. No.

Me: You don’t get to say no.

THD: What do you mean?

Me: You made a legally binding verbal agreement to let me decorate the house however I chose.

THD (looking at me like I’ve lost my mind): When did I do that?

Me: You mean besides the time you said “I do” at our weddings?

THD: Yes, besides that.

Me: August 13, 2010 at 3:44 p.m.

THD: You’re making that up.

So I whipped out my phone, pulled up Facebook, and voila!

Yes, that’s right. I made it public because I didn’t know when or where, but I KNEW I would need to refer back to this date, and I was right.

But who am I kidding? I repost this every year on August 13 and tag him in it just to be annoying.

Know what else I do that’s annoying?

I send him pictures like this and tell him I just ordered it:

Is that a chandelier on your ceiling, or are you just happy to see me?

Also, I like how they described it as “unusual crystal chandelier”.

I wonder if it looks like this when it arrives on your doorstep?

Just kidding. That’s a vacuum cleaner all wrapped up for Christmas.

Y’all are smutty.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring.