I have to organize and clean my house in "steps". First, get the piles of clutter off the floor and various other horizontal surfaces. My dining room sideboard is covered with about two feet of papers. Must go thru all this stuff and either toss it or store properly. Then, clean everything. I mean, scrub, vacuum, wash all surfaces. Then, last step, hit the "invisible" clutter, like all the drawers and closets. Like, why do I have a six-drawer dresser in my bedroom that I cannot use? The six drawers are chock-full of things, yet my clothes are piled in my closet and in a pile in the corner of the room. It sure would be nice to have a drawer for shirts,one for pants, one for underwear.

I'm trying to get things back under control and I'm finding this website very helpful and inspiring. I feel better knowing I'm not alone with the horizontal surface problem. We went through the filing cabinet recently. Maybe this time DH will understand it's a system, not a convenient black hole to throw things into. Paid bills dating back a decade, instruction manuals for appliances long gone.

Good resolutions Janie. I didn't even manage to make any specific ones. You made seven and there's still nine months to go. You'll get there.

Oh Jannie - I hear you - I HEAR you!!! I have three chests of drawers and a long dresser ........all full of things I don't wear. What I do wear is relegated to surface areas here and there. In another thread, I have discussed my goals for next couple days ----big delivery on Monday!

grins

Vicki

Jamie,

It sure is good to hear from you again!!! Oh, yeah, I need to regroup in a big way!

My mother's sister is visiting in May. She wrote that she WILL see all of our homes (my sister's, my 2 cousins). The last time she visited, we lived in our previous home. I had it looking real good. She literally walked all around my house, around all of my tables, inspecting everything. I actually had to stifle a laugh because it was too hilarous. When we went in the backyard, she said to my uncle, "Well, Jim, what do you think about the backyard?" Like he was THE authority on ALL backyards in the US. My sister lucked out. They were running late and had to skip her house, so that they could see my cousin's home. Let me tell you about my cousin. She is a neat freak. Her home always looks like a model home. Even with a toddler and a newborn. Gee, that was my competition. Well, after my aunt saw everyone's homes, she told my mom she liked my house the best. Dang it, she saw "vacuum marks" on my neat-cousin's carpet!! Oh my!!!! I was dying laughing. Was this for real?

So now she's coming again. To a different house that still has so many undone projects. We have holes in our ceiling, for heaven's sakes!!!! We have 2 arbovitae in our backyard that have fallen over. Our carpets are horribly in need of cleaning, our master bathroom sink has a crack...oh, I could go on and on. This was the house we got a great deal on because it was a foreclosure that needed repairs - some of which we haven't made yet. Yep, auntie will have fun with this one!

Anyways, I am going to use my Aunt as my motivation to get my act together. I honestly don't care what she thinks, but if she can motivate me to fix some things around here, I'll take it.

My list is too long to share, trust me, but I am ready to take them on!!!!

Sheryl

Jamie,

It's good to see you again. I've been rereading the old posts and you had so many good ideas.

I cleaned off the screen porch and the entry porch the other day. I even got a little bit of a sunburn! it's been so long since we've had the sun.

DH had been sticking the empty boxes on the screen proch. He said you can't use it when it's so cold, anyway. I piled them all up in front of his shop door and he burned them the same night. he got in a bit of a rush and put too many on at once. HE HAD A FIRE. DGS got the waterhose hooked up while DH was beating at the flames. It's so-o-o dry here this year. We had little to almost no snow.

DH does get in a rush at times and takes short cuts. they don't always work out.

Meanwhile 'back at the ranch', my kitchen counters are piled high. somebody hasn't been too good at putting things away. It's gotta be DH, right? Never mind that he's not been home much.

Maybe, i'll try to take care of stuff today. DH said he's going to rake the front yard, so I'll try to stay out of his way. he gets so much more done if I'm NOT helping.

My resolves are all regarding the outside of the house this year. We are what's called "break-up" season. Meaning meldown of the snow and the ice breaking up on the rivers. It also means all the stuff I haven't had to look at in the yard will soon become unburied.

I have all of my seed starting stuff and I've vowed not to hit a single place selling plants this spring. I always over dose on the buying and then can't get to the planting. And if I would only plant all of the plants I actually start from seed, I would have more than enough.

So, as I clean up the yard this spring, it will be keeping the yard care as minimal as possible and to not start any new garden beds.

Gloria

Sheryl and Shirley, glad to "hear" from you two again as well! And nice to "meet" everyone else, too. :-)

Sheryl, sounds like you have a *huge* undertaking in front of you, what with stern auntie and all, but hey, we have to find motivation where we can, right? I've been known to plan parties just to force myself to clean things up, and relatives are a great motivator, even if we really *don't* care what they think in the end. Good luck...sounds like a lot of work to be done in a short time!

Scary about the fire, Shirley - I'm glad everyone's okay. We haven't had much snow this year either, just dry and cold. Now it's raining every time I turn around, which is good for moisture, not so good for my mood (if I liked rain, I'd live on a coast). But I'm trying to stay positive, and focus on all the early spring flowers poking up out of the ground (crocus are already blooming, and the tulips are 3 inches tall already!).

My closet is functional, and findable...but I still have clothes all over the floor, just because I'm too lazy to pick them up. So I feel the pain of the clothes thing - I have to get a handle on that too. But I had to start somewhere, and the kitchen is my "indicator room", so I started there today.

I have a long counter along one wall of the kitchen that is between the front and back doors of the house. We pass it all the time, coming in from work (to let the dogs out), going to the basement, using the kitchen, etc. So stuff gets tossed there - that two feet of paper Jannie was talking about. It's not just my husband - he just follows my lead.

So today that's where I started. I spent about half an hour (truely, I thought it would take *forever*) standing there going through things. Granted, I didn't file the "to file" items...I put them in a box near the filing cabinet in the office. I had to remind myself not to get distracted by cleaning out the filing cabinet too! But I did toss or straighten everything, piled up the bills where I could find them (I *need* a bill organizer...and will find one soon!), and straightened up the part of that counter that serves as my "tea service" when everything is organized. Nice to be able to see my tea chest again! :-)

I also cleaned the kitchen, but haven't quite gotten my sink shiny yet. I did put my morning, evening and before bed routines into my PDA, as well as my shopping lists. I took the garbage out too, and scheduled it for every three days on my PDA so I'll have that constant reminder to get it done before it starts piling up. I started some laundry too, another thing I tend to put off. My husband will do it all if I wait long enough - but he has more clothes than I do, so he can wait longer! LOL

Tonight before I go to bed, I am *going* to schedule out those resolution "tasks" into my PDA, broken into chunks with firm deadlines for completion. I may have to be a bit flexible with them later, scheduling them this early, but at least they will *be there* to remind me and keep the notion close at hand. I think I'll go make some tea (since I can find it now), and do that, and then get some sleep. Tomorrow I have aquariums to clean, vaccuuming to do, sheets to change, some errands to run, and laundry to finish. I think I might actually be sort-of organized come Monday, a welcome change for the week. :-)

Have a great Sunday, all - I'll check in Monday if it isn't too busy at work. :-)

Hi Jamie, so how's married life? Glad to see you back. I had been absent for a while since I couldn't get my log-in to work.Haven't talked to Sheryl and Shirley for forever either and hello to the new ones! It's going to be nearly 80 here today so I need to get out the summer stuff and see what's left from last year and appropriate for my new job. My priorities have changed since becoming full time employed so I know what needs to be done and it gets done when it happens so I've not set and resolutions for myself this year, just to keep up...and make lists (my mind is getting older, too).

Oh my - 80 degrees!!! I can't wait for warmer weather!

Jamie - I was going to ask the same question: how is married life??? And your new house? Oh, and your dogs! How are they liking your new house?

By the way, Jamie, I thought of you today. I found a great gift for my dad while out and about today, and I thought, "This would make a great Christmas gift. I better buy it now and put it in my gift box!" So see? I'm still thinking "Christmas" all the time! :)

Sheryl

Did I even have resolutions? LOL I'm sure I did.

I spent the entire month of March without focus and feeling overwhelmed. April isn't looking much better, but it's still early so things could turn around?

The good news is my flower seeds are sprouting in the basement! I started very late this year so planted only the quick sprouters.

just because I'm too lazy to pick them up.

ah, delegating to "future Jamie," eh?

Welcome back!

I had a long late work week last week, and the week before. and by the end of each week, the place was looking seedy. Of course, since we're all decluttered for selling, it's still better than most PAST days. But... So I made everyone spend a half-hour picking up and dusting and vacuuming--it was actually kind of fun. A nice feeling of productivity.

And of course the nightly pick-up I made them do before was far easier than the weekly one, and even the weekly one was MUCH easier than what we did before.

I'll try to think of Jamie tonight, and her new energy, when I get out the drill to put in the transom (finally!)

Hi Betsy! Glad to "see" you again too! How goes the new job?

And Sheryl, great job on the Christmas gift bought! You're doing better than I am this year...for some reason, I am not even a little bit organized as far as gifts go this year! I have to mail a wedding present for a cousin who got married at Christmas (will do that today), and I'm working on a baby afghan for another cousin who is pregnant...hopefully I can get that mailed to her *before* the baby comes, as it was supposed to be a shower gift! Obviously, I really need to be back here on a regular basis, so you guys can help me stay organized! ;-)

Julie, congrats on the sprouting flowers! My hubby won't let me do any more outside planting until he gets the yard spruced up, so it will probably be awhile. ;-)I bet things growing in your basement really make you "itchy" to get out and start planting stuff!!

Married life is great...it's really great to be working toward the same long-term goals with someone else (and sharing the bills too!). LOL My husband is wonderful - but I knew that long before I married him, so I expected no less. That's the nice thing about having dated for so long before we got married - we knew each other very well, good and bad, so we both knew what to expect. He's still my best friend, not just my hubby, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. ;-)

My dogs are doing well - getting older, unfortunately. Vashti (my doberman) is 8 this year, which is the average life span for her breed. I can tell that old age is starting to get to her a bit, so we'll see. My collie is getting older as well - we don't know her exact age, but she was older when I got her. We'll probably lose both of the "girls" within a couple of years, sadly. But we'll enjoy them for as long as we can. :-)

Gabriel (my dobe/lab x) is doing well too - he's around 6 or 7 now, so still in his "prime". He started having seizures a few years ago, and still has them, but otherwise is healthy. All the dogs *love* the huge yard we have now, and more room in the house to spread out. We were pretty crammed into my first house, and they've all adjusted quite well. It helps that we moved into a neighborhood where everyone likes/has dogs - my collie isn't such a problem when she has to go out and "bark" good morning to everyone. ;-)

As for the new house - uh...slowly but surely is our motto. :-) We worked pretty hard on the basement this winter, getting my husband's pool room all decorated and organized with bookshelves and such. We still have a couple more shelves to buy, and then it will be pretty much done. We've also been creating a "movie room" adjacent to the pool room - painting and moving furniture in and such. It's starting to look really great too! My hubby reorganized our storage room, and it works much better now for all the holiday/seasonal decorations I have - that was another project this winter. So we've been steadily working away. Our next project is working on the lawn, and getting a storage shed built in the back yard, so we can clean his mom's stuff out of our garage (long story), and get that space back for our cars, and a wood-working area for him. So lots of plans and lots to do...but well worth the work.

As for the main floor - organization is badly needed in a few areas. My office is a mess - I've been working on it, but it needs a lot of help. My closet needs "help" as well...and we have to figure out a better way of dealing with clothes at night. But we'll get it all organized eventually.

If that wasn't long-winded enough, here's my "report" for the rest of the weekend:

- I showed my husband the shopping lists I created on my PDA. One for the main grocery store, one for costco, one for "miscellaneous" and one for the pet store. So he knows where to add things to the list that he needs - and he made use of that yesterday to add his things to the list. He also added his things to the calendar, and where I had "What's for dinner" reminders on the calendar every day, he made a note with his requests. LOL
- He saw that "Vaccuum" was on the list for yesterday, so while I was out running errands, he vaccuumed for me, which was helpful.
- I also scheduled an alarm to go off at 9:00pm every night to remind me to work out. Hopefully that will get me moving again. The one bad thing about marriage is that I've gained about 20 lbs since the wedding...time to get back to working out again and get healthy, for both of us!
- I looked for a bill-organizer, but couldn't find one, so will have to order that online.
- Got some more laundry done, but not put away.
- Made my bed this morning.
- Cleaned the kitchen last night...not as well as it should have been, but getting closer.
- Got 2 of my aquariums cleaned - will clean the goldfish tank tonight

So I got some little things done...a good start. And I followed my morning routine this morning, and was much more organized. I know what's for dinner tonight, and I have my list of "to do's" for my lunch break all ready to go. So I'm starting out organized this week - I just hope I can keep it up! :-)

Hi Tally Sue - and thanks!! Yep, delegating to my future self...my "MO" for awhile now.

You must be super-busy at the moment, with all the selling/buying stuff...it's hard work, with work and everything else too!! Good luck - I hope your home sells quickly!

You get out the drill tonight, and I'll hang up those clean clothes, okay? ;-)