It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas...

...which means Mama freaked out today...

I am a neat freak.

There. I've said it.

I need my space (and by my space, I mean every corner of my house) to be neat and tidy...no clutter whatsoever...to feel cool and calm...

As you can imagine, with four children, three pets and a husband, this is something that is rather difficult to achieve...

It is now two days before Christmas Eve, the children are home on vacation, as is Brian and the house seems to have exploded...there are bits of crap everywhere I look...toys that have been left wherever some child has dropped them...leftover Christmas cards (from our mad dash to make sure everyone on our list gets one-which is something we never used to do, but somehow have fallen prey in the last few years to the Christmas card mania/pressure to send them out)...little bits and pieces that seem to have accumulated on the dishwasher, the kitchen counters, the top of the piano...

Added to the mess is the knowledge that there are presents that still need to be wrapped, baking that I promised for Christmas dinner and a puppy who pees on the carpet every time he's about to hit a growth spurt (did I mention he's about to grow? Again?) and you end up with my head spinning like a top while steam streams from my nostrils (picture a pressure cooker about to blow and you get the idea)...

Brian took the kids out to the sorting station to mail their letters to Santa today...firstly so their letters will get there on time and more importantly, to save their little lives...

While they were gone, I hung the pictures I wanted, cleaned the main level of the house and started wrapping some of those gifts...but not before I screamed, yelled and cried because I felt so much stress that I told the dogs I was going to cancel Christmas at the Lilley household (they didn't answer, so I figured they didn't care one way or the other)...I ran from one room to the other, not knowing what to do first and finally ended up stopping in the dining room, crying, utterly exhausted...that was when I finally looked up to the heavens and asked for some help...and found out once again that God is pretty good at coming to my rescue...that one little prayer helped take my stress away...and by the time the five of them got home, Mama was a sane person once again...

I sat calmly and quietly on the couch for a few minutes with Brian, describing the freak out I'd had while he was gone (I even yelled at him - while he was gone and couldn't hear me and didn't know I was doing it - for failing to make the bed when he got up this morning...the fact that I was the last one in it didn't matter at that point)...and as we sat there, I realized that as I gazed around the room, I felt peaceful and relaxed because everything was neat and tidy (we won't even talk about the kitchen or our bedroom which have yet to be tidied up)...

It's a sickness...I know...