See Jen shovel that hovel...

and boy-oh-BOY, did she. Ugh! :oP

Yep, that's where I've been. Digging my way out from under a ginormous boxed up, stacked up, piled up nightmare. Most of you probably remember my periodic (only partially joking) comments here about our house decor resembling "Early American Hoarder". The visitor area, which was to have taken a few months to complete, has stretched into a couple of years leaving things "temporarily" set in the house to pile up - literally. Don't you hate it when something you need to do is completely dependent upon someone else doing something they need to do? There seems to be an unwritten rule that states they never ever care about their 'To Do' as much as you do yours. Have you ever noticed that?

My friend Lori and I dubbed it The Domino Effect - DH being in charge of the first domino (the visitor area/patio). The current feed room [the original patio] is to be converted into an indoor room for the storage of large space-hogging items like Christmas decorations, saddles, etc. We don't have an attic or a shed in which to store things, nor is our garage closed in. The house has virtually no closet space and there isn't even a stupid pantry in the kitchen. The old office (I outgrew) would then be able to accommodate other space-hogging items like the two lateral filing cabinets donated to Epic Farms, the 50lb box of wax for candle making and about a million other things I don't know where to go with. Anyone who has ever been involved with a non-profit knows that when someone offers to give you something you can use you NEVER turn it down (even if you don't have a place to put it). Now throw in my parent's recent downsizing move (which generated lots more crappola *cough* er, stuff to sift through) and I'm sure you can imagine how much worse it got. Think.... Labyrinth.

Even though the boxes, stacks and paper piles were making me crazed, there wasn't much I could do about it until the construction was finished so we could make the shift. This was blocking that, and that was piled up in front of this so much so that there was literally no room to even try to start sorting through the nightmare. I had absolutely nowhere to go with any of it. My Dad referred to our house as, "Pockets of organization in a sea of chaos", which worked its way from mildly amusing (ha, ha Pop) to totally unfunny over the past two years. Until two weeks ago, that is. That's when it all changed. What happened? Well I'll tell you. DH came strolling through the door one fine afternoon, and cheerfully announced that the interest rates had finally gotten low enough that it was time to refinance our mortgage. We could cut our current rate almost in half. My shocked response of "Are you high?" seemed to totally confuse the man. You see, while DH's delighted (left) brain was gleefully calculating lower payments and saving pots of money in interest, Jen's horrified (right) brain had focused on one tiny detail:

*APPRAISAL*APPRAISAL*APPRAISAL*

Now I'm not the brightest bulb on the porch, but I was pretty sure that a house stacked almost to the ceiling with haphazard piles and boxes everywhere will probably not make a very good impression on a real estate appraiser. Having reached a somewhat desperate frame of mind (about a year ago) with regard to putting my house in order, I took a [very] deep breath and opted to go for the Carpe Diem approach: SEIZE THE DAY. I immediately harassed and harangued DH into renting a Mobile Attic so I could begin the overwhelming process of sorting through and organizing all this ssshtuff. Since the man is so tight he squeaks, naturally he balked. I cared not. Completely without mercy (and feeling a bit demented), I also made him help me clean like crazy. Rednecks do NOT do housecleaning - it's a rule (well, it was one, anyway ;o) Although we were told it would be about two weeks before the appraisal appointment, the man called a few short days later. Happily, I'd made a big enough dent that at least he could walk around (I had nightmares about about him confined to a 12 inch square area to stand in and visually pan the rooms - can you imagine?)
Thankfully, the appraisal part is behind us now and although I still have a long way to go, things are finally beginning to look a bit better around here. You know, I had completely forgotten that the living room carpet was blue. It's kind of pretty, actually...
Horsey hugs ;o)