Confessions of a Flybaby

I'm a packrat. I grew up saving EVERYTHING. I married a packrat. I save things because I get emotionally attached to stuff; he saves things because we might need them someday. When we lived in Tulsa, Gene's grandmother died and we bought her house. We inherited most of her furniture (including beautiful dining set), a lot of cookware, and a ton of stuff. We already had a houseful of stuff we had accumulated on our own. The house in Tulsa, even after a couple of garage sales, was packed to the gills. It was about 2200 square feet. When we moved to Ada, we bought a much smaller house--1600 square feet. No dining room. That beautiful dining set? It's in a closet. So this house was crammed, and that was before two babies and their quota of stuff.
There's also the added factor that I like things clean but didn't ever get around to cleaning until someone was coming over or the dirt was at crisis level. When I did clean I resented Gene for not helping. My resentment was unfounded because he was doing ALL of the cooking, but that's a whole other story. Our house was usually a complete wreck.
So the kicker was last summer (4th of July, maybe? I don't remember) we were at my in-laws celebrating a holiday and Zachary locked himself in the jeep. Both sets of keys were in the jeep where Gene and I had stupidly left them. We got him to push on the lock/unlock button, but he never would push it the right direction. (He's learned a lot since then--now he can put the key in the ignition and start her up.) We finally decided that we were going to have to go to my house and find the extra key. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law, both really with-it women whose homes are always spotless, went with me. Well we had been in a hurry that morning and the house was even worse than usual. I cringe still when I think of it. I was so embarassed. My sister-in-law was sympathetic; my mother-in-law couldn't stand to be in the house. She waited outside while I looked for the key, which I couldn't find because it could have been just about anywhere in that mess.
Zachary did finally make it out of the jeep, and was apparently not too traumatized since he still hops in the driver's seat any chance he gets. But I had had it with myself. My full-time job was to take care of my family and my home and I couldn't even keep my house presentable? I had always had good grades/successful career to draw my confidence from. Now this was my career and I sucked at it!
Well God must have heard my gritchin' and he spoke to me--through Dear Abby. Seriously, I can't believe I'm confessing this to the world! There was a Dear Abby article about this website that helps SHEs (Sidetracked Home Executives) get it together. So I checked out the website (It's flylady.net) I signed up. This was in July or August, and I'm still with it. I wrote down morning and evening routines and I do them every day and check them off. I spend 15 minutes every day decluttering my stuff. I set up a basic weekly schedule for cleaning (weekly home blessing hour--just the name changes my attitude), grocery shopping, etc. These are things that somehow my friends seem to know but I had to have somebody hold my hand and walk me through it. I plan meals ahead of time and cook just about every night. This is big, since Gene has always cooked. He would work 12 hours a day and still have to cook dinner. Now anyone can show up at my house anytime and I can welcome them with open arms. There's still a white trash look going on in the backyard, but I'm tackling that 15 minutes at a time. I had Thanksgiving at my house and when my cousin Beth (who has seen me at my worst) walked in she said, "your home is so peaceful." So my goofy Flybaby self is going to keep at it and ya'll come over anytime.