Organization (or lack thereof)

I am a professional organizer's dream (or nightmare).  I can't organize anything; my home, my office, my computer, my thoughts...it is all quite a disaster.  I called my mom close to tears the other day because I did not want to be at work, yet I didn't want to come home either.  I still have 12 cans of dog food sitting on the cutting board on my kitchen island because the spot it usually goes in is full of something else.  I'm not exactly sure what it is full of; I just know I can't put the dog food up until I clean off the shelf.  As a result, I can't use my cutting board.  Which in turn led to me getting out a plastic cutting board and melting it on the hot stove as I tried to cut up veggies. 

I then decided to give up on the kitchen and attempted to organize my computer.  Right now, it looks like this:

I can't find any files at all.  Nothing.  All of these folders are full of other folders.  And my email inbox is full so I can't send anything out. 

Anyone else out there stressed by my complete lack of organizational skills?  My heart is speeding up just writing about it.  It may just give out.  I wonder if I can do a WebMD search on this??? 

I even did a search on organizing and ran across this great blog http://www.orgjunkie.com/.  The author started a 52 week organizing challenge that I really wanted to be a part of...only she is in week 46.  I missed it all!  Too late to start now...

So I decided to organize my blog.  Baby steps.  Since this hasn't gotten too out of control I think I can get it in shape.  As a result I have given my posts these things called "labels".  One of these label thingies is "Bella".  There you can read my Bella articles (but only if you live out of the area.  All you locals can support local advertisers by picking up a copy). 

If I were an ambitious person I would follow the 52 weeks of organizing and do a photo blog (with a label!) chronicling all of it.  I don't think I am that ambitious.  I swept the kitchen today. I don't want to over do it.

Leggy Thingies

I am not a fan of bugs but generally I can handle them without shrieking like a 5 year old.  Unless they look like this:

Then I shriek like a 5 year old.  (Note:  Just doing a google image search for these bugs from the underworld made my stomach twist into knots.)

We had these bugs in the house I grew up in.  I called them "leggy thingies".  Uber-scientific naming, I know.  These bugs range is size from an inch up to about 3 feet long.  Ok, not really 3 feet but close enough.  I hate these bugs.  And with 7 million legs, they run faster than a cheetah.

Thankfully, they are also very easy to kill.  All you have to do is blow on one and half their legs fall off.  But they can still run on 3.5 million legs and the detached legs continue to move like possessed string puppets.  Even the wild animals (dog and cat) leave them alone. 

I love living in a townhome because my monthly dues go towards a regular exterminator.  I have lived here for almost three years and have not seen a leggy thingy.

Until tonight.  In the bathroom.

I have to move now.

I give up!

Last night I went to bed to the sound of Phoebe retching up grass onto the floor and this morning I woke up to Bailey's late night accident in the kitchen.  That was it.  The last straw.  I'm done with trying to keep this house straight.

You know the way Dexter covers an entire room with and all of its contents with clear plastic before he slices someone up to bits?  Well I'm gonna Dexter-ize my house.  I have decided to cover the interior of my home in plastic so that I can clean it up so well not even the police would be able to determine what I do in here.  I'm not doing this so I can cut people up in my spare time, but instead so I can keep my house clean.  It would catch all of the animal hair, animal accidents, and animal stomach contents.  All I would have to do to clean would be to hose it down!  If it got really bad, I could tear it down and start fresh!

Granted, the furniture would be very uncomfortable on hot days but otherwise I see no flaws in this plan.

I used to be a domestic goddess

I love to cook.  I collect all kinds of cookbooks and enjoy reading them as if they are novels.  I also used to cook all the time and for the most part, everything turned out quite yummy.  I felt such a sense of accomplishment when people would ask me for my recipes.

Then something extraordinary happened...I completely forgot how to cook.  I can't fix a thing.  Any time I want to boil an egg I have to look it up.  I started a small grease fire while burning up some bacon the other day.  I attempted a grilled cheese sandwich and turned it into a blackened grilled cheese (three ingredients:  cheese, bread, and butter and I still managed it render it inedible!).  I was having a guy friend over and decided to make baked spaghetti.  My spaghetti was so hard I thought we would have to make emergency trips to the dentist.  Tonight I was making brownies to give to a friend who recently lost her mother.  I was supposed to make a full meal but I have lost all confidence and figured I could handle adding some water to a mix in order to create some brownies.  I mixed everything together, put the dish in the oven and waited the required 45 minutes.  I even remembered to do the clean toothpick test to make sure they were done.  I let them cool, frosted them, and then decided to try one before giving them away.  Goo.  I managed to make brownie goo.  The edges are done.  But how would it look to give someone just brownie edges?  Hi, here are your brownies I slaved over but you only get the outside of them because I don't care enough to give you all of the brownies.   

It's a wonder I don't starve to death (quick...hide the McDonald's bag!).  I'm glad nobody depends on me for nourishment...Bailey and Phoebe's food comes premade in bags and cans.  That is pretty difficult to screw up.  I might have to reduce myself to eating cereal for the rest of my life (although I'm sure if there is a way to screw up Rice Chex and milk, I'll figure it out!).

Junk

I seem to be on just about every mailing list out there.  My mailbox is filled with useless information on a daily basis.  I get magazines, catalogs, credit card offers, books the size of novels full of numbers I don't understand (from my 401b provider), and letters from Publishers Clearing House telling me that I "could be a winner" if I subscribe to more magazines.  I also get fliers from the guy who did my mortgage loan (I haven't been here that long...so no, I am not selling yet), every new Chinese restaurant within a 10 mile radius, and advertisements offering me more student loans (as if I needed to owe more).  I decided to teach all these mailbox cloggers a lesson by not accepting their mail.  I decided to follow Nancy Reagan's advice to just say NO.  I rifle through it and take what I need, putting the rest back in the box.  Take that you junk mailing tree killers!

Fast forward to the end of the week.  My mailbox is overflowing, my mailman has probably crammed in some hate mail (but I wouldn't know it), and I can't mail anything until I empty the box.

Junk mail:  1                  Kristin: 0

Typical.