I have cleaned my fridge. I do various sections regularly, but I have cleaned everything today, throwing out anything that won’t keep for the next five days.
Our cleaning marathon continues.
Yesterday evening I tackled the hob & grill of my elderly gas cooker, even removing the tops of the burners and vacuuming all the fine rust that has accumulated underneath them. The pan supports were difficult, as I have arthritis in my hands, and I find getting round all the bars is painful. I used to put them in the dishwasher, when I had one, but no room for one in this kitchen.
I washed all the cupboard doors first thing this morning, and when MrRoS got up, set him on to cleaning the kick boards while I went out and watered the tomatoes - for a change of scene.
I keep finding more things that need attending to, but anything not done by Monday evening will have to stay undone, as I need a day or two to get myself in celebration mode.
I will continue finding things to clean after it is all over, but at a gentler pace.
@Roseofsharon your cleaning activities have my admiration. You've done a lot!
Things have slowed down here a bit, mostly maintenance dusting and vacuuming. I am delighted to have ordered a new furniture polish which has worked well on my bookcase and sideboard.
There has been some cleaning up in the garage by Cheery husband. He is re-organising the pegboard above his workbench and it's looking good so far! Now we just have to get rid of the hoarding stored out there!
Thank You!
It's a good job we had no visitors in the months before I had my cataract done, while my eyesight was so bad.
I am still finding grubby places, but I am doing no more cleaning this week, (other than the kitchen counters & floor).
I was going to go to the garden centre to look for a small garden table this morning, but last night a friend gave me a table that he had found in his shed, which will do very nicely to sit next to my deckchair to hold drinks and snacks.
So this morning I tackled my craft storage boxes, and managed to re-arrange everything so it's more logical (all the paper craft materials in the same box), and I had an empty box at the end that I can get rid of!
In the process of doing that, I found some embroidered squares I'd been given when I was a re-enactor, with medieval scenes on them (a monk writing a book, that sort of thing). I've got a piece of black velvet that is just big enough for a cushion cover, and I will sew the squares onto the cushion cover and send it back to the people who gave them to me in the first place - they were made originally by a friend of theirs who died, and they passed them on to me because they are not remotely crafty, so it will be a nice keepsake for them.
Thanks, @Boogie
The cushion was actually really quick to finish, and is now on it's way - and not long after I'd put my new table outside (and taken a picture of it to show the generous donor), one of my neighbours asked me if I'd like an old garden bench! It needs a bit of TLC - a bit of rubbing down and a new paint job - but it's lovely.
I'll be having garden parties next!
@Eigon your cushion sounds perfect and I'm glad you were able to complete it and send it off to it's new home. Good job on the garden stuff too!
Good luck @Graven Image, if it's anything like the hall closet at my old house, you'll need it! I'm sure you'll feel really good once that's done!
Today Cheery husband unpacked a cardboard box of the son's school portfolios. He just unpacked it looked through, and repacked it into a much better plastic box for storage. I don't know if he planned to label it, but it's labelled now so our son will knows that it's stuff when the time comes!!
I managed to do a bit of vacuuming and bathroom cleaning in anticipation of a guest for afternoon tea on Thursday. It was good to get that done as the kids are a bit unreliable when it comes to the main bathroom. There will be a chat next week about that!
Hope you managed to get out of the hall closet @Graven Image as well as in and it is now just how you want it.
Your new house sounds like its really coming together @Eigon.
I did half of the closet; it is a start. My twice-monthly fresh farm delivery box arrived, and I ended up washing, storing, and cooking from it. That was my energy level for the day. Monday back at the closet.
This quiz names me a ladybug. Bit cutesy but the analysis is right - it wasn’t till I really started to understand my organising preferences that I started to get on top of things. I used to try for very detailed solutions and hen I just couldn’t keep up with them.
The quiz never came to a conclusion about me - or not in the time I was prepared to wait. That was possibly because my answers were so contradictory. Couldn't decide, in most cases, whether to answer as if I lived on my own or as it is, living with Mr RoS.
I was a cricket, mainly I think because my husband is a tidy minimalist and after forty years I seem to have become a bit of one too, even though I'm naturally quite messy.
It claims I'm a bee, which apparently means I want my stuff organized but where I can see it. But I ran into trouble when the choices seemed to be either bright clutter or minimalism. What about six bright things, all of which are practical and organized?
The bookcases have gone. They took some dismantling. They came from the Swedish emporium but were well put together by a professional, with some discretely placed screws holding them together.
I think I now need to get my decorator to give me a date, so I have a deadline, otherwise I will prevaricate and won’t get the room cleared. There are still two filing cabinets to finish sorting, and a stationery cupboard. Nobody seems to want the contents, even some lovely hard back books, suitable for journals.
If my grandchildren ( 17-24) are anything to go by, they are not interested.
This morning I dug out the laptop and other equipment I used when WFH as an advisor -until Mr P died. Someone is coming to collect it tomorrow. I enjoyed doing it for 15 years, but things have changed too much, both in technology, legislation and in my own life.
Drizzling all morning but easing off now. Not too windy.
Ask the English teacher. I suspect he/she has a few budding poets… alternately, anyone who teaches children about age seven to ten. There’s something about a “real” bound book that makes your own writing, diary, drawings seem that much more important. (Local bookstores here are filled with blank books for sale, both for writing and drawing, and they’ve been selling well for forty-odd years at least—which was when i first sold them myself.)
Today’s sorting included years of photos, all now in one big plastic tub with lid.
Then I started on letters. From me to Mr P and from him to me, before we were married. I don’t want my family reading them after I’ve died, but I am reluctant to shred them.
I'd be inclined to honor that feeling, and make an arrangement with a friend (or paid somebody, who knows?) to store them until my death, at which time to burn or shred them. It's worth being considered mildly eccentric to avoid the kind of pain doing it now is likely to produce, and possibly keep producing, in memory.
An alternative I could do (since I have a garden) is to put them down several layers deep over unwanted grass or weeds, water them regularly, and let them kill the grass--giving me a new garden bed ready to plant by spring. I've done that with newspaper, and it would surely work with letter paper--and you might not have the emotional blowback that shredding would cause.
My gran destroyed all the letters between her and her husband, which I was quite sorry about, as they were from the 1930s (he died in 1940) and had the potential to be quite historically interesting. But they were her letters, and she didn't want anyone else to see them.
Definitely give blank journals to charity shops. I love blank journals, and I'm always delighted to find them in charity shops and I buy them.
I'm in the position of having far too many blank journals, that I've accumulated over the years. I don't want to give any away, because I love them, but equally I know I have to stop buying them. My difficulty is that it really cheers me up to buy a journal now and then. Also I love buying books - novels, plays, poetry books - from charity shops. It's such an inexpensive way to fill one's home abundantly with riches (if you see books as riches, which I do, because they make me happy).
I am trying to switch my methods of cheering myself up to actually reading the books and writing/sketching in the journals, which seems harder as I get older, because it's harder to focus. I have decided that for the rest of August, I am going to focus on tidying my home and reading my books and journalling. I am using AI to help me - both ChatGPT and Claude, and it's interesting to compare them. I asked them to give me microtasks, so I don't get overwhelmed, and they both gave me the microtask of clearing a square metre of my bedroom floor (which seems very big for a microtask) and of picking up all the books around my bed (which seems ridiculously huge for a microtask, as I have over a hundred books around my bed). So I keep telling them to make the tasks smaller, less overwhelming. Today I have picked up around eighty books and found a surface on top of a wardrobe to pile them up in stacks, which feels like progress.
I have told ChatGPT and Claude that I want to spend the next five days, starting today, tidying my bedroom. I don't know if I will complete it, as it is very messy and I get very overwhelmed and exhausted, but I hope it will make a significant difference, and stop it being a possible health and safety hazard.
Cheery husband is having a burst of cleaning the garage. He brought in a pile of those spiral bound books that have display pages in them, as used old fashioned resumees. A couple of these were portfolios from school (daughter) and preschool work (son's). Alas a couple were filled with a variety of things I'd accumulated re son's treatment and other loose paperwork. I think I will have to go through these at some point, once I know where he's put them. I hope your sorting is going OK @Puzzler.
I had a burst of vacuuming and dusting yesterday morning. Things look a lot better, but I think I need to tidy off the top of the sideboard as well, it's starting to look a bit cluttered. I might leave that until Wednesday, I think.
Thanks @Cheery Gardener . I need to keep motivated today and get a lot done as it is my only day this week. My son is coming tomorrow. I’m going away on Thursday so I need to pack on Wednesday morning as I have meetings in the afternoon ( Scrabble) and evening ( choir committee).
A good lot of things put away over the weekend and vaccuming caught up. I find I have to do this quite a few times a week just to keep the cat hair in check and having tiles in the main living area means that every crumb dropped makes the place look really bler.
I'm trying to double my changing of the cat's trays to keep them a bit happier and make life more pleasant for us as well.
I'm starting to think that I might go through some of our kitchen things and if they haven't been used in the time since we moved here, then it might be time to move them on.
I am tackling the financial papers filing. For some reason or other which made sense at the time, I didn't do it when I did my self assessment tax return back in January, nor in the Easter break, and I was away a lot last summer... so my penance for such procrastination is I'm doing 20 months worth! I have a little set of drawers which every thing gets put to await this activity, and there was no more room in either of the drawers!
I was going to try to procrastinate a bit longer until the rainy days due at the end of this week by going into church to do some deep cleaning, but there was a stern "No one can get in to church this week to do anything as the builders are doing stuff with glue. This includes Bank Holiday Monday." instruction issued. Bank Holidays are usually good days for this kind of stealth mission, and my chief companions in crime in this one and I are all itching to get on with the clean up of the building work dust in places we've not got to since the building work started 60 or so weeks ago. Sadly, it means the two of them won't get to help as they both go off to far away places for their next stage of education before I am next available to do this.
So, I'm taking my mind off the church dust and the impending moving on of our older church teenagers with the filing.
Today is kitchen tidying and floor scrubbing day. On Thursday the heat pump people are are coming. I am determined I will not have a repeat of this winter with inadequate heating through one of the coldet winters I have ever experienced.
@Huia, I'm so glad your heating solution is about to get moving, that's great news. I hope you won't need to scrub your floors again after the heat pump people have been.
Today tidy house has fallen off my radar, I'm hoping to get started tomorrow!
The good news is my son will be moving in with me. At 86 years old, this makes me feel safer and happy for the company. The bad news is that I have been using my extra bedroom and office alcove as storage space for items such as extra bedding, holiday decorations, and other non-essential everyday items. This will all need to be given a new home, and I am not sure where. The other good news is that my son also has a studio for his work, at another location, so he is not bringing a lot with him.
I did a bit of sorting today but found nothing to recycle, chuck out or shred! All memorabilia, so had to be read. Now I need to clear the piles before I can go to bed tonight so they will just go back where they came from. Sigh.
I went mad a couple of weeks ago with the dusting and ended up with a whole heap of cloths to wash. They have now been washed and dried and this morning I've folded them and put them back into their container for next time.
Other than that, I don't have any pressing tasks for today. I know I'm avoiding starting the kitchen drawers!!!
Comments
I like her, lots to watch - thank you 🙏
Yesterday evening I tackled the hob & grill of my elderly gas cooker, even removing the tops of the burners and vacuuming all the fine rust that has accumulated underneath them. The pan supports were difficult, as I have arthritis in my hands, and I find getting round all the bars is painful. I used to put them in the dishwasher, when I had one, but no room for one in this kitchen.
I washed all the cupboard doors first thing this morning, and when MrRoS got up, set him on to cleaning the kick boards while I went out and watered the tomatoes - for a change of scene.
I keep finding more things that need attending to, but anything not done by Monday evening will have to stay undone, as I need a day or two to get myself in celebration mode.
I will continue finding things to clean after it is all over, but at a gentler pace.
Things have slowed down here a bit, mostly maintenance dusting and vacuuming. I am delighted to have ordered a new furniture polish which has worked well on my bookcase and sideboard.
There has been some cleaning up in the garage by Cheery husband. He is re-organising the pegboard above his workbench and it's looking good so far! Now we just have to get rid of the hoarding stored out there!
It's a good job we had no visitors in the months before I had my cataract done, while my eyesight was so bad.
I am still finding grubby places, but I am doing no more cleaning this week, (other than the kitchen counters & floor).
So this morning I tackled my craft storage boxes, and managed to re-arrange everything so it's more logical (all the paper craft materials in the same box), and I had an empty box at the end that I can get rid of!
In the process of doing that, I found some embroidered squares I'd been given when I was a re-enactor, with medieval scenes on them (a monk writing a book, that sort of thing). I've got a piece of black velvet that is just big enough for a cushion cover, and I will sew the squares onto the cushion cover and send it back to the people who gave them to me in the first place - they were made originally by a friend of theirs who died, and they passed them on to me because they are not remotely crafty, so it will be a nice keepsake for them.
The cushion was actually really quick to finish, and is now on it's way - and not long after I'd put my new table outside (and taken a picture of it to show the generous donor), one of my neighbours asked me if I'd like an old garden bench! It needs a bit of TLC - a bit of rubbing down and a new paint job - but it's lovely.
I'll be having garden parties next!
Good luck @Graven Image, if it's anything like the hall closet at my old house, you'll need it! I'm sure you'll feel really good once that's done!
Today Cheery husband unpacked a cardboard box of the son's school portfolios. He just unpacked it looked through, and repacked it into a much better plastic box for storage. I don't know if he planned to label it, but it's labelled now so our son will knows that it's stuff when the time comes!!
I managed to do a bit of vacuuming and bathroom cleaning in anticipation of a guest for afternoon tea on Thursday. It was good to get that done as the kids are a bit unreliable when it comes to the main bathroom. There will be a chat next week about that!
Your new house sounds like its really coming together @Eigon.
I think I now need to get my decorator to give me a date, so I have a deadline, otherwise I will prevaricate and won’t get the room cleared. There are still two filing cabinets to finish sorting, and a stationery cupboard. Nobody seems to want the contents, even some lovely hard back books, suitable for journals.
This morning I dug out the laptop and other equipment I used when WFH as an advisor -until Mr P died. Someone is coming to collect it tomorrow. I enjoyed doing it for 15 years, but things have changed too much, both in technology, legislation and in my own life.
Drizzling all morning but easing off now. Not too windy.
Then I started on letters. From me to Mr P and from him to me, before we were married. I don’t want my family reading them after I’ve died, but I am reluctant to shred them.
An alternative I could do (since I have a garden) is to put them down several layers deep over unwanted grass or weeds, water them regularly, and let them kill the grass--giving me a new garden bed ready to plant by spring. I've done that with newspaper, and it would surely work with letter paper--and you might not have the emotional blowback that shredding would cause.
I haven't opened them.
Too personal.
I'm in the position of having far too many blank journals, that I've accumulated over the years. I don't want to give any away, because I love them, but equally I know I have to stop buying them. My difficulty is that it really cheers me up to buy a journal now and then. Also I love buying books - novels, plays, poetry books - from charity shops. It's such an inexpensive way to fill one's home abundantly with riches (if you see books as riches, which I do, because they make me happy).
I am trying to switch my methods of cheering myself up to actually reading the books and writing/sketching in the journals, which seems harder as I get older, because it's harder to focus. I have decided that for the rest of August, I am going to focus on tidying my home and reading my books and journalling. I am using AI to help me - both ChatGPT and Claude, and it's interesting to compare them. I asked them to give me microtasks, so I don't get overwhelmed, and they both gave me the microtask of clearing a square metre of my bedroom floor (which seems very big for a microtask) and of picking up all the books around my bed (which seems ridiculously huge for a microtask, as I have over a hundred books around my bed). So I keep telling them to make the tasks smaller, less overwhelming. Today I have picked up around eighty books and found a surface on top of a wardrobe to pile them up in stacks, which feels like progress.
I have told ChatGPT and Claude that I want to spend the next five days, starting today, tidying my bedroom. I don't know if I will complete it, as it is very messy and I get very overwhelmed and exhausted, but I hope it will make a significant difference, and stop it being a possible health and safety hazard.
I had a burst of vacuuming and dusting yesterday morning. Things look a lot better, but I think I need to tidy off the top of the sideboard as well, it's starting to look a bit cluttered. I might leave that until Wednesday, I think.
I'm trying to double my changing of the cat's trays to keep them a bit happier and make life more pleasant for us as well.
I'm starting to think that I might go through some of our kitchen things and if they haven't been used in the time since we moved here, then it might be time to move them on.
I was going to try to procrastinate a bit longer until the rainy days due at the end of this week by going into church to do some deep cleaning, but there was a stern "No one can get in to church this week to do anything as the builders are doing stuff with glue. This includes Bank Holiday Monday." instruction issued. Bank Holidays are usually good days for this kind of stealth mission, and my chief companions in crime in this one and I are all itching to get on with the clean up of the building work dust in places we've not got to since the building work started 60 or so weeks ago. Sadly, it means the two of them won't get to help as they both go off to far away places for their next stage of education before I am next available to do this.
So, I'm taking my mind off the church dust and the impending moving on of our older church teenagers with the filing.
Today tidy house has fallen off my radar, I'm hoping to get started tomorrow!
Today I shall give the kitchen an extra ' going over' plus skirting boards.
I think there's a cream you can get for that ...
I'll see myself out.
You've saved me a job, Piglet!
Other than that, I don't have any pressing tasks for today. I know I'm avoiding starting the kitchen drawers!!!