Industrious me!

This was the yuckiness that was our spare room closet before the transformation...


Unfortunately this picture doesn't capture the several boxes strewn around the room (tucked under the desk, along the walls) that were still packed with stuff!

So last weekend I channeled my inner construction guy: I bought some lumber, cut it, painted it, made use of my measuring tape, level, and drill. Add some necessary organizing, purging, and even a trip to The Container Store, and now...


Everything fits, and it's all accessible! No more tumbling piles of stuff to get to the stuff I want to use - AND there is room for more stuff. I could even hang some clothing in there. I'm already thinking the DVDs might find a new home...

Best of all, the room is no longer cluttered with boxes. Success!

Here's something I learned recently.

So I learned something a few weeks ago. Not that it really surprises me... I AM a second grade teacher, after all.

Kids are messy!

Leonard's niece was here for the weekend, and we had a great time with her. Lots of laughs, lots of hugs, and lots of little spills and piles of toys to pick up! Wow, I thought it was hard to keep up with just the two of us!

On Saturday morning we were playing with her on the bedroom floor. She had a sippy cup of juice and it tipped over, dripping just a little onto the floor. I picked it up and she said "uh-oh!" and ran out of the room. She came back with a wad of toilet paper and started cleaning it up! It was so cute.

A little while later I walked by the bathroom and this is what I found:

How precious is that?

Wisdom comes from unexpected places...

Here is a blog with a doable idea. Basically, Rachel Anne urges fellow bloggers to do one small thing a day to keep up with the house cleaning. (She even posts a small thing every weekday so we don't have to think about it!)

I, like many, am a list maker. Things to do, things to clean, things to file away, things to make, things to write, things to think about, and on and on. The list is long, folks. But back to things to clean. Such as my apartment. The list gets long and arduous. I spend lots of time procrastinating. I'm good at that. But the list never really gets shorter because by the time I start to think about pecking away at the list I've lost the list in a pile of papers.

But the small things idea is brilliant. This week I've attempted to do one small thing each evening - such as tossing out old food in the fridge, de-cluttering the stairwell, wiping mirrors. Really it takes only a couple minutes when it comes right down to it. But the beauty of it is once I start cleaning I get into a groove and one small thing leads to another and suddenly the trash is emptied, the car is cleaned out, the cabinets are wiped down... you get the picture.I've made a lot of progress! The kitchen and bathroom are sparkling, the bed is fresh and made, the floors are vacuumed, the laundry is mostly finished, with one mishap. I took a fantastic spill on the ice outside and have a crushed laundry basket, two bruised knees and a sore shoulder to show for it. That was no fun.

But besides that, this cleaning thing isn't really so overwhelming. I just have to set my mind to it and do a little each day. I will not go so far to say that it is fun but it is nice to feel a sense of accomplishment. And I didn't have to pull a Fly Lady in the process, which is really nice.

I WILL say it has been less than a week. I am still home alone so I have a lot of time on my hands. Check back in a month, and ask me what the apartment looks like. THAT will be the real test. But I'll try to be optimistic - I really want to teach myself to keep an orderly house.

I'm not alone!

Look, I found somebody who feels the same way!

I knew this had to be normal.

Oh, and an update: I decided to wash the dishes first, although I had to do it in shifts. Of course I had to wash the teapot before I could make my pot of tea to think about the monumental task ahead. The laundry is clean now too, but not folded. And sadly, I am showing up at work in wrinkled clothing because the ironing board is covered in unopened mail. (But I do have a fabulous new iron for the day I become a cleaning machine!)

Someday I WILL figure out this cleaning thing...

Disclaimer: I've been sick all week and my partner is out of town. The apartment is worse than usual. Ok, that's an understatement.
The apartment is an embarassment to domestic goddesses everywhere!

So this afternoon as I was tip-toeing around the obstacle course that is my apartment, wondering where to start this dreaded thing called cleaning... Should I start with the dishes that seem to have taken over my kitchen counters, or the trash that has taken over the floor because I ran out of trash bags and have been reduced to grocery bags which seem to fill up much faster and who has time to take out the trash everyday? What about the laundry pile that has spilled from my bedroom closet not only into the bedroom, but also the hallway? Maybe the vacuuming? But I have to put the laundry somewhere first, and the bed isn't made so that's not an option. I'll start a pot of tea while I think about it. ... a thought came to me. Who are those people who work full time and are able to keep a clean house???

Surely, they don't spend their 40 hour work week ignoring the work that needs to be done at home. They cook, they clean. And they clean. Maybe they keep a schedule? Maybe they clean as they go and never really sit down to enjoy being at home with nothing better to do than sit?

But I have to ask, do they enjoy it? Is there anyone out there who enjoys cleaning? I mean, I understand the satisfaction that comes with a job well done... the pleasure of coming home to a place that looks and smells clean. But who actually enjoys the process of cleaning?

Short of hiring a maid service, there has to be something I can do to make it manageable and possibly even (gasp!) fun?

This is my quest.

Horror of horrors!!!!

My friend Kyle showed this to me today. It weighs about 20 pounds, and it is an entire encyclopedia about how to clean your house!