Secrets Revealed

Shhh….I have a secret! Before I divulge my secret, let me start by saying that I love organization! I could literally organize people’s homes for a living. When I walk into my closet or open a cabinet I am usually thinking about how I can reorganize it to make it more functional. It is possible that I secretly reorganize other people’s things in my mind as well—perhaps. Add my organizational addiction to my husband’s motto, “every thing has a place, every place has a thing”, and my kids have no hope of being normal.  Just last week I was in CVS Pharmacy with my little miss sassy-pants.  I was searching for just the right cold remedy when I looked up to make sure she was still next to me. I found her just a few feet away from me reorganizing the TV character beanie babies and sorting them by TV show—that’s my girl!

Ok, so here is my confession.  With a family of five I do not always have time to do the mundane organizational tasks. My desk is constantly ignored and neglected when it comes to organization. I said I like to organize, NOT file.  For some reason filing makes me crazy and I find myself avoiding it like the plague. This struggle of mine does not make my husband a happy man. As a matter of fact, I am pretty sure it drives him stark raving crazy. His undiagnosed OCD cannot handle this level of chaos. We just had a conversation about this today and he told me I just needed to discipline myself and have a filing day like I have a laundry day.  I explained to him that like laundry, once I finish filing, there is just more to be done—everyday! The difference in laundry and filing is that no one in my family is running around naked because I have not filed.

As I have shared before in previous posts, my desk is right inside my front door.  The first impression people have of my house is my office, and front and center in my office is my desk and all of its glory. I want to keep it clean and neat and organized, really I do, if only that didn’t require filing! My husband has recently found a solution to my lack of organization, and his solution is driving me crazy—like right now, I’m crazy as I sit here and type to all of you lovelies.  Let me illustrate this thorn in my side:

The first picture is the view of my desk from the door.  The second picture is the view of my desktop from where I sit.  It all looks so nice, tidy, clean and organized.  This desk however is hiding a big disgusting secret…and here it is:

This is what it looks like under my desk.  GASP!!!  I have no words for the horror that lives at my feet under my desk. Hi, my name is Stacy, and I hide instead of file.

This horrible display began about a month ago.  We where having people over and the top of my desk was messy.  Well, honestly, my desktop wasn’t too bad, but my inbox, which is a basket, was piled high and overflowing. My husband, in an effort to help clean up, tucked the inbox under my desk to conceal my mess. Well, now that it was out-of-sight, out-of-mind, it just stayed there. Now it has grown to an obnoxious mess that gives me heart palpations and the sweats. It is making my time at my desk miserable, so I just take my laptop into other rooms. When the mess becomes too much, avoidance is simply the only way.

Anyone who has been to my house and happened to see inside of any of my cabinets knows how I like to have things just so.  I have “Sleeping with the Enemy” tendencies, if you know what I mean. Now that I have put this dirty little secret out there, I have no choice but to spend a day (or a week) filing and organizing this mountainous mess. Pray for me friends. If you don’t hear from me after a few days, send in reinforcements!