The office....AGAIN!

Another early start to the day with the Olympics on tv, but me not being a sports fan I decided to tackle just the boxes left over from decluttering the office closet. I only got half way through & down to a bin & small container when I realized I have company coming on Friday for the weekend and better forgo decluttering and focus on cleaning. Bahahahaha. Yeah right. Me? Focus?

I shoved the remaining boxes into the guest suite (not even going to post a pic of that chaos) and started rearranging so I could steam clean the carpet (there’s a stain I strategically hid with the bins) and then the room is completed....one would think.

I wasn’t satisfied with the arrangement, as per usual, so I dragged in all 4 custom-made cat furniture pieces that were randomly spread around the house. I think they look better all together but need to decide which of the chairs to keep as there really only needs to be one. The cats love sleeping in the green wingback chair and I like the office chair. Keeping in mind it’s more the 3 cats’ room with 3 hidden litter boxes & a cat door than it is my office anymore. Many years in the future, NONE of anything in the room will move with us when we downsize, so which chair should I keep?

PS. Rather than drag the wingback chair out, which is extremely difficult, I rearranged AGAIN to accommodate both chairs and continued vacuuming & then steam clean the hallway and master bedroom vanity area. By that time, supper was ready but my back was shot. Ow ow ow ow ow.

PPS. Did I mention company coming is my step daughter who is an Interior Designer? Yeah. After supper I rested... oh wait no, folded laundry & made the bed, braved the -33 windchill to start my car to get the mail but the blowing snow made for zero visibility so instead, I waded through above the knee snow to feed and water the 2 feral cats (-20 in the playhouse, I think they live underneath it & only go in through the cat door to eat, then go back) Once back in and warming by the gas fireplace, we watched tv but before the show even ended, I moved one of the love-seats and taped the baseboard & window trim on the east living room wall in preparation for....guess who’s painting tomorrow? That is if I can get out of bed. Why do I do this to myself? 

Day 6 - Declutter & Organize Your Kitchen

Day 5 1/2 lol.  Still nope to organize the pantry. That is a 3 day job. 6 with my back issues soooo one cupboard at a time. Or shelf at a time. I’m pretty good at keeping the canned goods in order & my spices too. I organized my Aunt’s pantry once & she was blown away. In April when I was dog sitting at my daughter’s while they were in Europe, I organized theirs. The OCD in me & the compulsive cleaner in me get along quite well.

Moving on to
DAY #6 -
Declutter & organize kitchen cabinets.

Day 7 is kitchen drawers so I’m reversing the two since I have more drawers than doors. If I did one drawer or door at a day, that would take me a month in itself so I’m doing what I can today then setting a reminder on my phone to do the rest. A door a day keeps the declutter away!!

Drawer #1 is the top drawer. The junk drawer. Is it the same in your house too? I should start there (tackle the hardest task first and the rest will be easy) but as hubby always says, should shouldn’t be a word. I need to channel my inner athlete and like Nike says. “Just Do It”.

I started with drawer #2. Yup. Taking the easy way out. But when the time comes, forget emptying the contents onto the counter, that sucker is going to be emptied all over the kitchen floor & no one will be able to go anywhere until it’s done. Drawer #2 Pretty much what it looked like when I started other than some unused chargers & sticky notes. Guess what? Haven’t touched ANY of what’s left in a year. Who uses phone books any more? If the power goes out & your cellphone dies so you can’t google the number do you even have a landline to use? We do lol. Moved to the office.

Cheques, stamps & seal from the man’s business. He’s retired. Well, on disability until he’s 60 THEN he’s retired. I put them all in one of the drawers in the guest suite where his tax papers from 1977-07 used to be in. That means room for.... more junk? Kinda. Just rearranged so bottom drawer is not so crowded.

2 hours to clean 2 drawers? Really? Is 15 decks of cards too many? I already got rid of 6. Well sort of. Put them in a ziplock back to take out to the skating rink on the dugout so next weekend the kids can toss them into the burning barrel there, along with the 2 blue bins of those tax papers that will finally get moved off the front deck & burned rather than waiting for the shredding event in the spring at AAA. I got it down to 12

7 crib boards? We already have one in every vehicle and the RV and one hanging on the wall. Not having had a tourney in years, will check with hubby about donating to a seniors centre.

3rd drawer has all my man’s 2017 tax papers. I always keep it organized. It will get cleaned out at tax time & start again for 2018

Bottom drawer, where all the cards & crib boards used to be, is now solely for product warranties & info. I cleaned out the ones that no longer apply.

There’s also plastic bags in behind (the cardboard box used to be filled with them) Years ago I moved them to another drawer and when ever the kids came home for a visit, they would go to that drawer for a bag. I would direct them to the new drawer. Now that I got hubby a new set of cutting boards, knife sharpener & can opener for Xmas (he’s the chef of the family) I’ve moved the bags back there so his gifts have their own drawer near the stove. Kids are going to roll their eyes next time they go looking for bags. Lol

Apparently the ADHD in me doesn’t get along with the OCD in me. I was taught “A place for everything and everything in its place.” I tend to find a place to put a thing then find a better place, over & over & over again. Drives everyone else nuts.

Corinne

Learning to Let Go

I just learned one is supposed to go slow when it comes to decluttering but my OCD & ADHD (even though I’m on medication) still kick in. I have spent the last 2 evenings in the living room going though my partner’s outdated tax documents. (6 boxes from 1988-2008) while watching (listening to) Xmas movies on W. Before I knew it, it was 4am (hyper focused) but I got 3 boxes separated into 3 bins. Recycle. Shred. Keep. 

Today I got half way through the final 3 boxes & next thing you know, I’m cleaning the office!!  It was upside down after rearranging bookcases & putting up shelves in the closet to make room for pretty, tidy, wicker boxes. It was not put back in proper order since I needed to condense the 6 boxes of old papers first. I’ll mark it down as a bonus because I’ll have accomplished 2 things in 2 days when I was only planning on accomplishing 1. Sometimes ADHD has it’s benefits. 

Now that I’ve joined the Unclutter.com organizing support group on Facebook, I look forward to the guidance & planning that will help me stay focused so I can proceed to declutter in a more organized & efficient pace. Thank goodness for Twitter breaks where I saw Donna Smallin Kuper’s promoted on Twitter. 

Sort of wish I saw it 3 years ago when I started to clean, organize & declutter but apparently moving your stuff from one room to another is not decluttering. You’re just exchanging hot spots. One room clean. Another even messier. You know you have too much stuff when you have to buy more stuff to put your stuff in. I’m not buying anymore bins to hide it all away. When out of sight is out of mind, why keep it if you don’t even use it. Let it go. Let it go. No I don’t want to build a snowman. I want to build a life without clutter.