A Place for All

The dreaded first day back to school/work from an extended holiday is always rough.  Especially when you only have one day between said holiday and the first day back to reality.  Especially if you are me and you have the overwhelming obsession need to have everything in order before life starts again.  AND especially if you are a little blue due to the fact that you had to leave these faces behind.

Yeah...rough, I know.

So we get home about an hour late on Saturday night and I find the following:

1.  Christmas presents that weren't taken with us all over the coffee table and floor.

2.  Assorted boxes in a pile (that I must break down and save for next year...cause that's the kind of crazy that I am).

3.  Piles of used wrapping paper in garbage bags with other boxes that must be put in the recycle bin. 

4.  A full, but thankfully, clean dishwasher.

5.  Wrapping essentials still out.

6.  An un-made bed.

7.  Clean laundry and towels in baskets left over from the loads we did before we packed.

8.   Dog hair everywhere. 

Now I realize that all those things are very normal things to find in your house when you return from a Christmas vacation, but all those things drive me crazy in and of themselves, but to have them greet me first thing after having to leave this:

...made my crazy seem a little worse.

Thankfully I have Rich...the man who can very easily, with one touch or kind word, talk me down from the ledges and he quickly got me feeling that everything will be OK....eventually.

Now I don't know about you but I feel the unstoppable urge to unpack and go through all the mail as soon as I get home.  I mean as SOON as I get home...as in shut the door, unpack, read mail.  Now Rich was wise to this, I think, because he sneakily stopped the mail while we were gone not to have it delivered until Monday, so the mail thing was not an issue.  But the unpacking was still on the agenda.

I have totally given up on Andrew (my 15 year old son) and the packing/unpacking thing.  He is on his own.  His door can be shut, and I can put my fingers in my ears and pretend it doesn't exist. 

Rich knows me all too well and either unpacks too or just doesn't leave anything out so that I can see it is unpacked.

So that leaves me, Bella, and all the gifts to unpack.  Piles were made, things were sorted and organized, and items were delivered to their respective rooms to be put away.  I don't remember hitting the pillow that night.

Sunday was the day to get everything done before Monday morning rolled around.  We made a grocery list, grocery shopped, paid bills, balanced the checkbook, did laundry (not sure how we still had laundry when I did it at Mom's before we left), cleaned bathrooms, vacuumed, mopped, took down Christmas, and organized closets and drawers.

You see my own kind of crazy involves everything in my house having a place and it being put into its place more often than it is not in its place.  So when you get new things ie Christmas gifts, they must be put into a place.  This means, sometimes, getting rid of things.  So Bella's clothes got a purging to make room for the new stuff, art bins were sorted to be able to assimilate the new stuff, and my kitchen cabinets had to be re-organized to accommodate my new FOOD PROCESSOR!!!

Yes Rich, my loving husband, got me a new food processor.  I love it so much I want to date it on a serious basis.

I must note that I love getting kitchen stuff for gifts.  I know most wives hate it, but not me...gizmos, gadgets, appliances...bring them on.  Now mind you I also get a few romantic things and Victoria Secret bags filled with wonderful things too, but nothing beats silicone tongs, dutch ovens, new knives, and food processors...nothing I tell you.

So Monday and Tuesday were get back to work, school, exercising, and are a total blurr.

So here it is Wednesday and I actually had time last night to go buy a lottery ticket, dream about what we would do with $355 million, and sit on my couch and watch The Biggest Loser.  

Things are back to normal, in their places,...and in perspective.

More Later

- A Ro