March 29th, 2012
This, right here, scares me more than anything. It’s not that my house is like this—although if you looked at my garage, living room, or craft/sewing room/studio, at the moment, you might wonder (more on that later)—it’s that I’m afraid of my house looking like this. Okay, not the one with the kajillion cats or the 2500 “pet” rats. O.M.G. But just accumulating too much crap, shit…stuff you don’t need. Frankly, I look at some of those houses and wonder just how…how….when did you start throwing the empty cat food cans in the bathroom, for God’s sake? And now they’re two feet deep? I lknow hoarding is a sickness and not an easy one to tame, but some of these places look like just plain laziness. But, I’m not the expert… (just an ellipsis abuser!)
I’ve always been a bit of a clutterbug. Somewhere, there’s a picture of my room when I was in the 4th grade. Daddy was taking a pic of my little blackboard, upon which I had printed “EXOTIC HAIRDOS” (don’t ask) and in the surrounding area are piles of kid stuff. My brother got the neat genes, I got the clutteriffic genes. There is a reason, though. My mother took the time and taught my brother how to do it, and him being a tractable, amiable sort, took to it quite nicely. By the time I came along, 5 years later, her approach had changed, but also, me being the distracted, stubborn, ADHD* type…she would finally give up and just come in and do it herself. That set a bad precedent, lol, but not at all my mom’s fault.** I guess subconsciously, I just figured someone else would always bail me out of my clutter-prison. Sort of a Cinderella complex.
The weird thing is, I can organize the hell out of things…but let me get started projects? Oh…dear… While I’m working on any given project, I’ll think of a dozen other things I could ALSO do and drag the materials out to look at them, and then lose interest in all of it and move on to something else. The ADHD has the weird affect of making you avoid things. I look at a pile of stuff and literally do not know where to start, so I go read a book. There’s also the perfectionism theory put forth by Marla Cilley. ”You can’t do it perfectly, the way you want to now, so you don’t do it at all.” Between the ADHD and the perfectionism…oh, man.
This past weekend, my mother and I drove down to visit my aunt and uncle. I won’t use her real name, but Auntie Di is one of those pre-programmed, born-organized, never in a fluff kind of women you admire, wish to emulate, and hate all at the same time. There’s never a speck of dust or anything out of place in her house. Ever. You can’t catch her with her guard down. Her pantry is always stocked, her kitchen neat and spotless. She works her butt off in her own business, she and my uncle garden (we had a salad with winter greens they had grown themselves. In Texas!). Oh, wait…I forgot, her myriad plants were still sitting in groups by the garage, waiting to be distributed around the yard in their spring and summer locations–they’d just taken them out of the greenhouse. *sighs*
If you’re like me, you ask, “How does she do it?” Well, I’ll tell you. Aliens. That’s gotta be it. Aliens.
No, seriously. Here’s the secret, as Marla’s site will tell you: Routines. I’d bet you a month’s salary if I sat down and asked Auntie Di about her routines, she’d say, “yep, every day I do this, and once a week, I do this, and once a month this.” Because I know that if you clean before you see the dirt (or pile of crap), you’ll never see the dirt. I also gave a lot of thought to the notion that you’d never, ever find Auntie Di sitting down playing a stupid-ass computer game for hours. She reads, she watches some TV, and she and my uncle have their cocktails on the deck at dusk…well deserved rest time. But I know that lady is up and doing things all day. And it shows. She’s in better shape at almost 74 than I am at almost 60.
So, Auntie, you should be happy, because it’s more you prompting me to get things cleaned up and organized than all those gruesome pictures of houses that should more than likely be bulldozed.
As to the rooms that need the most help, really only the living room has no excuse, except that I used it as a staging area for crap from other rooms while I was working on them…and so it hasn’t gotten cleaned properly in a long time. This is open-heart admission, here, folks…but I still won’t go into detail until I post the after pics. 
*donning deep-shit diving gear now* If you don’t hear from me in a week, call out the Texas Rangers…I’ve most likely gone down in a crapalanche.
*I was not actually diagnosed as ADHD until I was 49…and sure did ‘splain a lot, Lucy.
**I’ve done the same thing with my son, it’s easy to do without realizing you are.
Categories: My House |
Tags: ADHD, cleaning, clutter, My House, projects | 2 Comments
January 2nd, 2012
2012
Twenty-twelve.
It beleaguers the imagination.
I’ve been trying to figure out why this particular new year’s has been so devastatingly depressing. I mean…for a long time now, new year’s has been one of those days I try not to think about. Just another day, new date on the checks, etc., etc. You know, the new year…is. It’s just the inexorable march of time. One more year I can’t go back and salvage. And I ain’t gettin’ any younger, either. That’s a huge part of it, I know. I’ll be 60 this year.
60
SIX-ty.
Shit.
That, in and of itself is enough to make me want to jump off a bridge (if I weren’t afraid of heights). Part of the disconnect is that I do not feel 60, hell…I don’t feel 40, mentally. Physically, my body is a disaster zone. Physically, I feel like I’m 90 most days. All this BS about 50 is the new 30 and 70 is the new 40, or whatever…those spinners never lived in my body. 60 is the new 90. Bah!
Instead of chronicling what I feel the issues are (which sounds suspiciously like making excuses), I’m going to try to take a page out of the sunshine and lollipop spin and look at ways to make 2012 a better year. I mean, you know…just not sitting around being morose would make it a better year, right?
First up, I’m decluttering the house. It’s a gargantuan undertaking, but I’m gettin’ ‘er done, by gosh. In that vein, I’ve decluttered Mdme B’s space here. My previous theme mirrored the usual state of my desk (might have even been cleaner…but I’ll never tell), but I’ve noticed most of the well-read sites are simpler, with white backgrounds.
Before you get all mushy and think this is a list of resolutions, don’t. I don’t do resolutions. They set you up for failure. These are things I’ve already been working on or need to do anyway, new year or not. It just seems like a good time to trot out the list since one of the things I’d like to get in the habit of doing is actually, you know, like…USING my web site–what a novel idea. Which reminds me of another one on the list. Setting up a time to write, every day, same time. I might actually get that novel done before I really am 90.
Dump about 80-90 pounds. Didn’t say pounds of what, now did I? (Technically, I’ve already done this: in decluttering in the last couple of days, I’ve trashed, recycled, and donated well over 100 pounds of schtuff. HA!) But yeah…part of the feeling 90 thing is this extra couple of bags of mulch I’m carrying around. Hee. In order to clearly demonstrate what carrying weight on your body is like, I use the following analogy: you know those bags of garden dirt, compost, or mulch? Each one weighs 40 pounds. I can barely tote ONE of those around. And I’m carrying at least two on a small, 5’5″ frame that wasn’t intended to carry more than about 145 pounds at the most. TWO! No wonder my knees are going and my feet hurt so much. (218 when I last weighed myself at work before the winter break, if you MUST know.)
Another thing I’m going to try for is consistency. Juliet said something about the moon’s inconstant orb…but you know, the moon is rather consistent. Each month, she does the same thing, perpetually. I’m not sure I’d want to be quite that predictable–and boring–but one could do far worse than be as consistent as Lady Luna.
Getting back on track being a vegesaur. Several times over the holidays, whether it was just because I was tempted by some yummy-meat thing or because there really wasn’t anything else to eat in the house, I’ve had things to eat which I regretted later. Regretted either because of guilt or because they upset my system something fierce. This goes along with actually planning some meals, doing shopping, and cooking! Gah…I have a teenager, for crying out loud, and I rely on my husband to cook most of the meals, but he doesn’t make veggies and green things, so no one gets the nutrition they should. *slaps own hand*
One last thought on this is time spent on the computer. It is a very useful tool, when used properly, but I spend too much time on FB and playing games, and not enough time doing creative things with it. Posting projects and the like here will be a part of a renewed effort putting what little time I have left on this earth to good use. Believe it or not, I actually go days without checking FB, I don’t twitter, or Google-group…but I still manage to waste an inordinate amount of time on teh intarwebs. I love googling ideas, items, history, pictures, etc. THAT can really eat up time, lemmetellya.
So. I’m off to clean that other catbox, start a back-to-work-and-school washing marathon, finish scanning a kajillion photos for my boss (he’s paying me), bake two more loaves of banana bread, wash dishes and continue sorting and culling 20 years of crap that grew in my house and wonder if clutter is like mold or a fungus…does it spread by spores?
Categories: Self |
Tags: about me, aging, cleaning, clutter, lists, self-pity | Comments Off
August 26th, 2010
I was doing quite well last week, with the blogging. And then it all went pear-shaped, as they say.
I did actually make some progress with “things” over the weekend, but you know…two steps forward, 19 back…and here I am again. Still with mounds of clean clothes to be folded and put away; I’d done all the dishes and spiffed up the counters, and there it is all to do again. Damned dishes…what is it with having to be washed every day? I mean, really? And then I tried to do myself in this morning.
I go now?
This cat, Valentino, who is very prone to urinary issues, has decided that even the soft wheat cat litter is not to his liking, so he’s been peeing on the garage floor next to the box, instead of in the box. *headdesk* So, this morning, he’d done it again, so I grabbed what I thought was the hydrogen-peroxide kitty destinkum gallon jug. The stuff foamed up like it was supposed to and it usually has an odor, so I wasn’t too horribly concerned over the odd smell and the burning, tingling eye-thing.
Do you know what the major ingredient in urine is? That’s right, Baby Bop, it’s ammonia!
Do you know what was in the white gallon jug? That’s RIGHT, chlorine bleach!
Now…who knows what happens when you mix chlorine and ammonia?
Are we going to read the label first from now on? You betcha, Red Rider!
Categories: Critters, Daily Bull, Health, Stupid Stuff I Do, Tip'o'the Day |
Tags: cleaning, Daily Bull, my critters, Tip of the Day | Comments Off
June 6th, 2010
A clean fridge is a marvelous thing.
A clean refrigerator. Aaaah. My hands are raw and I’ve dripped soapy water from one end of the kitchen to the other, and most of my groceries (except dairy) sat out all day. But the fridge is all washed and the crap cleaned out. I took out every shelf and door pocket, took them apart and scrubbed ‘em with Method Purple Spray (which, by the way, works better than anything I’ve ever found on that tough, sticky kitchen grease), and also with soapy water, rinsed and dried, and reassembled them. Also took a bunch of stuff out to the compost. The person who messes it up will not be a happy camper.
The freezer side is next. Then to conquer the rest of the kitchen. Ennui be damned!
Oh, and the spousal unit laughed his ass off at me taking this picture.
Categories: My House |
Tags: cleaning, Kitchen, My House, projects | Comments Off
June 6th, 2010
For my main home page, I have iGoogle. You can pick all sorts of fun widgets to clutter up your iGoogle page and one of them is a daily horoscope from Tarot.com. For the most part, it’s like any other generic, one-size-fits-none daily horoscope. But lately, they’ve been hitting it eerily spot-on. Today’s is a prime example:
You may feel as if you are at a turning point in your life, but everything may seem bigger than it actually is. It will take months before your long-term goals clarify, yet the choices you make now will be instrumental in your new direction. Don’t worry if you cannot put all your ideas into one practical package. For now, let your imagination flow without restraint; you can make sense of your thoughts later on.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been determined to turn things around in my life, to end the cycle of downward spiral, clean things up, clear things out, lose weight, finish projects, etc. But my mind can’t settle on one thing to begin with. Today I decided to take control of my kitchen. I’ve washed a ton of dishes, and am cleaning the fridge out (most of what was in there was nascent compost), wash it out and clean the floors and start the plan to paint and refurbish the kitchen. Also, I want to work my way through the laundry monster that’s taken over the laundry/cat area in my studio, and move ahead on getting my shelves back up in my bedroom.
Why the heck am I sitting here typing??
Categories: Every Now and Then Horoscope, Self |
Tags: about me, cleaning, clutter, projects, Self, Taurus | Comments Off
