What a Mess

I do not claim to be the most organized person. Far from it – although I do know where everything is. Dave is the same way and since we live in a small house, with very little storage and way too much “stuff” it gets cluttered quickly., no matter how hard I try to stay on top of it. I have been working hard this year, part of a resolution I made, to get rid of things. Whether I throw it away or give it away or file it away, I am trying…slowly….to get to it all. It is not dirty, just cluttered.

Sadly, Drew has inherited this “clutter gene” from us. Unfortunately it has gotten out of control for him. We tried the “its his room – let it be” route for awhile and just keep his door shut, but once it began creeping into other rooms, I had to stop it. Taking away privileges didn’t work. The mess doesn’t seem to bother him but it is overwhelming me so I bit the bullet and set out to work on his room yesterday. I know he’s old enough to do it himself but I just couldn’t wait for him to do it anymore.

First task, laundry. I am embarrassed to say we even let it get to this point. He leaves his folded laundry pile in the hall and just pulls from there for his clothing rotation. There was so much clothing on the floor of his room, I had no idea what was clean or dirty so I grabbed a few laundry baskets and got started. FIVE large loads of laundry later, we have this.

In those pile are FORTY-SIX tee-shirts!. Who knew he even had 46 tee shirts!! 13 sweatshirts, 17 pairs of boxer shorts 19 odd socks, pajama pants, long sleeve tees, shorts, long pants….Some of it doesn’t even fit him anymore. Those are going immediately into the give away pile. He has more dresser space than any of us but instead of clothing in those drawers, I found baseballs and hockey pucks.I couldn’t even count the number of baseballs, broken baseball bats and hockey sticks. His closet is so full of jerseys, there is barely enough room for his ONE dress shirt and blazer.

These piles don’t even show the thirteen towels. I had no idea I even had more than 13 towels!

Also found in his room, and I am horrified to admit this since I really try to enforce the “no eating upstairs rule” I found, a jar of peanut butter  –  in his bed, a can of reddi-whip under the bed, half empty bags of potato chips and pretzels, my missing salt shaker and so many empty water and soda bottles, I filled our recycling bin.

There were over 40 pens, pencils, sharpies and markers. Three pairs of scissors, seven screwdrivers, a hammer and a ruler.

I don’t write this to embarrass him. In fact, I thought a lot before posting it. He won’t read it, but I needed to write it as a reminder to myself just in case his room starts to get out of control again. His room is nowhere near done yet. I gave him the incentive that when we are able to do it, his room can be the first we repaint if he leaves it neat. I don’t know if he can or will do it but I can dream….

Tagged: clean your room, clutter, laundry, messy, teens and messy room, too much stuff, unorganized