How I Cleaned My (Extremely) Cluttered House in 5 Weeks: Week 1

So, February 20th, I get a call from my sister. She's bought plane tickets, and she and her kids are coming to Texas on April 1. Yay! But um...

This was the state of the spare room when I got that call.

And the rest of the house didn't look much better. I still had 2 giant, overflowing bins of Halloween decorations sitting in the middle of the living room, waiting for me to figure out how to get everything back in them. As well as all of the stuff my mother in law had dumped by the front door the last I-don't-know-how-many-times she cleaned out her car to make room for more stuff.

I had been ignoring the Christmas tree still standing in the den. As well as the boxes of my mother in law's junk treasured possessions she had forgotten she had until I f*cked up was kind enough to dig them out of the garage and reacquaint her with them (more on this in a future post).

Every surface in the house was cluttered. Every. Surface.

I spent the entire weekend trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to get the spare room cleaned out so my sister, niece, and nephew would have somewhere to sleep. The garage was already loaded with bags and boxes of various items, much of which probably hadn't seen the light of day since my husband was a kid. The closets were (and still are) already stuffed to capacity. But I had to do it, there was no getting around that fact.

Well, what I needed first was storage space. The garage. It had been years since I even made an attempt to take a stab at the garage. The garage is the place where perfectly good items - that nobody needs because we-already-have-3-more-than-we-need-inside-the-house - went to die.

Okay, I might be exaggerating a tad bit.

So, Monday, I walked into the garage and looked around. Mystery trash bags of who-knows-what that no one even remembers putting in there. Boxes falling apart due to age and haphazard stacking. Totes full of unsorted mail. I started with the trash bags first.

I tried to just do one bag at a time, then take a break. But as I started seeing progress, I didn't want to stop. After a while though, I'd catch myself getting frustrated (especially sorting through the mail to make sure I didn't through out anything important), at which point I'd force myself to stop.

It actually took a week and a half to clear out enough space for the holiday decorations, and the rest of the junk, (more boxes, redundant furniture, etc) in the house. It was a lot of work, sorting trash, donation, and not-my-place-to-decide.

That Thursday night, my mother in law panicked when she saw how many bags of trash I put out. I knew she would. But I couldn't run the risk of missing trash pick up Friday morning. I assured her I only threw out my stuff, toys that were in no shape to be donated, and junk mail. I'm not sure she believed me, but she didn't go out there to check.

I was actually a tad surprised at how much of that stuff I had put in there. Toys and clothes mostly, probably intended for donation, then stashed out of sight when someone came over.

Yep, it's not just them. It's me, too.

Clutterbusting Tension: An Ongoing Process

This morning I rolled out of bed at 6 am, confident I had the energy to tackle laundry day, and the kitchen, as well as the rest of the dozen or so tasks I wrote on my to-do list last night. As I look back, I just laugh.

By 11 am, I had straightened up the bathroom, clean up about half of the kitchen, picked up all the laundry clutter, and was on maybe my second or third load of clothes. And I was so tired. Sleepy tired, rather than physically exhausted.

I decided a 20 minute power nap just might give me the energy boost I needed to finish the laundry today. To help myself get to sleep, I did a relaxation meditation to help me keep my brain from running off on a tangent. Just a simple releasing of tension in the muscles, one body part at a time. Shouldn't take more than 5 minutes for me to get bored and nod off.

I imagined a black hole sucking out all the stress from my feet to my head, then back again. And again. And again.

I noticed that every time I had something relaxed, and moved on, the tension would creep back in to the area I just finished with. By the time I started hearing dream voices (the sign I'm starting to fall asleep), my timer went off.

I hadn't realized just how tense I was. My shoulders were stiff all last week. And I still didn't realize.

I woke up Monday morning unable to turn my head without muscle pain. And I still. Didn't. Realize.

This probably explains why I haven't been sleeping well at night. I wake up at such random hours. If I wake up at 3 or 4 am, I'm lucky to get back to sleep, and then I'm so tired after I drop the kid off at school that I spend most of the day laying in bed. Trying to sleep. Usually failing.

Other times I don't drag my butt out of bed until I've got 20 minutes to get the kid to school.

When I finally did get to sleep, I was lucid (as usual with naps), and everyone I encountered kept poking me with stuff (Nerf arrows, pens, their fingers). This is why I hate to take naps. I realize I'm dreaming, but I get paranoid, and don't have the confidence anymore to control the dream. I just try to pull out of it (usually with multiple false wakings).

I slept 10 minutes before I gave up. It did help, though. For a little while.

My neck and shoulders still hurt when I move them. I'll keep doing the relaxation meditation each night when I go to bed. I think it will help eventually.

Clutterbusting Fresh Food Before it Goes Bad

Last night, my husband reminded me that if I didn't make that strawberry jam soon, the strawberries were going to go bad.

I am terrible about letting food go to waste. I forget to check expiration dates before I decide to cook meat. Heavy cream always goes bad because I don't think to organize my meal plan to utilize the entire carton. And I have to throw out rotting veggies or fruits almost every week.

We bought 4 pounds of strawberries for $5 on Sunday, so my overly optimistic brain had the bright idea of, "Strawberry jam!" I've had a cold since last Thursday (just got over it today, Wednesday). What the hell was I thinking?

I still don't have much energy. But I pulled the 4 clam shell containers of strawberries out of the fridge, set them on the cleared half of the kitchen table, and stared at them. They didn't magically turn into jam, as I had hoped. They just stared back.

While searching freshpreserving.com for the recipe I used the one and only time I ever made strawberry jam, I came across instructions for freezing strawberries. Aha! I decided to use the sugar pack method. Super easy. And we can use them for ice cream topping, too.

I only got 2 pounds of strawberries out of it, because one container was already getting moldy, and the kid had already eaten half of another container. Might as well leave her some fresh on hand. 2 pounds filled 2 pints and 4 half pints, all the already-washed freezer safe jars I had on hand.

However, I had to improvise a lid for one of the pints with plastic wrap and a rubber band. I couldn't find one that would fit in the cluttered drawer I keep the lids in.

So this got me to thinking about that time I bought a pound of green beans. And had to throw the whole thing out because I never used any  of them. Green beans are on sale for 98 cents a pound this week. Could I freeze them too?

I found this nifty page on freezing vegetables, complete with a chart that has instructions for preparing different types of veggies.

Further more, when I looked at the date on the chicken tenders I was planning to cook tomorrow, it was today's date. But I have to cook the steaks tonight, too. Damn it!

Then I remembered reading How to Cook and Shred Chicken in Bulk (Fast!) this morning.  Right! So I tossed them in the slow cooker, on low, with salt, pepper, and the juice of one lemon. Tonight, they are going in the freezer for next week (cause I have some ground turkey that needs to be cooked tomorrow).

New Project: Brain Clutter

I have the attention span of a gnat. While there are good days and bad ones, the last week or two I have found it increasingly difficult to focus or get much of anything done. My brain is like a TV that someone keeps changing the channel on.

The whole point of this blog was to help me focus, but my brain is just so overloaded with unnecessary thoughts. It's affecting my sleep. I'm just too tired to do much of anything. Since last week, I've spent most of my day laying in bed, watching TV just to get a break from the constant chatter bouncing around my head.

I was reading Real Mind Control: The 21-Day No-Complaint Experiment, where he describes acomplaintfreeworld.org's method of moving one of those elastic bracelets from one wrist to the other every time you criticize or complain about something to someone. Apparently this can help you break the habit of bitching and moaning.

Well, that article lead me to Can You Rewire Your Brain in Two Weeks? One Man's Attempt. That one described (in great detail) an experiment with Muse, a headband with electrodes that pick up frequency waves from the brain; and it's companion app, Calm, which shows your brain activity and provides meditation instructions in a phone app. The intention being to train you to relax for at least a few minutes a day, which, over time, would rewire your brain into a calmer state.

Of course, I immediately checked it out. I haven't had much luck with meditation. I even have an app on my phone to remind me to do it. When I hear it, I groan and go back to whatever I was doing. But a Muse device costs $299. I can't even justify buying an over-the-door pantry organizer right now. Maybe I'll try just 3 minutes of meditation at a time, instead of shooting for 15.

So, anyway, it occurred to me that my inability to focus is a way bigger problem at the moment than me complaining about my mother-in-law cleaning out her stuffed-to-the-gills car, and dumping it all right next to the front door. There's even a VCR. A VCR! Who the hell gave her a VCR? Everyone knows she won't turn anything down.

Ahem... sorry, as I was saying. I decided to experiment with using the bracelet technique every time I find myself dwelling on past conversations with other people, or running hypothetical conversations that will never happen through my mind. THE most useless information wasting valuable neural real estate.

Of course, I'm counting minutes rather than days of success. I'll report back with my findings.

Maintaining the Bathroom

I've managed to keep the bathroom under control, for the most part (occasionally it gets out of hand), since April 2014. This was one area where Flylady actually worked for me (I'll go into why it is and isn't working elsewhere in a future post).

Swish and swipe, almost every day, is working. Sometimes I forget to do it on weekends, but most mornings I remember to pick up any laundry on the floor. And put away counter clutter. Then I wipe down the counter, mirror, then the toilet with yesterday's hand towel (which my husband has tossed unceremoniously on the floor) before tossing it in the towel hamper. Sometimes I even think to knock the dust off the corners of the tub before wiping down the toilet.

It has taken a long time for this to become a habit, and there are times I have to force myself to do it, but it is working. It's not a particularly large bathroom. In fact, it's the kid's / guest bath. My mother-in-law has the master bed / bath, and I rarely go in there. But with 3 of us sharing the smaller one, it can clutter up pretty quickly.

I have not gotten into a habit of sweeping or mopping on any regular schedule, but just doing that much keeps it close enough to company-ready that sweeping and mopping isn't a big deal when we invite people over.

Don't get me wrong, most of the visible areas of the house are a complete mess. But as long as the kitchen and bathroom are clean, I don't mind having close friends over. They know me. They don't seem to mind, either.

Laundry... done!

I was trying to do the one load a day method, but it wasn't working.

1. I hate folding clothes. Doing it every day... I just can't make myself do that. I end up dumping them on the love seat, and telling myself I'll do it tomorrow. For days. Sometimes weeks. And that builds up fast when you are washing a load every. single. day.

2. I kept running out of socks because the white hamper fills up much more slowly than the rest. I've had to wear my husband's socks at least one day a week since I started that. And I know the logical thing would be to wash the whites when I was out of socks (or buy more socks... it has occurred to me), but I would also be out of other things, like hand towels and cleaning rags, or the kid's socks. The towels, darks, and lights hampers fill up so much faster.

So when I read that Nony at aslobcomesclean.com had managed to keep laundry under control for quite a long time by having a laundry day once a week, I jumped at it. Cause I know I own a week's worth of socks (if I don't step in anything wet more than once). And not having to fold every day, just devoting one day a week to it, seems more like something I could pull off.

Yesterday (Thursday) was my first "laundry day". And I did fold and put everything away, including the mountain that we've been having to pick through on the love seat all week. I also pulled out all of the pajamas the kid has outgrown, counted and recounted to make sure she had at least one week and a day worth of pajamas (just in case something trips me up on a Thursday), and tossed the rest (about 50% of the original total) on the donation pile.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what we actually use through next Thursday. I know there are so many clothes we don't wear, and I really could clean a lot out of our closets.

Something else encouraging about this is that after I have already developed the habit of "one load a day" (minus the folding), today I've been getting the itch to load / check the washing machine. Not that there is anything to make a load out of. Not that I want to do laundry. But out of habit, I keep thinking "check on the laundry". This gives me hope that I really can turn routine maintenance into a real habit given enough time.

Where to begin?

My brain is as cluttered and disorganized as my house, so this introductory blog post will likely be just as random and unfocused.

The reason I started this blog is because I've been reading the blog A Slob Comes Clean for a little over a week, and I can so relate to her ongoing struggle to declutter, clean, and maintain. Maybe blogging about it will help me become more focused and motivated as well.

By the way, if anyone happens to read this, and is dealing with excessive clutter and cleaning issues (not just organization and mild clutter), I highly recommend that blog.

So, a little bit about me... My husband and I both grew up in cluttered, messy houses. As kids, we both got roped into the mad dash on Fridays to clean up as much trash and as many dishes as possible before one of our parents came home for the weekend (my dad, his mom). And with much resentment, too.

However, when I was 13, we moved into a much smaller house. I mean, really small. We just grabbed the most important stuff, maybe 10% of what we had, and left the rest behind. The new place got dirty and cluttered pretty quick, but the three of us (my mom, sister, and I) could have the house company ready in half an hour by each tackling different tasks.

This is no longer the case. My mother-in-law lives with us. So does all of her stuff. The garage is filled with boxes of things no one has used or missed in 15 to 30 years. The office is also crammed full of boxes. And more boxes are littering the living room.

More stuff comes into this house than goes out. And my mother-in-law isn't the only culprit. We all do it. But I am hoping to at least get a handle on the situation, so that we can have people come to the house without another mad dash to hide the crazy.

I've had all of the visible areas of the house cleaned before. On several occasions. I have never learned how to maintain it. Cleaning is something I grew up hating. But I am trying.

So, that's my story. I intend to post my progress as I attempt to rewire my brain into better habits, so that I can look back and see what I have done. I've been working on this since April, and have seen improvement in some areas. I'll be posting about that in the future.