Paper-holics Anonymous
I continue making progress in my “den.” I’ve had a few off-days (I think maybe an off-week), but I’m back at it, spending 15 minutes a day decluttering the room that houses my computer. I’ve now cleared off a portion of the sofa and can actually sit on it while I (continue to) sort and file. The bad news is my file cabinet is overflowing. The next step will be to go through files and throw out a lot of stuff, but that’s a ways down the road.
I’ve discovered I’m a paper horder. You wouldn’t believe the amount of notebooks and notepaper I’ve found. Loose leaf 3-ring binder paper, those 5×7 spiral notebooks, the little spiral notebooks that fit into your purse, stacked notepads held together by adhesive, list-size notepads, tabbed notebook paper, graph paper, magnetic notepads that can attach to the refrigerator, stationery, stock paper (for formal correspondence), business card paper, self-adhesive envelopes that have lost their adhesive, and a “wheel book.” The only type of paper I haven’t found is a steno pad. But I’m only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the room, so there’s still a possibility of finding one.
I doubt I will ever have to buy another piece of paper as long as I live.
Lemons and lemonade
My life has been in turmoil these last few days. I’m reeling from the possibility I may have to work shifts the last year or so of my sad career. Shift work is for young people. I’m not only not young, but my health isn’t all that good. But, I’m trying my best to follow my own mantra of “Worrying never solved the outcome of any event.” So, instead I’m trying to chart a course options. (Does that make sense?)
A funny outcome of this whole trauma is that it’s spurring me into getting my home in order. My computer room/den/guest bedroom has been a mess for many years. I get a ton of financial and medical paperwork in the mail. It’s so overwhelming, I’ve just let it pile up over the years. But for the last few days, I’ve been spending about 15 minutes a day going through the piles and then another 10-15 minutes to file it all.
About a week ago, I filed the last of the papers that had been sitting on my new computer desk (which is not yet being used to house the computer) and blocking my way to the file cabinet. A few days later, I cleaned out the paperwork that had piled up in a huge basket that was sitting on my sofa.
I’ve already reaped a benefit. When I needed to recharge the phones, I first balked because I’d have to lean over piles of papers to reach the charger. But guess what? I was able to walk right up to the charger and place the phone in it.
It’s those little things we live with every day that wear us down. It felt so unusual (but good!) to be able to complete such a small task without the gymnastics.
I still have a long way to go in the den, and I may now be at the difficult part of uncovering things (like pictures) I want to keep but don’t yet have a place to store them. I guess I’ll just have to tackle the situation and figure out things as I go.
Share those leftovers!
I had my first experience with Freecycle this weekend, and it was good.
I’d run into a neighbor last week. She’s redecorating and planning to buy all new furniture, but was having trouble selling her current stuff on Craig’s List. I told her about Freecycle, even thought I’d never used it. She said she’d check it out.
As for me, my old computer had been sitting on my dining room table for about a year. I’d decided long ago to put it on Freecycle, but just never got around to listing it.
Finally, I put it on my list of weekend goals this past weekend. I wrote up the description (complete with pictures) in the afternoon. But since it required moderator approval, it wasn’t listed immediately.
At 11:00 p.m., the phone rang and my heart sank. [I hate late night phone calls; the news is never good.] I didn’t know the caller and figured it was a wrong number. She was interested in the computer. I’d completely forgotten about the Freecycle post! I immediately received 2 more calls. (Apparently the moderator is a night owl.) (When I told the 2nd caller it’d been spoken for, she sighed, “Oh man!” I felt so badly for her.) After call #3, I took the phone out of my bedroom and put a new message on my answering machine.
Caller #1 picked up the computer on Sunday. And now my dining room table is (mostly) clear.
Sunday evening my neighbor called to thank me (effusively) for telling her about Freecycle. She listed her furniture (she’s not the procrastinator I am) and it was scooped as quickly as my computer.
Thanks, Freecycle!
As I was driving to work today, I thought about my car. I’m used to driving sedans, and today was the first day I sort of missed it.
In November, I bought an SUV for the explicit purpose of cleaning out my house. I figured an SUV would give me more room to fill up with items going to Goodwill.
It’s a lovely car, the highly rated 2009 Subaru Forester, and it certainly does give me more storage space. But it’s not going to do me any good unless I actually load it up and drive to Goodwill, is it?
That’s what I thought about this morning. I’ve had the car for eight months and have used it only a couple times for the purpose I bought it.
Perhaps I need to put it on my weekend to-do list. After all, I am beginning to get a little bored doing basically the same 5 things every weekend. Good idea!
Subaru's 2009 Forester. My car's even the same color!
It’s working!
For the past few weeks I’ve been writing down 5 things to accomplish each Saturday and Sunday. Guess what? It’s working!
I have varying levels of success and varying levels of temptation to “screw it.” But I’ve had more successes than failures, and I’ve actually made progress.
So, what have I been doing?
- Paying bills/working on finances for 15 minutes each day. I’ve gotten caught up with my bills and am now in the process of balancing my accounts.
- Doing 1 complete load of laundry and “1/2 load” each day. A complete load consists of sorting, washing, drying, folding and putting away. However, I can’t complete one load of delicate items in one day. That’s where the “1/2 load” comes in. I wash (since sorting has already been done), and hang or lay flat to dry. The following day I fold and put away. My laundry is down to a manageable level, without leaving items in the washer to get moldy, or in the dryer to get wrinkled.
- Iron 3 items on one day. I now have a closet with a variety of clothes to wear; some new, some I haven’t worn in a long time.
- Other chores such as picking up around the house, cleaning out the frig, changing the sheets; even backing up and deleting files on my old computer in preparation to Freecycle it.
- But my biggest accomplishment has been to not turn on the computer until 10:00a.m. It’s amazing what I can accomplish in those few hours, and it’s probably the reason I’ve been successful in all the other endeavors.
Reboot!
It’s time to get restarted here. I’ve been participating in NaBloPoMo on my personal blog, but I’m finding it’s keeping me from not only updating here, but from actually doing the things around the house that need doing. So, here I am once again.
I want to follow FlyLady’s monthly zone schedule, concentrating on different areas of the home each week. I think this is a great way to get something done throughout the house, as opposed to spending all the time in one room until it’s finished. At least it works for me. (I hope.) A lot of times I find if I spend too many days working on one thing, I become tired and bored with it. Worse, my brain kind of shuts down and I can’t make the decisions I need to; such as what to do with this piece of paper, do I want to keep this magazine, where do I put this item.
This week the zone is the bathroom and one other room. Right now I’m concentrating on the room that has my computer. I call it a den, but it’s really a second bedroom, and I do use it for guests. Well, I’ve used it for guests when I could get to the sofa. Right now it’s covered with papers that need filing, pictures that need sorting, tools that need to find a place to live.
So, the goal for tonight is to straighten up the bookcase (it’s not too messy) and clear off the space around the computer. That’s a space that’s about as hard to keep clean as the kitchen. It requires constant vigilence. Guess it’s just a habit I’ll have to develop.
Darned kitchen!
Boy, the kitchen can sure get messy quickly. I’d been doing a great job of keeping up with it (more or less—the table needs ). I even managed to keep it up on Sunday (even with my sore back). But for some reason, I pooped out on Monday. My back was still sore, so I didn’t do the bending and twisting of loading the dish washer. Nor could I tolerate standing to wash the things I don’t put in the dishwasher (knives, hard anandize cookward). So things piled up in the sink and on the counters.
Why was I able to keep up with the kitchen on Sunday, but not on Monday? I have no idea.
The good news is I was able to get the dishes out of the sink and into the dishwasher this morning while my coffee brewed.
Addendum: Just as with Stream of Conscience II, I’m going to test different WordPress.com themes here, too. This time I’m going from back to front.
My saddle slipped
I had a good Saturday. I made progress in the closet. I threw out a lot of old cosmetics and specialty undergarments (which I bought when I was ballroom dancing and are now much too small) and giving away lots of shoes. I’m sure there’s someone else out there with a size 9½ narrow foot. I also cleaned up the area around my computer; another task I’d been putting off for much too long.
The big project for the weekend was to put together an electric grill for my balcony. It’s a real barbecue size one, shaped like a Weber kettle, and meant for outdoor use only. I bought the darned thing last summer and it’s been sitting in a box in my kitchen since then. The good news: it’s assembled. The bad news: I pulled my back doing it. It was heavier than I anticipated and required a bit of lifting and bending and twisting to get all the bolts in place. So it’s sitting on the balcony, looking all pretty and shiny.
The consequence? I spent all day yesterday sitting on an ice-pack and not doing much of anything. Since I pull my back a few time each year, I know the pattern. I should be ok by tomorrow. Until then, Motrin is my friend.
Back in the saddle
The heat wave broke on Wednesday, but it left me wiped out for the entire week. The fall out is I was too hot and tired to work on my daily 10 minutes during the hot days (Saturday-Tuesday), and too exhausted to start up again Wednesday and Thursday. I left work a couple hours early today, came home and took a nap. I obviously needed it because it took me awhile to find my car in the parking lot. And even when I did, I didn’t remember parking in that general area.
After the nap and some dinner, I went ahead and worked in my closet for 10 minutes. Oh my goodness! I wonder how many 10 minutes I’ll have to spend on it before it becomes “presentable.” The one problem I noticed this evening is that the air is very still (& stale) in there. Since it’s just off the bathroom, perhaps turning on the vent fan would help. Or maybe I can put one of the portable fans in there for awhile to air it out.
Tomorrow is “Fashion Day” on QVC. Even though my closet is jammed, I still need a few new pieces to replace older items and freshen up the wardrobe. I’m afraid I’ll buy too many things that I don’t really need. Of course, I could simply not watch, but I’m sure at some point I’ll tune in. The good thing is that most of the summer items presented are too casual for my needs; and the more professional clothes are numbered sizes (which don’t fit me at this point) rather than the more generic S-M-L category.
I’ve been good about not buying needless things this week, knowing I need to get rid of and organize the things I already have before I bring more stuff into the house. Hopefully that thinking will prevail tomorrow. Tune in on Sunday to find out if I was successful.
What counts?
What counts against my 900 minutes of decluttering? Can I count maintenance items like changing the sheets or emptying the dishwasher (both of which I did yesterday). How about paying bills and balancing bank accounts?
I’m definitely counting the banking work. After all, it is a form of decluttering. Plus, I spent 1/2 hour at it. (Not going to count all 30 minutes, maybe just 5 or 10 minutes.)
I’m also going to count all the general maintenance stuff, too. Like the bank accounts, it’s a form of decluttering. If you don’t fold the laundry and put it away, it becomes part of the clutter, right? Same with the dishwasher. If I don’t unload it, the dirty dishes just pile up, creating clutter of the quite disgusting kind.
So, I’m good for Sunday. 
