Joyful Living

Cleaning and Decluttering

Finished the laundry room cleanup

I forgot to take a before photo, but here's my after photo anyway.  I completely removed everything from the laundry room, wiped everything down, and put everything back neatly.  Those bins are filled with all of my holiday decorations and the brown box has my Christmas tree in it.   The big pot is what i use to make my laundry soap in and underneath the pot is my laundry soap making ingredients.  That light blue and silver thing on the bottom shelf is my Scooba and next to it is my tool box and magic eraser stash.  The second shelf up is home to my small pile of cleaning rags, dustpan, package of clothespins, extension cords and energy saving light bulbs.  The laundry room is also where I keep my broom, dust mop, iron, and sh-mop. I keep my ironing board behind the laundry room door.  I will be getting an on-the-back-of-the-door-rack to hold it and my iron soon.  :)



Also this week, I've been working on going through the stuff we have in storage.  I got rid of enough stuff to empty 4 18 gallon sized rubbermaid totes and one large (30 gallon???) sized tote.  I still have a few more bins to go through, but I'm still pleased with the progress I've made so far.  :)

I think I've found a system that works for me!

I procrastinate... a lot... and I've been practicing for 27 years.  When I was a child, I could be found doing anything and everything but my homework and chores.  I've now perfected it to the point that I can spend nearly an entire day doing nothing but unimportant things.   Seriously!

I took a class a few semesters back that addressed procrastination.  The classes' definition of procrastination is, "letting less important tasks take priority over more important tasks."  I think that's a great definition. 

Some may look at my list of things I do each day and think I have no problems with procrastination.  Some may look at my home and think nothing is wrong with me.  My house is clean and orderly without much clutter.  I get decent grades in my college classes and food is served in a timely manner in my home, but if only people knew the truth! 

If you knew the truth, you'd know that I often wait to start my daily chores until after 10 am.  Sometimes, I don't start them until well after lunchtime.  Then, I panic and I become a whirlwind of brushes, brooms, rags, and soap.  I manage to get everything done, but I'm exhausted and I've come to loathe chores.  I don't like the way this feels.  I hate feeling guilty all day.  I hate rushing at the end of the day when I should be winding down. 

I've tried for years to try to figure out why I do this to myself and I think I've figured it out;  I'm a perfectionist.  I figure that if I can't get a chore done perfectly, I didn't do it well enough and if I want to do it well enough, I need to spend hours on each chore.  I dread this and so I end up doing nothing.  Since this realization, I've tried to figure out what I need to do to get over this problem. 

I've discovered that if I give myself permission to make mistakes and that as long as my home is pretty clean, that's good enough.  I've also started timing how long it takes me to complete a particular task and that helps a lot.  I now know that it only takes 3 minutes to wipe down all the surfaces in my kitchen and it's okay to only spend 3 minutes on it; it doesn't need to take an hour.  This also helps me with over-scheduling my day which is another habit of mine.  I tend to write big long lists of thing I want to do and then when I can't get it done, I get so angry with myself and stay up late trying to finish it all.  I've also discovered that my husband still loves me even if the dishes aren't done by X O'clock and the only thing he really cares about is clean underwear and a full tummy.  :)

Stack of Pandas

I used to have a hard time getting rid of my things, but then someone told me something that will stay with me always.  They said,"If you hold onto something simply because you *may* need it someday, you are preventing someone else from having the joy of using it now."  These words echo in my mind every time I think about hanging onto a shirt I haven't worn in years or a basket I've been keeping *just in case.*

I almost have the small bedroom cleaned out

Kitchen cleanup is complete

I finished my kitchen cleanup last week, but haven't had time to post the pictures.  Here they are!





We will be putting in the baseboards in the living room tomorrow morning.  I will post the pictures of the finished room then.

Cleaning!

I just wanted to give an update of my cleaning endeavors.  On Wednesday, I got everything on the shelves in that picture I posted earlier removed and cleaned.  Then I cleaned the shelves and moved them to their home.  I cleaned off the kitchen table and cleaned everything on it.  I Scrubbed it and the chairs.  I cleaned the floor under it and got the wall too. 

I did two loads of dishes and washed all the kitchen linens.  I cleaned off the counters and got them wiped down.  I still have my desk to do and I still need to clean all the cupboards and drawers as well as the other 3 walls and a few other things on my list.  I plan to do all of that today.  YAY!

On Thursday, I finished cleaning the living room.  I still have to hang the curtains and finish the trim and baseboards before I'll post pictures, but that should be done by the end of this weekend. I hope!

I'm digging myself out of the mess!

I woke up this morning feeling better and almost back to normal.  I just have a cough and a slight stuffy nose, so I'm ready to get back into cleaning.  With all of the construction and my being sick, my kitchen is an absolute disaster and I want to tackle it today.  I've decided to post pictures of what it looks like at this exact moment and post pictures of what it looks like tonight after I'm finished. 





You can see everything is coated in a think layer of dust.  This is dust from the adobe in our walls that got exposed during construction and also dust from cutting and sanding the drywall. The dust is EVERYWHERE (even inside all of the cupboards and drawers), so I will need to wash everything and wipe out all the drawers and cupboards. The "stuff" is dishes that have gotten neglected and displaced stuff from the living room construction.  Yikes! I've got a lot to do today!

Here's my plan of attack:

unload dishwasher and get another load going
remove all trash
remove everything off of shelves in center of kitchen
clean the shelves
move these shelves to their new home
remove all building supplies and tools and put away
Remove everything from kitchen table and clean the items
put these items away
clean entire kitchen table
unload the dishwasher and reload
remove everything from the desk and clean the desk
replace items that belong here after washing them
move other items to their homes after washing them
wash kitchen linens
clean stove
clean sink and wash dishes that need to be hand washed
remove everything from counters and wash them
wash items from counter and replace items that belong
put all other items away
clean microwave
remove items from cupboards and drawers and wash
clean inside of cupboards and drawers
replace items (removing items to be sold in garage sale)
Wipe down outside of fridge
clean out inside of fridge
wipe down walls/windows/light fixtures/stuff on walls
sweep and mop floors

I think that covers everything.  I seriously doubt I will finish it all today, so whatever is left will spill over to tomorrow.  I'll post my progress later.