How do things get out of control so quickly?

A friend of mine from church stopped by this afternoon. She's a wonderful woman and really absolutely and completely non-judgmental. I really love M to death.  She was cleaning out her office and had some scratch paper she asked if we'd like to have and of course I said yes. We are always in need of drawing paper.  But, as I invited her in, I just realized how awful my house looked. It really does look awful. Photos wouldn't do it justice, or I'd post them.  There is just stuff everywhere. I know part of this is due to the fact that we homeschool and while we're home, I cannot be getting things picked up. We're doing school. I think another part of this comes from my Depression Era Sensibilities. "Oh, don't throw away that 2 inch piece of yarn. Here, stick it in this basket with all the other 2 inch pieces of yarn. YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU MIGHT NEED THAT!"  So, M and I were talking about organization, specifically the school room and I was telling her, I know we could do better here, but if we were going to re-do things, it would take some thought and some time to think about it and I just don't have time.  And that is where I despair. I don't even have a minute to think. Things are just piled up here in the house all over the place. I don't know where to put anything because the minute I'm trying to think about where it goes I get interrupted. Someone is fighting, someone needs a diaper change, something is happening and I just can't even get a chance to figure out how to organize anything. So, it just gets piled up everywhere and then when people come over I feel embarrassed because my house looks so awful.