Goal Tracking: Declutter and Cleaning

I did the dishes and damp mopped the floor. The highlight of the day so far comes from remembering to grab the junk in the basement to set out for trash pick up this AM. I also did a few hours work cleaning out the yard. Good times!

Yard work....early spring this year...it's nice. Hoping my lawn tractor is working this year when I get it out to mow...kept the battery in the house this winter. Need to clear a bunch of crud at the side of my house before it starts to sprout

I got rid of a door I couldn't sell to anyone. I got fed up, and that was a good thing to do.

I need to get rid of a lot of papers and books that I don't use anymore and that have accumulated through the years. I can give the books away to a local school.

Sorted through a lot of papers today. Worked on one box but didn't finish it. You can see the top of my computer desk again!

Was able to do the dishes (for the whole week) today.

I am working on my foyer today.

Ok, I should never start to clean with a toothbrush. That other night when I was cleaning up the upper cupboard in my kitchen I looked over at the wooden hood over my glass top stove. I had garland left on it from Christmas. Took that off & the wood was dirty & sticky. I got out the krud kutter & then a deep cleaning wood cleaner I used on my parquet floor in the entry way. I sprayed it on & it started to take off the dirt, but it made it sticker & the paper towel stuck when I was wiping it off. so I sprayed on more & got out an old tooth brush. Wow, it's taking forever to clean but it's clean when I'm done & can see the beautiful wood. The only problem is that once one starts a project like this, it just keeps going & honestly takes forever. Not something one can just get done in a night of cleaning. This is going to be a long term project......using papertowel because so much dirt comes off, I don't have enough cleaning cloths to use.....just using paper towel & throwing it away.....oh well, will go through a few trees with this job.

I have a stainless steel kitchen sink (not my favorite). I kept one side clean where I wash the dishes. I had a copper dish drainer in the other side where I would rinse recyclable plastics & drain things I was going to throw away. It had gotten so grungy & little spiders had gotten under the dish drainer that I kept killing. That half of the sink was really grungy. I finally got it cleaned out today & used the same stainless steel cleaner that I used to clean out the pot I burned the mulling spices in. I figured if that cleaner could clean out the pot spotlessly, it would clean the sink. Then I moved the copper dish drainer out of the sink & onto the stove. I noticed that the stainless steel cleaner also worked on copper, so I squirted some out in a container & got my trusty tooth brush out & started scrubbing the copper dish drainer. I thought it would never look like copper again. Well, just like the wood job, cleaning this whole dish drainer with the copper cleaner is a huge job, but it takes all the dark off & the areas I have cleaned are sparkling.

Oh I hate cleaning at this level of detail.....but the little things look so pretty again....not that anyone but me is around to notice.....but.......It just takes too long & other things don't get done while I'm doing those little detailed things so I do a little at a time while getting the other things done also.

I have gotten so much cleaning & organizing done this year even though it doesn't look like it, I KNOW what I have accomplished & since I'm the only one here, I'm the only one who counts anyway. It's interesting though because I realize for the last 2 years just how non-functional I have been. Two years ago, my pain specialist had closed his practice & I was searching for a new pain specialist & then when I found an outstanding one, I was having to lower the dose of medication I was on while he was the only one who offered a treatment to help with the pain in another way which has really been great, it was still difficult & I was dealing with my massive migraines again for several months until we got that back under control. That was going on during the late winter & spring so I was basically useless until summer.

Last year the end of March, I had major oral surgery (all my teeth removed & ended up couldn't tolerate the dentures). That 1 1/2 hour surgery wiped me out until late summer so I had NO energy to put into cleaning the house at all.....then I ended up caring for 3 rescued stallions all late summer & fall until just before Thanksgiving. That basically blew the whole year.

This is actually the first year in 2 years where I have truly had the energy to be able to really get into cleaning. The mess that was created over those 2 years is horrible & catching up feels almost impossible....but trying to little bit at a time even with those stupid huge projects that require the scrubbing of a toothbrush to get them clean.

UGH, I truly wish I had a tiny cabin with only a couple of rooms. It would make life so much more simple.

Idk, eskie - i have a studio apartment and it seems huge. Like you say, if you do the detail work. It never ends!

My chronic pain is very bad right now so I'm not doing physical decluttering today. I'm unsubbing from email newsletters I don't read, working on my inbox.

Okay, foyer furniture rearranged, and the baseboards there vacuumed for once! Its not like i have fancy furniture - its mostly from the rental furniture resale and walmart shelving - but i am trying to follow interior design principles. Mostly symmetry - i have two chairs in the foyer at a right angle to each other, then two nicer shelving units across from each other, then going up the hallway, my two dressers - one low, one high, also across from each other. Ill post a pic when i clean it up! But right now im gonna learn from eskie and keep doing big stuff, not the small time-consuming stuff.

wise because it really does bog one down though I'm just doing a little every day rather than focusing on it completely....it still takes away time from doing the REAL more important things.

Okay, NOW the foyer furniture is re-re-arranged, hopefully for the last time. This counts as resistance-training, right? I kept bumping into The triangular shelf so i moved it to the other end of the dresser, where its more spacious but i still retain symmetry and this way my dads beautiful lamp can be seen from the front door; the shelf was hiding it.

I have made a lot of progress since I last posted. I'm so proud! I've marked several chores of my list. More importantly, I've unpacked 7 boxes and put it all away!! These are the boxes that have been sitting in the dining room for the last 4 years. This thread has been good for me, thank you!

I'm really jealous of everyone's progress! I've been sick and the house has suffered for it. 7 boxes is a lot and moving furniture counts as exercise, for sure

Being sick is a legit excuse!

I got through half a box this afternoon. It was full of momentos, graduation & wedding invitations and such. I thought it was going to be really difficult to let some of that stuff go and it was and it wasn't. I'm keeping some but a whole bunch went into the recycling paper bin. Progress not perfection!

Thats the kind of stuff i need to do. Good job! My foyer looks like a jewel box (loosely!); the rest of the apartment looks like a warehouse!

I have boxes of books from my childhood. Sooo hard to get rid of books - they're like people to me. Anyone have any idea who may want these things? They're from the 70's - would young kids even relate to the world depicted in books from then? I'll happily donate them just not sure where....

Google used books in your area. Youll find out all the options.

You might be able to sell those books - people like to buy things they remember having when they were kids.

Books are the new CD's? Happened in a blink of an eye.

The Kidney Foundation came yesterday! I had a bunch of boxes for them. They were covering the front porch. I can see a difference where they had been inside, it's almost bare looking! Still plenty to do though.

Congrats on all the progress! I spent most of yesterday cleaning. I feel like I am on the verge of tossing massive amounts of stuff, but then when I sit to do it... nostalgia or something else kicks in?

Fear of change? Why cant i live like a slob if i want to?? My ts head actually snapped back like in a double take when i said that. Woke him right up!

Gettin' 'er done! Last night i came up with this BRILLIANT idea to NOT break a hip AND get rid of my outdoor bicycle which i bought and put promptly into storage, not realizing until the half mile ride home that i was completely lacking in muscle tone thruout my ENTIRE body and that riding a bike was perhaps not the best exercise for me.

So this afternoon i took it out of storage and put it into the apartment complex "freecycle" - little pun there - now i have oodles more storage space in my cage. Its getting human all upin here!

You go, getting rid of your bike!

We've been keeping up with the dishes. No massive purges yet!