regaining order in the household

all in all, my family's visit was great and it was wonderful seeing my niece and nephew. however, it took me a solid evening/morning of cleaning/organizing to get my apartment back in some semblance of order. i came home on sunday night to find a box full of food (mostly non-perishables), a bag of random things (hats, chicklets, shoes, etc), three pillows that aren't mine, bedding, etc.

argg. . . my parents accidentally took two of my pillows which offered the perfect amount of flatness (unlike most girly girls, i am not "into" pillows, like them flat, and need one. . though i have two for symmetry) and left theirs. . . so not only am i missing my two pillows, i no longer have a matching set of white cotton sheets. this is highly disturbing. .. sigh. . . but what can i do?

the OCD girl in me enjoyed the process of organizing. working in retail, i've managed to accumulate a large number of cosmetics sample products, vendor gifts, etc. i carefully arranged these in labelled ziplock bags (com'on, i admitted i'm OCD) and cleared a great deal of shelf space.

i still have a fair amount of stuff that i'll have to return to my parents over thanksgiving and donate to salvation army, but otherwise to have successfully decluttered!