The Himalayas in the bedroom.

Today, I achieved something. Really, I did. I climbed the Himalayas. I did. Except that the Himalayas were not in Asia, they were in our spare bedroom. And they were not made of rocks and snow and ice but pants, and socks, and shirts, and t-shirts and other various kinds of clothing. So today, I achieved something: I tidied up the spare bedroom. To most people, a spare bedroom is just that, a room with a spare bed in it, all nice and tidy, ready for any unexpected guest that might or might not arrive. To us, in the Foodie Household, the spare bedroom is nothing but a dumping ground, a clean one but a dumping ground nonetheless. I have to mention that it took me a whole afternoon less than a month ago to tidy up and thoroughly clean the spare bedroom before my parents arrived (in between watching the snow fall and doing baby related activities such as feeding, changing, and general playing). So in less than a month, surely, it can't have gone that bad, can it?

Well, let me tell you, it has. I have to admit to I'm not one for putting clothes away after washing them (I blame the lack of space in the wardrobes *cough*). I usually fold them neatly and put them neatly in various piles on the spare bed (usually 4, one for each of us). I really should put them away in their rightful place, but I just don't. It must be some kind of trauma from my childhood, my mum was a firm advocate of what she calls 'Iron as you go', meaning as soon as it's dry, neatly iron and fold and put away in their rightful place. I am more of an advocate of 'Iron as you go.......out', meaning I'll only iron if I want to wear it. Mr Foodie irons his own shirts and trousers for the week. Now we've all played with stacking cubes and most of us probably still do and we all know that the higher you go, the higher the chances of it tumbling down. But it's something I can't seem to learn and I probably fool myself in thinking that it's not going to happen. So as the piles start getting higher and higher, well, invariably, they topple over. At which stage, I am ashamed to say, the clothes don't get neatly folded anymore but rather just taken from the line and dumped on the Pile formerly known as 4 neat piles. Add to that a trip to Ikea, and the contents of that day's shopping, all those lovely little bits, dumped unceremoniously onto the spare bed too.

So it starts with neat piles, and as the month goes, the piles grow. And grow. And grow and they become less neat until it becomes virtually impossible to find anything in there, comparable to finding a very, very, very small needle in a big, big, BIG haystack (and I was just looking for a sock). For the past week, I have looked at my wardrobe and thought to myself: I have nothing to wear. I resigned myself to wearing things straight off the line (dry though, I wouldn't wear anything damp.. well I did on a few occasions, but I was young and really, really wanted to wear that particular pair of jeans, and it's not really my fault if they take ages to dry.) And Mr Foodie has grown a bit tired at not being able to find matching socks. We all had, or even bought for our children, pants with the days of the week written on them, thinking it will make our lives easier and by week 3, they wear Monday's on a Friday and Wednesday's on a Sunday. His socks are of the same kind. They're all black, all look the same if it wasn't for the little smiley at the top (of course not so smiley on a Monday but gets gradually better as the week goes by) and, of course the day mentioned under the little smiley face. So, he was getting increasingly tired of wearing Saturday's socks on a Wednesday as they are too smiley for a Wednesday but not enough for a Sunday. But seriously, I know there's a dress code in your job, but I don't think they take it as far as checking your socks to make sure that you're wearing the right day's ones!

So today, I finally opened the spare bedroom door (at least you don't see the chaos when it's closed) and I went in, armed with a lot of patience (that was running thin because Noelie refused to sleep at all this morning, she'd rather have Mummy singing Incy Wincy Spider). And I started sorting clothes out into 4 neat piles again. Well, it was more 4 neat piles for my clothes and a pile each for the others. Oh and another pile for the socks and pants and vests, because they go in drawers and not just in the wardrobe. And then I set out to put them in their rightful place. Marie's clothes went in her bedroom. Mr Foodie's and mine in our bedroom. And Noelie's in our bedroom too. I opened the drawer to put away Noelie's clothes only to find it already full so resorted to putting them away in a half empty drawer in the spare bedroom. I then put away Mr Foodie's shirts in the part of the wardrobe that holds shirts and dresses, well anything on a hanger. I left his trousers on our bed as I didn't know if he wanted them on hangers or folded, plus his shelf was already full, so I had nowhere to put them. And then, I decided to put mine away. But there wasn't enough room on my shelves and I went from 'I have nothing to wear' to 'I have too many clothes and really need to give some away'. I managed to squeeze them all in after a little bit of forceful pushing.

And, tonight, I left the spare bedroom door open, and it felt good to finally see the spare bed all nice and neat. Until Marie came out of her bedroom on her way to bed asking where was she to put the clean clothes that were on her bed. And Mr Foodie came out of our bedroom saying that he just put his pile of trousers onto the spare bed until tomorrow. Oh my, I think I'll just go and close that door again, and pray that nothing falls on my head when I open the wardrobe tomorrow looking for something to wear. Actually, I have a better idea, think I'll go back to Ikea and get bigger wardrobes (and loads of other little bits and I'll let you guess where I'll put them).