Today’s Cleaning Project 1-1-2023

This vent is on the wall in the kitchen. It’s about 18″ square and is between the kitchen wall and a central ‘shaft’ that goes down to the basement and is between the kitchen and a wall in the living room. A complicating factor is that it’s almost at ceiling level, so I have do to the cleaning up on a ladder.

It’s like there was a steady gale or breeze that goes through the house. I don’t know why this vent is a magnet for every bit of dirt and fuzz on the planet, but it is what it is. The fact that it’s in the kitchen makes the dirt and fuzz also be permeated with cooking oil residue, or other sticky stuff, and of course, our dog Amber’s hair is everywhere in our house, no matter what I do.

I started with the portable vacuum with the brush attachment. Then I soaked a micro cloth with bleachy cleaner. A scrub brush, more cleaner, over and over, and then rinse after rinse after rinse with clean micro cloths. Then dry.

It looks better now, which makes me feel like less of a slob, but won’t ‘stay’ done. I’m trying to designate one spot like this each day, figuring I’ll get to everything in time…

Sunday Thoughts

A couple of days ago I began a deep cleaning of our master bathroom. This includes a room with countertop and double lavatories, a whirlpool tub, my walk-in closet, two open closets for supplies, and then another room with a toilet and shower. I found myself also cleaning the guest room bathroom at the same time, thinking that, as I concentrated on one part or another, I could use the same cleaners and get both rooms at the same time. Today I’ll tackle our tub and then the baseboards and floors of both. Wish me luck!

My other project for today is another pruning of my tomato plants.

The long planter seems to be doing well, although there are a few branches that need to be pruned. The ‘niche’ planter beside the house is looking ‘bushy,’ so I’ll need to give it a bit more attention. The idea of the careful pruning is that you get more yield when you get rid of the extra leaves and branches that are taking energy from the main stems that produce the tomatoes. I’ll try to do that today, too.

I also wanted to share the elephant ear planter.

So far, it’s doing well, even though we haven’t gotten the 2nd line for our irrigation system yet. I’ll check it today to see if I need to water by hand.

Enjoy your Sunday!

Our Plight Continues

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I’m feeling like “Ms. Grumpy” this morning, in that our plight of being stuck on top of our ridge line continues. We are still unable to find anyone to spread the big truckload of crusher dust. I’ve left our name and phone number with JoesDriveways.com, plus HomeAdvisor, two of the online home worker finder places, hoping that 1) someone calls me back, 2) we can afford the services, and 3) the person can come soon. Fingers and all other appendages are still crossed. Of COURSE it’s rainy today.

Yesterday I finally finished going through the pantry shelves, throwing things away, cleaning and reorganizing what is left. (I won’t go into detail about a can that ‘exploded’ in the back, leaving a mess that had congealed, or the little bitty bugs I vacuumed up and then sprayed for. All is clean now.

CNBC

We just finished gathering our trash, both for the week plus what I’m throwing out from the pantry. We’re acting as though we’ll be able to get it down to the bottom of the driveway tomorrow. Hope springs eternal.

VectorStock

I’m trying to choose something in the house to tackle each day, particularly because 1) the rain seems to be with us forever, 2) we are stuck up here, and 3) I want to feel as if I’m accomplishing SOMETHING each day. There are MANY things needing attention from which to choose…

I wish you a nice Monday.

The Nose Knows

Pinterest

The pantry is coming together finally. I’ve spent several days in there, trying to make sense of things that we’ve been stashing wherever there was room. Since it’s a walk-in pantry (one of our priorities when we built our home about 35 years ago), there is a lot of room to stash before attention is seriously needed.

This is the ‘supplies’ side of the pantry. It holds kitchen and bathroom supplies, cooking supplies and appliances, cleaning supplies, medicine, etc.

I tackled this yesterday. I hate to admit that I found some cans that had failed on the bottoms, making a mess, expired foods, boxes of food that were old or failing, etc. I cleaned it all out, threw out a bunch, cleaned the shelves and reorganized things so they’re easy to see and access. This was the part my husband noticed yesterday. :0)

This is the area I’m planning to attack today. I have boxes and a loose organization, but again, things have been stashed. Some things need to be tossed, due to age or non-use. I want to organize better, so I can find the things I’ve purchased for particular recipes, as well as figure out things that I need for the new Mediterranean form of cooking I’m starting. I’m hoping that this project will wrap up today. I’m loving the clean smell as I enter the pantry now.

Hellooooo, Rainy Thursday

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“Scattered to isolated downpours will continue through our Thursday.” – our weather website says. It’s quite dark and rainy outside right now. A GREAT day to stay inside, warm and dry. :0)

Today I’ll concentrate on more ‘recognized’ forms of exercise, since yesterday morning was spent helping my husband change from snow to regular tires on the truck and the only other exercise was yoga. I’ll try to do better today, getting in all my online exercises, plus elliptical and yoga during the day.

I’ll also catch up on cleaning a bit, since the hairballs from Amber are starting to reach out and grab our ankles as we walk by. Hopefully, I can do all the 1st floor tiled areas, and then get the carpeted stuff, too.

No cooking tonight – main meal salad.

I did watch the tomato pruning video again yesterday and went out to see what was what on my plants. I was very conservative, mainly cleaning up the branches that were touching the dirt. I’ll tie the plants to their supports probably this weekend. So far, so good. I didn’t see any clear suckers yet, so I left things alone for now.

I hope you can stay safe, warm, dry, and happy.

Disorganized

A. A. Milne – E. H. Shepard – Winnie the Pooh – DreamsQuotes.com

Yesterday I started trying to once again clean up my art room. A lofty goal, and one that I occasionally actually DO. More often, I START – find something wonderful – and then spend the rest of the allotted time playing. :0)

We converted a third bedroom into my art room years ago. My husband built shelves that go all the way across one end of the room for supplies. On the other end of the room, he built more shelves. On the window side I have two tall sets of shelves…

Then there is the closet which has built-in shelves on one side and a plastic set of shelves on the opposite side.

I have two counters, one long table, and my drafting table.

My art room is a place that allows me escape. Alone time. Time to nurture, to dream, to experiment, to play.

Right now I have to tell you that it looks like a bomb hit. I am working to at least be able to walk through without falling over something or having to move a bunch of stuff.

I’ll do a bit more in there today. Maybe I’ll actually get something cleaned off!

Housekeeping

Rebel Circus – Amazon.com

Whew!

Dogs-LoveToKnow

Tuesday my husband and I went hunting for new carpet for our first floor and new floor covering for our porch. We were lucky enough to be able to compromise on some carpet and I got free reign on the porch!

They are planning to install this the first week in May. For the past three days I have been trying to move things off the floor and out of moveable furniture. They will move the furniture and put it back, but only if each piece is EMPTY. Ugh.

I’m lucky that since we just had the work done on our porch, I am down to the essentials out there. It will be a quick matter to move the table, chairs, and small corner of ‘stuff’ out on the deck.

The carpeted area is not nearly so simple. For example, we have TWO 4-drawer file cabinets and ONE 2-drawer file cabinet in the office. I had to move all the files elsewhere so that they can move the file cabinets. We also have ONE 6-shelf piece of furniture, ONE 3-shelf, and TWO 2-shelf pieces of furniture. That’s for starters in the office….

Yesterday I moved all the files into TWO huge rectangular laundry baskets on the floor in the dining area. Today I emptied the 6-shelf piece and will soon start carrying drawers in my desk up the stair to keep in my art room.

This is all good exercise, but it really wears me out fast. I’m also appalled at all the DIRT under and behind the furniture that has sat in the same place for years…

It’s a good thing that I have a good amount of time to get this done

I have never been “Suzy Homemaker,” but I should really be shot for being such a lousy housekeeper. :0(

Flood the World

Pema Chadran – Declutter the Mind

Some Progress, More Coming

Drafting Table When I’m Working – 1

Drafting Table When I’m Working – 2

When ideas are coming fast and furious, rattling around in my poor brain until I’m dreaming of them, it’s a relief – and so much fun! – to spend time zipping from one idea and medium to the next, shoving things out of the way enough that I can keep playing.

Every once in a while, though, the adult emerges and looks – appalled – at the mess I’ve created once again. The stern taskmaster says that I MUST clean things up before starting anything else.

I went upstairs several days ago. intending to at least START with the tractor in there, but got some ideas for new magnets and I simply gave in to the need to play. I had a GREAT time, got the magnets finished, priced them yesterday and put them into the basket I take back and forth to my local booth in town.

I then listened to the taskmaster and decided to at LEAST get the drafting table cleared off.

Drafting Table Cleaned Off – 1

Drafting Table Cleaned Off – 2

My plan is to continue my cleaning efforts up there today. at LEAST getting another table cleaned off.

Happy Tuesday!

Cleaning my Art Room?

Two days ago I went to my art room full of good intentions to clean things up and organize. I’ve been reasonably productive lately, so things are really a mess. :0)

I started with my drafting table because that’s where I do most of my work. As I cleaned it off, I got some ideas for new magnets to make for sale in my booth in Rags & Roses. The cleaning stopped as I started gathering the things I wanted…

Raising Children Network

Today I will go up and see if I can actually finish cleaning off the drafting table, as well as tackling more of the art room…

Art Room Honesty

Full disclosure – if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you already KNOW what a slob I am, and along with that, a lousy housekeeper. I decided that my current project will be cleaning up my art room – AGAIN.

The only time my art room is clean is when I’m not in there and have no current art projects going on. I have some images I took for my shops on Etsy, and they look really good. But nothing is happening in those images. :0)

I started cleaning in here this afternoon. I decided to start with my drafting table. I made a bit of progress, but then got caught up in a new idea for painted magnets. I started rummaging around, gathering things to try my new idea.

Under here is a drafting table, believe it or not.

And under here is a nice work table.

My art room has actually looked worse before. Sometimes it’s a challenge to walk from the door to the drafting table. :0)

Tomorrow I’ll show you more of the cleaning project, plus progress on the new magnets!

Cool Rainy Sunday

http://gildadeiladri.tumblr.com/ – Gifer

It’s 44, bleak and rainy here this morning. A wonderful time to be inside and dry, with a cup of coffee, family, and lots of animals.

My lap has been like Grand Central Station, first with 95-pound-Amber wanting to get up in my office chair with me as I type, (we have hugged three or four times already today) then each of 2 cats – Abby and Smoke – and sometimes both at the same time!

Today’s project is to repurpose the shelves in the guest room. There are still a few books on the shelves and a stuffed closet (my off season clothes and extra bedding, etc. I’m going to try to make things more organized and accessible while doing some good cleaning.

I don’t have to cook today! I don’t MIND the actual cooking – it’s the ‘figuring-what-to-have-for-dinner’ problem always hanging over my head that gets to me. Since we have been getting lots of HEALTHY frozen meals from REAL FOOD and STU’S CLEAN COOKIN’ in Greenwood, I only cook on the weekends, simplifying my life considerably. Today we’ll have the 2nd half of the chicken fingers meals we enjoyed at Lunch Bunch Friday plus more of the sausage/egg/cheese bake I made yesterday.

Yesterday I vacuumed our first floor tiled areas (kitchen, pantry, two half-baths, dining area, and utility room) and I got an entire dog’s worth of hair along with the usual stuff. With our temperatures getting cooler, I am HOPING that the dog will decide that she NEEDS her hair to stay warm and quit tossing it on the floors with abandon.

I hope that YOUR Sunday has lots of sunshine and happiness. If not, stay safe, warm, and dry.

Shaving the Dog?

Amber

Amber is a very boisterous 3-year-old, 95-pound yellow lab. Her hair is short, but just as we are about to go into cooler weather, she is driving me nuts shedding hair! She is happy, healthy, and seems to shed an entire dog on a regular basis.

Yesterday is a typical example. I vacuumed our first floor, appalled at the huge amount of hair accumulated in the vacuum. I cleaned out the vacuum canister and then showed my husband – who had to be reminded that this wasn’t an accumulation over several times of vacuuming – I got it all with ONE session of vacuuming.

I then went up to tackle the second floor, starting in our bathroom and bed room. I have a smaller vacuum up there, but FILLED IT UP with the vacuuming of the two rooms!

I will finish the job today, with the guest room, guest bath, my art room, the 2nd floor hallway, and the stairs.

I am definitely not Suzy Homemaker, and I’m a slob, but I vacuum an average of twice a week and this accumulation seems over the top.

I am thinking of giving Amber a buzz cut. She has a coat we bought her for cold weather. She hates it, but that may be the price she has to pay for shedding whole dogs of hair cavalierly…

Messy House

CoolFunnyQuotes.com

Today’s Project Only Half Done

One Green Planet

I’ve been upstairs in our master bathroom most of the afternoon. I have filled half a leaf bag with things I’m throwing away. I have things I can donate to others. I have gone through ONE of the floor-to-ceiling shelves, pulling everything out and going through, deciding what needs to be done. I have cleaned the shelves and put things back. I have taken things downstairs to be thrown away. A bag of things is by my office chair to be added to the donation list. Other things have been moved elsewhere.

My husband won’t be able to tell I’ve been upstairs or done anything. It will probably take me through the weekend to finish going through the second set of floor-to-ceiling shelves, medicine cabinet, and then clean the bathroom. THEN my husband will mainly notice that our counter top looks neater and that the rugs have been vacuumed.

I’m lucky that he DOESN’T notice a lot of things. Lots of people would go crazy with all the STUFF we have, or the fact that I’m such a lousy housekeeper.

Having him finally notice a difference when I’ve been cleaning for several days is good enough. :0)

Sunday’s Project – My Art Room

The combination of zipping into my art room, doing a project, and zipping out again, plus having other projects take priority, resulted in a mess in my art room.

I just got some new wooden earring blanks that I have ideas for, but decided that my art room deserved a good straightening up and cleaning before I started something new. As you can see, things are in a mess.

 

 

I spent quite a bit of time there this afternoon, and think I did enough good that I can begin the new earrings tomorrow with a clean conscious. –

Here are the AFTER pics –

Two Projects for the Day

PROJECT # 1

Amber’s feeding station is a pretty well-designed heavy rubber/plastic? thing that is in two parts – the upper part that holds the water and food bowls, and the lower tray part.  Amber is creative, though, and immediately decided that she would take the upper part (the whole thing – full of water and food) away to ‘somewhere else.’  This led to my husband screwing it into the wall.

 

This was really gross, with dog hair, white water dental hygiene additive residue, dog slobber, etc. I was able to get the tray out from under the screwed-in top part and scrubbed it in the kitchen sink. I tried to unscrew the top part, but the screw wasn’t in straight and I was afraid I would mess up the whole thing trying to get it out. I just brought all the cleaning stuff to the station and did the best I could.

It isn’t perfect, but at least I’m not cringing when I walk past – several times a day – now.

 

PROJECT # 2

My kitchen is a busy place in our house. I try to clean as I go, but it gets to the point where I need to scrub the stove, scrub the sink, move everything off the counters, etc. Today was the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only problem with all this is that now I don’t want to mess it up!  :0)

Today’s Project – “Go Out” Table August 1, 2020

We call this the “Go Out Table” because we stage things we need to take with us for errands, etc. It also houses my husband’s diabetic supplies. Under it is a bin with stuff going one way or the other from the booth in town I rent with my friend.

As I’m embarrassed to show you, it becomes a catch-all for a lot of other ‘stuff,’ to the point the stacks may decide to topple and slide off any minute.

This was today’s project.

(I had to slip my work on it in because my husband’s project was in the basement and he wanted my help there, too. )

My husband’s question was, “Where did everything GO?”

Now we can pick something up when we leave the house without an avalanche. :0)

 

Happier Fish?

The cleaning out of the aquarium today resulted in its designation as ‘project of the day.’ We changed from a more regular filter system, like you can buy at Walmart, to a more expensive, fancier type filtration system. It came in a lot of parts with three different things acting together as the filter. I got a bit intimidated while reading the directions, so I asked for my husband’s help.

At least half an hour later, we finally had the filter ready to go into the tank. We put it aside while we did the regular clean out. I like the fact that the majority of this filter system is on the outside of the tank, giving the sweet fish more room to swim around. If you look carefully at the top of the picture above, you can see (above the blue) the outside of the filter.

 

This picture gives another view from the other end of the tank. You can also see the filtered water going back into the tank. When we got it back together, the top didn’t fit anymore, so my husband took it out to the shop and cut off part of it to make it fit.  There are three filters in this one: a foam piece on the bottom, then activated charcoal, and then a bio filter of a bunch of pellet like things you put into the provided mesh bag. You have to work to get these rinsed and into the filter. This filter is made to handle tanks from 5 to 20 gallons. Since ours is a 5, this should be MORE than adequate to do the task.

You change out each part of the filter at a different time. We’re supposed to replace the foam filter every two months, the charcoal every month, and the bio filter every three months. (I have the directions on the table beside me so that I can mark my calendar with when each thing is supposed to be changed.)

So far, I haven’t seen any reaction from the fish – yea or nay. I really hope that this new style of filter keeps the water cleaner for longer.

 

So the aquarium clean out and filter installation turned out to be the project of the day today.

 

 

Thoughts on a Friday, July 31, 2020

AginginPlace.org

Today we meet our friends for Lunch Bunch. Our ‘core group’ (Linda, Kay and I) have been meeting every Friday possible for over 17 years now. “Priceless”  just isn’t a strong enough word to describe how special this is.  Others come and go. Our husbands were made honorary members of the group years ago. Linda’s husband is gone, now, but we share memories of funny or touching things from the times he was able to join us. Kay’s husband has joined us recently. He isn’t working now, laid off because of the virus. He is at the age where he should have retired long ago, but loves the work. He is working now to define himself as much more than his work, and I’m delighted. He has a wonderful sense of humor and it’s fun to hear what he has to say. My husband has been a member for several years now. He presides over his ‘harem,’ ( :0) )  though now graciously sharing that fantasy with Bud now. We enjoy catching up with what the others have been doing, or hearing about plans for the future. We have borne the sad news together over the years, and have helped each other deal with whatever has happened. We had to miss a few Fridays due to the virus. Then the restaurant owner was allowed to serve us outside at picnic tables. Now we’re back in the restaurant, wearing masks in and out. It’s good to be back.

We will have to set our humane trap again tonight because it looks like we have ANOTHER raccoon. This has been a record-braking year. We have relocated 8 raccoons so far, and it LOOKS as if we will do it again..

We had quite a storm yesterday evening. LOTS of lightning, loud thunder, wind, and heavy rain for about half an hour that I was aware of. No damage, though. We are due for more today. Our grass and plants will be happy. My husband is frowning as he imagines the grass spurting up again.

 

This is yesterday’s tomato harvest. We are enjoying fresh sliced tomatoes for part of our lunches and dinners every day. It has been glorious. Even if the harvest stopped suddenly – as it sometimes does – we have been very lucky this year.

Not sure what today’s project will be. I’m trying to choose one area to ‘heal’ every day. Yesterday it was my kitchen desk and the shelves above it. I also spent a lot of time scrubbing one of the downstairs bathrooms. I have LOTS of good choices, as I am a slob. I’ll report later on what the choice is.

I’m doing really well on my exercising. Being able to add a gold star to my desk calendar is motivating for me – a person who hasn’t fully grown up. They motivated me as a child in school and I will still get off my duff and go earn one now. I’m giving myself one for each session on my elliptical trainer in the garage and each session of yoga stretches and abdominal exercises. So far, this is an 8-star week. I’ll go for 9 and 10 today.

I hope you have a wonderful day today, productive and enjoyable.

 

 

Today’s Project – Thursday, July 30th

I have this nice little desk in our kitchen. The shelves above are a combination medicine and first aid supplies area. All too often it becomes a catch-all area, piled up with various things.  Today’s project was to clear off the desk, go through the things on the shelves, look for expired meds, and reorganize.

 

Things are more organized now and much cleaner. :0)

Raccoon # 8

Live Science

We caught raccoon #8 of the season last night. We have just come back from relocating him where he will hopefully find the rest of the “gaze” of raccoons we have driven to their new home out farther in the country. Even though Amber barked at him obnoxiously, he didn’t lose his cool.  It looked like rain was coming soon, so we relocated the raccoon before having breakfast or doing anything other than feed animals.

Now we’ve had breakfast and I’m enjoying a cup of coffee as I type this.

We have doors open so far this morning, enjoying a nice breeze through the house. We are due for storms today, with a bigger chance this evening. I will get out, check the garden, and see if we have more ripe tomatoes to bring in soon.  Of course, now that we are home for the rest of the day, the sun has come out. :0)

I am doing well on my efforts to exercise this week so far. I have done my elliptical trainer in the garage, plus my half hour or so of yoga stretches and abdominal exercises every day. This is a 6-gold-star week so far! I will try to earn 2 more today.

The wonderful person from Tri-Hill Pest Control in Fort Smith is due here at 12:30 today. 1308 Zero St, Fort Smith, AR 72901. (479) 782-2847. He is a super nice man – PLUS since he has come and treated the house quarterly, we haven’t had a bug or pest problem. (Other than my husband.) This is a wonderful company.

Today’s project will be my kitchen desk. We use this, and the shelves above it, to have medicines and first aid stuff on hand, too, so it’s a busy area. I will try to get this area cleaned out and reorganized today.

Have a wonderful Thursday!

 

Tuesday

Inspirationfeed

In a few minutes I will drive down to get our mail and put out our trash. When I get back, I’ll spend some time on the elliptical trainer in the garage. I’m HOPING to do 20 minutes today, but I’ll do what I can and call it a win for the day. My motivation is high today. I was planning to do the elliptical MWF this week, but I’ll see what happens. :0)

My husband wanted to eat some of the South Beach pancakes this morning. The last time was a disaster, so we decided that the NEXT time we tried them, “I” would be the one who caused it. I mixed up the two packages (one for him and one for me) according to the directions. The batter was too thick. I added 2 more tablespoons. The end result was good. We used a little butter and some sugar-free syrup. It was a nice way to start the day.

I will check the garden and also see if we have ripe tomatoes to gather. It has been so hot that I have spent the minimum amount of time outside as possible. We have a 50% chance of rain today – particularly this afternoon – so I’m hopeful for a bit of a reprieve.

I am trying to choose something in the house that needs ‘healing’ (cleaning out, reorganizing, cleaning) each day. I’m not sure what today’s project will be yet. So MUCH to choose from! I’m working on large leaf bag #3 of things to donate to the Disabled Vets.

I’m re-reading book # 47 (out of 49) of the J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) “In Death” series. #50 in the series has been ordered and will arrive soon!

Have a wonderful Tuesday!

 

 

Today’s Project 7-27-2020

I love my recliner in the living room. Beside it, I have a wealth of things I’m either using all the time – or PLAN to use –  as I sit. And that’s the problem – WAAAY too much stuff on the table. It gets to the point where the piles start falling. This is yet another example of why I have to admit I’m a slob.

Trying to clear this off, clean the table, and make sense of what was left was today’s project.

It took awhile, and many trips to either relocate or throw away a lot of things, but here is the result. My husband exclaimed, “What is that? Is that a table?”  And yet he lives.

 

 

It is not perfect, but it’s MUCH better than it was! :0)

Office Project 7-26-2020

I’ve been tackling my part of our home office a bit at a time.

I FINALLY got our important records and monthly bookkeeping caught up yesterday. Today I tackled the rest of the filing, my desk, and my shelves.

 

A nice thing happened as a result of this, I started feeling the wish to get rid of some stuff!

I’m going to declare victory on projects for the day, since I FINALLY have my work area reasonably organized and clean, and I will go do my yoga session for the day.

But, I’m pleased that the urge to purge is beginning to sprout. I’ll ‘water’ it and see if I can get it to sprout, starting tomorrow.

Today’s Project

In November or so, we kind of ‘packed up’ the screened in back porch for the winter. Over time, the detritus piled up, covering all. Lately a thick layer of pollen was added. I decided that, since the sun was shining and it was almost summer-like today (even though a cold front is coming through tonight) it was the right day to unearth the porch.

It’s great to eat out there, free from bugs and enjoying our view. I love to pretend that all that we can see is ours,  enjoying watching the seasons change.

Unearthing the porch was quite a job. My husband had swept at it, calling it done. Hahahahaahaha. He means well, but there is no way in the world I would even THINK about trying to eat out there with all that dirt!

I spent much of the day on the various steps – getting everything off the porch, sweeping twice, mopping twice, cleaning everything and bringing it back, setting up the table and chairs. Now it is habitable.

 

I Found My Desk!

I told you that I FINALLY made myself quit procrastinating and got the tax prep for 2019 mostly done. I then went through the file cabinet drawers for our stock records and found something ELSE that should have been a long time ago – updating our stuff and making sure that our records agreed with our broker’s. As I was working on those things, plus getting things ready to put in the local shop for St. Patrick’s Day, I ended up ‘losing’ my desk.

I love this desk. It’s impractical, but I love it. It has a top that rolls down so you can’t see the top at all. (I had so much STUFF on it – that was impossible) :0)

It also has a bunch of little drawers, nooks & crannies, slide-out trays, etc. It even has a KEY to lock it, though I never use it.

Today was the day I was going to do two things:

THING ONE:  Go onto our broker’s website and see if I could download and print what we needed to finish our taxes.

THING TWO:  FIND my desk again.

_______________

My desk is FOUND again!  As usual, I threw away a bunch of stuff, put things back where they belonged, found new places for some of the stuff…

I was able to download and print our tax stuff, so I’m in the process of going through the packet one more time, making sure I have everything included – with the backup receipts needed, and then we will drive to Fort Smith Monday and leave it with our wonderful CPA who makes sense of all of it and hopefully tells us we don’t owe anything.

As soon as I finish going through the tax stuff, I’m planning to dive into the book I’ve been reading and enjoy!

Kitchen Scrub Project Finished

I had a big project of cleaning out and reorganizing our cooking and storage areas now that we are eating keto. The project started with cleaning out our walk-in pantry. We still had a lot of stuff we weren’t eating anymore. I was using different tools and appliances to cook, and was having to wade through things a lot. I finally got the pantry cleaned out and we donated a lot of food and other things.

 

The second part of the project was going through my kitchen desk area and the shelves above it (a combination medicine cabinet and first aid area.)

 

Then I went through the cabinets and shelves in the kitchen, cleaning out, gathering a donation, and reorganizing things so I can find them easily.

 

Then I got distracted because my aquarium with three goldfish kept have really cloudy, yucky water, requiring me to clean out the whole tank every week. I now have a new filter and that seems to be doing a LOT better. I may end up running TWO Filters and TWO aerators,  but so far, things are looking a lot better.

Today I was finally to the point that I could concentrate on cleaning the counter surfaces, stoves, sinks, etc. I won’t show you how yucky the top of the stove was. First thing this morning, though, I put the gas jet covers and the stove grills into the dishwasher.

 

So, right at the moment, this whole area looks as if a miracle occurred.  Things are clean and organized!

 

I have a nice kitchen. I feel embarrassed that I’m such a slob, having to devote almost two weeks to getting things cleaned out, re-organized and clean all at once.

I will make my husband look at everything today – and do the appropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ before it starts getting messed up again.

The end of a project feels good.

Thoughts on a Tuesday 2-4-2020

Listal

We’re having a cold, rainy day today, to be followed by a wintry mix tomorrow. We were spoiled by two days of absolutely gorgeous, sunny weather lately, so I guess this evens things out.

 

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Yesterday I finished taking my warm weather stuff out of my closet and putting it into our guest room closet. I had my cold weather stuff in a big tub that I stashed in my art room because we were trying to have a clear closet for the foreign student we hoped to host. My husband’s stroke changed our plans, the foreign student won the lottery on host families elsewhere – finding a perfect one for him. Yesterday I pulled the tub into our master bath where my closet is.

I was determined not to just pull things out and be done with it. I tried each thing on and then decided whether –

• It was good and could be hung up
• It was good, but needed to go into the dryer for a few minutes to get wrinkles out
• It was now too large and should be donated (HOORAY!)
• I really didn’t like the way it looked on me and should be donated
• It was still too small and should be donated

I finally got to the bottom of the tub. I took the clothes that needed the dryer, along with hangers, downstairs and began running loads with a few things at a time. I took a pad of paper, pen, and large leaf bag back upstairs, listing what I was donating and filling the bag. I brought both downstairs. Then I brought the stuff that was now wrinkle-free and on hangers back upstairs and hung them in my closet. Today I will document the donation and the next time the weather is cooperative, we’ll drive to Ft. Smith to the Veterans Thrift Store.

Today’s project, thanks to Mother Nature giving us a cold, rainy day, is scrubbing my kitchen. Things have been cleaned out in both our walk-in pantry and the kitchen, and today I’ll do the deep cleaning it has been needing. So far, I have the top-of-the-stove parts in the dishwasher.

We went bowling with our good friends last night. We got to catch up on what each of us had been doing – with good conversation and laughs. My husband beat me the first game, but I beat HIM the second. We ALL enjoyed going to Braum’s after for ice cream. My husband wore the new tee he bought – giving both of our friends a good laugh.

I hope that you are having a good Tuesday. ENJOY!

 

Pantry Project

123RF.com

This obviously isn’t my pantry, but it shows my feelings right now. I’m a bit overwhelmed, even though I AM making some progress (I think.)

Two years ago, more or less, I cleaned out our walk-in pantry and felt very virtuous. I’m both a bit of a hoarder and a slob, so getting the whole area cleaned out felt great. Then two years of essentially stuffing things wherever I could find a spot ensued. ( Did I mention I’m a slob?)

SO – We have been eating keto for awhile now. Both of us are very happy with the food we can eat, and I’m adding to our ‘go-to’ GOOD recipes all the time. That said, I’ve been noticing that I’m having to dig deeply to get to the things or appliances I want, and this is dumb. What I use all the time should be easily accessible.

So today I’ve started cleaning out the pantry, either giving away or storing what we aren’t using, throwing away what we’re not eating, and re-organizing the rest.  So far, I’ve spent an hour and a half, basically making a mess in there. This will improve the more time I spend in there, so I’m concentrating on not feeling overwhelmed and running away.

I am officially taking a break now and we’ll have lunch, and then I’ll do another hitch. This will probably take a couple of days. I’ll take pics when the job is finally done.

I hope I’m not the ONLY person who needs to clean stuff out….