Back at it

After my testimonial to FlyLady, I kind of fell off the wagon. But only kind of. And I'm getting back on now.

Last night my husband had to work at 6:00. That's right, a Sunday night. I guess that's what happens when you have to shut off the water to a whole hospital. It gets scheduled for a Sunday night. He got paid double-time, but then they had to call it off early, so was done by 11:00, and has today off.

So when he left our place around 4 pm, I started cleaning. I got the computer room to the point where I could open up the treadmill. It took longer than 15 minutes, but I wasn't in any hurry (and I did a load each of dishes and laundry at the same time). I suppose I could even vacuum now, if I wanted to. Ooh, I just remembered that I took a "before" picture of the junk in front of the treadmill. So now I can take an "after" picture! This room is a dumping ground no more!

On Saturday we burned all the boxes in the front porch (ALL the boxes!) that have been there since we moved in a year ago. I also hung up all the coats that had been thrown out there using all the hangars that had been thrown out there. I had time and motivation to do this during the front porch zone week because the dining room and entrance (back porch) have stayed clean. (Like I said, I only kind of fell off the wagon.)

And since my last post (a month ago!) I cleaned and organized my husband's workbench area in the basement as well as his tool shed. I let go of the "stinking thinking" that he should clean "his" areas and just did it. I could now go get any tool of his that he needed without having to dig through a bunch of stuff or look in eight different places. He did help me with sorting through the clothes in his dresser, too, so that's done.

I also did a project that he had talked about doing. While my sister was staying with us, she had a bedroom off the dining room. My husband said that when she moved out, he wanted to turn that bedroom into a hangar for all his radio-controlled airplanes. So I took everything else out of that room that was still in there when sis moved out, and relocated everything to do with his airplanes into the room. The stuff came from the basement, mostly, but also the dining room, kitchen, and back porch. Now it's all consolidated and his planes aren't in danger of being stepped on by people or cats. (Unfortunately, that doesn't prevent him from crashing them when he flies!)

So what do I have left in my house that's visible? My living room needs a once-over. The front porch has a couple of things that still need to be taken care of before trick-or-treaters come by. The computer room has one bag of papers to file. I could probably sort all the sandals out of the shoes by the back door and put them away for the season soon. There's a section of the basement that needs work that holds motorcycles and fireworks right now. The room at the top of the stairs needs the sawdust and goodwill clothes cleaned out. After all that, I should be down to where I can go through boxes, cupboards, and drawers that are out-of-sight, out-of-mind, and throw out the REAL clutter.

Back on the wagon!