Its a disease, I'm mostly sure..

Not being able to pick up after yourself is a disease, I'm mostly sure.  Not only is it a disease, but a very contageous one at that.  My entire household has it and I hear many of the neighbors do as well. Today my dog threw up on the already pukey looking carpet and ever since then I have had a less than successful day at keeping positive and grateful for my house - well mostly just the carpet. My best friend decided she had had it with her counter tops one day and ripped out the formica before her husband got home.... I AM pretty strong these days....

I bet Ammon would help me.  He is already re-designing the area at the bottom of the stairs. His plan is to throw Thomas the Train down the stairs as many times as possible without me catching him and make lots of holes in the wall (so far it seems to be going well for him) and that way we will have to put new sheet rock on the terribly stained wall - and if we are going to have to re-paint it, we should just paint it to match the rest of the house, right? John said to ground him from Thomas, but I'm thinking, "Good job son!".

This all seems so unrelated, but it is! When the house is clean and picked up (which does happen on almost a daily basis now that school has begun) between the hours of 8:50 and 3:30 it generally looks pretty sparkling good! and it makes me feel better about the clutter - and the carpet - almost.

And since I get to clean the house each and every day I get to spend A LOT of time looking at it.  My brain gets all creatively crazy on me and I come up with ideas - lots of them!  I can't help it, it just happens. Except they are generally expensive ideas and unobtainable for the time being and so my creativity is stifled in massive amounts. Its VERY frustrating.

Today after Allie's friends left I laid on the carpet face down in the computer room.  She walked in, knelt next to me and said, "Are you okay mom?" Kind of all nonchalantly as if she has to ask me that a lot (which she doesn't). I was in a relatively good mood and responded,
"yup, just frustrated."
"How come?"
"Because I want to make this room look cleaner and I don't know how. I want to make the whole house look cleaner."
"Well, I'll help you!  Do we need to move the piano?"

Because apparently she has super human strength. I wish I had super human strength. She spent the next hour in a covered box doing all sorts of secret, boxy things. I got on the computer to chat with John and asked him what he was doing. He said, "talking to Allie." I guess she took my phone in the box. A good mom would know what her daughter was doing in the box.

And did you know that the drapes I want are ON SALE right now? And its not even my birthday so I have no excuse to buy them! That's just mean. Does anyone feel strongly about drapes in a certain shade of ivory? They won't get THAT dirty, will they? (for future reference).