Spring cleaning

I started cleaning today and have discovered that I apparently missed last spring and the spring before that!

Has anyone ever gotten very behind in keeping their home pleasantly liveable? Where do I start? I'm throwing things out left and right. I think this is the first step.
Dividing all of the never used items from the ones that we'd like to keep.

But, everytime I get started, I get this overwhelmed feeling and have to stop.

Anyone else ever "been behind?"

All hints will be most welcome!

Thanks.

Emily in Maryland (who needs to "dig out!"

My ex has been storing his junk in my home which has filled 2 1/2 rooms, to the ceiling. They were unused rooms then but now I want to use them. I haven't even been able to get into them and so now he is moving a little at a time into storage and what a mess my home is in, pieces of paper and wood and heaven only knows what on the floors. I almost hate to see them when empty as I know he won't sweep up or even pick up and I am going to have my work cut out for me then. I shall look on the bright side being he will have all his crap out of my home and I never have to see him or it again. I will clean up gladly just for that reward alone. Anyway back to this post, I won't be doing much spring cleaning until after he's gotten everything out. He has an October 1st. deadline...

My husband saves everything. I have to wait until he leaves the house on trash day. Then, I run back and forth between the curb and the house hauling out stuff he never misses!

I can't do this until school stops, though, which is why I have this "stuff" buildup in our house.

So, Chatty, I think that you have been very fair about letting ex leave boxes in your house. John has boxes all over our basement. Plus, his office is moving. They let him use two unused storage rooms to hold his mothers stuff after his dad suddenly died. Now, the office is moving and guess where the boxed stuff is headed?

I told my mother-in-law that we just couldn't take anymore stuff and that she would have to rent a storage room. She has three storage rooms filled at her retirement village plus numerous walk-in closets that are neatly packed but PACKED. Her condo is beautiful. She just turned 85 and -- hopefully -- will have lost some of her attachment to the boxed stuff that's headed for our house.

Anyway, I hope this community yard sale will result in at least half of our stuff and her stuff being hauled away. I'm pricing with the attitude of "you can have it for almost free if you'll take it away!"

I know about those boxes, Chatty!

Blessings,
Emily in Maryland

We've been suffering from that "way behind" feeling for some time. Taking care of my brother for the past year put just about everything behind - and then when we cleaned out his apartment, we just couldn't bear to part with some of his things, some of which we had JUST sorted though a few years ago when Mom died...deja vu! Some of the furniture was handmade by my Dad and most of the other stuff that we wanted to keep has been in the family for as long as I can remember. So we had to do a lot of creative reorganizing to make space for those extra things.

Interestingly enough, we must have done a fairly good job of cleaning out, because even after having moved Gary's stuff in to replace some of our things, our house actually looks less cluttered and more enjoyable as far as visuals go. And as difficult as it was to think about getting rid of some of our stuff, once we got started, it became easier and even fun - and the end result was definitely worth the time, energy and mental determination it took.

I think that there's a definite correlation between the clutter in our homes and the clutter we feel in our minds. I think in the process of cleaning out one, we're also cleaning out the other - there seems to be a symbiotic relationship between what we're storing in our minds/memories and what we're storing in our homes...

I've been super busy lately, so I'm trying to set goals for each day.

Emy, good luck with the yard sale. Is it this weekend? The weather should be fantastic!

Eagle, I totally agree about the clutter in our homes and the clutter in our mids. I'm one of those women who has a hard time sitting to watch a show on TV with cups, papers, lap tops, and clothes sitting around. I must pick up to really relax.

We are preparing for a huge party of 100 people at our home on Firday evening for our son's college graduation. I love nothing more than throwing parties like this. So we have been going through things for weeks. Today is Goodwill and dump day. Woohoo! Don't you feel lighter when you're cleaning out?

I have a friend who is selling her home. It's perfectly clean top to bottom and the yard is manicured. She feels so good right now. She'll feel better once it's sold!

Why do we feel the need to keep all this stuff? I know people who rent storage buildings and I wonder if they even know what they have.

If you never use it or see it what good does it do you?

Don't get me wrong. My attic is bulging with keepsakes, so I'm no better. Some we inherited and feel obligated to keep and others were my kids and have fond memories.

I have a three foot tall gold John Wayne liquor decanter for heavens sake. I don't want him but he was my in-laws and we inherited him, so...

We are slaves to stuff.
Laurel

I inherited some very strange things like you're describing, Laurel. We've even got a barrel in our basement. And John's grandmother's organ. And a whole old time photograpy business that my husband won't let me donate to a high school drama class. We bought the business for me when the nest became empty. Me and my friend (who passed away) were going to try to start a business where we would go into schools and sell photos of families and staff wearing clothes of yesteryear. We'll that didn't work and husband says he keeps all of the clothes and props to remind himself not to make business decisions so quickly.

I say, it's been almost ten years since we made the bad business decision. It's time to donate or sell!

Oh, well you get the picture. I have stuff.

Agree with Eagle, since I'm dealing with this down, I do feel the need to get things in order. Agree with Dotsie, too.

Love to all,
Emily in Maryland

I totally agree that when we have decluttered, we feel better mentally. You should see my office right at this moment. By all accounts, I should be committing suicide.

I listened to a seminar by Jamie Novak about clutter and it described my habits to a T. I kept sinking down into the chair as I listened because it was like Jamie was telling the world about my bad habits. I kept looking around the room expecting her to be standing there. Eeeek!

However, being the true professional that she is, she offered ways to save me. Its a very good free teleseminar and was very helpful. The tips were DOABLE, and I intend to take her advice.

I think one of the main points she made was to take baby steps when you feel overwhelmed. For instance, take 15 minutes a day to do one thing. If its your bathroom that drives you bananas, then take 15 minutes a day and clean out something in there. A drawer, a linen closet, whatever.

If its the kitchen, same thing. Don't let overwhelm drive you back into a cluttered state. Have fun with it. I think once you see the 15 minute results, you'll want to do more.

Another point she made about your/my office is that EVERY piece of paper has to go somewhere. SOMEWHERE. Don't lay it around with a "I'll read it later" attitude. Act on it when you get it. I'm forever putting a piece of paper in front of me at the computer with that kind of mentality. I count six right now.

Boy, did I need the help! Anyway, you might want to check out her site. Its http://www.jamienovak.com/

Also, if anyone wants to listen to the free teleseminar, I'll ask Karen (the one who sent it to me) if I can give the link to download it.

Georgia, someone in here recommended doing the little bits at a time around New Year's resolution time. That's how I got my kitchen cabinets and drawers in order. I did a drawer or cabinet each morning after breakfast or while I was making dinner. It works.

One piece of paper at a time used to be my motto. Only in my office do I have this problem. I stopped buying stuff years ago. I have enough, so I do know what is enough in some areas of my life.

I thought spring, winter, fall cleaning was about doing the heavy cleaning we don't normally do. When did that change?

Doing a little each day saves my day!!

I do agree with that "a little at a time" cleaning idea. Agreeing does not often translate into doing, however.

Many of you will remember that early this spring, I took 5 whole weeks out of my life to clean, file and organize all my clutter and junk. It had gotten to the point where I just couldn't stand it any more.

My most helpful technique? THINK small. Don't think about filing all the papers or cleaning an entire room -- because frankly, that's too depressing and would freeze me into inertia.

I made a list, and everything on the list was micro-managed. So instead of "clean the entire living room," which would have stopped me dead in my tracks, my list read like this:
1. take all the stuff off the window sills.
2. wash/dust the stuff that was on the window sills.
3. wash the window sills.
4. replace stuff onto window sills.
...and I'd cross off each item as I did it, which means I accomplished four things, instead of failing at the one big one ("clean living room") that I would've given up on. A sense of accomplishment is important, and puts you in a much better mood than failure.

And after that, I'd tackle some paperwork:
1. remove and trash all expired coupons.
2. throw out all ads that are older than 2 weeks.
Etc.

Maybe then I'd do 4 more living room chores. Or read/delete emails for 20 minutes. The trick was that the moment I felt overwhelmed, I'd go on to something else. And make a list, so I could cross things off and feel like I was doing good.

Using a timer can also make it a fun "chore." Remember the gameshow called, "Beat the Clock?" Well, its kinda like that.

I like to put the timer on AND some music, that really makes it fun!

I remember when my kids were maybe 5-10. They'd stay in the shower forever, so I set a timer for them to hurry up a bit. It was so much fun. They loved to "beat the clock".

Meredith, I love your methodology - breaking an enormously daunting chore into manageable chunks of smaller tasks. I remember having to do that at my last work place, where the workload was far too overwhelming for one person (it took me 10-hour workdays, weekends and callbacks from vacations to even make a dent in it). I eventually collapsed from exhaustion and burn-out - but I always remembered the wisdom of breaking things down into manageable chunks, so eventually used that in my healing process, breaking down the long arduous crawl out of that depression and dysfunction into smaller, more achievable baby steps.

That's how I do my housework now - make lists of smaller tasks, put on some good music - and reward myself with pieces of chocolate every so often! Don't forget the chocolate!!!

And the music. Music helps create a cleaning mood for me.

Meredith, I'm also a list maker. I love nothing more than checking those babies off.

Have you ever added something that you did to your list just so you could check it off? Someone...please say yes, or am I the only looney soul?

Dotsie, I do that all the time too, and yes, it actually makes me feel good! I LOVE checking off those lists - and being able to check off something that wasn't on there to begin with makes me feel even better.

I have found a great way to clean 'absentmindedly'. I call my children every day in Canada. I hook up the headphones, with phone loop on my waist. I start at one end of the house and by the time I'm at the other end, I haved talked my house clean.


Can't vacuum tho...

Dotsie, I'd put every inane little thing on my list, just so I could check it off! As someone who has often gotten depressed over chores, it really is an attitude-booster when I cross things off (and it isn't a check or a single-line cross-out. It's an angry jumble of lines and squiggles, as in "Gotcha, sucka!")

It's also a good use for all those realtor pads.

JawJaw,

Did you go to seminar or does Jamie have a book or a CD?

I loved the idea of setting a time for working on a room.

Such a simple idea, but this seems more reasonable and most important - doable.

Thanks for the tip.

Dotsie, our community yard sale is this coming Sat. June 6th.

John's breaking down a bit about the old time photography business and thinks he'll sell my friend's desk and our cash register. I'm hoping he'll sell more, but I don't want to sell our costumes or the real antique props that we have. I'm really beginning to think about possibly using them as a fundraiser activity ie PTA. The whole family would have their photos taken in costume but wouldn't have to go to a beach or an amusement park to do it.

I have a 76-year old house, so we only have one bathroom and an istsy bitsy kitchen. We have two little closets because they taxed them as "rooms" when the house was built.
That's why it's so necessary for us to pare down.

But, this was my husband's Great-grandfathers house, so it holds a lot of memories for John and for his whole side of the family. Every cousin and newly wed couple has had their photo taken in front of our house.

So, we never sold it and now that it's paid for we don't want to start a new mortage. So, I've set a goal to just "make it work" for us. There are only two of us (plus 4 dogs), but I know this is possible. We've just moved away from the urge to own more material objects. Wish we had more newlywed couples who could take some of their relatives stuff, but they live in California. We've given them plenty of time to fly out and drive home with a U-Haul it filled with memories.

Okay, time to get out my black plastic trash bag and hit the den.

Emily in Marylnad

Emily,
I love the fact that you have this old home and cherish it. I would kill to own one. Kudos! I can truly understand the need for more storage though. Too bad you can't convert one of the rooms into a walk in closet. I almost did that with one of the bedrooms here but decided to make it into an office for me instead. Glad I did now. Its 10 x 10 and just right for now. I can see where I'm going to outgrow it though.

The downloadable file of Jamie's was a free download and I got it by signing up to hear a Teleseminar given by Karen Greenstreet. http://www.passionforbusiness.com/

I'm pretty sure you can get the free download of Jamie's from her own web site though. I DID write to her and ask if I could share it. I figured it was best to ask before I did. I haven't heard back from her yet. But check out her site because it seems to me I saw it on there.

I would LOVE to have the biz that you've got in storage. The Old-Timey thing. What a fun business to own and what a great idea you have for the PTA fund raiser.

I use spoken word tapes or cds whilst I tidy wardrobes and quiet tasks.My library has a great assortment and I feel its a relaxing way to attempt to create order.As the tapes/cd needs to be changed itsa way of timing the task.
I feel I am at a stage when I would like to own less.Last week I donated three large bags of clothes and know what I dont miss anything at all.
Mountain ash

JawJaw,

Actually, I'm glad I have an old-fashioned house, too. We even have one of those porcelin sinks with the back-splash.

It feels really homey here. I tried to decorate in a more formal way when we were first married. Now. I'm changing. I'm playing up the history of the house. We have taken the paint off of the original door and taken it down to the wood. The same shutters are on the house. John and I agree that we will not put vinyl ones up (though they'd be so much better to maintain).

We have all wood floors now. With our pets, this was a necessity and an added plus is that John and me are no longer bothered by sinus problems.

We actually have an old time phonograph -- the one with the big horn -- in the basement. I have a second stove down there -- a porcelin one with the top that covers the burners. It's sits up on legs. It works, too!

I have the head to my grandmother's sewing machine. Thinking of bringing it downstairs. It could sit on a hope chest or a table as a centerpiece. I just don't know how I could fill in the bottom -- the area between where it would sit up on the hard surface.

Gee, JawJaw, you've got the right side of my brain on go.
But, but I'm sticking to the clean up the clutter thing first. Or, maybe I could do time cleaning up and more time on redecorating. (After all, I am coming out of that awful down and deserve some fun!)

Mountain Ash, I'm the opposite in musical choice during cleaning. I have to listen to something fast. The faster the music the faster I clean. Motown hits work good too.

Okay, I'm going to go take a nap now, before I start my one room at a time de-cluttering project. I really have a surge of energy in the evening. During the morning and afternoon, I have to talk to myself to get going on a project.

Love,

Emily (whose house will be able to breathe by the end of this month)

Meredith,

I love that idea re: lists of chores. I get overwhelmed when I look at a whole room and start doing this task and switch to another and before you know it, everywhere I look needs cleaning. That's when I give up.

I really never thought about hitting the same areas in each room. This makes sense.

Thanks!

Emily in Maryland

Anne, when do you hope to be finished? What an undertaking! Are things shaping up?

I have to buy a vacuum cleaner, my poor Hoover died and shall rest in pieces in the dump. I can't believe these prices, maybe I will just have dusty floors like some of the old homes that had dirt floors. LOL!!

Chatty,

I know what you mean about prices. We need to replace our vaccum, too.

My sister invested in a Dyson and says it's the best money she's ever spent.

My husband buys these cheapo things that are clearly not designed for a home with four dogs!

I've had Hoovers for years. There was an vintage Electolux in this house, when John bought it. We actually used it for a whole year. But, we didn't have dogs -- or much of anything -- at that time!

We made $250.00 at our yard sale this past weekend. Not as much as we thought we'd make, but I'm beginning to light filtering through our basement windows!

(Things were piled so high, I actually forgot there were windows in that part of the room.)

And, John has been motivated to have more sales or pile it up for Salvation Army. This is great!! With him on my side, we ought to have things pretty much in order by fall.

Make it a good day!

Emily in Maryland

Emy, congrats on making that much.

One of the best vacs we've ever had was a Rainbow. You fill the tank with water and all the dirt goes into the water tank. Then you empty it after every use. It's super for peopel with allergies. The only thing I didn't like about it was that it was so cumbersome. There were too many pieces to carry around and then they'd separate when you were carrying from floor to floor. Anyone else use one?

http://www.rainbowsystem.com/eng/