If I was pregnant (which I am not), I would be expecting to go into labor any minute now. This morning I went to get something from the bedroom and couldn’t find it, and well, I sort of lost my mind. I don’t know if other people do this, but the bedroom is the one door that can easily be kept closed when someone is visiting. Hayley’s can’t because she’s always in and out. The bathroom needs to be accessible for obvious reasons. The living room, kitchen, and dining area are all open rooms. George’s music room could theoretically be closed to hide a mess but if the person coming over is here for the purpose of recording or wants to hang out in there, that door is open too.

So when someone is coming over and there’s a mess of whatever on the floor of the living room, no problem! Stick it in a laundry basket and stash it in the bedroom! I’m in the middle of folding laundry? Dump that in there too. Pile of books and papers? Ditto! Also, if something needs to be taken away from one of the kids because they’re fighting over it, throwing it, breaking it, whatever, the bedroom is the best place since they aren’t normally playing in there. On top of that, it’s not a room we spend much time in while awake, so we don’t really see much of it.

As a result, without regular upkeep? Total warehouse. If you put a grenade in the middle of the warehouse first and detonated it.

When I couldn’t find what I was looking for – and I can’t even remember what it was because it was about 14 hours ago – I snapped and decided enough was enough. I started cleaning and tossing and folding and after awhile it was better. A little more effort involving dusting and wiping and it was even better than that. I want that bedroom to be in a state where I can keep the damn door open when people are over without worrying about it. Right now it’s there.

Once I got done in there I was tired yet strangely hyper so I just started doing other things. I had a load of laundry to start so I cleaned the bathroom, cleaning everything but the tub (and I would have but I need more baking soda). When I came out, I tackled the dining room (our deep freezer is a magnet for piles and doodads), the living room, and Hayley’s room. Breanna was really good throughout my entire whirlwind. Sometimes she would follow me around, chatting to me. Other times she would draw at the little table in the living room, and sometimes she would take some toys and play with them (on occasion she pulled out the basket of animals and chased me with them, making dinosaurs roar at me or gorillas screech at me). The nice thing is that she helped clean up everything each time she was done. Having a kid with OCD rocks.

I washed and folded two loads of laundry, washed a third which is still drying, made supper, cleaned up afterwards, swept the floor three times today, prepared George’s lunch and Hayley’s snacks (she’s getting a hot lunch tomorrow so that’s all she needs), did a bit of work, and managed to squeeze in some must-see CSI and Grey’s Anatomy.

It’s like I’m nesting but without the pregnancy. Which works just fine for me, thanks!

(Now someone has to tell me I’m not the only one who does the bedroom-turned-storage-and-disaster thing so I don’t feel like a big slob. Also, that will help distract me so I’m not that person who goes around shrieking, “I JUST CLEANED THAT UP!!!” at everyone. Not that I did that today. Nope.)