Project: Declutter 365

While reading a blog entry over on The Finer Things in Life I stumbled on her 2010 series Declutter 730 in 365. She made 2010 her year for decluttering 730 things from her home (an average of 2 things a day). Then she did a monthly update on her progress.
Now this kind of project could be good for me. It could be a way to focus my new-found desire to change our house into a home. But if I wait until the start of a new year to make a change or set a goal it will never happen. So I am going to start it now.

I can declutter things 4 different ways,

• Sell them on Craigslist or at a garage sale.
• Donate them to Goodwill.
• Give as gift, yes I still have lots of things with tags.
• Throw away, things that are missing pieces or are just broken.

I also agree with Amy that it would be too easy if I didn't set up some rules to follow.

• Regular trash doesn't count.
• Andrew's scrap metal doesn't count .
• I am going to average 2 items a day, some days I will do more and some days I will not do any decluttering.
• I don't have to be the one to declutter, the kids or Andrew can too. The point is for the house to loose things.
• I will blog about it once a month.

This shouldn't be too much a stretch since there are whole areas of the house that I barely touch. The hardest part is going to be continuing after school starts again. Here I go....

Daily Did It

Today was Andrew's day off. I love his days off. It is so easy to be productive.

Here is the list.

Unloaded the dishwasher
Worked with the family to pick up the floors
Andrew swept the living room and kitchen
Spot mopped the living room and kitchen
Had Elizabeth pick up the play room/laundry room
Started the process of refinancing the house
Cooked two complex meals at home
Had playtime with the kids at park
Took the perfect family picture to get printed
Let Andrew go on a scrap run (and didn't even complain)
Ordered my canvas print (my free offer was about to expire)
Washed 3 loads of laundry
Loaded the dishwasher

Having it all out there, our day was crazy. I love the crazy days, especially when we are all together.

Daily Did It's

I got a few things done today.

Loaded dishes
Unloaded dishes
Washed 3 loads of laundry
Had girls pick up bedroom
Gathered laundry from around house
Cleaned toilet
Unloaded dishes
Loaded dishes
Cleaned off table
Folded a table worth of laundry

Maybe having the laundry folded onto the table will hold us all accountable to get it put away before we even eat breakfast!

The Beginning of the End

Paige finished her last day of kindergarten today. She loved her time with Mrs. Price.

I have a first grader now!

Daily Did It's

Day 2 of the summer schedule.

I love my husband and miss evenings with him already; but being alone and awake at the same time is nice.

I am secretly loving this time.

I still haven't gotten a lot of housework done. It might be caused by the flip-floppy schedule, but really I think it has been Landon's never-ending need to be held and Andrew's extra scrap metal prep work.

Today I,
Washed 3 loads of laundry
Unloaded the dishwasher
Had Paige do a 5 minute dish-check
Started dishwasher

At some point this week I want to deep clean my bedroom. This might be a pipe dream... but I am holding on to it.

Life Summery

There has been a sad lack of work done around the house since my last blog post.

There were 3 parties over the weekend but with all the fun that was planned we also faced a super unavoidable problem, we were all sick. The constant presencce of whining, mirgranes, fevers, earaches, headaches, runny noses, coughs, wheezes and vomit. I am not even sure if that is all we faced.

There were 3 doctor appointments today.

I went being concerned about sinus/ear infections and left with Landon starting a new medicine. Hopefully the wheezing is over soon. Even after one treatment he seems quite a bit better. 

 Today is also the day we start our new summer work schedule. We went from spending every evening together as a family to having our family time in the morning. The kids handled it pretty well today. It will take some getting used to for me, but I keep reminding myself that it is only 3 months.

Crazy Kids and What I Did Today

My niece and nephew were over again today. It is nice to get to spend time with them, when everyone is getting along.

Everyone doesn't normally get along on the second day they spend together in one week. Surprisingly, they did well today.

There was coloring time. They played ball, dress up and cars. Elizabeth gave JJ one of her pretend hair cuts. It seems like everyone had a good time.

The kids let me take a shower with no interruptions. There was no screaming when I had to go outside to set up car seats for the school trip. I saw very little bossiness or toy taking. I was even able to get Paige ready for school and make lunch with no problems.

What relief!

Before they came over, I cleaned the table from the breakfast messes, unloaded the dishwasher, cleaned some counter space and washed a load of laundry.  Andrew even dug down and got all the floors cleaned up with the girls help. The house felt slightly presentable when they got here..

While Andrew and Shane were off scrapping, I washed the rest of the laundry and got it all folded too. The hanging things all made it onto their hangers! Made a menu plan complete with shopping list.


After Shane and his kids headed out, I finished my chores...

Put away all the laundry (I wish, more like some of it)
Loaded the dishwasher
Went to the grocery store
Started the dishwasher
Had the kids pick up their toys (Some of them)

It is days like today that make me think I can handle a few more kids.

Daily Did It, The Last 2 Days

My niece and nephew were over yesterday; when they are with me cleaning gets put on the back burner.

Over the last 2 days I have,
Set up the big kid slide,
Cleaned the cobwebs off the playhouse,
Unloaded dishes (2 times),
Loaded dishwasher (2 times),
Washed 5 loads of laundry,
Folded half the laundry pile

I am a little sad that I did most of it late today. I am trying to get some regular rhythm in my housework. Hopefully in a few weeks I will see more of an improvement. 
On a side note, Andrew and Shane cleaned my driveway today. I love the money they have been making. Andrew bought me a used iBook with that extra money! The downside of all their scrap metal collecting is the mess that I am forced to look at from my living room. It had become quite embarrassing. But not today, ah... today it is clean. Andrew promised to make trips to the dump more often for me. And I am planning on holding him to it!

Daily Did It... Busy Weekend Edition

This has been a crazy busy weekend. Don't get me wrong, it was fun... just busy too. 

Friday started out with school and deep cleaning the stove. I know.... that sounds normal enough. The real craziness didn't start until the preparation for my sister in law's baby shower.

Saturday was filled to the brim with activity. The day started with more prep for the party, with three kids underfoot. Then of course, there was the party. So fun... I just love being right in the middle of things. I take that back; really, I am not afraid to do whatever needs to be done... even if it makes me super uncomfortable. After the party there was the clean-up.... I love that even more than being the center of attention. Gifts to be loaded, and reloaded... ah, the puzzling that it took to get it all in.

Even though we already had a long day, my loving mother-in-law volunteered to take the girls home with her for the night. After spending almost 8 hours, I was glad to head home being down 2 kids was just the icing on the cake.

Why waste a night with almost no kids by staying home? I couldn't help it... It had been years since I asked Andrew on a date. 

After my husband got off work, we loaded Landon into the car and headed out for dinner and a movie. It was a late night for us, but it felt really good to act like it didn't matter.

Adding to the busy weekend, Landon woke up early today, too early.  We had to go to Sunday school, church and a wedding shower for a dear family friend. Getting my feet up after all that felt pretty good.

After I write it out... that doesn't sound like so much. After a little down time, I did manage to do a few chores.

Unloaded the dishes
Loaded the dishwasher
Cleaned off the dinner messes from the stove (this is a big deal, even if it was easy)
1 load of laundry

Tomorrow is normally a big chore day. I am praying for the motivation to really get the essentials done.

Daily Did It's

My done list today is really short...
Unloaded the dishwasher,
Washed 2 loads of laundry,
Scrubbed the stove.
It has been a busy day. I am okay with this list.

There will be no done list tomorrow, the kids and I are going to be out all day and very tired when we get home.

My Morning Project

I should start out by saying that, cleaning the stove should never be a project. And it is really not my desire to have it be one.

But I almost never wipe down the stove. Honestly, I cannot remember the last time I deep cleaned the stove, let alone wiped it down. Hopefully it I have done it since Christmas... But judging by how bad it was this morning, I am not convinced.

Part of me says, don't show the picture.  Then if I didn't, how credible would I be. I need to be held accountable for letting it get this bad. As you scroll down promise to look me in the face the next time I run into you....




Here it is.....

 It was so bad. Looking back at how bad it was, I am surprised we were able to use it for so long without starting a fire. It is disgusting. The black around the bottom right burner is really a pile of food. There are old noodles, bits of meat... it is the grossest part of my kitchen.

I can do this. I can get it done before Paige's pick-up from kindergarten.

 Starting time.... 9:02.... I had 1 hour and 50 minutes to get as much grime off as I can. And I was off to the races...

I ended up needing an arsenal of tools to get the job done.... A sponge with a scrubby side, a Magic Eraser, a Green Scrubby, 2 rags, a dish brush with a flat scrappy side and a butter knife. Sadly, I used up my last Magic Eraser.


But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Here is the after shot...

It only took 52 minutes to get it back to acceptable condition. Now if only I could get the rest of my kitchen to this point. I have a feeling that project is going to take longer than I can even imagine.

Daily Did It's

Today I...
Unloaded the dishwasher,
Ran errands,
Went grocery shopping,
Reloaded the dishwasher,
Prepared for an EXTRA busy early morning.
Again not a really satisfying list of chores...

I am going to cling to the hope that there is always tomorrow. 

An Adventure in Speed Folding

I always put off folding the laundry. I hate it. What a waste. It seems like the clothes are all messed up before they are even put away.

On the other hand, they won't fit in their drawers if they aren't folded. So it really isn't really something I can just never do.

I woke to Mount Laundry today. Dread filled me as I sipped my morning coffee, I have to get it done today... I couldn't help but think that there has to be a different way to tackle this.... Speed folding!

I could grab a timer and see just how fast I could go from this......

To a laundry free living room.

I started the stop watch and dived in.

After 2 minutes, it didn't seem all that different. It is time to start folding only super easy, quick folding things.

Time check at 10 minutes in and now I can see that I am getting somewhere. Start folding big things... That will really empty the pile out.

20 minutes in and the pile is down. I am finally starting to feel good. It shouldn't be too much longer now. Only problem, all that is left is all those darn small kid clothes with lots of pieces. Instead of it going quicker now... shrinking the pile is really hard work now.

The pile is gone.... How much time did I lose? 31 minutes and 14 seconds.... How quickly can I get it all put away?

Now the aerobic work begins... and instead of only moving my arms and hands as fast as I can; I am full on running. I grab and go! And then come right back for another load. Nearly running into my husband, ignoring the crying 10 month old and pleading with my four year old to just move her tea set back into the play room.

Wouldn't you know it 13 minutes and 25 seconds later and I am really done. The couches are clear and ready for sitting!! They almost never look like this...

That is almost inviting.... almost.  And as good as it ever gets in my house. So for now, I am happy.

Daily Did It's

Today I folded laundry..... and that is it.

Beyond the normal daily messes.... my dear husband made a great dinner, and the evidence of it is all over the kitchen.

I have a lot to do again tomorrow.