SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Playing too, please. Since my return from vacation last Monday:

- 2 full carloads of donations gathered from 2 rooms and garage and dropped off at Goodwill

- 180-Got Junk scheduled for end of month when renter is finally moving out

- paints and supplies picked up to renovate DD16's room

- furniture ordered at IKEA for delivery next weekend

- furniture picked out and ordered for delivery in April when renter's room has been renovated

- carpet ordered and installation scheduled for renter's former room (she managed to ruin a perfect carpet in just 18 months..)

- repairs scheduled for the deck

A heck of a week :-) Taking a break today and back into the game of sorting, tossing and donating tomorrow.

I'm making March 1 my hard-line start date for some serious changes.

I've got a written plan of things I'd like to accomplish this weekend. It includes:

1. Yoga - 30 minutes

2. Strength training - 30 minutes

3. Sewing projects for little Sis's Baby-Due-Any-Day

4. Reply to various emails/correspondence

5. Prep my healthy foods for the week to come so I have no excuses as to why I had to hit the vending machine...

Saw this on a friend's fb and thought of you guys:

http://www.whitehouseblackshutters.com/40-bags-in-40-days-2014/

Thanks, Ama! I added that to my facebook. I'm gonna try this 40 bags, 40 days thing.

I paid my bills online today. Does that count for cleaning? I tossed the envelopes and filed the papers in the drawer...

I'm at the stage where I'm overwhelmed with things that I want to do. I need to write down some specific ideas and start crossing things off. I'm not ready to commit to what my plan will be.

Some general ideas:

-clear off my desk & stack of papers next to the TV

-shred the papers sitting on the shredder

-move the cd stand from my bedroom to the living room and re-organize the dvds

-get a better laundry system

-be more productive with work stuff (need to come up with specific ideas for this!)

-exercise (need to commit to a plan!!)

-go through clothes that are taking up space in my closet/drawers

-wedding planning

-save more money

I try to use the Keep, Sell/Donate, Toss/Recycle method whenever I'm going through things. It's just that the things are never-ending. I'm constantly creating piles of papers to go through again later. Mostly kids' school papers and mail. I've got bags/boxes of boy clothes that are too small in the basement. I started going through them, but after I sorted some, I never did anything with the toss/donate boxes. It's all still in the basement.

How's everyone doing with their spring cleaning?

I've made some progress in my checklist, but still working to eliminate it! I moved the TV series dvds from the bedroom to the living room, but I didn't do further organizing that I want to do in the bedroom. I've been going through paper piles, but they never go away!!!

I'm working my way thru boxes from the storage unit, finding places for everything.

I'm 1/3 of my way thru a 10x10 storage unit.

Maybe accountability here will help.

K

Yay! Thank you for bringing this back up to page 1, little turtle.

Since I was laid off last week, I've been on a TEAR! Today I took four big boxes of clothes and housewares to Goodwill, and gathered two bags of clothes to take to the consignment shop. I cleaned out my kitchen porch and took a massive amount of cardboard boxes to the recycling center.

I dusted off the patio set and set it up on the back patio, swept the front porch, and loaded the van with a bunch of junk for a landfill run.

Whew!

On the agenda tomorrow - cleaning out the garage and making at least one trip to the landfill. Woo hoo!

NIK, you are exhausting me just reading all that you've done!

I have been supremely lazy and need to get my act together. My first order of business is probably getting my closets in good working order. They are essentially just open rooms -- they don't even have bars in them where I can hang clothes!

Bumping for updates from everyone.

I worked on the garage more this weekend. Ended up with another van load for the landfill, which I dropped off this morning.

It's too rainy to work outside today, so I tackled my closets and kitchen instead. Now I've got a load of stuff ready for the household goods consignment shop - lots of decor items, dishes, pots and pans, a couple of small appliances I never use, a set of bar stools, as well as a metric ton of fabrics, trims, and notions from my brief (and not terribly successful) attempts at apparel sewing and window blind making.

When the weather improves, I'll finish up the garage with another landfill run, and then we should be back to parking both vehicles in the garage.

Paperwork and household accounts is my personal nemesis. I now pay everything on-line automatically, e-bills, no paper statements. So much less clutter. SO and I have a white board on the fridge that we re-write every Sunday. These are have to do things like, oil changes, dentists, whatever little nagging personal and household maintenance task that I find so easy to let slip. Seeing it every time I open the fridge sure helps remind me to stay focused on some of this stuff.

I really need to clean out my closet. And garage. And attic.

Acknowledgment is the first step, inconnu.

Tomorrow I'm spring cleaning my resume. There's a new job posting that is right up my alley, but my resume was last updated in 1996 (the last time I applied for a job). I'm sure nothing much has changed since then though, right?

My closet is cleaned out, mostly. It still needs some organization (I need to figure out the best way to store shoes and purses) and there's a couple of containers I need to find new homes for.

But I have pulled out all the clutter, gone through most of that, threw away a couple of big bags of crap, sorted papers into shred or recycle boxes, and even ended up with a small pile of clothing to donate.

I can walk to the end of the closet now. Better yet, I could get the vacuum in there to suck up the dust bunnies. Luggage is put away on the shelf where it belongs. All the not put away properly Christmas stuff is in the living room, waiting for me to go into the attic for the plastic bins it really goes in.

All in all, I think I've had a rather productive morning.

Yay!

Post-weekend bump for updates.

I was out of town for much of the weekend, but I did squeeze in a drop off at the clothing consignment store. Almost $200 in my pocket now for clothes and shoes I had hanging around just taking up space.

I managed to make it up into the attic, and tossed down a bunch of stuff to trash. Most of it went out to the curb for pickup today, so it's gone already. I'll get the rest of it out for the next trash pickup day.

Still have a lot of work to do on the garage, but I've made a small dent already there, too.

This is a great thread!

For those who need a little extra structure, one of my friends swears by FlyLady:

http://www.flylady.net

FlyLady.net: Your personal online coach to help you gain control of your house and home.

Your free online coach, cheerleader, and fairy-godmother for decluttering and organizing your home and life! Find out how daily reminders can help you clean your house, keep the clutter away, and best of all, bring peace to your home and family!

Not really making any progress with the cleaning lately. I've been trying to maintain what I have so far. We did manage to clear off the table in the basement. Only to put gifts that I received at my bridal shower on it. It never ends!! At least not as long as I'm living here. I need more organizing tips!!

I'm making March 1 my hard-line start date for some serious changes.

I've got a written plan of things I'd like to accomplish this weekend. It includes:

1. Yoga - 30 minutes

2. Strength training - 30 minutes

3. Sewing projects for little Sis's Baby-Due-Any-Day

4. Reply to various emails/correspondence

5. Prep my healthy foods for the week to come so I have no excuses as to why I had to hit the vending machine...

I'm chugging along on my personal spring cleaning.

I'm doing elliptical instead of yoga (my left foot is in a boot again).

The strength training is still hit and miss, but a work in progress.

I finished the sewing projects for my new nephew and baby sis.

Emails are caught up and I do weekly food prep on Sundays for the upcoming week.

Next steps:

1. Strength train CONSISTENTLY.

2. Clear out the clutter in my house. I am a container freak, so if it looks cool or I think I "might be able to use that at some point", I will save it. And of course it never gets used... (ahem)

3. Start playing guitar again.

4. Dust off our kayaks and get back on the rivers/lakes this summer!

an update from me - I got the garage clean enough so there was enough room for SO's stuff when he moved in. We still have most of his boxes out there, though. But SO has been helping me with smaller projects around the house. Piles of "stuff" are being gone through, sorted, trashed, etc.

My Christmas stuff that moved from my closet to my living room has been packed up and put up in the attic.

It's baby steps, but it's continuous baby steps, and some of the stuff I haven't been able to get to due to lack of time and energy is being done now that there's two of us to tackle it. I can see the progress.