When I was a kid my dad used to get in these crazy cleaning frenzy moods and force all of us to do serious spring cleaning of EPIC proportions around our house. He would get this crazed look in his eye and before too long Hurricane Daddy would unleash his fury on the closets and cabinets and toy chests of our home.
Imagine a pregnant lady nesting… on crack… and you’ve got my dad in one of those moods.
One time he literally backed the truck up to my sister’s bedroom window and started throwing stuff out by the armful. After that encounter whenever we would see him starting to get the itch my sister and I would run to our bedrooms and lock the doors so that he could not throw away any of our prized possessions. Ever since then our family has referred to sudden bouts of spring cleaning as “Back The Truck Up” moments.
I won’t say his cleaning frenzies weren’t warranted. Our house was small and all of our “collections” were big. I myself had a porcelain doll collection and a bell collection from all my world travels. You know, faraway lands like Panama City Beach and DeSoto Caverns and the Stuckey’s in Cullman. I also had a huge pile of Barbie dolls and My Little Ponies along with lots of other assorted paraphernalia that was made in China. Considering the fact that it was the 80’s and we all slept on humongous water beds, it didn’t take long for the clutter to take over. The unfortunate part of this story is that some of this mini-hoarding disorder has carried over into adulthood. Thankfully I also inherited a healthy dose of my father’s Back The Truck Up Syndrome to counteract it at times.
Today was one of those times.
This morning I looked around my laundry room and had a major Back the Truck Up moment.
I decided to shamelessly copy my friend Jenna and get an over the door shoe organizer to store the things that we can never seem to find.
It may not look very organized to all you Type A’s out there but I know exactly where things are now. Camera and phone chargers, extension cords, tweezers, pens, markers, notepads, etc etc etc.
And tape! Who knew I owned this much TAPE!? I can NEVER find tape!! Or stamps! But not anymore! It’s all right here behind the laundry room door.
We even hung the battery organizer from Lillian Vernon behind the door so we can always find one when one of G’s many toys breaks down.
As God is my witness, I’ll never waste another afternoon in search of an SD card for my camera again!
Now if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go move those Sharpies up a few rows just to be on the safe side of a curious toddler’s nosy fingers.
Sweet! We SO need to do this at our house. Our laundry room especially needs organization – it is a mess even after I did a bunch of cleaning yesterday.
Bah hahaha!! I totally have “back the truck up” moments. I’ve never known what to call them… I just get a trash bag and a look and my eye, and bam! Stuff being thrown out/taken to goodwill.
Where did you get that battery organizer?? That’s genius (to mommies of toddlers!)
What I want to know is where did you find that battery organizer? I need one of those. It’d be a HUGE improvement over my current method – which is the floor of a closet.
That is brilliant, and the story is hilarious!
BTW, I found your blog and love it. You have such a wonderful sense of humor and I think we have alot in common ;). I’m also in Bham. My blog is private bc someone on thebump.com stole pictures of my child and pretended she was her own, but anyhoo, if you’d like to read mine, send me an email! lori . gordon@ gmail . com
Thanks ladies! I added a link to the battery organizer in the post but here it is for yall again: http://tinyurl.com/yayq6ew
That thing is a lifesaver!
@Lori- thanks! I’ll check it out!
Great idea! I think I may copy it. 🙂
I wish I could make lyself have one of those moments – our house desperately needs it right now.
Isn’t that organizer the best!? I love mine so much that I think I’m going to buy more to put in every single room of the house. Kidding…sort of! 😉
[…] here in town. I intended to use them on my dining room chairs, but never got around to it. When I cleaned out my laundry room I found them again and decided to use them on my door instead. See? All that hoarding does pay […]