There are very few things about which I am anal-retentive. My house is one of them.

Sure, dust builds up from time to time and occasionally the floors go unvacuumed a tad longer than I'd like, but I loathe clutter. Clutter and bacterial filth are intolerable to me.

The basement is almost completely uncluttered now, so I'm feeling better about it. Larry and my dad got all of the old stuff out of here yesterday that I had set aside and now all we need to do is rid ourselves of the boxes of old stuff in the study. The first time I cleaned out the basement, which was over a year ago, I took some boxes and put them in the study because Larry told me that if I did that he'd go through them. Those boxes are full of his things so I didn't feel comfortable throwing anything in them out. What if he still wanted any of it?

We stay so busy that it's easy to let these things pile up until it drives us insane. I've noticed that some of the stuff that has found it's way into the boxes is mine now. I'm not sure how that happened, really I'm not, but it does give me a reason to go through some of them and do some cleaning. I have to. It's ridiculous. We have a library down there, several bookcases full of books that I have categorized by genre. Five in all, mostly blocked. I can't get to my Stephen King books or my Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series and I haven't even read the last book yet.

Most of the boxes are pretty heavy, but I think if I get rid of enough stuff I can move them. Larry really doesn't have time for this. Shit, I don't either but I just can't stand it any more. It gives me the willies to be downstairs trying to use the PC and have all of that clutter and overspill at my back. It feels as if there's something hiding in there. Like about a billion of those aggressive psycho-bitch spiders. It also makes the room seem so small. The study is actually a pretty good sized room. The last people who lived here (and who also built the house), used it as a bedroom.

So I'm going to take it back this week while the kids are sleeping. I may have to move the boxes out into the family room until Larry can go through his part of the mess but at least the study will be clean. It's way too easy to become so busy with other things, like parenting, that stuff gets left alone when it really needs to be done.

It's getting done this week, if I have work at night as well, and keep everyone up with all of my cleaning noises.

Enough is enough.

The fall cleaning urge has officially made me an obsessive monster.