BEFORE
NOW
Filed under Housekeeping - Maintenance, Organizing/DeCluttering
So far today I cut up raw veggies and put them in containers in the fridge for lunches and snacks and cleaned out the aquarium. (I’ll show you pics in a few minutes.) THIS is today’s main project.
We use the shelves above my kitchen desk as a combination medicine cabinet for downstairs and a first aid station. We would like to be able to find meds quickly, since patience is not our long suit if we’re in pain, for example, or having something else for which we would like quick relief.
It has gotten to the point that if we try to take something off the shelf, something ELSE might come with it!
You can also see in the picture below that my desk has ‘disappeared.’
I will try to fix this today.
123RF.com
This obviously isn’t my pantry, but it shows my feelings right now. I’m a bit overwhelmed, even though I AM making some progress (I think.)
Two years ago, more or less, I cleaned out our walk-in pantry and felt very virtuous. I’m both a bit of a hoarder and a slob, so getting the whole area cleaned out felt great. Then two years of essentially stuffing things wherever I could find a spot ensued. ( Did I mention I’m a slob?)
SO – We have been eating keto for awhile now. Both of us are very happy with the food we can eat, and I’m adding to our ‘go-to’ GOOD recipes all the time. That said, I’ve been noticing that I’m having to dig deeply to get to the things or appliances I want, and this is dumb. What I use all the time should be easily accessible.
So today I’ve started cleaning out the pantry, either giving away or storing what we aren’t using, throwing away what we’re not eating, and re-organizing the rest. So far, I’ve spent an hour and a half, basically making a mess in there. This will improve the more time I spend in there, so I’m concentrating on not feeling overwhelmed and running away.
I am officially taking a break now and we’ll have lunch, and then I’ll do another hitch. This will probably take a couple of days. I’ll take pics when the job is finally done.
I hope I’m not the ONLY person who needs to clean stuff out….
Deposit Photos
A year ago we made a donation to the Disabled Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith every month, trying to help others while we cleared things out here, room by room. The reason we have so much clutter is that we have lived in this house for over 30 years now. It has a good amount of storage space, so we have made generous use of it. Both my husband and I tend to save things, thinking “we might need it later.” Needless to say, we ended up with waaaaay too much ‘stuff.’
After a year of trying to declutter, we made good progress. So I sat on my laurels and we only did a few donations in 2019. Lately, it has become obvious that we need a Phase II of the decluttering project.
This time I’m starting in the kitchen/dining area/pantry, since I realized that with our following the keto eating plan, many of the things I used to use on a daily basis are gathering dust and taking up space. I’m going to do a big reorganization of the kitchen and pantry, putting the things I use all the time in prime storage space and moving the other things onto high shelves in the pantry. Some things I will donate.
Assuming I ever finish in this area – a BIG job – I will then move from room to room, gathering things to give away, if they can be enjoyed by others, or thrown away.
I’m not going to set a once-a-month time frame this time. I’m going to take my time and try to concentrate on making the area work better for us.
So far, we have filled a long box with glasses that were cluttering the cabinets and the pantry.
Wish me luck?
Filed under Organizing/DeCluttering, quality of life
Cosmopolitan
I told you recently that I’ve started on Phase II of decluttering my home. It’s been awhile since I’ve made any progress because I’ve been working out in the yard. Now that we’re having a rainy weekend and first of the week, I started on the master bedroom and bath.
With the sudden coolness, yesterday we got the upstairs vacuum working well enough to clean both rooms. I found myself grabbing a hoodie to keep warm, so today I started on my closet in earnest. I moved the hot weather clothes into the guest room closet and the cold weather clothes into my closet. Now I’m doing sessions, trying on everything and deciding whether it’s wearable and I like it, or if it’s in good enough shape to donate to the Thrift shop, or…
A truly wonderful thing is that I’ve been moving a sweater with a leather front, leather flowers and a front zipper back and forth for at least 5 years now because I loved it, even though it was WAAAAAY too small. Today I tried it on and it FIT!!!!! I got my husband to come upstairs, put it on, and even HE thought it looked really good. He said, “Not only can you get into it, it fits WELL and looks GOOD.” :0)
I like loose tops. I’ve found several, however, that are SO loose they’re either falling off my shoulders or come down so low in front I might as well not bother wearing anything. Woo HOOOO! I have a pad and pen and some trash bags up there to receive the donations now.
I get tired and out of patience quickly trying things on and taking them off again, so I’m spacing out the sessions. I’ll try to finish things by this evening.
It really feels good to be celebrating getting rid of clothes that are TOO LARGE, as well as purging my closet in general.
I have now finished going through my closet with my hot weather clothes, all my shoes, purses, scarves, etc. For me, this is good. Before, my shoes were all over the floor, for example. To the right of the shelves you can see my scarves and a hint of my purses.
My shoes are actually in the shelves for shoes now!
Casual tops are on the top. Dressier (as far as I GET dressier) on the bottom.)
I’ve tried everything on and have brought a LOT of stuff downstairs and dumped it in the foyer corner until I start listing and bagging things for donation to the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. THAT’S for another day, though.
I’m going to go put my feet up and dive into another book. :0)
You already know what a slob I am, and that I put lots of things – almost anything – above cleaning stuff out. I feel the need, however, every 30 years or so, to go through things. We have NEVER stayed anywhere for more than 7 years. Our first house closing was in 1970. Our second was in 1977. Third 1981, and last 1987. ( know these dates because of a wonderful wooden plaque my parents had made. It has a mounted champagne cork on one side and a gold plaque mounted on the other with the dates – added to each time we bought another home. We’ve had it on a wall somewhere since 1970 (some 48 years now. :0) ) When you move, you’re forced to go through things, purging, cleaning and reorganizing. 
I use the guest room walk-in closet as storage for my off-season clothes. I ALSO use it for our son’s leftover luggage, some memory boxes I created, bedding for the guest room bed, and LOTS and LOTS of other things.
My goal is to only have linens for the guest room plus my out of season clothes. Everything else has got to go – either somewhere else, be donated, or thrown away. I plan to spend a couple of days (or whatever is needed) to take the time to go through everything carefully, armed with a large trash can, large leaf bags for donated items, a pen and paper to list what I’m donating, and cleaning supplies.
I know. It’s disgusting. It’s a good thing we’re friends, ’cause I wouldn’t show this mess to just anyone….
Wish me luck, please, on healing this.
laughpls.blogspot.com
This purging/cleaning/re-organizing ‘trip’ I’ve been on continues. It may drive me to drink because it’s not like me at all. I may be in the running for the world’s worst housekeeper. I’m not DIRTY, but I’m not NEAT, either. It has been over 30 years since we built our home on top of our ridge line in Greenwood, Arkansas. We have a nice, big house that encourages one to keep bringing more into it. And we have. Things come in, but rarely go out.
I finally decided that enough was enough (to coin a phrase :0) ) and am determined to use this year to really clean things out around here. I’ve also made a promise to do it again every thirty years…..
I’m trying to get donations together once a month – every month – this year for our local library in Greenwood and the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. We made a donation to the Veterans store earlier this month, and today we took several bags of books to our local library, just in time to make our goal for January!
My new project is to go through what I call my cleaning closet in the utility room. It’s to the point that if I brought another cleaning supply of anything into the house it COULD IN NO WAY go into the closet…. Things don’t fly out at you when you open the door, but….. UGH.
This is the infamous cleaning closet in the utility room. I had to open the door to the garage to get these pictures.
Ugh. Things don’t fall out when I open the door, but it’s close. Things have been jammed in there for years and I can’t even see what’s behind the stuff at the front of the shelves.
top shelf
I don’t believe anyone could get one more thing on these shelves. I hang my head in shame, but I AM going to try to do something about it now.
Pretty frightful, isn’t it.
I’m going to tackle this one shelf at a time. This may take a couple of days, but I’m determined to make this much more usable.
Here I go!
pearlsofpromiseministries.com
I know that this title was one of the episodes of Breaking Bad on TV, but my parents were using the term when I was growing up in the dark ages, so I think the TV folks borrowed it. My parents used it to describe frenzied behavior of any type, and I use it here in the same way.
I have definitely been ‘bit by a dead bee,” in that I’ve done more cleaning out and re-organizing around my house than I’ve done in years. I don’t know WHICH dead bee bit me, but I’m thinking of marking this period of behavior totally unlike me on my calendar. it’s so rare.
It started before Thanksgiving, when I was running the bulldozer trying to get the house at least marginally presentable for our friend Nora to come share Thanksgiving dinner with us. I cleaned off the usual really piled up areas, and then I was ‘bit.’ I have been feeling the need to get rid of ‘stuff,’ either by donating it, throwing it away, or deciding where it should live. In each step MORE things that have been sorely neglected pop up to say, “And what have you done for ME lately?”
For the past day or two, the focus has been on my desk. I have a roll top wooden desk that we bought 35 years or so ago. Since having this house built in 1987, I have put things INTO the drawers, but then they get lost in the shuffle, never to be seen again – until now.
I love my desk. It has a nice flat space for working with a tray type center drawer underneath and then three drawers on either side. Two of the drawers on the sides are small and two are file cabinet type drawers. At the top of each side, right under the flat part of the desk, are two pull-out pieces for extra writing space. Above the flat part of the desk there are two reasonable-sizes drawers, one on each side. Above each of these are three small drawers then between them, going across the desk are slots. Above that, is the roll top which I can pull down, if I’d like. (Usually, there is so much ‘stuff’, it isn’t possible to close it. I just love the roll top for its looks.)
So – 7 drawers under the flat part of the desk, 8 above the flat part, 2 shelves, and 7 slots. That’s a LOT of space for someone like me to squirrel away goodies and stuff for a long time, ignoring the buildup.
I have finished cleaning out the drawers now and am concentrating on the flat part of the desk which has received stuff I’d like to keep, but either put away in the now clean drawers, move somewhere else, or give away. I’ve filled a big trash can, too.
I think it was definitely due some attention. I’ll take pics when it’s finished.
Growing Bolder.com
I definitely have too many irons in the fire lately, and it’s causing my normally reasonably pleasant personality to devolve into sighs and snaps if my husband points out something that is ‘in process.’
I’ve just spent time doing laundry, paying bills, pulling plants out of the garden. I come in and sit down at the computer and he makes a comment about my desk being buried under piles of stuff again….
The reason for this, other than the fact I’m a slob and anything fun comes before cleaning stuff up, is that he wanted me to clean out all the cookbooks that were in the kitchen and the living room. I brought them into the office, putting them in some of the shelves. Boxes of Christmas cards went from the shelves to my desk.
Then he wanted me to separate the office supplies from the ‘stuff we want to use’ (such as the many rolls of different types of tape we use to box things up) – separated from the envelopes, etc. I haven’t tackled this yet.
The reason the Christmas cards are on my desk, along with stuff that needs to be filed – is that I haven’t figured out where to put them.
I going to try to sell some of the cookbooks. I’m going to send some of the Christmas cards. I’m going to box up the Christmas presents for my friends that are there, file the paperwork – while my husband sits, working happily on a project….
ARRRGH!
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob
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