Bookshelves Project Finished!

It took me two days, but the purging/cleaning/reorganizing of the guest room bookshelves and my bedroom bookshelf is finished!

This is the set of guest room bookshelves. The guest room is our son’s old bedroom – hence the really large built-in bookshelves, a desk, a walk-in-closet, etc. When it was no longer needed by our son, we hired a man to cut a doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom, allowing us to give our guests more privacy with a private bath they can access from the bedroom.

 

This is the set of built-in bookshelves on my side of the master bedroom.  I can now see what I have, reach everything, and it’s CLEAN.

I gathered enough books in this project that well have a nice-sized donation to take to the local library tomorrow for their semi-annual fundraising sale.

NEXT PROJECT:  the cleaning closet in the utility room. (Pics to follow)

Tuesday’s Project

As with the file cabinets, I’m good about putting things IN, but not so good about taking things OUT. Our buffet has gotten to the point that we cannot get anything more IN.     TIME TO PURGE!  My husband hoards pill bottles. He’s not sure why. I’m going to solve this problem today. I love place mats, tablecloths, cloth napkins…..

 

Here you get an idea of what came out of the drawers of the buffet. Some I packed nicely in plastic, but most were just stacked and slid into the drawers. Then, when I changed place mats, I pulled out two of the four and put the ones I was not now using in the drawer, on top of the pile.

 

Time has passed and we’ve changed our daily pottery – a nice combination of aqua and brown.  I’m going to go through what we have with that in mind, trying to keep only the things that look good with the pottery, my china, or other things I have, donating the rest.

This is another project that has been a long time coming. I’ll feel better when I have things in more control, where I can remove something from a drawer without half of the contents trying to come out, and actually be able to put something back IN to the drawer with the other place mats, for example, where they belong.

Waste basket and donation bag are ready!

CleanER Garage Counter Top

The last big area that needed bailing out around here at the moment is my counter top in the garage. The area is difficult because I have bulbs in peat moss overwintering, a whole huge basket filled with iris rhizomes waiting for early spring to be planted somewhere, stuff brought in from the front porch, else. It’s also the area where my husband has decided is the extra storage for pop, tea, wine, beer, water, etc.

At least now there is a clean area of counter top between stuff that needs to be up off the ground so the doggies can’t get them and part of the drinks area. And the counter top is actually shiny!

To the left of this picture is my elliptical trainer, now being used for at least 15 minutes daily. There is a fan attached to the wall in front of the trainer that I can turn on when it’s too warm in the garage. Now I’m wearing a vest at least part of the time because we’ve had a cool spell lately. It’s funny that this is the only place we could put the trainer. It has to be on concrete or hard flooring without rugs or carpet. We didn’t want it in the kitchen, pantry, dining area or utility room, so this was the only space left. It’s only a bit difficult when we’re having weather extremes.

Final Project of the Day

I know. I can hear you saying to yourself – or out loud – “Why don’t you put things away so you don’t end up with piles of “stuff” everywhere? Haven’t we been through this before?”

It’s true. I have no excuse. I get busy and the current project takes precedence, so I end up with things falling on my head, demanding that I finally reorganize, throw away, etc.

This is the ‘before’ pic of my desk in the office.

I just finished cleaning things up, and there IS a piece of furniture under all that mess! I KNEW it! :0)

Now, after 4 projects today, I feel that I have earned a cup of coffee. I’ll put my feet up and either watch the football game with my husband, read my book, or completely veg out and take a nap.

I hope you’ve had a happy day!

Project for the Day

Sassy Senior Lady via Doreen Adamson-Liber

If I haven’t admitted it before, now you know what a slob I am.

Despite my efforts here and there – I’ve never been a great housekeeper – things ‘accumulate’ and, then, I think, reproduce like rabbits, causing the jumble you see before you. My husband and i both contribute to it.  On any given day there are other priorities, so it gets lost in transit.

Well, today is the day THIS will be the focus.

I’ll take everything off and TRY to organize this so that it’s not a catchall. I’m planning to move some of my cookbooks here to get them off the other counter space in the kitchen.

I’ll report back to you later on my efforts.

The Go-Out Table is Healed!

 

BEFORE

The table in the foreground is our dining area table. The table by the wall is the “go-out table.

 

As you can see, there is barely room for the stuff we need to take with us on our next errands.

 

The mess has spilled over onto one end of the dining area table…. :0(

 

AFTER

NOW  I have space to put my purse, the mail we’re taking, other paperwork, and the list of errands all on one end of the table.  I got all the ‘stuff’ off the dining area table, too. The danger of avalanche is past, PLUS I found several things I didn’t know we had! :0)

 

 

Slow, Steady Progress

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I’m trying to use each day to dig out from my almost-a-month of being essentially useless because of really bad back spasms and pain. Thankfully, I’m back to being ‘mean as a snake’ as my husband describes me, so progress is being made, albeit slowly – kind of like a government project…

Today I’m trying to accomplish two things:

THING ONE:  finish the clean up of our master bedroom and bath. I need to finish scrubbing our shower stall and our whirlpool tub and then I’ll declare that area ‘healed’ for now. (subprojects: cleaning out my bookshelf, going through my jewelry)

THING TWO:  We have what we call ‘the go-out table’ in the dining area that adjoins the utility room and garage. We put things we need to take with us on errands, (purse, errand list, associated paperwork) etc.  Since I haven’t been monitoring it, the ‘etc’ has exploded to the point we’re fearing avalanche.

I started by taking everything off the table and out of the associated cabinet. I actually DID have some avalanches as our dining table didn’t want to hold it all.

I’m resting for a bit because I found myself starting to ‘stash’ things, rather than either purging/putting away/donating/reorganizing. Time for Phase Two…

 

Apt Description

Rebel Circus via Lisa Bearnes Richey

Truism

Pinterest

I’ve already told you I’m a slob. I’m on a mission – albeit off and on, depending on my energy – to get rid of a bunch of STUFF in our house.

I’m tired of “piles” of things, and we have them everywhere. Now that we have a new puppy whom we are trying to get used to our home more and more, it’s really important that she not run into PILES of things that will get HER in trouble and make ME crazy.

We also have a good friend coming over this evening for a cookout. I’ll at LEAST need to get rid of the piles of stuff around my chair. It would be NICE of me to arrange that she can put a glass down beside her on the couch, plus HAVE a clear place to sit down, as well, wouldn’t it!

We have the food prep done for our evening. I’ve taken Amber out twice this morning, so I’ll use the lull in needing to meet her needs and clean up the living room, bathrooms, kitchen and dining area.

I can see that my home would be in much better shape if we had more new puppies and more guests! The good thing about going through the piles is discovering things I had misplaced or thought lost. It’s like a treasure hunt! The bad thing is that I tend to get distracted by the things I find, wanting to do something with them…

We dodged the severe weather from yesterday, and the cloudy skies seem to be clearing up for a nice evening. I really enjoyed sitting on the deck this morning after Amber and I had a long walk, enjoying the cool morning.

I hope that you are enjoying the nice long Memorial Day weekend with friends, good food, and fun.  If you get bored, you can think about me uncovering something wonderful in my living room!

Vacuuming Olympics?

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If there were a vacuuming Olympics, I should win at least a bronze medal yesterday and today for stamina.  Yesterday I tackled the tile on the first floor: utility room, dining area, kitchen, pantry, and two half-baths.  I filled up the cannister on my Dyson battery-powered vacuum and had to recharge before I could finish.

Today I vacuumed the carpet in the living room, foyer, and office, moving everything in the areas at least once and going beside the baseboards with a whisk broom to loosen all the pet hair that has accumulated since we got our new puppy. With two cats and two dogs (the fish doesn’t shed, thank goodness) they bring it in and leave it everywhere faster than I can vacuum it up.

Since I’m a slob, I let things go while I tended my husband after his surgeries and tended the animals, leaving everything else to fend for itself.

I feel a little bit better about the first floor, at least. The energy drink I tried yesterday tasted okay. It was sugar-free and only 5 calories. I couldn’t feel any difference in my energy level. Maybe I need to drink a gallon of it…

Shoot

Lipstick, Margaritas and Hairspray via Cathy Ruggiero