Tag Archives: clean

A Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize)

Posted on September 13, 2019 | Comments Off on A Big Cleaning Week (or An Excuse to Organize)

I hate that so many things in my life were affected by election season, but it really did take over my life. I’m finally feeling like things are normal again for me, but I’m still dealing with what happened when I let other things in my life slide because I didn’t have the time or energy to deal with them.

When things aren’t normal, it’s stressful in so many ways. But one way that I was stressed was by the lack of cleaning I had done in my house. While I’m not the cleanest person I know, I still do daily cleaning and try to do weekly deep cleaning. I thought with having a small house that it wouldn’t be as hard to clean, but I feel like having a small house actually can make things worse. Dirt and dust seem to appear so quickly, but that’s probably because there’s less surface area for them to land on. And clutter is definitely a problem with a small house. I try my best to limit what I bring into my house, but last month things just started to pile up.

I was avoiding doing the cleaning I needed to for a little while. I want to claim that I needed some downtime to recover before getting back to things, but honestly, it was just being lazy. But this week, I had to get my act in gear. First, the messiness was starting to really bother me and I could feel that I wasn’t in the best headspace. But also, my parents are in town now and I want to have a clean house for them. I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind if my house was a little messy, but I don’t like having it that way. And it’s not as clean as I would like it to be, but it’s significantly better than it was before.

Besides doing all the cleaning, I had to get my house back in order. I’m still working on the organization part, but I was able to get a lot done this week. And in that organization, I started to get rid of things. There are so many things I was holding on to for no good reason that I just needed to toss or add to a donation pile. I know that most of those things had some sentimental reason at one point, but it’s been so long that they are now meaningless junk. And there is no reason to keep them in my house and taking up the limited space I have. Maybe if I was in a bigger house, I’d find a way to keep them. But it’s probably better that I have a little space so I am forced into a more minimalistic lifestyle.

I did try to work on the cleaning and organizing a little bit each day for the beginning of the week. I didn’t want to get overwhelmed in the middle of working on it and making things more of a mess. I actually managed to figure out a good schedule because I never felt like I was trying to do too much. In fact, many days I actually felt motivated to do a bit more than I planned to do. It helped to make things go by and I was able to do almost everything I wanted to do with organizing and getting rid of things.

I still have a few more organizing projects that I want to work on, but I didn’t worry about them this week. They can wait and things don’t look too messy while they aren’t done. But I do want to get more of my house feeling as put together as the main spaces do. It’s been a huge relief to feel like things are clean and nice looking and I want to make even more of my house feel like that. Those extra projects require purchasing some things to help me and I haven’t found the perfect things to use yet. For example, I need new drawer organizers and I haven’t found a set I like. The ones I am using are cheap ones I got and I realized that while they worked I never loved them. I kept them until they started to fall apart (about 4 years) so it’s time to find a replacement that I want to have. But since there’s no urgency to get that done, I can take the time to find the perfect thing instead of spending money on something I don’t really like.

Even though I’m not totally done with my organizing, I got a huge chunk of it done and I feel so accomplished. And hopefully, I’m able to keep things up and not let my house get back to how it was just a week ago.

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Slowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way)

Posted on April 18, 2019 | Comments Off on Slowly Spring Cleaning (or Tidying Up My Way)

I’ve read “The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up” quite a while ago. I haven’t watched the Netflix series yet, but it’s on my watch list to watch eventually. But I am familiar with the idea of what Marie Kondo says in both even though I haven’t read the book in a long time. A lot of it is stuff that I already do, but it seems like every so often I have a big push to do some extra cleaning and organizing.

Right now, I’m in the middle of doing some organizing. But instead of doing it in a big effort, I’ve slowly been doing it. In the past, I have gotten rid of things that I probably should have kept or I forgot where I stored something until I found it again months later. I don’t want to have that issue again because there’s no need for it. And I don’t have any sort of deadline to when I need this to be done so I can take my time.

Since I’ve been in this long cleaning/organizing habit, I’ve debated about going back to the book or watching the Netflix series since so many people have been raving about how it has changed their lives. But I remember when I read it the first time how I really didn’t connect with everything in it. I don’t have a ton of stuff I have to get rid of. My issue is just making sure that I am putting things away in places that make sense and can be done over and over again. If the place I decide to store something isn’t the most convenient option, I probably won’t be doing it as needed. I’ll wait until things get bad and then I’ll have that mad rush to clean.

I know one of the big organizational things in the book and series is about how to store clothing. I love the file folder idea of storing shirt and pants. But I actually don’t have clothes like that in drawers. I have a drawer of workout clothes where I have one pile of workout towels, one pile of workout pants, and one pile of workout shirts. This drawer is just what I use for Orangetheory so I only have exactly what I need in there. I don’t have to dig through things to find what I like to wear in class. I found it the easiest way to store things compared to having a drawer for tops and for bottoms. I do have another drawer of random workout/lounge clothes that probably could be organized in the file folder style, but since I don’t go into that drawer that often I don’t feel pushed to do it. My bra/underwear/socks/pj drawer has dividers and is organized, but I know it could be better and that will be something I will be tackling soon. But besides that, all my other clothing is hung up so I don’t have a way to fold them. Everything is on the same type of thin hangers and is organized by type and color.

With everyone raving about how they love the system in the book and series, I felt like I should do it to. But the more I think about it, the less it makes sense to me to do it. There’s nothing wrong with her method, but it doesn’t have to be for everyone. And for my system in my current house, it’s not right. Maybe when I move one day I’ll revisit it and decide to do it, but not now.

I think letting go of the idea that I should be doing what everyone else is doing has been helpful. I don’t feel the same pressure as I did before about what I should be doing with cleaning and organizing and making sure it’s done quickly. I can take my time and there’s nothing wrong with that. I probably could be working a bit faster and that’s something I’m going to try to focus on this weekend. I have been doing little bursts of cleaning and sometimes I use that as an excuse to not do more.

I know the idea of spring cleaning is usually a big to-do with a huge day doing everything. But I’m enjoying taking my time and allowing myself to test out different things with how I want to store stuff around my home. And I have a feeling this won’t be just spring cleaning but a longer, ongoing thing. And that’s fine too. With such a small house, I know how quickly things can go from a little messy to a big disaster and working on it each day helps prevent that.

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Random Life Hacks (or Cleaning Up And Packing Stuff)

Posted on November 21, 2018 | Comments Off on Random Life Hacks (or Cleaning Up And Packing Stuff)

I’m always looking for ways to make my life easier, but so many life hacks I see online seem much more complicated than they are worth. I’d love to have easier ways to store things or clean my house, but not if it takes me buying 20 different things and doing 37 steps before it becomes easier. So if I’m going to try a life hack, I need to make sure it is worth my time and effort before I consider doing it. Fortunately, I’ve found 2 things that actually did help me that were super easy and I wanted to share them with you!

The first is a hack for helping me so something that I know I don’t do as often as I should: cleaning my makeup brushes. I know how gross it is to not clean my brushes often, but it always seems like I only remember to do it when I need to use the brushes and can’t wait for them to dry. Also, I’ve learned how it’s not the best to dry brushes while laying them on their sides so I’ve been trying to figure out a better way to dry them (and never dry them with the brush side up as that can get water into the glue and ruin the brush).

I saw online that there are brush drying racks and I thought that might be a good option for me. But it does take up counter space, which I don’t have in my bathroom, and I really didn’t need something that big. I only have 4 or 5 brushes I use and I don’t need a dryer that can hold over 15 brushes. For someone who uses a lot of brushes, it does seem like a perfect thing to have, but it’s just not for me. But I liked the idea of how it was holding brushes the right way and I decided to try to figure out what I could do to create something like it.

What I ended up doing is using hair elastics and wrapping them around a basket I have in my bathroom. Then I could slide the brush in the elastic and it held them perfectly to dry without taking up really any space!

I shared this online and someone suggested putting a strip of magnets on the basket so I could attach the metal part of each brush on there. I do have magnetic tape so I might try that next time. But this was so easy and simple to do so I might just keep doing the hair elastic trick. I also recently got a new silicone scrubber and brush soap bar so hopefully this motivates me to clean my brushes more often.

The other new life hack I used was one for getting ready to travel for Thanksgiving. I don’t travel that often and I fly even less often (the last time I flew was 2 years ago!) so I don’t have a ton of travel containers that I use for storing lotions and other toiletries. The last few times I’ve traveled I just brought full size containers with me in my car since I had all the space I wanted to pack things. But since I’m flying I have to be aware of how large the containers are and I couldn’t really find what I was looking for at the store in the travel section. I wanted little jars for my day and night face lotions and all of the containers seemed to be big ones.

So I was wandering around the store to see if I could find something and I found the perfect thing in the pharmacy!

Since I only needed 2 containers and it came with an extra lid, it was perfect. I separated out 2 of the jars and used the 2 lids. I could have combined them if I needed more containers and stacked them, but this was the perfect solution for 2 lotions and it was very easy to pack. And the containers should be easy enough to clean so I don’t have to worry about the lotions getting gross inside of the jars like I do with some of the travel containers I’ve had in the past. I have no idea when I will fly again after this trip, but I will store them after they are cleaned so they are ready for the next time I need them.

I know this is a bit of a random post, but I seriously was just so happy when I figured these 2 hacks out and when I find something I love I just have to share it with everyone! Hopefully you all will find one or both of them helpful in your life, and if you know of any other easy and simple life hacks I’d love to know about them!

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Feeling Like A Fresh Start (or Spring Cleaning and New Toys)

Posted on May 18, 2018 | 1 comment

After being sick for what felt like forever (but in reality about a week and a half), I was ready to feel normal again. I have a feeling it will be a little bit longer before I’m totally better, but I’m about 95% there. I’ve only got some congestion left and it’s so minor that I’m not even taking cold medication for it anymore.

But while physically I was feeling better, mentally I wasn’t in the best place. I had the issues I mentioned yesterday on here that basically gave me a day of just being in a low place. But what was putting me in a worse mood was my house being so messy! While I was sick I didn’t really do any cleaning and in my tiny house it really shows when I’m not doing a little bit of cleaning every day. So I spent an entire afternoon doing a major cleaning of my house.

Mostly I was doing the normal cleaning stuff like dusting, vacuuming, and wiping down the various surfaces in my house. I needed to do this for sure because my place was dirty but I also wanted to rid my house of any germs. Even though I don’t think there were that many germs left since they can’t live on surfaces that long, it was just the feeling that my house was germy that I wanted to get rid of. The cleaning that I did was a serious workout (maybe that was because I’m still a bit sick), but when I was done I just felt a huge sense of relief and normalcy in my life again.

But besides the normal cleaning stuff (which was more like a deep clean), I had so much random organization work to do. I’ve been slacking off on some of that stuff. For example I did a reddit gift exchange last month and I hadn’t put away the books I had gotten. But since I was cleaning my cabinet where I keep my coffee table books, I put the books away. I also had about a week’s worth of mail to go through (and bills to pay) and it felt good to get rid of all the junk mail that was sitting on my table while I was sick.

But the best organization I had to do was something that I was pretty excited about. Before I was sick, I did an order on Amazon for something that I’ve been wanting for a while and it’s just been sitting in a big box near my front door for over a week.

I got an Instant Pot! I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while and I just decided to go for it! While I love my slow cooker, it’s not always the most convenient thing to use. If I don’t think about cooking dinner until I’m done with work, it’s too late to use the slow cooker. But with this, I can cook things so much quicker!

I’ve got a few friends who have one (most have the same model that I do) and they have all raved about it. And I can’t wait to start testing out new recipes in it! I’ve only accomplished getting it unpacked and reading the instruction manual. And I won’t get a chance to cook in it for a few more days because of some meals out I have planned. But that gives me the time to do research online for some good recipes that I want to try.

Having a new way to cook more often feels similar to having my house nice and clean. It’s a fresh start in a way and the start hopefully of a new awesome way to eat healthier and cheaper at home. While I was sick I depended on cans of soup and microwave dinners. I’m craving cooking something again and I love that I have something new and fun to try out. I’m a little worried that I won’t be using my slow cooker anymore again, but I’m sure that even though there is a slow cooker option on my Instant Pot I’ll find some times that I want to use my regular slow cooker.

Even if I’m not totally better from being sick, I just feel so refreshed and ready for whatever comes next for me. It’s just such a good feeling to be moving on from a bad week and a half (that was bad in more ways than one) and feeling like I can take on the world. Who knew that having a clean house and a new cooking gadget could do that to a person?

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Feeling The Need To Clean (or Working On Quality Over Quantity)

Posted on March 13, 2018 | 1 comment

I’ve written about doing big cleaning spurts before, but recently I’ve experienced one of the weirdest needs to clean I’ve ever had. This started a few weeks ago after a friend of mine went to Mardi Gras and was telling me about a moment of clarity when they realized how wasteful everything seemed. She couldn’t believe how many people were taking beads when they would be throwing them out later. And the streets were cluttered with trash and she just couldn’t believe that she was in the middle of that.

It didn’t hit me right away after my friend shared that story, but after reflecting back on it for a little bit I had the same moment of clarity in a way. I was looking around my house and just had a feeling of panic over how cluttered and messy it was looking. I know that it wasn’t that bad and none of my friends felt it was messy, but to me I just couldn’t take it. And then I had the feeling over being overwhelmed by having just too much stuff.

I’m not a hoarder in any sense, but I do have a tendency to over-shop. A lot of this is with clothing because when I find something that fits me I usually will get multiples of it. I’m really trying to get out of that habit, but it’s hard when I find something that I really like. I’ve been working on cleaning out my closet and drawers and have had bags of things to donate. I also had the opportunity to reorganize as well since I finally had more space.

Another place I seem to have an unintentional collection is with water bottles. I get a ton of them as a part of swag bags and then there are some that I have bought as well. But I usually use one of only a few water bottles. And I finally bought one that I had been wanting for a long time (it’s sold by a company that only does bulk orders but I was able to order a single bottle from them). And when I got that perfect water bottle and I was trying to put it away, I realized how ridiculous my collection had become.

And after taking that photo I realized there were more bottles that I forgot about! I sorted them out and put the ones I use and the ones I have sentimental value with on one side and all the rest on another. I had 10 or 12 bottles that I don’t care about and I didn’t want to keep in my house. Another friend of mine mentioned how their kids are always losing water bottles so I gave her all the ones I didn’t need. It was a win-win because I got them out of my house and she got something she needed for her kids.

And I spent part of yesterday working on getting as much of the other stuff in my house organized. The box I had been using for holiday decorations wasn’t big enough so I got a big plastic tub to store them in. I got organizers and baskets for my bathroom and threw out products I don’t use. My house still could use more decluttering, but I’ve made a huge step in the right direction and I don’t feel as overwhelmed anymore.

Every time I have a big cleaning like this, I tell myself that I won’t get that way again. But it always happens. And that’s because of my over-shopping tendency. But I’m much more aware that I have that issue and I’m hoping that knowing it will help me not be as bad about it. I really don’t need to own a ton of the same thing if I could just get one nice version of it instead. For my water bottles, I didn’t need 10 bottles that were ok when I could have just bought the 1 that I really wanted. It’s tough because the better thing is usually more expensive, but in the long run it ends up being cheaper than buying multiples of the less expensive thing.

I have a dream that my house will be one of those minimalistic dream homes, but I know that it would be tough to make that happen because I do have so much in my house that I love and want to keep. But I can work on storing things properly and out of the way so it doesn’t feel as full as it really it. And I have a feeling that for the next few weeks I’m probably going to keep working on what I’ve started and I may have something much closer to that dream than I ever had before.

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Making My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year)

Posted on December 28, 2017 | Comments Off on Making My House Look Fancy (or Doing Some Upgrades For The New Year)

I’m not sure why, but for some reason I’ve been on a big cleaning and organizing spree. Maybe it’s because so many of my friends posted photos of their holiday decorations and I thought their homes looked much nicer and more grown-up than mine. Also, I know that things have gotten a bit cluttered lately and I know how easily that can get out of control. But mainly, I just wanted to upgrade some stuff around my house because it was time to do so.

Things started pretty basic with getting a new shower organizer (my old one was starting to rust) and I got some baskets I could hang off of towel racks in my bathroom (I have a serious lack of storage in there). I also wanted to do some better organizing in my kitchen. I had won a blender at Orangetheory a while ago but hadn’t organized my kitchen to fit it in there. I had my old blender still in there and I knew that it was time to get rid of that. So I started to clean and move things around in my kitchen to find a space for the new blender and that got me to move things around more.

And of course when I started moving things around I realized that I needed to do some more shopping and organizing. My parents gave me a set of knifes over 10 years ago that I never opened because I already had a knife set. But since I was doing so many upgrades I decided to switch knife sets. And since the new knife set didn’t have a knife block, I had to get one. I ended up finding a really compact one that didn’t have pre-cut slots so I could use it with any knife set. I also found a new dish drying rack that was much smaller than my old one. Since my kitchen counter space is limited, it’s nice to have more space now that I’ve switched things up.

And the most recent upgrade was inspired by my first one. The new shower organizer was nice but since I could put more things it in I wanted it to look nicer. The variety of bottles in there made things seem more cluttered than it really was and I wanted to fix that. I’ve used nicer containers for soap before since the giant bottles don’t fit where I use them. So I decided to look into new containers for my shampoo and conditioner. I ended up finding glass bottles that looked almost identical to the face wash bottle I already had. I got those (I realized that I could have just gotten more face wash bottles, but it was much cheaper to get the new bottles).

I also had learned from past mistakes about decanting one liquid into a new container and got some funnels too. And while it was a bit slower than I thought to move everything into the new containers, the end result looks so nice!

I’m thinking about maybe getting more containers like this for other things I have around my house like lotions or my body wash (which is still in the original bottle in my shower). It really does look so much nicer this way when the containers are out and I don’t have somewhere to store them away. And I can get the bigger sizes of things now and then pour them into the smaller containers (which should save me a little money).

Of course, all of these upgrades did cost me money which wasn’t the best. I really wanted to save money, but once I got started on these projects I wasn’t really able to stop. I’ve got a few more projects in mind that I want to do, but I’m hoping that I can do them without buying more stuff. A lot of this organization has been trying to minimize what I have in my house. I’m aware that I have too much stuff at times and I need to work on that. But when I’m getting rid of stuff, it helps to also make the stuff that I’m keeping in my house look nicer.

My organization and upgrade project is an ongoing thing. But it’s nice to know that I’m going to be starting 2018 in a much nicer looking place that feels much more grown-up to me.

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Another Monthly Challenge (or What To Do When You Are Crazy Busy)

Posted on October 3, 2017 | 1 comment

The beginning of a new month is always exciting for me. But it’s been even more exciting since I started using my Volt Planner last year because it means it’s the beginning for a new monthly challenge! It can be a struggle sometimes to think of a new challenge each month, but once I pick one I really get into it. And knowing that I’ll be doing that again each month is something I look forward to.

Last month, my challenge was to tweet more. Specifically I wanted to tweet more about SAG-AFTRA and union related issues. My role as a SAG-AFTRA delegate is officially just as the convention (which is this week), but I don’t want the end of the convention to be the end of my involvement. And while being on social media isn’t the most active thing, I figure that every little bit helps. And I also got a lot out of doing this because every day I was reviewing tweets that might be ones I wanted to share. So I was learning more every time I reviewed them. I feel so much more educated about union issues (and not just actor union issues) than I ever have.

This month, I struggled a bit with picking something to set as my challenge but it wasn’t for the usual reason. I have a couple of things I want to do, but this month is going to be very crazy for me. I’ve got the SAG-AFTRA convention, lots of doctor appointments, work, podcast stuff, some projects I’m working on, and then trying to have a social life. I know that I will be a bit stressed and I didn’t want to pick something that might add more stress to my life. I’ve picked some challenges that have done that in the past, and it can work when the month isn’t going to be stressful. But I know October will be crazy. I’ve been telling people my life won’t be normal again until after the 16th because that’s when I seem to finally have free time in my calendar.

But there has been one thing that I’ve had on my monthly and weekly planning sheets in my planner that I don’t see to ever get around to. I really need to clean my desk and my closet. I probably need to work on my entire house, but I really see how packed my desk and closet are and I know I don’t need everything I have. I also keep bringing more things in without removing stuff so it gets more and more cluttered. But when I look at it it seems so overwhelming.

So I’ve set my monthly challenge for October to do speed cleaning/organizing every day. I have an alarm set and I want to do maybe 5-10 minutes every day. The idea is that I’d focus on one thing each day. For example, with my clothes I’d look at tops one day and dresses another. I don’t need to look at my closet as a whole since that has been what is looking like too much of a project. With my desk, I might break it down my the drawers or by category but I’m not sure yet. And there are so many other areas in my house that I could organize by breaking it down into chunks like this.

I had read “The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up” a while ago, and while I don’t agree with everything in the book there are some really good points. I only want to have things in my home that make me happy and bring me joy. My definition of those things are a bit different from what the book talks about, but the general idea is the same. There are things in my closet that I look at and get annoyed about because it doesn’t fit anymore (either too big or too small), it doesn’t fit right, or it just is something I never can figure out when I should wear it. I don’t need that taking up space in the tiny closet I have.

But besides decluttering, I just want to have a clean house that makes me happy. It’s never too dirty, but there are times that I have to spend a good amount of time cleaning every room before I have company over. I know that nobody cares if my house is a little messy, but I do. And if I worked on 5-10 minutes of cleaning a day (either by cleaning one room or doing one type of cleaning like vacuuming or dusting), it shouldn’t get too overwhelming before I have company over.

I know that even 5-10 minutes of cleaning might be a bit tough for me to do on the craziest days I have coming up this month, but that’s ok. I understand now that I don’t have to be perfect every single day but instead I want to get into the habit so that it becomes something I don’t even have to think about each day. It would be nice to know that I have a clean house pretty much all the time and not a semi-clean house most of the time and a super clean house occasionally.

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Time For Some Refocusing (or I Need To Do Some Follow Through)

Posted on June 14, 2017 | Comments Off on Time For Some Refocusing (or I Need To Do Some Follow Through)

My life has been getting a bit crazy lately, but crazy in a good way. I’m back to my normal routine without the worry about medical issues in my head. I’m back in the dating game and while I’ve had some negative experiences I’m having fun. I’m going out with my friends and doing so much stuff that I love. Honestly, this is close to the happiest I’ve been as an adult. I think a lot of it is because I don’t care as much about what other’s think, but I also think I’m just making an effort to make me happy.

Not everything in my life is going great, but it’s pretty awesome right now. I’m taking more time to focus on the positives in my life than the negatives that might come up. But because I’m not focusing on the negatives, I’m slacking off on some things and I know that I need to work on that balance.

Some of the slacking off has been cleaning and organizing. This has been something on my to-do list for a while and I’m just not taking the time out to do the work that I need to do. And looking at my calendar for the coming days, I honestly don’t know when I’ll have the chance to do it. And because I want to do more than just a basic cleaning, I know that this is something I need to set aside the time to do.

My desk has been getting a bit out of control because I’m sitting at it so many hours a day. When I start working on stuff and don’t get to finish, I just set it to the side on my desk thinking I’ll pick it up later. But later doesn’t seem to come and some of these things have been on my desk for too long. One of the things that’s been on my desk forever has been the dry erase board that I used for my Oscars costume. When I got it, I assumed that I would be using it at my desk or somewhere else. But I haven’t done anything with it and I don’t know now if I will be using it. I just need to make a decision and do something with it.

My closet is another trap right now for me. I really need to go through all my clothes and figure out what I want to keep and what I need to toss. There are several things in my closet that are now too big for me and I don’t want to keep them around anymore. But sometimes it’s hard to let those things go because I justify in my head that maybe I could get it tailored smaller or that I might wear it baggy. But I know I won’t and I just have to let it go. There are also things that have gotten torn or just not my style anymore and I need to get rid of it. But again, this is a major cleaning and I know I’ll need to set aside lots of time to do it. I probably will need to try on a lot of stuff from my closet to do this and when I do this cleaning I also am looking at making a list of what I own so I don’t feel like I’m missing something in my closet and go out and buy it (I’ve done that before and have had to make trips to return duplicates).

And as always, I just want to clean up some of the clutter that is in my house. I keep a lot of stuff for sentiment value and I know that I don’t need to do that. I want to work on digitizing more stuff that I keep and finding new and clever ways to organize and store what I want to have. It’s a bit overwhelming to think about how much I want to get done, but I also know in the long run that this will be an awesome thing for me to do and I will probably be really happy when I feel like I have a cleaner, more organized, and happier space.

I know a lot of people who have gone through major cleanings like this have been inspired by the book “The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up”. I actually have this book. I bought it almost 2 years ago and for some reason I haven’t really started to read it. I know that I always get distracted by other books that I have, but now that I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the work I want to get done I think this might be a good time to start reading it. I’m in the middle of one book right now so I probably won’t be able to read it until next week, but I honestly forgot that I owned the book until I started to feel as overwhelmed as I am now.

I’m tired of setting a goal to work on cleaning my space and not following through with it. I need to just get my butt in gear and do it. But it’s not always easy to make a change like this when you’ve been putting it off. But hopefully soon I will find the motivation and time to get this done and I can feel calmer in my space so that my home will make me as happy as my social life is making me.

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Comments Off on Time For Some Refocusing (or I Need To Do Some Follow Through)

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Spring Cleaning (or Needing To Declutter Again)

Posted on May 12, 2017 | 1 comment

I usually keep a pretty clean house. I live in a tiny house (seriously, it’s under 500 square feet) so any mess seems to be significantly worse in my house than in a normal house. I don’t like to have a ton of stuff around, but I’ve seemed to acquire a lot lately and it’s been piling up. Literally piling up. It’s a bit ridiculous for me, but I know that for most people it’s probably still a pretty clean space. The worst space is next to my computer on my desk since I’m spending so much time working right now. When I’ve got something I’m working on and a customer calls, I put whatever I’m working on down and I don’t always remember to pick it back up or put it away.

I have written about decluttering before, and as always it seems like I don’t realize my house is getting a bit out of control until it’s so bad that I can’t help but see it! And this time, I feel like I’ve just been ignoring it because of how crazy my life has been. It always seems like I can’t have everything in my life balanced. I guess that’s how it is, something always has to be off. And before it was my social life and now it’s my house.

When I thought I needed surgery, I was neglecting organizing because I knew my life was going to get super hectic and I wasn’t worried too much about my house. I figured that while I was in the hospital and when I was recovering I would have a bunch of people coming over and helping and trying to keep things clean while that is happening wasn’t going to be a priority. So I didn’t worry too much about keeping it too nice before surgery. Also, I was buying a bunch of stuff I thought I was going to need for surgery so that was adding to my clutter by piling up around the house in different piles depending on if I’d need it in the hospital or while recovering. And once surgery was canceled, I put a lot of time and focus into getting my life back to normal and having a regular life again. And because of that, cleaning and decluttering was put on the back burner once more. I did managed to get rid of all the extra things I bought for surgery (some was returned to where I got it and some was giving to people who do need them), but just because I did that didn’t mean that I was able to really do any decluttering.

I keep setting decluttering as one of my weekly goals and each week goes by and I don’t do it. But it’s gotten to the point where I just need to take time out of my day and work on cleaning. It’s pretty much spring cleaning even though it’s almost summer. And I really want to do a big overhaul in the stuff that I’m keeping in my house. I’ve done a couple of small cleanups lately and have even put together bags of clothes to donate, but then of course those bags are just sitting in my house so they are just adding to the clutter issue.

Some of the decluttering is just stuff that I haven’t filed away if I need to keep it, but a lot of it is just random stuff that I probably need to throw away. I’m not great at throwing things away when I think I might still need them. I’m not a hoarder, but there are cards or paperwork that I debate if I need. I am trying to get better about this by digitally storing a lot of paperwork that I have but there are still some things that I like to keep hard copies of. It’s a process but I’m working on organizing everything.

I think the reason why my clutter is hitting me this time is because I finally have my life back in order (or almost in order) and now I’m noticing that my house isn’t. It’s a weird feeling when coming home isn’t the most settled feeling and I’m not used to that.

I know I’m overdue for a massive project. This isn’t just going to be a normal cleaning and organizing day. I need to actually go through my stuff and see what I actually need to keep. I need to go through my closet and see what I can get rid of. I’ve gotten a few new things recently (trying to get ready for the heat of the summer) and I’m trying to follow the rule of “one thing in one thing out”. If I bought 3 new things, I need to take 3 things I don’t wear anymore out of my closet to donate.

I haven’t figured out when I’m going to have the time to do this big cleaning and decluttering, but hopefully I’ll figure out a good block of time that I can set aside to just focusing on my house. I need to not just do this in between other things in my schedule because I will keep putting it off like I have been doing. And hopefully I’ll find this time in the next week or so to really get my house back to how I want it to be and to make my space a much happier place for me.

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Working On Cleaning (or Time To Declutter)

Posted on January 27, 2017 | 2 comments

I try not to clutter up my house since I live in such a small place, but somehow it seems like all of a sudden from time to time that I feel like my space is too cluttered. I seem to acquire new things in batches, so it quickly feels like I have too much stuff in my house. For some reason, even though I didn’t really buy too much for myself during the holidays, it started to feel like I needed to do a big cleaning after the holidays. But for some reason, this time I’m struggling with getting rid of stuff.

A lot of the stuff I want to get rid of are clothes. I have a lot of clothes that I don’t wear anymore. Most of it is due to it being too large on me now (a good problem to have) but some stuff I just don’t like or it has started to show wear and tear. But despite the clothes not being worn that often, for some reason I don’t want to let go of them. Even the clothes that are too big are tough to bring to donate. All of the clothes I needed to get rid of still fit in my closet, but I wanted them gone. So I ended up taking out everything that I’m not wearing and putting them into bags. I haven’t been able to get rid of the bags yet, so they are just living in my utility room for now. I don’t know what the struggle with letting them go is, but I guess baby steps are better than nothing.

I also seemed to get a ton of new stuff on my desk. Part of it was when I got my new computer and I had to work on the transfer between the computers. Since the cables for the new computer are different from the old computer, I do need to buy some converters to make everything work the way I want it to. But my desk has also become a catchall for things that I need to deal with. I’m starting to organize my 2016 taxes and that’s all over my desk. I also have cards and paperwork that needs to be finished on my printer. My desk drawers are full, but not unbearable so. My focus is just cleaning the desk since that’s what looks cluttered. I want to get this done, but I also know that this stuff is still in process so I can’t just get rid of them.

And finally, I feel like I just have too much stuff in general around the house. I don’t have a ton of things, but the space has felt smaller to me lately. I do only have about 400 square feet, but it never felt too small before. And I haven’t really added too much that takes up floor space (I did get a robot vacuum during a flash sale on Amazon that is on the floor). I’m wondering if I’m feeling this way because things have been organized the same way in my house for years and I haven’t moved around furniture or switched things up in a while. My last big change was when I got a new couch. And that was over 2 years ago. Maybe I just need to rearrange things and it will feel better.

I don’t keep a dirty or cluttered house, but for some reason it’s just been getting to me. I know I need to do something to fix this or it’s just going to keep bugging me. I’m trying to take steps where I can to make things better but I know I need to do more. I do have motivation to do more this weekend because I’m supposed to be having people over on Sunday (having people come over is always a good motivation to do a major cleaning). But just cleaning might not be good enough because I don’t just want to move things around or hide them in drawers. I do want to get things out of the house that aren’t useful to me so that I can make sure my space is as functional and productive for me as possible.

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