Birth of a (Procrasti)Nation

Someone seems to have set off a clutter bomb in my house.

I'm hiding.

From responsibility.

But if y'all could see this place, you wouldn't blame me. It's like somebody took the normal clutter-and-laundry buildup of my house and put it on steroids and then hit fast-forward and was like, "Haha Rita! Take that!" There are places in here where I literally can't even see the floor. The kitchen counters? Covered. The laundry room? Overflowing. Even the deck out back needs to be cleaned. Which is why I'm posted up in my bed with my laptop right now, because it's one of the least filthy areas in this joint. Although the following is a list of stuff I can actually see from where I'm sitting:

- A crushed Pepsi box
- A flattened box from an ice cream maker
- A toy dump truck
- An empty tea pitcher
- A pile of dirty laundry
- A heaping basket of clean-but-unfolded laundry
- One of my couch pillows
- A scattered stack of letter flashcards
- A flip-flop
- A dog-chewed phone charger
- A talking/singing stuffed toy that inexplicably yelled, "Awesooome!" in the middle of the night, scaring the bejesus out of me

Now take that bunch of random crap and multiply it by like a gazillion and you've got a pretty good idea of what the rest of my house looks like. And since it was back to work for Curtis today, guess who gets to take care of it all? I can hardly contain my excitement! *gag* I'm trying hard not to think about the fact that right before it was trashed, it was scrubbed-bleached-vacuumed-steam-cleaned-polished-straightened-and-sanitized, via hours of grueling preparation by yours truly.

The house doesn't look like this because I spent Independence Day weekend sitting around neglecting my domestic duties. It looks like this because I've had company for a week solid. A total of fifteen people to feed, entertain, and keep in clean towels - with an aftermath that rivals a ransacking by vandals. But it was really fun to spend all this time with family and friends, and I wouldn't trade the events of the past week for anything.*

*Unless it was, you know, like free maidservice for a year, or a date with Johnny Depp or something. 

Unfortunately, the mess isn't the only aftermath I've got to deal with. My kids are an even bigger mess from a week of basically running amok. They've had more sugar, more junk, less structure, fewer rules, later bedtimes. It's pretty much like when they stay at Grandma's house, and Grandma is all, "Sure, honey! You go right ahead and eat this cake and candy for breakfast and play in the mud in your good shoes and don't worry about brushing your teeth before bed because you'll just fall asleep on the couch watching TV at midnight anyway." You know what I mean? And then when you get them back they're, like, different children? Like they completely forgot that they normally have rules? And you have to harshly re-acquaint them with said guidelines?

Yeah. It's like that.

So now the (monumental) task of restoring order to absolute chaos lies before me. And I'll tackle it head-on.

... Just as soon as I can bring myself to come out of my bedroom. Ugh.