I have a little obsession with reality TV. I admit that. Perhaps they were having a Hoarders mini marathon on, Sunday night.  I LOVE watching that show.  I think it is appeasing to my inner OCD, and justifies my obsession with throwing things away. I know that my friend, Kim, will understand my need to throw things away.  It is very hard to live in my house sometimes, especially with all of the little toys lying around.

After the first episode, Angry Kid came and sat down with me. He wanted to see what I was watching.  I told him the title, Hoarders.  He did not understand, but he say it with his own eyes…that was enough.  It was really sad though when they started showing children’s rooms.

I explained to Angry Kid that these people keep a lot of stuff, and don’t clean up. I told him that never put things in the trash, give them to charity, or put things away.  Angry Kid instantly looked at the floor in the living room.  I saw that there were Legos, and other small toys all over.  He immediately started picking up his toys and placing them in boxes nearby.

Angry Kid then said, “I don’t want bugs in my room.”  One of the children on the show had bugs in his bed.  I think that completely freaked Angry Kid out. So every time his mess gets a little out of hand, I might have to remind him about watching Hoarders.

This is what the living room/family room table looked like after he picked up his mess.  I’m pretty impressed.  He did it all by himself.

P.S. I’m pretty excited. There’s a Hoarder’s Marathon on Memorial Day.  I’m working that day, but totally setting the DVR.

I’ve always been on top of my organizing and cleaning.  I admit that I pay someone to clean my house, but otherwise I’m pretty organized.  We live in a small house so every bit of space counts. We have cabinets, drawers, shelves, and containers throughout the interior of the house.  But, our garage, well, lately it seems to be somewhat of a catch-all.

Angry Husband is always working on some kind of project (Angry Kid’s room), and I tend to dump my bags of stuff on the floor of the garage.  I always have some bag with me, full of junk.  I’m notorious for having clothes, books, and toys throughout the garage in these bags.  I usually sort through them once a week or so.

But I’ve never seen our garage this bad lately, especially the laundry area.  I’m quite OCD over our laundry.  It started a long time ago, as I mostly hang dry my clothing. Then, we had Angry Kid.  I used to sell most of Angry Kid’s clothing on e-bay and other forums.  I had to spot check everything, and also hung dry most of his stuff. It started to look like a Chinese laundry in there, with junk hanging everywhere.  Luckily, I finally got a rolling rack, so it has toned down a little.

I’m presenting my unedited/uncleaned version of my garage laundry area. Can you see the chaos? There is no organization to all of this. It is a mess.  I wish we had an interior laundry area.  I’m constantly cleaning dust and debris off of everything. This is what happens when you have a husband who’s always using some kind of power tool in the garage.

This is how I sort my laundry before washing it.  I collect all of the laundry in baskets and dump it on the ground.  We have a ton of laundry. You would think that a family of three, wouldn’t have this much laundry, right? Well, Angry Husband and I both wear uniforms, and we have an almost five year old boy, enough said!

I take this pile and sort it be colors, etc.  It works for me, at the moment.  I really need to find a better way to organize this mess.

This is what the top of the washing machine currently looks like. Notice the cars, shells, and other random stuff.  ALL of this has come from Angry Kid’s pockets.  This kid is amazing.  I always find these “treasures” in his pockets. The water bottles are mine.  They are for my running fuel belt, completely discarded here on the washer. Obviously, it’s been awhile since I’ve used them.

This is how the top of my dryer looks right now. I’ve somewhat organized stuff in a plastic basket.  It contains dryer sheets, miscellaneous stain products, baby wipes, and other random stuff.  I use Tide Cold Water Liquid, and whatever-is-on-sale fabric softener.  I also have a jar on top for collecting my prize. Because if you leave money in your pants, throw it in the laundry basket, it becomes my prize.

So, you are probably wondering why I’m showing off my hot mess of a laundry area, right? You know there’s a reason for this? Well, today I’m leaving to fly to Scottsdale, Arizona.  I’m meeting up with some other great bloggers for a special event. Bosch is hosting us for a Blogger Retreat called “Hamper to Hangers”.  We are going to learn some tips on how to simplify our laundry time, so we can have more time to spend with our family.  I’m all about time management.  We are also having a special treat, because organizational experts from The Container Store will also be interacting with us. We will be visiting Bosch’s Flagship Brand Gallery.

I’m quite excited to learn more about Bosch’s products, and better ways to use my “laundry time”. I can’t wait to share everything.  Oh, and I will be taking photos, that’s priority number one for me.

I typically go by this theory of things..”I have to make a big giant mess to clean anything”.  I pick one room at a time and trash it.  I dump everything out, I purge, and then I put it back. This is how I function. Angry Husband does not think like this.  He hits every room, here and there. This drives me crazy, because he likes to shove things in places, and then I can’t find anything later when I need it.

We are in the process of re-decorating Angry Kid’s room.  We pulled everything out of his room. Angry Husband really had no plan for this staging.  He just randomly grabbed stuff and put it in spaces throughout our house.  There was no rhyme or reason to where something went.  I had a hard time finding anything this week.  I got so frustrated, I went around and took some pictures of Angry Husband’s staging. I was also taking photos of Angry Kid’s room throughout the process. Stay tuned for most of those next week.

The first photo is of the Master Bedroom. Do you see the furniture. I could barely get through the door.  Angry Kid’s TV was on the bed.  I could barely get in the room, to even use the bathroom.  There is no way that I’m going to Angry Kid’s bathroom.  Have you ever seen what a four year old boy does to a toilet? It’s not pretty.

Next, we move on to the home office.  This is mostly Angry Husband’s office, as I sit at the kitchen table.  My Macbook is not good enough for the office. Angry Husband’s PC is set up in there, along with a table for Angry Kid to draw on, etc.  He took all of the toys from Angry Kid’s closet and put them in the office.

I probably should have organized this stuff before we started the room makeover.  Angry Husband has been on vacation all week to do this project. I should have prepped my way.  But it’s really hard when I worked the entire weekend before this started.  The garage was the last place that Angry Husband hit up. You can see the randomness here and there.  Angry Kid’s dresser made it to the garage.  I literally had to pick clothes out from here.  After we put his room back together, I actually went out to the garage to get clothes, because I was soo used to going out there.  Doesn’t everything keep their clothes in their garage?

So what have I learned from all of this? Organize while the husband isn’t home.  No matter what, we will argue over EVERYTHING during any home project.  I’m always right. This is MY BLOG! And, don’t leave stuff out in the garage that Angry Kid can see. There were things that we were going to toss, and Angry Kid found them.

P.S. I’ve polled my friends. They also believe in this mess making cleaning strategy too. Can someone tell my husband this.