cleanmarathon

Day 6
A whole lotta more nothing. After last week, my "get up and go drive" fizzled. Did more dishes, made the bed, did my evening/night routines. Ah, went out to dinner, too, and felt good about it.
Day 7
The fizzle returns. Today I went shopping; bought some needed organizational supplies and a crockpot, which will be useful for when I start school again in September. Evening routine, took care of cats at Petsmart (I volunteer once a week, cleaning cages and being an adoption counselor), and made a date to go and get a pedicure with hubby's mom.
Day 8
The fizzle strikes back. However...stove is now cleaned, and quite useable. Hubby helped me clean the table off (I love my man), and the final steps will be to take out the garbage and sweep and mop the floors. After that...well, the scattered chaos is of a level, and the stuff, that doesn't matter. Tomorrow, while I'm washing my uniform for work, I will finish. The. Kitchen.

Plans for next week: laundry. Sort, wash, fold, put away. Yes, it will take a week. One day for sorting, the next day for washing and folding (laundromat!) and if it doesn't get put away that night, then put it away the next day.

After that: the living room.

Day 4
Weekends are tough, I'll admit that. It is just so easy to get distracted...

But after the mold situation was partially dealt with (the bedroom suddenly got a lot brighter and warmer, since the curtains have been moved and the air conditioner has been off), did a load of laundry, then...nothing else. My bedtime routine of feeding the cats, cleaning their boxes, making sure that there are no dishes in the sink, shining said sink, and then getting ready for me to go to bed was done, which is a good thing.

Other than that, though, hubby and I relaxed, went to see a movie, went out to dinner...

Day 5
A whole lot more of nothing. Having come to the realization that hey, all of the spoons and forks are missing, hubby revealed that they were all sitting in a bowl that was out of my sight...so I did a load of dishes. Loaded up the sink, let it all sit, then started scrubbing. Pets routine, and then off to work. Thought about doing some laundry, but I'm going to hold off - this next week is still designated "kitchen" time and I'm not all that worried. I may toss in a couple more small loads, but living in an apartment building, there are communal washers/dryers, and they aren't all that large.

I'm working on claiming the kitchen as "my" domain; I like to cook, there are aspects of domesticity centered around the kitchen that I adore, and I'm even starting to like washing dishes. Giving everything a good soak in hot soapy water makes it all so much easier, and I've a system down now. (Soak, scrub, rinse, dry).

Hubby also started sorting through some of his stuff that was stashed away in corners; we've a storage locker that is empty, and needs to be filled. How exciting.

So my goals for this week: finish the kitchen. Purchase some storage bins for his magazines, get the laundry sorted and ready to go for next week. Nice short list, which is a good thing, because there are several things that I said I would do outside of the house Monday and Thursday, in addition to my normal weekday activities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I now have a target date for everything to be completed: September 14th.

That is when I drive to my parents' house and help them move some furniture and a cat down to my place, so they will be seeing my nicely clean and organized apartment!

Not a good day in my cleaning marathon.

Since I don't get to bed until nearly 8 AM on Fridays, I will sleep though the day, getting up at about 3 PM or so. Today was a bit different; I was woken up before noon, and couldn't go back to sleep. Not being able to think, I took a few hours to be lazy and feed my internet addiction, then I fell back onto my developing routine and made the bed and got dressed to go out, since I had errands to run. When money is involved, or animals, or the welfare of others, I will put cleaning on the back burner; this involved all three. (Rent, paycheck, dealing with other banks, feeding myself...)

Got home and attempted to nap, since I work again tonight. When I gave up on that attempt, I kicked myself through the pets routine of cleaning boxes, feeding, and changing the water, before stumbling off to work.

So I didn't get any dishes done, but that is ok, since I have done over half of them already, and the place is starting to look a bit better. I am working on a shopping list for next week, because there are a few things that are just too far gone to be kept, but that is for next week, after I've had a chance to get some sleep...

And yes, I did shine the sink.

The way that this plan/program/whatever is set up, is to get a person organized into good habits over a period of 28 days or so. I'm doing all that...I'm wearing sneakers around the house, although I may have to change to boots, since the low shoes are easy enough to get comfortable in, I'm being a good girl and shining the sink, and when I go shopping tomorrow I'm going to get some post-it notes and a binder to organize stuff and write down my daily routines.

However. These little bits won't add up to my ultimate goal, which is a clean apartment by September 14th. So what did I do? I organized.

First step: the dishes. There are a lot of dishes. And because I don't like the disposable stuff, I felt that getting a handle on that should really be my first step. And where the dishes go, the rest of the kitchen will naturally follow.

Next step: clothing. The two of us have a lot of clothes, and the communal washer/dryer costs over $3.00/load. I know that overall, we won't save any money, but once I get everything washed, sorted, and put away, doing one or two loads each week for the two of us will make it feel cheaper, which is what really counts, no?

Third step: books. I'm a bibliophile, and so have quite a few books and not enough bookshelves. However, that will soon be solved with the addition of 3 bookshelves (and a few more books that were with my parents.)

Fourth step: papers. My record-keeping is non-existant, so if the IRS comes knocking, I'm in trouble. I have a filing system set up, but it is behind piles of stuff...

Fifth step: floors and other odds and ends. Vacuum, mop, etc.

So really, it is broken down into less than a month; two weeks for the kitchen, one week for clothing, and another two weeks for everything else. I'm not trying to fool myself; I've got four, maybe five days in which I can work on cleaning. I work night shift, and I'm in the first night of a 12-on, 12-off, 12-on, 36-off, 12-on work week that spans the weekend. Tomorrow I will probably wake up at closer to 4 PM, have enough time to clean a couple pots, then have to leave for the bank, store, and then work which starts at 6:30 PM. There may be some time on Sunday to clean, but again, it'll depend on my sleep schedule.

So yes, I hope that I'll be able to stick to my schedule. I know that hubby will help, because I've threatened to just stick his stuff that needs to be sorted down in storage, and the time is coming.

Started out with a bang, ended up with a whimper.

The good: I had set out my clothing the night before, so I had all that together. After making the bed (a nice spot in an otherwise chaotic room) and getting dressed, I moved back to the kitchen to continue with the dishes. I swear, I'm going to box up at least half of them and put them in storage! We don't need 20 dinner plates; it just promotes us not cleaning them.

Did a load of dishes, took a few minutes while the next load was soaking to surf the internet. (hi, I'm addicted...). Did the second round of dishes - except for a few scattered, only have plastic stuff and the pots and pans left! By the end of next week my kitchen will be cleaned. Really.

Then...I fizzled. I took off my shoes, and started watching the clock, playing games, playing with the cats.

But, I've now one hour before I have to leave for work, so that means a shower and the majority of my night routine that I'm getting set up - feed cats, clean litterboxes, make sure that the sink and dish drainer are empty. I'm going to end up with three different routines: morning, night, and pre-work. The only difference between the last two is when they get done and the fact that I'll be climbing into my car instead of bed...

I keep telling myself, though, that once the kitchen gets cleaned, we'll be able to eat at home, cooking for ourselves. As it is...we fend individually or get take-out or go to a restaurant. I'm looking to save some money overall; I can see ending up with a crockpot/slow cooker for class days (turn it on in the morning, or have hubby turn it on before he leaves for work, and by the time that he gets home dinner will be served), and marathon cooking sessions with food being stored in the freezer for the next week. Cook up some chicken with maybe a touch of garlic and olive oil and then freeze it; that is half the battle done for meals.

Day 0: I got mad. Frustrated. Sad. Upset. I tripped over junk that wasn't mine and I really reached my breaking point...well, that and my sister announced that she was going to visit. I went surfing on the internet, and found FlyLady. After jumping through all the Yahoo hoops, I was signed up. I put out some clothing, and went to bed.

Day 1: Woke up. As soon as my partner-in-crime, hubby, left for work, I made the bed, got dressed, and cleaned my sink. Filled it with hot water, a cup of bleach, set the timer, and put on a movie. Finished with cleaning the sink, and immediately pulled the dirty dishes from the bathtub (hey, they were dripping wet from being in the kitchen sink, the bathroom needed to be clean, and I had no other counter space), and put them and some other stuff in the (now shining) sink to soak. Went back to my movie for another 15 minutes or so.

I then set my timer. 15 minutes was set for the kitchen, or, to be a bit more specific, the dishes. I finished with that sinkload, got more soaking, and then spent the rest of my 15 minutes scrubbing my poor tiny square of countertop. (I have a tiny little kitchen; the counter is taken up by the dish strainer and the microwave.)

The next 15 minutes was devoted to the pets. I got one litter box emptied, bleached, and refilled, and picked up some scattered cat toys, before my time was up. Litter is scattered all over the place, but I'm not focusing on getting the floors clean...yet. I need to get to the floors first!

Another 15 minutes in the kitchen, doing (yep) more dishes. We've a lot of dishes, and not a lot of patience when it comes to washing them. This is when I really wish that we had a dishwasher!

I then took a 15 minute break and finished my movie. I also had it running in the background, since I can't work in a silent house. The best movies to use for that sort of thing is one that you've seen enough times to have memorized, since you know everything that happens and can just listen to it! (I like the Matrix, Lady and the Tramp, The Princess Bride, among others)

15 more minutes for the pets, which allowed me to clean the other litter box, feed and water the smaller pets, and ensure that the cats were all set. They never think that they are, but then again, they would have canned food 5 times a day, instead of just at bedtime.

Only needed 15 minutes to clean the bathroom...I like clean bathrooms. I like cleaning the bathroom. Having only one bathroom helped, too. But that was clean, and I was able to take out the trash produced from cleaning up after the pets and head off to my meeting.

Had to clean there, too.

The nice surprise was when I got home, to discover that hubby was cleaning up, too. I still won't allow people in here, but you can see the floor. He does help with cleaning, but we don't have a lot of time nor energy. This is a group effort!

Fed the cats, went to bed. I felt extremely good about the progress that I had made; even though it didn't seem like a lot of progress, it was still moving forward.