I’m taking a break from slackerdom to show my face. Or my keyboard anyway. It has been a while. I could rattle off a legitimate list of excuses. But what it boils down to, is two things: Taking on too many things at once (surprise surprise), and sickness (some for me and a lot for Monkey).

Last week can only be described as a week of hell. I won’t even go into all the details, but I will tell you how I went out with a bang on Saturday. It involved three things.

Exhibit A: My favorite sweatshirt. Warm, cozy, comfortable, and of course it has ‘Dunder Mifflin’ on the front, from my favorite show. I love the big pocket in front. Perfect for keeping my hands warm, or holding stuff I want to keep handy like keys or my phone.

Exhibit B: My cell phone

So far so good, right? Well it gets better. Just wait for Exhibit C. The loo.

See where this is going?

We were visiting my parents, & I had to use the bathroom. I lifted my sweatshirt to unbutton my pants. Out jumped my cell phone, and before I knew it my hand was in the bottom of the toilet going after it. It all happened before I could even think. If I weren’t so grossed out, I’d be proud of my fast reaction.

Unfortunately, my dad is a “If it’s yellow let it mellow” type of guy. And I’m an anal freakazoid with OCD, who had to scrub my hand until the remaining flesh was hanging on for dear life.

Miraculously, my phone seems to have survived. After wiping it down with Clorox wipes & taking a hair dryer to it, it was acting a little weird. I thought it was a goner. But after it dried for another day, it may just be ok. Except that I’ll have nightmares that somehow toilet water is still trapped inside of it. Waiting to escape into my ear when I least expect it.

Ewww.

I’m so ready for a good week and/or spring to show it’s face around here.

Some people have coffee. Others have exercise or shopping. And many have chocolate. Wait, I have chocolate too. But I have another drug of choice. Organizational tools.

I know I have issues. But why do things like this get me so excited?

You should see the one I’m planning for our next house when I have a bigger pantry. I get tingly just thinking about it.

My sanity has been in question lately (even more than usual), thanks to my four year old Stinkbug. She wants to change clothes eighteen times a day. I am so tired of laundry, I want to scream. I have been washing clean clothes, while dirty clothes have ended up back in her drawers. I can’t keep it straight. My solution? This.

Once a week on laundry day, we fold clothes and pick her outfits for the week. She gets to choose the outfit combinations, and which day’s box each outfit goes into. She feels pretty important with all those choices. And it cuts down on the drama, because her outfit is predetermined.

Occasionally I have to be sneaky, and switch the day’s outfits. Like when she puts an orange shirt and fuschia pants in the Wednesday box, when I know we’re going out on Wednesday. Fuschia and orange can wait til Thursday. The art of distraction is a beautiful thing.

Now before you go thinking my whole life is this organized, take a gander at my desktop.

Imagine my horror when Jessica of Kerflop came by and saw this. To add insult to injury, I was using Internet Explorer at the time. I felt so dirty. This girl is all things computer. It’s like when my mother who is unbelievably organized and clean comes over and happens to walk into the room. You know, the one where you shove everything when someone comes over, so they’ll think you’re not a slob. I’m the messiest OCD sufferer alive. Don’t ask me how that makes sense.

Just a few weeks ago, Curtis cleaned up our desktop, and organized everything into two neat little rows. And I destroyed it all. In one month I had my business website redesigned, took over a tall shopping blog, started a group blog with my girlfriends, and canned my old blog to switch over to this one. Oh the chaos. I need to go re-read this post.

But before I do, I’m adding to this weekend’s “to-do list”:

• download new version of Firefox because mine keeps shutting down with some type of error
• organize my pathetic desktop so I can simplify
• take a stinking nap

That ought to do it.

I just don’t get it. When unloading the dishwasher, why would you not put cups of like colors together? Or if they must be mixed together, at least make a balanced pattern. Two pink, one green, two pink. The patterns are not my first choice however, because when someone takes a cup off the top, everything is out of whack again. I would rather have all like colors together. These are the type of things I think about before drifting off to sleep. Or as I unload the dishwasher, the argument plays out in my mind:

OCD me: Fix the mismatched stack.
Relaxed me: No, leave it alone. It’s not a big deal.
OCD me: Yeah but you’ll just keep thinking about it if you don’t.
Relaxed me: This is ridiculous. They’re just plastic cups, why do I care?
OCD me: Ok, I warned you. But you’ll just keep thinking about it. It’s easier to just fix it and be done with it.

Then I cave, and fix the stupid cups. Well, I usually do. Maybe 75% of the time. But that’s a huge improvement from where I used to be. Having kids has kind of forced me to let some things go.

I first realized I have OCD in college, when I read about it in a psych class. I never knew it was strange to turn the deadbolt five times. I was just making sure it was really locked. The same goes for making sure my alarm clock was really turned on. Everything was in fives, on, off, on, off on. There. It’s really on. I have actually gotten better about this in the past 5-6 years. Although that may be because my alarm clock is now two little girls. I wish they had an an/off button. Or at least a snooze would be nice.

When I watch shows like As Good as It Gets, I don’t feel like the freak that Jack Nickolson plays. Granted, I do wash my hands eight thousand times a day. But that’s because I have two kids under four, and not because I want to. So what if I have a dozen cracks on every finger in the winter. At least my hands are clean, right? RIGHT?

Poor poor Curtis.