Disorganized Me

Submitted by Jen...

I am a disorganized person by nature.  Just ask my mom...oh, no, wait, you don't have to as she is probably the only reader we have at this point.  Hi Mom!  Anyway, growing up my room at home was what can only be described as a disaster area.  In fact, there were times when my family had to look twice to see if I really was sleeping under all that mess on my bed.
Much to my chagrin, this trait did not magically disappear when I got married.  As much as I had hoped to become the perfect housekeeper overnight, that really did not just happen.  In the early days of our marriage, this became a source of some discord in our household.  In fact, there was a time, when Clayton simply resigned himself to pushing the mess over the imaginary line that demarcated my side of the bedroom.  Every year at tax time, there would be a day (usually April 29th) in which I would madly tear apart the house looking for all the tax forms that I had neglected to put in a safe place all the while fighting back the extreme frustration that this activity caused me.
My keys were another source of frustration for me, as they were what you could call 'chronically lost'.  I cannot tell you how many hours of my life have been spent searching for my keys.  Sometimes, we would come home from an outing and Clayton would stand patiently beside me while I dug around my purse full of who-knows-what searching until he would take my purse, simply reach down inside and hand me my keys.  How he ever managed to do that, I still have no idea.
Dishes.  Enough said.  I think there were actually a number of years where we simply washed the one knife that we needed to make a sandwich.  One time, my sister-in-law came over to visit while I was out and Clayton offered to watch her kids if she would just do our dishes.  She took him up on the offer.  I am still not over it.
It wasn't until I finally accepted the fact that I am disorganized by nature, that anything really began to change.  I think it's Dr. Phil that always says, "You cannot change what you don't acknowledge."  I began to make a conscious effort to take control of my mess.  My tax forms now have a home, in a file, that I open for them the day after I file my previous tax return.  I really, really try to always put my keys in the same place when I get home, so that when I go to leave again the search is minimal.  We have a dishwasher now and the dishes get done almost on a daily basis.  Things in my house have places, and files, and bins that they live in.  My laundry gets folded and actually put in drawers!  Toys get put away at the end of the day.  It's wonderful!
Now I have a new problem.  Now when I cannot find something, it drives me absolutely crazy!!!!  Now if I can't find my keys it no longer annoys the snot out of Clayton...it annoys the snot out of me!  If my kids lose a toy, I actually feel a sense of mourning.  One time while out on a long walk, my daughter ditched a beloved toy out of the stroller somewhere along the way and we did not discover it until we reached home. I got in the car and drove the entire route searching for it to no avail.  To this day, I cannot let it go!  I don't think she ever noticed it was missing...
I still think I would rather live this way.  Now I spend my time trying to get my kids out the door, but that's a whole other post..
Jen