Chaos in Preston

We are having the inside of our house painted, and we're down to the last couple of rooms--the laundry room and the pantry. I have an old house with a wonderful walk-in pantry. There are three 8-foot shelves on either side of the rectangular pantry that provide loads of storage space. I had to empty my lovely pantry yesterday so that it could be painted, and I am still recovering.

Being the organizer that I am, I was so excited that I would finally have the opportunity to weed out what had accumulated in the pantry over the last 12 years. I am a little bit of a neat-nick. I am not compulsive, but I definitely cannot stand clutter or piles of stuff. With the passing of my father-in-law and both of my husband's grandmothers over those years, we have inherited so much stuff. My husband's sentimentality and inability to throw/give things away doesn't help.

The pantry was finished late yesterday and the laundry room is on schedule for today. Our laundry room has two cabinets, one very large, with lots of stuff stored in them. We don't have a garage, so tools and paint supplies and all kinds of garage-y junk have found their way into the laundry room and now have to come out.

I worked at the bakery Wednesday night, so I was going on two hours of sleep yesterday. Last night, I put away as much as I could in the pantry, but the laundry room contents had to come out. Pardon my description here, but I cannot think of another way to put this...

My downstairs looks like a garage threw up.


My organizational, cleanliness, ADD nerves are shot! Thank goodness for Strattera or I might be found curled up in a tight little ball in a corner covering my eyes, holding a note that says, 'tell me when it's over.'

The good news...the finished pantry looks great.


One more day...and a weekend of cleaning. I can do it...I can do it...I can do it...