Missed Me?

So have you missed me? Well, my house sure has. In the past many months, I've barely blogged. I had good reasons not to blog. But I have to say, somehow, the blogging is a direct correlation to the actual cleaning. So.... if I haven't blogged in about three months... Well, let's just say I've got a lot of laundry. (And that's putting it mildly).

I was thinking I should start off with the excuses. I mean, you all, my readers, deserve to know why I've been neglecting my chores. But then I thought better of it. While some excuses are completely ridiculous, the fact of the matter is, that's all they are - Excuses.

So let's get into some of the big stuff here. We've got three big events coming up in the not so distant future.

The first, (and also the soonest): is Passover. It's coming in a little over three week's time and this will be the first time we'll be home for the holiday.

The second: we're having out of town company staying with us for two weeks. (This company tends to be pretty critical of my housekeeping skills).

The third, and most major event: We're moving again.

That's right.... AGAIN.

I'm sure some of you are reading this and thinking, "Didn't they just move?" Yeah, we did. This will be our 11th home in 9 years. I know.... I can barely stand it myself.

Yet, while the idea of moving again has me wanting to throw up, the reality of it is scaring me less than it ever has. I have only one reason why. Flylady.

I'm actually in pretty decent shape! Now granted, my kitchen is a disaster zone, I've got a mountain of both clean and dirty laundry (though not in the same place), and I haven't washed my floors in a really long time, but if I actually take the 15 minutes in each room and devote myself to straightening up, my house would be in fantastic shape! And the 15 minutes is generous.

How awesome is that???? 15 minutes to do the dishes, 15 minutes to fold the laundry, 15 minutes to straighten up the living room, and 15 minutes to wash my floors. That's it. One hour and my house looks close to perfect! (I purposely left out the bedrooms and bathrooms...)

That is just unreal to me! I can devote one hour to my home! That's nothing!

Now, I know you're probably wondering, why in the world am I sitting here writing this instead of actually spending the time to do it right now. I have a good reason. It's really late at night and I'm falling asleep. But I WANT to do it. And that is why I'm blogging right now. I want to be held accountable to all of you. Instead of staying in pajamas all day (like I've been doing all week) I want to get up early tomorrow morning, get dressed, put on a smile and start my day. But tomorrow won't be any different if I don't put this out there.

I miss the peace and calm that my home can be when I'm flying. Tomorrow morning, I will dust off my wings and report back to you.

Surveying the Damage

I'd been successfully "Flying" (read: picking up after my kids and husband) for about 6 weeks when I got the phone call that completely disrupted my life. My landlord had decided that since we couldn't agree over the terms of the lease renewal, he wanted to evict us. The catch? He wanted us out in 24 hours.

Well being more rational than him, we decided to see a lawyer. We knew that not having a renewed lease we could be in deep trouble, and who knew, maybe he did have the right to kick us out that quickly. Thankfully, he couldn't kick us out without a court order and that could take months. However, with this guy's violent history with us, we didn't want to take any chances and wanted to get out ASAP. So we decided that getting out by December 31st (i.e. the last day we had already paid for) would be a good move for us.

Our community truly was incredible -- they came through for us when we needed it the most and a house was available to us. Getting the key to that house on the hand, proved to be a bit trickier. We were told on Friday the 24th that the house was available for us and that we'd get the keys on Sunday. Sunday came and went. No keys. Monday, and Tuesday passed with no keys. I started getting nervous. On Wednesday, I decided to start making a big fuss over the fact that we were expected to move but how can we do that without keys???? A fuss was made. And I burst into tears in the office where we had to sign our new lease. Then I found out what the holdup was.

Apparently what goes around, comes around. And not always in the best way... The company we were to rent the new house from had heard little snippets of what happened with our previous landlord. The story they were told was "They've been living in their house for six months with no contract." WHAT????? That is SOOOO not how it happened!!! So now they were afraid to lease to us as part of their conditions were that we had to be out in six months! They were afraid that if they let us move in, that we would never move out!!!!

My week really could not get any worse... I was depressed. I felt rejected, I stopped eating, I stopped answering the phone... Thank G-d for my husband. He really came through for us. He spoke to the bearer of the keys and even though he was already gone for the day, and would be out the following day, my hubby begged and said he would go anywhere at anytime to get this key. After many phone calls, the guy finally agreed to give us the key on Thursday morning at..... 4:30 AM.

Yes, you read that correctly.

But at least now we had the key. Because we hadn't known when exactly we were moving (and by the way, we didn't even know what house we were moving to until we got the key!) We couldn't get movers. So we rallied, and our friends and family came out in droves to help us move all our belongings over those two days.

Our friends and new neighbors prepared meals for us and generally helped us as we settled into our new home.

We've got a lot of unpacking to do. But I have a goal now. Knowing that we'll be moving again in six months time, I'll be able to focus on decluttering and the next time I move, instead of just throwing everything into boxes and dealing with the aftermath of a hurricane in our new home, I'll only be bringing the stuff I love.

The Calm After the Storm

Its been an intense week in our home.... from being told we're being evicted, to having my landlord try to break into our home, and an immense amount of packing, I can finally relax. And I haven't even moved yet.

I have woken up almost every night this week with nightmares from our unbearable landlord. I've been nervous to leave our house alone and unprotected. And I have been overall living my life in a state of shock and panic. I've been bursting into tears multiple times a day for no apparent reason. Basically, I've been a mess.

All of that changed on Friday. My community is an incredible one and at the first sign of trouble they've been there for us. They have been working night and day trying to find a new place for us to live. Well, Friday afternoon, the magical phone call came. They found a house for us. After some paperwork that needs to be dealt with, we will hopefully have the keys early this week.

I'm so grateful to my friends, family and all of my readers for your incredible support through this very crazy time. Your help, thoughts, and prayers were very much appreciated.

I can't wait to start organizing my new home. Hopefully this will be a great new start for us and our clutter :-)

How do you Solve a Problem Called a Landlord?

Yesterday, I was all set to tell you that even though we were being forced to move in three weeks, we were going to make the most of it. But life doesn't always go according to your plans -- even when you're improvising.

I started my day by making up my mind to continue decluttering and to start looking for available homes to move into. I had taken a little break in my morning to eat a yogurt when I heard an angry voice outside on his cellphone. I knew that voice... I had nightmares about that voice... It was the voice of my landlord.

I quickly bolted my door, turned off my lights and put my cell phone on silent. When he got to our front door, instead of knocking like a normal person, he began POUNDING on the door. My heart jumped out of my body and ran for the hills. I was terrified. And I was home alone. My hubby was stuck at work an hour away and I needed help quickly! So I pulled out my cell phone and began texting my friends and neighbors frantically -- "Please send your husbands! My landlord is here and I'm scared!" They came in droves....

Unfortunately, this wasn't enough to stop him from terrorizing me. He turned off my power. He tried to open the door using his key (didn't work because I had the door bolted). So I sat on my floor curled up in a ball and he proceeded to go around to the side door and tried to break through the glass. I was crying. I was terrified for my life. Especially since yesterday he made a serious threat to my hubby.

Everyone kept telling me to call the police and eventually, when I stopped crying long enough to really listen, I did. The police showed up, and I think they sufficiently scared him into leaving us alone. Unfortunately for us, our landlord owns the house next door to us and had decided to spend the night there. I have no idea how I ever got to sleep!

But now we are left with two options -- apparently, the idiot landlord wants us still to sign a contract (AS IF!!!), and our other option would be to leave ASAP with the option that we'll get our pants sued off...

After speaking to multiple lawyers, we've chosen to get as far away from him as possible and if he decides to sue, we're confident he won't win.

Needless to say, I didn't get very much done yesterday - not in the decluttering department nor in the packing department. But I'm grateful for all my friends, neighbors and family who helped us get through the day... Whether it was emotional support, or taking my kids so they didn't have to be here when all this was going down... I never would have made it through the day without them.

I hope and pray with every fiber of my being that this nonsense ends quickly and I can get back to what this blog is really all about -- cleaning and organizing my house. And even though I don't know where I'm going to live or how I'm going to pack up everything I've got, I'm gonna make it. Because my family and I are worth it. 

A Bumpy Bump in the Road

I woke up this morning quite pumped albeit a little bit nervous to start my week. I had left the worst for last. My bedroom. I had barely gotten dressed this morning when the phone rang. Our landlord was on the phone.

Its never good when he calls at eight in the morning.


Let me give you a little background information.  The owners of our house are not living in this country at the moment so they gave power of Attorney to their old neighbor - Mr. K. Unfortunately for Mr. K. he was in a car accident a few years back and his wife told us that he hasn't been quite the same ever since. Unfortunately for us,  we still have to deal with him.

We've been living in this house for about a year and a half. A bit before the one year mark, we tried getting in touch with Mr. K. so we could sign a new lease for the coming year. He never got back to us. We tried and tried and he never got back to us. We didn't even know if he was raising the rent. Eventually, four months later, he finally got back to us and he was all annoyed that we hadn't signed the contract or paid any rent! Well, for good faith, even though we hadn't seen a contract yet, we immediately went down to the bank and deposited money directly to his account for six months. (That time is not up yet!). But we hadn't signed a contract because we needed to make changes.

He threw a fit. He told us that if we wanted to stay in this house, we needed to sign the contract as is. I won't go into all the details, but being that he didn't obey what was in the contract last year, we felt it imperative to change some things to protect ourselves.

We even had contacted the actual owner to tell him what was going on.

This brings us back to this morning. Mr. K. called and told us that since we didn't sign a contract and didn't pay for six months (what?????) we therefore were being evicted as of immediately. And he's coming tomorrow to get the keys.

OH. MY. GOD.

So here I am, procrastinating. I don't think he can legally kick us out since we're still paid up till the end of the month. But the fear is there. So what do I do now? Do I continue my great flylady routine and clean my room as scheduled? Do I start packing? Do I try to find another house to move into TODAY? Or do I sit on my computer and vent to all you readers looking for sympathy?