I'M CRABBY

I like order. I don't mind the messes that are created by a family living in their home, but we always tidy up mid-day and in the evening.

I've been royally crabby for two days. My tolerance for humanity is pretty much non-existent and short fuses are a thing of the past. I don't even have a fuse anymore. Why? Well, I started shampooing carpets on Friday night. I'm so thankful that I was able to do that, but it's taken a while for the carpets to get completely dry and the areas that have taken the longest are the places where furniture goes. Of course.

I'm typing this up on Tuesday night and I realized a couple hours ago that my house has looked like this for the last four days.

The laundry room has a mound of slipcovers on the floor. I haven't washed them because they need to air dry and it's been incredibly smoky here from forest fires the last few days and there's nowhere inside for them to dry. The sheet hanging in the doorway is probably dry now and I'll go take it down when I'm done with this post, but it's inside for the same reason.

This area, which we call the pit, has had the big boys' mattresses on it because their bedroom floor isn't dry. Teebs thinks their mattresses are trampolines.The rocking chair, which should be in the corner, migrates around the room, depending on where we need space at the moment. The big drawers on the right are infringing on the space of the laundry room door and can't go back under the train table until Teebs and Naomi's floor is dry.

This is a view of the kitchen from the pit. Stuff from Silas and Devon's room and their dresser are strewn all around our table in major walkway through our house.

My counters are overflowing with stuff that goes in bedrooms, things other people need to deal with, and a dinner mess.

We can open our front door about a foot before it bangs into our TV cabinet, which still can't go back on the carpet yet.

My living room is filled with laundry that's drying (I should have just tossed it in the dryer for the sake of my sanity, but am so used to air drying everything that I didn't think of it), a coffee table that still can't go on the carpet, furniture that's missing slipcovers and in random places to allow for damp spots in the carpet to dry, and boxes of books I had to go through,

The living room from the vantage point of the dresser in the previous picture shows all the books and the Uno game a particular little W tossed all over the small bit of clear floor space.

Oh. my. word.

Four days of a house that's torn apart with just a narrow path to get from room to room.

I'm done.

I know there are communities that have been wiped out by wildfires in the last two days, people who are being evacuated from their homes near other fires, friends facing hard medical issues and deaths in the family, and a gazillion other things that are far more tragic than my chaotic house. In the scheme of things, this is not a problem. We have a home. We have furniture. We have clothes. We have a friend who shared their carpet shampooer with us. We have a friend who gave us at least a thousand books to sell so that we could put money toward living expenses. We have kids who are healthy enough to jump and throw things.

That being said, I need my home in order. Pronto. I just don't handle extended chaos very well. At all. Just ask the other Ws.

My goal for tomorrow, which will be today when you read this, is to do a quick message check in the morning, then stay off the computer and not leave the house until furniture is where it belongs, slipcovers have been washed, and I've contacted someone about the books that are left from my sale.

If you don't see proof of life by dinner time, then it may be time to stage an intervention.