Goal Tracking: Declutter and Cleaning

Dealing with a fruit fly invasion here, so annoying. I tossed about 30 books this week. You can't really tell if you are looking at my shelves, but it's progress!

Fruit flies? Annoying things! Below is a homemade trap idea with a picture. I have had success with these but I broke down this summer and bought a trap made by Terro and I like it too. It cost about $7. Very compact and not bad looking! See the YouTube below.

Thanks for the trap tip! We got a couple and it's making more of a difference than I expected. I'm also keeping the trash outside for now. This is the worst fruit fly situation I can remember dealing with. It has been a bad bug year for me.

Lots of cleaning/tidying on the agenda today. Not sure how I can keep getting rid of stuff but at the same time feel like I have less room.

I'm excited to get some REAL furniture. I have basically lived without much furniture for the last 9 years since leaving my H & moving across the country. I basically left everything except for a few pieces of furniture. I have a friend from church who is in her 80's & has been living in a care facility for almost a year now. Several of us from the church under her POA, have started to clean out her house. We had a yard sale the weekend before last & tied it in with the 127 yard sale that happens annually. She has a lot of really NICE furniture. I do have my own bed, but wanted to get her bedroom set for my spare bedroom so if I get my house cleaned up, I can actually have a place for guests to sleep besides on the floor or in my bed with me & my dogs. All the furniture is made of solid wood (the kind of furniture I always bought when I was married)......so NOW I have to clean out that bedroom & clean the carpet.

I am also buying a beautiful old chest of drawers that was actually her great-grandparents.......it's REALLY old but love the style. It's huge & up on 4 legs that are about a 1 1/2 feet off the floor with really large deep drawers. I'm going to use that in MY own bedroom & move the old clunky pressed wood one I brought home when a friend of mine was moving & down sizing. It was better than nothing at that time.

Also getting this really nice wooden table that has a drawer.

Several years ago, I stopped by a furniture store, looking for a recliner. I found one that fit me (short me with short legs). I had walked in at closing time not realizing it. I took the paper for the loan it would take (12 months same as cash) but when I got home, I decided that I really didn't want to spend the money at that time & that my other priorities were so much higher need for the money so I never bothered to get it.......well, she has a beautiful color deep red recliner (love the color & the fit is perfect) that I am getting & the last thing is a wonderful chest freezer for the basement. I have so much stuff in the freezer of my refrig that sometimes I forget what's in it & then I don't use what I have before buying more food & there are some times when I can't even get the freezer door closer. I think this will help me be a lot more organized also.

Well needless to say.....every room of my house that is getting this furniture needs to be cleaned out, clean the carpet & get organized but that's the incentive to get it done now to make a place for REAL furniture. I honestly think that's been part of my problem with cleaning because I really haven't felt like I living in the house anyway without real furniture to live on. So.....I'm going to be pushing myself to get all the work done so my friends from church can help me move the furniture into my house. Much of it is going upstairs (they are going to hate me for that.....but I will have it cleaned up & ready for when the weather cools down & they will be able to move the furniture in.

Going through her house & her basement was like going through a museum. There is a kitchen unit in the basement that has one of the old flower sifters. You open the door & they would pour in the flour from those huge old flour bags & then as needed they would sift it out. If I had money to just buy fun stuff, I would go for it, but what hasn't sold, we have a local auction that's going to be selling the rest of what we didn't sell in the yard sale. The guy that runs the auction does it also online at the same time the auction is going on live friday evenings here in our little town. He has quite a system set up. We are trying to get the maximum amount of money for the things she has because that is what is going to be paying for the care facility she is in for the rest of her life. She has no family left any more other than a few aunts here & there around the country. I am actually glad to be able to buy the furniture to know that the money I am paying is going for a good purpose to help my friend.

I have actually been blessed by having the chance to visit her weekly at the care facility & we also do a church service monthly there which is open to everyone who wants to come. I have been so blessed by meeting some of the most wonderful people who are in that facility & can truly say they have touched my heart as we have touched theirs.

This is really bad but it will probably make most of you feel better about your clutter compared to mine.

In the state where I live if your driver's license has expired more than six months ago you have to retake the tests. I went today to take the skills test but the guy from the DMV refused to get in my car because it was so nasty. Besides food trash I had a quart of oil and a large container of antifreeze in the floor. I moved the oil and antifreeze when he said he wouldn't get in but the floor was still too gross. What is sad is I took some fast food bags out of the floor before I went to the DMV. I am so embarrassed.

Well not too sure how much help the running away did for my friend. We went in to Ottawa to see her mother. Found that the house was a MESS and most of the piles were her sisters. The one that told us that she was cleaning the house for her mom. The one who said her mom was hording. The one who got remarried and move out with out her stuff. The one who left one of her sons there when she moved out and all of both boys stuff. I was so mad still am. Good thing sister was out of town. My friend doesn't do confrontation so she just cried on the way back to where we were staying.
It's really too bad its illegal to smack someone upside the head. Her mom has enough to do with out dealing with all of that. She is letting them walk all over her. Right now she can't use the walker if she needed it because of all the sisters stuff in the hallway. I really wish I had the means to go help her pack up all the stuff that isn't hers and send it back to the people it belongs too.

Selling some of my family!!!!!

Was looking for the babies other pair of shoes and a bag from the first trip a week and a half ago. It contained a bottle that now needs to be boiled, a sippy cup in the garbage, grapes and liquefied apples. We got home Wednesday I did laundry and ran around crazy Thursday and left Friday. Two out of three males in this house are supposed to be adults.

Grrrrrrr and other words that I'm not allowed to type!!!

At this rate I will never declutter of clean.

Have managed to do some much needed yard work two days in a row!

Nice!

I'm almost caught up on dishes I have cleaned out a bid that was burred in stuff. The oldest thing I found was a bill from dec 2014 darn good thing I have them on auto pay. Most of the stuff was blue boxed a few things were filed. I really am beginning to hate paper, it's everywhere! I have a box to shred have to wait till the baby is out he is way too interested in the shredder.

Got back from a trip, emptied the car ... and now I feel like there is so much crap in here, I can't move or breathe. My pantry was so full yesterday that I couldn't get to what I needed.

I don't know why it is so hard to throw stuff out. I agonize over whether or not to get rid of some piece of crap and 99% of the time can't remember what it looks like a week after tossing it.

So much of this stuff represents a long to do list of things I am never going to get to.

Filled up the recycling bin with books I will never actually read today.

I so need to do this. Things havent really moved in the past 3 months since i started weight watchers. Its like i can only concentrate on one thing at a time. The high heat and humidity doesnt help either. Complain complain complain! Can i get a job complaining?!

I think I could get a job complaining too!

Slowly going through boxes. And I finally got my plates up. As usual it took way more steps than normal. I was going to build a plate rail then I found a shelf in a thrift shop. So 5 bucks later I have my shelf. I put it up no problem the the cut out for the plates was too thin. So I had to go get some 1/4 round and finishing nails. Then of course my saw that my hubby put in the shed is missing so circular saw had to be pulled out. Over kill for the small piece of wood. Oh and all this had to be done while my grandson wasn't home. Last thing we need is him seeing me climbing up on chairs and standing on the counter!! But it is now done and my plates are up out of harms way. There was even room for a decorative pie plate.

I had a job where I got paid to complain. It seemed like it would be a great fit for my personality, but it was not healthy!

Htoun, you are very ambitious. Congrats on seeing the plate project through to the end. Unaluna, you have made so much progress in your house that you deserve the chance to focus on something else for a while

My boyfriend was nagging me about cleaning, so I pointed out the huge piles of his stuff on the coffee table before I knocked it all off. Now he has piled more stuff on the coffee table, but what I put on the floor is still there...

Sounds like stubborn heads may prevail! Been there, done that!

Lol, as long as I am not the only one! It was not a good evening for either of us

I bet not! Relationships are not all rosy and sunshiney all the time, that's for sure!! I've tried such things with my spouse but it's seldom worked out the way I planned for it to. I'm usually forgiving and real easy going but I can dig my heels in when I'm incensed about something.

I've been married 29 years. Sometimes I don't like him very much but I do love him. He use to be much better about doing house work.

I really need to do this too.

After some weeks with deep depression I had a big job to do with the dishes yesterday. I will continue with the rest of the dishes today. (Wish me luck).

Luck!!

good luck

With all the talk about books I figured I should get back to that too. I can't throw out or blue box books... it's a character flaw. But I can give them away so I have a box and a half for the annual book sale. Plus a few set aside for friends. It's a shame that I can't do this and keep up on the rest at the same time.

I'm still behind on the dishes but hubby has been juicing pears for cider. At least this year we are not doing any drive by pearings!! Last year we had tons and tons of pears. Last year we also had an oops with a little over a liter of juice. It was all over and months later I would still find sticky spots. Juice can really fly who knew

I used to be unable to get rid of books, but I'm over it as much as I can be. I think it works for me because I dump them in the recycle bin and they get picked up at the curb within 7 days... so there's not a lot of room for me to change my mind the way I used to when I'd put them in boxes to take to the thrift shop 'some day.'

I had a ton of apples last year, so I feel your pear pain. I'm resisting the urge to go crazy with preservation this year, just don't have the time...

I am in the ballpark with dishes and laundry, but the rest of the place looks like crime scenes do on TV. All that stuff he had piled on his coffee table is *still* on the floor. If he's going to leave it up to me, it's going to go in the trash pretty soon... it's been six days now.

I wish everyone good luck with dishes and other chores!

Darn I feel your pain. I asked my son to "find" the living room next time I will be more specific. He put away the toys and picked up but left the food and didn't vacuum. Oh and it took him two days to do it. The carpet is beyond saving. If I had it my way I would send them away for four to seven days pull up the carpet and paint the sub-floor. I would be lovely to just sweep and not worry about berries crushed into the carpet. I know such big dreams