Goal Tracking: Declutter and Cleaning

"Orphan Train: A Novel" by Christina Baker Kline

It's very good so far

Well I finished reading my book, took a shower, straightened up my room and did my therapy homework

I went to a reading that author gave at our local library! I live in the same state her I agree, it was a good novel -- such a fascinating history, too - I had never heard of the orphan trains. Congrats on accomplishing your goals!

I spent a few hours with a friend I hadn't seen in a while yesterday. He was showing me the art he has been working on for the past eight months - I can't believe how much he has accomplished. Spending time with him made me feel more motivated to start working towards my own goals.

My goal this afternoon is to finish canning my celery crab apple jam, clean up the mess that makes, and clean up the mess I made in my dining room/office. I had a huge lunch with my aunt and would rather take a nap, though!

For four hours yesterday, there were NO dirty dishes in the sink!

Cleaned up my room today

Ugh...feel so useless..but have to get this house presentable as I'm going on a 4 day mini vacation with 3 friends & leaving my 3 dogs home & neighbor coming in to feed...too embarrassed to let anyone into my house the way it is...have to get it acceptable & sort of set up for the dogs on top of that before leaving early Thurs morning. Was feeling dizzy & yucky today when I had the whole day to work on the house.

Got the shelving put together for the kitchen to hold the stuff on the counters so I can get them clean...can clean out spided invaded cupboards later...want the surface stuff to be as presentable as possible beyond dog damage that couldn't keep from happening.

Got laundry worked on 3 loads. Was feeling so icky actually folded laundry while sitting on my bed. Usually get it folded as i take it out of the dryer but just threw it in the carrier...now to hang & put away folded cloths. Have been fighting off mild migrain today also. Hate feeling like crap when I have so much to do because I have been procrastinating...but had outside work that was demanding my attention also.

I hate when trying to get things done & the equipment needed breaks. Lawn tractor couldn't handle the tall grass. Hired neighbor to bush hog my fields...problem I couldn't get lawn tractor to run. Changed the air filter...then changed the corroded spark plug...now it runs for a short time then dies like the time a snail shell got into the gas tank & blocked the flow of gas...but don't see anything in the gas tank this time. Have so muck to take care of inside I don't have time to worry about it but it's nagging in the back of my mind needing to be solved & don't want to pay for service if something easy for me to fix.....always something that makes completing a task difficult

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I haven't really done any cleaning to speak of...I kind of cleared a spot on my dining room table so that I can use my computer there to import a bunch of cds I've had laying around forever. Eventually I'll use that space to get back to studying foreign languages.

Was it during the daytime? Cuz my sink will be clean for the next 12 hours but only because i'll be sleeping! That doesnt exactly count!

Yes, my sink was clean during the day time -- I even washed the lunch dishes so it would stay clean It was a wreck for a couple of days after that, but we are back to no dishes again. I used to think a dishwasher for two people was a waste, but I'm starting to wonder!

Eskielover, there's nothing like giving someone the keys to your house for motivation to clean. It will be wonderful to come back to a tidied house afterwards.

I think I will finish picking up the dining room and maybe sweep/vac the hall/dr/and kitchen. The living room is really the worst in the house right now, but it's almost too overwhelming to do anything about. There's too much furniture and no where to put it.

I swept the kitchen, hall, and stairs. We've been doing a good job keeping the kitchen fairly clean.

I changed the sheets and cleaned the bedroom pretty thoroughly - it had been a while since it had seen a vacuum and the cats seem to have created new fur colonies underneath the bed. I didn't do any massive decluttering, but I might try listing some stuff on eBay tomorrow -- I think it is a free listing day?

I have fallen off the cleaning/decluttering train. Time to get back on!

While responding to another thread, I realized just how many projects I have going on/start. My dining room is full of random crap, all of it stuff that I mean to get around to. For right now, I guess I will just be aware of this tendency and try to actually finish one project before I start another.

I have another friend who does this - we lose interest in the project about as soon as we buy the supplies for it.

First goal of the day: clean the dining room.

Cleaned my room last nigh, finally. It was getting pretty messy

I cleaned the dining room, did dishes, cleaned off all surfaces in the kitchen, and even started moving flood wreckage out of the living room.

Not sure what's on tap for today...

Washed dishes yesterday. Thats the most ive done on a thursday in a while! And feeling pretty good today.

Look at you two productive showoffs!

I on the other hand have not been cleaning.

However, while trying to get some dog food for my dogs this morning, I found a black widow in my garage!!! I was horrified. It made me sick that it could have gotten one of my dogs. So now my cleaning focus is back on my garage. I have given myself a 30 day deadline for having that garage cleaned up so that I can have the exterminator come in & spray the crap out of it.

Needless to say, Friday did not start off very well. & now, my girlfriend is home sick.

That sounds so scary!!!!! Would it be possible to have the crap sprayed out of the garage before you go in poking around? I hope you can get that taken care of soon and that your GF feels better.

LOL...that sounds so funny to read out loud!

Um, probably, but I don't think it would be as effective. I believe that the spot where it was is one of only 2 spots where I think it would have been comfy living--on either side of my roll-up garage door. We have a lot of boxes here & there, & I'd like to get rid of more of them before I have the exterminator come in.

I also want to get rid of the old fridge we have in there. We're using it, don't get me wrong, but that thing is ancient & I'm sure it's using more electricity than it's worth. We only have it because we were trying to help a friend out & at the time we were looking for a fridge to keep drinks in, so it worked for us.

So then the only things I want to have left on the main floor of my garage are my heavy duty shelving units (along the walls, out of the way, fine for exterminating purposes, LOL), my stand-alone freezer (near where I found the spider), & my washer & dryer. I want everything else off the floor before I have the exterminator come in. That way I can get the most bang for my buck, so to speak. With my dogs, it's a hassle to have people come into my home for any reason, so I like to do it as little as possible.

Perhaps it is unjustified confidence, but I'm mostly confident that that was the only spider in my garage. They have very thick spiderwebs, & I haven't seen anything like that anywhere else in my garage.

Thanks for the well wishes for my girlfriend. She's been feeling kind of meh for a few days, but we thought it was just her normal sinus issues. But now it seems like she finally caught a cold. Hopefully she is better soon. Right now she's napping, which is how you know she's sick--she HATES napping.

Took out some garbage and put away the dishes.

Have you ever seen that one commercial for the tvshow The Middle, where the wife tells the h not to put his coffee mug on the table because its a cleanzone now, and he says, one mug isnt going to make a difference, and zoom! In two seconds the table is full of stuff again. Im trying to keep cleanzones clean. Maybe it means i dont do as much in a day as maybe i possibly could, but i do try to enjoy my cleanzones and am trying to learn to make them last.

YES! This happens to us, too. The table NEVER stays clean.

I hadn't heard of a cleanzone! And yes, no matter how many times I clean my table, it winds up full of very random stuff again. Luckily it's so small that we have to clean it if we want to eat

I'm glad that you can see where the black widows hang out. You're definitely braver than I am! I am so used to living somewhere that doesn't have poisonous animals (except ticks) that I get very paranoid when I go out West.

No real cleaning to report from me. Two loads of dishes yesterday, but I dirtied two loads and still need to do a third

We adapted to our dirty table...we just don't eat there now! It's really terrible.

Normally we don't have such issues with bugs. Mostly crickets or something benign. This was quite the surprise. This is the first black widow I've seen (not necessarily the first one we've had, LOL) in all the years we have been living here (about 8). We have seen other spiders, even other big spiders, but not black widows.

No real cleaning from me either. Taking care of the gf & trying not to get sick!

Cleaned my room again today, omg it seems to get messy so fast.

I have to admit I have not read through all the pages of posts.

But, a great tip, it has really made my life so much easier: Get SaneBox. It's an e-mail organizer which is fantastic! It sorts your e-mail into different categories: Inbox (regular mails), SaneNews (newsletter, ads etc), SaneLater (mails that aren't urgent but which you should read), SaneBulk (saves important emails so they don't clutter your inbox, like receipts, bills, plane tickets etc.). It sorts some of this automatic but you can manually change it, you also get an e-mail listing various emails the add-on has placed into SaneLater etc., so you can tell it whether that was correct (by ignoring it) or choosing to move it to Inbox etc.

You can also send yourselves reminders, so the add-on resends the mail to you in two days/a week/a month/whatever.

It is truly fantastic. I use Gmail and it works with that. It has entirely changed how much time I spend shifting through emails, it saves me hours each week, I swear it.

This is getting to be a regular thing! Im all set ie no kitchen chores for saturday, they are all done, and i have enough prepared food for a while. What a luxury! Plus i made a crustless tofu sweet potato pie tonight havent tasted it yet but what could go wrong? It smells wonderful in here.

Great job, hankster! You deserve that pie