1. I’m “comfortable” with clutter.  It’s how I’ve lived my life for many years.  I first truly noticed this when I’d picked up my den/office area.  My phone’s batteries had run down, and I didn’t want to put it on the recharger because I’d have to step over piles of papers and stretch across boxes.  Except that… I’d actually cleared a  path to the phone base.  It was easy!  And it didn’t feel right.
2. The more serious problem, and I think the harder to fix, is my feeling that I don’t deserve to have a clean, tidy, neat home.  It’s just one manifestation of my low self-esteem.

I discussed this with my counselor last week.  So we’re starting (very) small, in hopes that I can get used to a clear walk space.  I have a garbage bag full of clothes in my bedroom, ready to be taken to Goodwill.  I can’t tell you how long the bag’s been sitting there.  Long enough to have gathered dust on it.

There’s also a couple of huge boxes from Zappos, one on top of the other.  The cats enjoy them, jumping into the bottom box and hiding under the box on top of it.  But the cats don’t make the money in the house, so they have to live by my rules.  (Well, up to a point.  They are, after all, cats.  And they have trained me well.)

So, before I see my counselor next week, I have to load the bag of clothes in the car and break down the boxes to take out with the trash.  Since one week has already passed, have I made any progress?  Why, yes I have!  I’ve  gotten rid of both boxes.  And I plan to take the bag o’ clothes to the car this weekend.  (And maybe I’ll even drop it off at Goodwill next week.)

Heh.  I was going to take a picture of the semi-clean spot, but I can’t find my camera.

What also appealed to me was the design element.  It was clean and fresh and orderly.  I knew the theme she used (PressRow) so I decided to give it a try, since this blog is (supposed to be) about getting my home clean and orderly.  I worked on a personal header, but when it loaded it was out of focus.  Turns out the headers are actually larger than the size we’re told to use in the header instructions.  (I know this because I screen-captured both the edit-header page in the Dashboard and the actual web page.)  This is not just the case for PressRow, but for every singe theme I tried, including this one.

A couple of the themes I tried:

The results?  I spent the morning trying to find just the right theme and just the right header.  Because I’m obsessive like that.  And easily sidetracked.

I’ll probably change the header now & then, and maybe even the theme.  But for now I’ll concentrate on posting more frequently.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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?

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.

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.

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.

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.