Renovating my house has shown me who the TRUE hoarder is in the family

So...we've decided to tear up the entire upstairs of our house. Yep. And it's a DIY project. Well...I suppose if I'd had my way it would have been a call-the-contractor-move-into-a four-star-hotel-and-after-two-magical-weeks-it's-done project. Oh yeah, and with new furniture and paint too.

But we are not that fancy OR wealthy. And Ryan likes to get his hands dirty. After demolition, apparently I do too. Who knew? Anyway..that's why I haven't posted in a while. I've been busy tearing out walls, ripping up carpet, prying up staples, and floorboards and cooking in a makeshift kitchen. All the while keeping my 2 kids entertained because YOU KNOW RYAN'S BEEN OUT OF TOWN!!!

I will, however, tell you how Miles is a huge hoarder. And when I say hoarder..I mean...holy shit he has a lot of stuff.

First I started off gutting out his room. We have to put hardwood in his room because he has horrible allergies. So I started there. And of course Ryan was out of town. See the things I pulled?

Miles saves ALL of the packaging to ALL his Star Wars action figures.


I found 10 of my old spice jars filled with candy canes. It's July now.


I also found, what I like to call, BAGS o' CRAP. Which is basically any bag and or backpack filled with, well...all kinds of crap. And MAN was there a lot of crap in them.



Lastly...his collection of actual Star Wars playsets and "stuff", plus only half of his lego collection. Keep in mind..this was all in his closet and under his bed. There was more, but I couldn't even photograph it I was so annoyed at the sheer amount of shit.




I'm completely annoyed right now just looking at all that stuff. I was in the process of throwing most things away. Such as the old toys he got with his Happy Meals from McDonald's, and all the pieces of things that no longer had other pieces to match. But as I was doing this, I noticed my guy pacing up and down the hallway. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then the panic set in. He started eyeing the trash bins to make sure I wasn't throwing things he deemed important.

For the love of God! It almost killed me. I just wanted to get rid of the stuff and it was giving Miles an ulcer. So I stopped and took the kids outside. They swam with friends for a few hours, and then Miles gave the neighbor boys his Transformers. It was awesome. Charity at it's very best.

And now the construction has begun. We tore up the house and now they're laying the hardwood floors.
Back to trying to "not" kill my children. I'm having issues with them not listening. To anything. At all. EVER. And it's killing me. It's a slow painful death. And like I said on facebook today...they're lucky there are construction people in and out of my house all day.