Death Be Not Proud.

"They found her limp and lifeless body under a heap of clothing..."





That may be how my obituary begins.




"She keenly decided that pre, during, and post a significant Holiday while her children were off of school, would be an ideal time to embark on a major overhaul of her upstairs sleeping quarters. That decision may have led to her sudden and unexpected demise due to the tornado of apparel that threw her over and suffocated her..."



Oooh, who wrote this obituary? It is excellent, if I do say so myself.




"She is survived by her loving husband, now and forever adorned in wrinkled shirts and tattered pants. She is also survived by three children between the ages of 7 and 3 who do not know where to sleep because they can not locate their beds, and is also survived by one naked baby."



I will not break. The kids will be back in school tomorrow. I will complete my mission. I will be able to see my upstairs floor again. I will be able to walk through the hallway without setting off one of the many "clothing" mines. I do not have an assistant. I do not have a secretary. I am one person, taking on a mission meant for an army. Wow, the idea of polygamy and taking on more wives suddenly became appealing. Have I gone insane? Maybe! I mean, I am rambling on and on.



Let me backtrack.

I have five bedrooms upstairs. One is the master bedroom, leaving four more. A small bedroom next to mine has a crib in it that is not being used. Next to this much needed crib is a mattress on the floor that Ate calls his bed.

Diagonally across from this small bedroom is a modest sized room with a lovely white bunk bed that I purchased shortly after Ro was born with the idea that two sisters could share a room. Ro calls the bottom bunk hers and the top bunk has remained empty. There is also a lovely pull out trundle for prospective overnight visitors. The joint living did not come to fruition because So wakes up at the crack of dawn and Ro would like NOT to wake up at the crack of dawn. But So is bored and needs a playmate at the crack of dawn they now go to the same school and have to wake at the same time anyway, so may as well open up this new can of worms.

Through another door from this room, is a connected bathroom which is referred to as a "Jack and Jill" bathroom, because it has another doorway to a bedroom further down the hall. That bedroom would be So's room until now.

Across from So's bedroom is one final bedroom that is decorated nicely and is off limits to children. It has it's own bathroom and is currently reserved for guests. However, all my guests become relegated to one of two guest bedrooms in the basement because my upstairs guest room seems to have become a HUGE walk in storage closet.

To further confuse you, I also have bedroom furniture in my garage. It is a dresser to be more precise. I have been refurbishing it for two years. More accurately, I sanded off the ugly brown shade from the dresser two years ago and then got caught up in this thing called "LIFE" and have yet to return to sand the drawers, the frame around the mirror, prime and paint white and find some lovely/girly hardware to finish it off. If I would only do that, my garage would not look like it wants to be an eighth bedroom and the girls would have more appropriate storage so my hall would not look like a minefield.

Partly, I blame my parent's 16 months of living here with half of their home's contents taking up space in my home, for all the mess that I am inundated with, but that is because I pretty much blame my parents for EVERYTHING. (Who doesn't?)

Anyway, if you did your math, you would realize that I have four children and in addition to the master bedroom, I have four more bedrooms upstairs that have the ability to restrain house each of the aforementioned children. But, I do not want my children to take the gift of "space" for granted. I do not want them to be spoiled by the freedom that comes with unshared space.

And so, to punish myself indefinitely teach my children what it means to live cordially amongst others, So and Ro will now move in together. Ate will move into So's former room. And Bam will move into the very empty and available crib in Ate's former room so that Hun and I could live cordially amongst ourselves.

And by punishing myself, I refer to the resurrection of an old sitcom called "The Odd Couple" which I expect to be playing every night and every morning in the bedroom that will officially be shared by my Felix (aka. Ro) and my Oscar (aka. So), and I suspect this sitcom will not be as funny.

Ro probably has some obsessive compulsive personality traits. She lines her shoes up and makes her bed in the morning ...... and makes it again.......... at night, before she gets in it. And then she attempts to make it while she is actually IN IT. She does not like things in middle of her floor, and she has a tissue box on her bed at all times (just in case) and an empty one next to it where she may dispose of her used tissues.

So is ..... how can I say this mildly about a child who I LOVE ...... a slob. This trait of So's is probably directly related to her creative mind. She has a mind that never shuts off. It is all over the place. It is always coming up with exceptional ideas and amazing projects. This includes, but is not limited to a closet project that caused her closet door to miraculously come off its track, when she thought hangers could be arranged to liken a robot.

I decided to pair up this "odd" couple, just this last week, because I wanted the novelty of it to wear off before school resumed. My original timeline was to pair them up during the weeks between camp and school, but if you remember, I was dealing with a nasty plague infesting So's head, and although I do try to teach my children to share ..... there are some exceptions.

Besides for the actual room they are now sharing, they are going from two closets to just one closet. This is where I really have my work cut out for me. Especially since THAT dresser is still sitting in the garage.

In addition to just changing over their rooms and habits, I also have to set Ate up in So's old room and set Ate's old room up to accommodate a baby. I am still changing over Summer to Winter (please tell me I am NOT the only one still doing this). I still have maternity clothing to put away (which my mother has voiced, should NOT be put away and SHOULD be utilized real soon. So I asked my 70 something year old mother if she was trying to give me another sibling and was looking to borrow some maternity clothing. She was not amused. Neither was I.)

I just returned from "The Container Store" where I burned a hole through my credit card. And my overhaul is in full gear. When I am done and everything is in it's proper place, I will then lock up every closet and drawer and prevent every person in this home from living like a normal functioning human being so that NO new mess can be made. Because the idea that my family may never notice the recognizable smell of a decaying corpse and not even notice that their wife and mother has been missing for some time under a mess of clutter and clothing is just too ghastly to consider, even for me. That Death, be not proud.