“The Ruin of Most Men Dates From Some Idle Moment*”

Productivity.

It’s a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, I love how I feel after I complete a project. I even add things to my to do list so I can cross them off and get that sense of accomplishment. Cleaning out my closet on a random Wednesday night? Awesome. I went to bed with a smile because I loved the idea that I would wake up and be able to see all my clothes at a glance.

On the other hand, I despise productivity. No matter WHAT I accomplish, there is always something more to do. So I can be as productive as possible but I will always want to be more productive.

So it’s good and yet not so good. I am determined to clean up the entire townhouse this summer. Every Saturday, I’ve assigned ourselves one room to declutter. This weekend doesn’t count because I have to head to Denver to be a godmother to my cousin’s second daughter – which is going to be awesome, by the way. I love little babies and I’ll get to hold this one all weekend! Can’t wait. :) But after that little jaunt, we spend one day each weekend cleaning out one room.

But then there’s the whole thing of KEEPING the room clean. I guess I’ll worry about that after the room is decluttered and clean? Hmm.

*title quote by Hillard

Organizing is a Tricky Thing to Do on a Week Night

The next time that I suggest on Twitter that I want to clean out a particularly big area in my house (ie – anything bigger than one singular drawer in a singular room), please refer me to this post.

I have got it in my head that the entire townhouse must be decluttered. I believe it’s called nesting – I have the most urgent need to throw things away, gather like with like and reorganize every single space in the house. And it must be done RIGHT NOW. I have no idea why it has suddenly started but it has but boy, it’s insistent.

I was so proud of my work on the pantry and the fridge that I organized over the weekend that I thought I should tackle my guest bedroom closet one work night when Husband was at class. Because that was a good idea.

Right in the middle of the whole thing, I tweeted out this picture -

And this is why one should undertake such a large decluttering project when really one should be watching the SYTYCD performance show. Because who does this on a work night? Seriously.

So here are the before pictures of the great closet decluttering adventure. It’s a large closet that takes up most of one wall – I love having this much space for all my clothes! Hubs has all of his clothes in the smaller closet in our master bedroom so I get this one all to myself.

Left side:

Middle:

 

Right side:

 

After removing almost everything from the closet, purging and reorganizing, here is what I was left with at the end of the night:

Left side:

 

To the left are my dresses, which are nice to hang here because they can hang beyond the second shelf. Below is my stepladder so I can reach those things on the top shelf. Plus pillows and a box of blankets for those in the guest bedroom.

Middle:

 

Here’s where I’m very proud of myself. I rolled all of my tshirts and stood them up in the buckets on the top shelf. I hardly ever wear them but still need access to them. I actually donated a bunch of old shirts that didn’t fit to Goodwill – because why do I need to store them if I’m not going to wear them?

In addition to the buckets purchased at the Dollar Store, I also got those red fabric boxes. They’re holding tank tops and other light long-sleeved shirts that don’t need to be hung up. It’s a great place for them.

Next to the drawers of undergarments are my shoes. You can sort of see more buckets on the floor with additional shoes. There’s another shoe holder at the foot of the guest bed, but I definitely needed more shoe storage. I thought the buckets would do the trick!

Right side: 

Here we have all my love suit jackets and skirts below. Up above is our traveling stuff – pillows and packing cubes. There’s also a mirror in there that needs to find a home but I don’t know when that will happen.

Although I’m very happy with the space that I have now, I still need to do more purging and cleaning. But baby steps are good steps, right?

Inspired to Declutter

After reading about Sonya’s awesome summer o’ decluttering over at A Day in the Life, I was inspired.  I wanted to spend the weekend cleaning. This afternoon after the Costco run, I set down to business.

I meant to attack the master bedroom – I hate that room right now because it’s so messy. They say to eat your frog first, or do the thing that bugs you most or that you don’t want to do. Then, you’ve completed something and it makes the rest of the projects seem easier.

But as I was putting away groceries, I decided the pantry wasn’t going to fit all the new food we got. Plus, I was pretty sure that a bunch of food was expired. Since, well, um, I don’t even want to say. Let’s just say it’s been a little while since I’ve cleaned out the pantry or fridge.

Ok, so it doesn’t look horrible, but there was a lot of wasted space. The reason there are jackets hanging on the back of the door? Well, this is the pantry and the coat closet and the vacuum storage and the home of the trash can and reusable bags, plus our food. Not fun.

Many trash bags and a trip to the dumpster later, we now have a more organized pantry full of food that I know is actually ok for us to eat.

I now have containers for cereal and baskets to corral things like rice packets and snacks of various types. The white trash can is recycling and the step can is for regular trash.  The recycling can is sitting on top of two containers that have hats and scarves and such for the wintertime. This way they’re by the door but still hidden. I’ll switch all the coats out when it starts getting colder again.

 

I’m so excited about my newly organized pantry!

10 unfinished projects hanging over my head

1. Refinishing the red coffee table in the craft room. It’s red and needs to be white.
2. Complete my honeymoon scrapbook. We just completed our third year of marriage… four months ago.
3. Organize the basement storage room. Seriously, I can’t find anything! We need to get some kind of organizing system going on.
4. Clear my closet of items I haven’t worn in over one year, per my 101 list.
5. Sell the old Saturn coupe and get it out of our parking lot.
6. Create the “hit by a bus” folder so Husband would know how to run the household, just in case something happened to me. Depressing, yes, but still, something that needs to be done!
7. Re-title the new Saturn Ion in our names. Waiting on the probate court to do whatever they need to do. Silly courts.
8. Mending. Patch a hole, fix the hem, sew on a button. Stuff like that.
9. Scan all our printed photos from our collection and the in-laws to the external hard drive as a back up.
10. Finish my 101 in 1001 days list.

My Bathtub Needs Help!

So I need some help. Or at least, my bathtub does. Here it is:

 

Do you see the problem?

 

There is this big stain right where water hits the bathtub from the shower. I’m wondering if it’s a drainage problem. When I got on my hands on knees to clean it the other day, the water pooled in that area, even when I turned the faucet off.

In any case, I put about a ton [that’s an exact measurement ;)] of Scrubbing Bubbles on the stain and let it steep for a bit. Then I scrubbed and scrubbed some more. It wasn’t coming off, so I added more of the foamy stuff and scrubbed again.

It’s not really budging. Any ideas?