Hoarding

Do you watch Hoarders???

You can actually watch episodes online.

Yikes.

Here's the thing.

We've been having sickness in our house the last few weeks. The puking and "my bottom threw up" kind.

And it has me thinking about messiness.

1. Several years ago Sweet was mad one night when I made him put his transformer tub away. It was sitting on the floor by his bed. In the night he threw up right where the tub had been. He still refers to it... "remember that time I threw up right where my toys had been" and how we have to pick up things so that doesn't happen.

2. I'm just now getting all the carpets and bed skirts and bedding cleaned up from the latest round of yakking. (Tuff managed to mess up THREE beds in one night. Sweet missed the bucket and nailed the carpet. And Bugsy had a separate spit up incident that required removing the slipcover from the couch and, oh what the hell, while we are doing that lets take all the coverings off the couch cushions and wash them all.... the couch looks great but it took 2 days to get it all apart and back together again. Oh and side note: The cat likes to "nurse" the tan fuzzy blanket on the couch so I'm washing it several times a week...ew.) And I have had the washer going pretty steady.... now image that scenario in a hoarder home. Ew. (And then be thankful for not living 100 years ago... when I would be down at the creek banging the bedding on a rock to clean it....)

3. Also.... I'm so thankful for my frontloading washer and the foresight to buy more laundry detergent at Costco last week.

4. And (much as I complain about how cluttered it is) thank goodness our house is clean and picked up so no one tripped on a toy in the dark and crashed down the stairs or broke a toe rushing to get a kid over the sink or to a bucket.

5. Can you imagine what our bathroom would look (and smell) like if we weren't cleaning the toilets multiple times per week right now? Nothing says "I love you" like a clean bowl and someone to hold your hair. I've actually been using Dr. Bronner's peppermint to clean it.... a nice minty bowl and safe for the dog to drink from..... But I can sympathize with some of those compulsive hoarder homes..... it doesn't take long for a toilet to get really nasty with illness, right?

6. I think I have some hoarding tendencies. Seriously. Sometimes things can sit in a pile for so long I just start seeing them as part of the landscape. Or I clean every room and just pile it all in the laundry room.

7. I love how our beds look when they are all clean and fluffed. So things are looking really great in spite of the illness. And no one has thrown up on any Christmas presents. Who-hoo.