Bedroom Massacre of 2014

I think that I'm ready now to talk about this. My cleaning obsession. Some think me crazy and maybe others think it's okay that I live this way but either way here's my confession:

I, Anna, keep my house clutter free and decently clean 96% of the time.*

Now I wont claim that it's impeccable, not close actually. There are plenty of scary junk drawers (and cabinets...) and there is dust on the mantle and dirty base boards and who knows what's living behind the washer... oh and our bookshelves look like a library and office store threw up on them.

But other than that... 

I always put things away after I get home and all through the day. It's just become my second nature, I don't even mean to do it half of the time. And I have a weekly cleaning schedule that I actually love and keep up with pretty consistently for a couple years now. It's not even that I'm OCD, it's just that I really try to take good care of things that I love. And I love our house. (not that you don't love your house if you don't clean so much. hey we all have our different love languages.)

But then I have a toddler as a roommate. And of course sometimes she makes a mess or wants to go through every drawer in the kitchen or flood the sink or smash play doh into her white carpet. So I have little pep talks with myself and say, "Anna, this is fine because this is how life is. You can't always keep the house clean and you need to be able to let things go sometimes or you'll miss out on more important moments to have fun and let go." And you know what? This pep talk, though I may have to give it to myself, it works and I can usually relax and just let things happen. (and then clean it up later, naturally.)

So.

The other day my friend was going to come over but it was one of those days where I didn't feel like dealing with much, you know? I almost texted her to say, "Hey, I think we'll come to your house instead, I'm just not in the mood to deal with June's room today. I know I need to get over it but I'm don't feeling like it today." And I probably would have added a winky face, of course. But then I suppose I wasn't even up to the effort to text her that. So she came over with her 4 year old son and I figured, well, how bad could it be? They never get June's room too messy. And they always help clean up.

A good 30 minutes into our chat, Tanya got up from the couch to take a loud toy back to June's room and then I hear her GASP. Oh... No.... I ran from the living room. And then I saw it. And I GASPED. And then I walked away for a few minutes to think over the irony of the situation. Of all the days!

Every toy, every book, every item of bedding except the mattress was on June's floor, suffocating the carpet. I'll admit, I had an overwhelming, 100 foot wave of "how on earth will we ever clean this up?!" wash over me. But to keep my sanity I decided I needed to laugh (like a crazy person) and move on. So I told Tanya what I was planning to text her earlier and we both laughed about it. And you know what? Everything got put away somewhere and it wasn't the end of the world.

But it sure felt good to have it all cleaned up....

*I realized after posting this that I am still too concerned about what people think of me. As I was writing I had the mentality that people will think I'm crazy for being clean, they will judge me and say that I have no fun in life because I clean. I'm actually nervous that my friends who come over all the time think that I'm OCD or a lunatic or both. Which is funny because other people who don't have clean houses worry that they are being judged for different reasons. We are all so worried all the time. But then after re-reading this I got all scared that you all will think I'm bragging in this post. But it was quite the opposite. So that's all. Silly. All I really wanted to do was show you the death of June's room.