. . . and this is what I hate about costuming

Our show closed last Saturday night--thank heaven! My friends often ask me, "How do you do it, Denise?" This is how: I let absolutely everything else in my life take a back seat--family (which encompasses laundry, meal prep, house cleaning, phone conversations with out-of-state loved ones, blog reading, etc.), church assignments (more difficult to do so this year--thank goodness I have supportive counselors and a fabulous Compassionate Service Leader), friends (sorry about never texting you back, Paula, when you were in town. . .), and of course sleep and healthy eating (and I wonder why I'm just getting over one of the worst sinus infections I've had in a while).

This morning, deciding that my sanity hinged upon "getting my house in order," I took yet another day off work and decided to try to make order out of chaos. Sadly, the following photos were not staged in any way. This is just the way my house looked this morning, after several weeks of neglect.

My bedside table/dresser. Note unmade bed in the mirror:

Both my kitchen and dining room tables were covered with weeks of miscellany. Of course, we never ate dinner at the table, so where's the problem? Note Emily's "cartoon" sunglasses I've had to resort to wearing, as mine broke and I have not had time to get them fixed or replaced. Also note the last of the Christmas decorations that have yet to be stored away:

Note bags from HomeGoods containing a design project for a patiently-waiting client, as well as miscellaneous coupons (likely expired by now) clipped who knows when:Another pile, in a different location, for a different patiently-waiting client:
The laundry center--not a pretty sight.
The ironing pile (which does not include all of the hanging items pictured in the back of the previous top photo). Most mornings the kids feel lucky if they can simply pull a rumpled something out of the pile to wear that day; hey--at least there's a possibility it may be clean.
No wonder I can't iron:
My sewing area. When things get so crazy I don't take time to clean up one project before moving onto the next, hence the pile of scraps and unused fabrics strewn about the floor:

It's gross, but I had to document the un-vacuumed floor. It's WAY worse in the sewing area. Yes, Jessie--those are the ever-present remnants of Moosey's favorite rope chew toy. Don't ask where the spare change came from!

My work desk, where everything from school, church, mail, etc. gets unceremoniously deposited. Yes, that is a wrapped Christmas box containing a church object lesson used last December:Part of my kitchen counter, representing the remnants of my last-minute pretzel-making-gift project (for closing night thank-you's) and my varied assortment of vitamins and cough remedies:

And, though (thankfully) not in my house, there's all of the waiting, dirty costumes at the high school to be dealt with--LATER.A self-portrait of exhaustion at the end of the show's run. What would I do without my dear friend and co-conspirator, Teri?
And whatever would I do without my ever-supportive and non-complaining husband Mark? This photo was taken after Thursday night's show, hence John in costume and makeup.

*sigh* Let Real Life commence.