Goal Tracking: Declutter and Cleaning

Okay, i didnt overeat today, and i did a load of laundry this morning - even washed some long pants, not just shorts! - and i walked 15-20 minutes, thats 3 days in a row. Maybe i really should try the flylady stuff - i would like to clean the kitchen and bath tomorrow, and then sort the laundry to do on friday. That would make me really happy. I will walk tomorrow, but i dont have a walk planned for friday. Dum de dum dum!

Sunday nite report - my pc dr is putting me on metformin, that is making me physically hopeful. Things did go differently this weekend - i cleaned the kitchen and bathroom, tho not completely, and i cleaned up the foyer a bit. And no ordering out. We are keeping at it. I already put my clothes out for tomorrow, too. What am i, six?! I wanna sticker!

So did you try flylady? I've tried to do that, but I always wind up unsubscribing from the emails -- too many to keep up with! Congrats on all your progress and the no ordering out resolution (so tempting at this time of year).

Musicjunkie, I hope you got two of your totes sorted. We still haven't finished taking care of all the stuff from when the basement sort of flooded -- my patio is covered with stuff I dragged out and the living room is still pretty full, now with all my camping gear.

Eskielover, your home renovation projects remind me of mine. I get started and then just don't get back to it for years -- it's amazing how easy it is to live with these unfinished projects and not 'notice' them. I hope you got a break in the rain to mow the grass.

It has been a bad few weeks for decluttering/cleaning for me. We finally went camping and the weather has been nice for foraging. A neighbor passed away which left me feeling kind of depressed, and half my family has birthdays in the last part of this month. I've spent the past couple of days trying to save seeds and preserve my harvest. You would not believe the dishes that creates...

I do hope to get the living room straightened out today. Rain seems imminent, so no jaunting off for a hike instead... although maybe I could squeeze one in before it starts... hmmm...

I am pleased to report...I HAVE GOTTEN RID OF ALL OF MY UGLY GREEN TOTES!!!

I had 5 in total, & they are ALL finally gone! (Well, okay, one is in my living room waiting for me to throw it in the dumpster at work.)

I'm super excited. I seriously have not seen this much of my garage floor in a long time. At least not that back part of it! I might actually be able to open my garage door soon!

Most of it was the kind of stuff where you think, "Why on Earth was I keeping this???" I'm so glad it's gone. I kept a few books, some sentimental school stuff, a few coloring books (don't judge me!), & a handful of things that I'm not sure what to do with yet.

Note...I just came back to this post. I got distracted by shopping for a large hamper on Amazon to clear up the piles of dirty laundry consuming my garage floor.

So anyway! Yes, I am making progress in my garage! It is starting to look a little more like a garage & a lot less like a messy storage space. Being accountable to our therapist each week is really helping us. My gf has been helping & making some progress, too, but she's not into cleaning much, so seeing the progress hasn't motivated her as much as it has me.

That is awesome!!!! Congrats on clearing out all of those totes!

I didnt try flylady. I have been eating beans Seriously, trying a new diet from Womens World magazine where you have half a cup of beans at every meal. So doing that, taking my new med, taking my blood sugar frickin constantly, and trying to stay calm. So far so good.

Now i am doing chores in little bursts, and so far i have done a little vacuuming, and am moving some stuff around. Where is that "pat myself on the back" emoji? This is almost more work than i did all of august!!

How about this one?

As for me, I have also been trying to stay busy today. By busy, I mean compared to my usual doing nothing at all

I have been doing a little bit of laundry, & restocking our upstairs "pantry". It's where we keep our toilet paper, q-tips, etc. Not food!

I took some chicken breasts out to defrost for dinner tomorrow night, & I'm going to wash a few dishes later. So it will have been a productive day for me.

OH! DUH! I forgot my biggest accomplishment today! I cleaned up all the paper mess on my couch! Threw out all the junk mail, threw the stuff that needs to be shredded into my shred bag, & clipped a few coupons I want to use. It looks great! I can find this week's store ads & everything. Now that's not to say that there is now nothing on my couch...there is, it's just neater now. I'm bad about using my couch as a side table.

Thanks! And btw, thats why im down to a chair!

I did straighten out the fake hallway in front of my kitchen. Like took stuff out of it. Its freaking amazing now! I feel like im living in the Taj Mahal!

That deserves a sticker!

Ooooh - shiny!!!

I was scrubbing the tub and making the bed in my dreams last night - what does THAT mean???

If you haven't used it in a year it's probably time to get rid of it. At least that's what I do. We live in a small apartment and have no room for much clutter. So this works well for us. I used to hang on to a lot of random stuff that I thought would come in handy in the future. You know what... It just would accumulate and accumulate until I had no room for the stuff I used regularly! So, if it isn't being used get rid of it!

You all! You are so productive that you are going to shame me into getting up off the couch and picking up this room! Now that it's no longer August, I have no excuse

I think I've just been really overwhelmed with how trashed the house is - between the flooded basement, camping trips, and now all my harvest/canning projects -- it's a disaster area. It's almost like it gets to a point where it's so messed up that doing anything just makes me feel even more hopeless because it makes such little difference.

Okay, time to put the computer down. No more computer until the dining room is clean.

Youre funny - "if i havent used it in a year"! I have laundry to do older than that!

That's exactly how it is for us! After a while of not being able to keep up with the cleaning, we kind of just said "Oh well" & let it go. Now it's a huge mess & we're like, "Crap, we don't want to deal with that. It'll take forever to make a dent!" My gf has been super discouraged. I almost think she really doesn't care at all anymore what the house looks like.

On the other hand, I was super productive yesterday! Oh wait, I already posted about that....I never got to the dishes but I did continue with the laundry. Had to wash the dogs' beds, too.

Hopefully when your GF sees that things are improving, she'll join in the cleaning party. Sometimes that happens with my bf - and we both seem to 'notice' different kinds of messes, so it's great when we are both involved in keeping stuff up. Like I'll ignore food on the stove, but he's careful to wipe it clean, that sort of thing.

I cleaned the dining room and ran some errands. Too bad my favorite seat in the dining room (which is sort of like my office- it's the nicest room in the house by far, and usually the least cluttered) faces the totally disastrous living room, where we have empty totes from the basement, camping gear, and who knows what else piled in there. Boxes of books I've read and want to give away. Seeds and gardening stuff. Birthday presents. Too much!

I think dishes will be next. I've gotten into fermentation this year -- I like the food, but it doesn't make the kitchen smell very good.

I also broke down and bought that home routines app someone mentioned in another thread. Setting it up and listing all the tasks I want to get done on a regular basis is too overwhelming for me right now

Hankster, are you eating plain beans alongside each meal or switching to bean based entrees?

Adding beans to rollups, salads, pasta (use less pasta).

Ive been fermenting stuff in the kitchen too but not on purpose!

I do something like this, usually using black beans instead of red or a blend, and Carribean spice blend from Whole Foods instead of the spices listed - it's really good!

Jamaican Red Bean Soup, Crockpot Vegan Bean Soup Recipe

I really enjoy black beans + sweet potato - I've used that as a sort of Mexican lasagna filling and it's worked out well. I eat a lot of beans

Okay. Mission clean dining room sort of worked yesterday. I'm dithering again today, as usual -- got some kitchen-y stuff done, laundry, and did just about all the dirty dishes. I have to say that the dirty dish situation in my household gets on my nerves. When my boyfriend moved in six and a half years ago, the deal was that whoever didn't cook would wash the dishes. We alternated nights cooking.

Fast forward to now, and I do all of the joint cooking and still wind up doing the majority of the dishes. He mows the lawn, does the cat litter, and takes out the trash once a week.

I just packed away almost all of our glassware because I am tired of him claiming that I was the one who got it dirty (I only drink soda in cans and if I do drink water, I stand in front of the sink and put my glass right in the clean dish drain afterwards).

I know this is minor stuff, but it gets on my nerves. Sometimes I think the house is a chaotic mess in part because are both waiting for the other one to pick up their crap.

Anyway. I've gotten some stuff done today and need to decide what comes next. Maybe putting the rags/towels in the dryer while I am thinking of it!

Congrats on getting all that done! Sounds like a lot

We tried the alternating cooking/dishes thing; it didn't work for us, either

I'm actually getting ready to move a bunch of glasses & dishes, too, because we never use them & they're taking up valuable cabinet space!

As for the bolded part...that's exactly how our house got to be such a disaster. I used to do all the cleaning because I wasn't working & I felt that was fair. After a while, though, I felt like my gf was really taking advantage--not picking up her dishes, leaving her clothes & shoes all over, leaving trash around. Also, because of her bipolar, she was always shopping & bringing more @#$% into the house. (At the time, though, we didn't know she was bipolar; I thought she was just being irresponsible & selfish.) Eventually I got fed up with it. She wouldn't even bring her laundry downstairs so that I could sort it, wash it, dry it, fold/hang it, & put it away! All she had to do was bring it downstairs!

So I got tired of arguing with her about her being able to do 20 minutes worth of chores after work, & I stopped doing everything. It started out as waiting her out, trying to see how long it would take her to do x, y or z. But she would just never do it! The sink would be STACKED with dishes all over. We are forever behind on our laundry, which we have way too much of anyway. It caused a lot of fights & arguing after a long while. She finally realized how much I was doing, & didn't like that I wasn't doing it anymore. Of course by that time, I was so deep in depression that I didn't really care how she felt about it. She didn't care when I cared, you know?

& so the house is still quite a mess. I realize I didn't take the best course of action, & perhaps I could have handled it differently, but that's how it happened, & so now we have to deal with the consequences, you know? So be it.

I can relate to that! I don't have a day job right now - theoretically I'm starting a business, but in practice I'm burning through my savings until starting a business seems more urgent (any day now!).

So it seems natural that I would take on more of the housework, since I'm home - but I definitely resent it sometimes! I do all the shopping, most of the cooking, and most of the cleaning. Sometimes I just 'give up' and wait for him to do his share, but similar to your situation, I just wound up with a horrible, disastrously messy house.

I'm hoping if I can get it to a sort of stable state, he will be neater - and if I am not leaving my own stuff lying around everywhere, I'll have a leg to stand on when I ask him to pick up his junk.

Packing away dishes and clothes is great - it forces you to keep up with laundry/dishes - and even if you don't, the pile of dirty stuff can only grow so much. I find with the clothes that I definitely wear them out faster if I only keep one drawer of tops and one drawer of bottoms per season, so the pile gets thinned out more quickly.

Goals for today and tomorrow: Finish reading my book, and do my therapy homework.

Can I join?

Currently my home is a tip and I can't have anyone over. I just seem to have had zero motivation for cleaning and tidying.

Anyone can join in! Roseblossom, your place sounds like mine

Little by little, I am making progress. In fact, I think I am going to go wash the tiny number of dishes that are left so I can say that I have a 100% dish free sink and counter...

So far today, I've swept and vacuumed the kitchen and dining room. I'm thinking about making enough floor space in the living room to actually take a stab at that one too -- I need to scroll back through these posts and see when our basement flooded, because half that crap is still sitting in the LR. It's pathetic

This again since I haven't accomplished it yet. I'm aiming at to be finished sometime Tuesday

What book are you reading? I never did finish all of the dishes, but I did make ketchup from my own tomatoes, tabasco sauce, and started making celery-crab apple jam. I made a lot more dirty dishes...