A Challenge for Everyone...
Mood:  special

I'm doing an online challenge in a forum and this is it!

ok, so here it is, my whole house is bad.  MY worst problems are always laundry, dishes, and clutter.

My goals:  laundry, dishes and 15 minutes of "Clean Sweep" type cleaning, every possible morning, noon and night.  I can do this!!!

Anyone want to tag along?  What's your challenge/what's your goal?  Can we do this together???  Keep each other accountable??? (whoa, there's a big word!)  ;-)

they say it takes 21 consecutive days to create a habit - good or bad.  OK, so, here we go, I'm challenging everyone to a minimum 21 days of creating good habits!  :-D  and yes, that includes me!  :-O

and I've already started, I've done my morning dishes, already!  :-D  and had lots of fun time on the computer.  Now, off to meet the rest of my morning goal!!!  Woohoo!

Today's Progress...
9:41 now and must be in Simcoe by 1pm.  Ok, so that just changed!  LOL!  Turns out Sarah's one friend will be able to join us, today.  Well, I was hoping for a chance to get down to Black Creek Stables to see Sarah in action - maybe we'll go early, I'll get Haley, maybe drop Wes off at VBS for a bit, then Haley and I can go see Sarah and be back for lunch!  Yikes!  Glad I got so much done, yesterday.  :-)

All within about three seconds of sound...

robins, kill deers and redwing blackbirds.  Must be springtime!

That means spring cleaning, right?!  :-D

So, yesterday, I celebrated with a serious cleaning and even when it got to be late and I had no oomph left, I cleaned some more!  :-D

Working on victories, right now!  Little celebrations of accomplishments.  Something that shows that I actually did do something towards a cleaner house!

Yesterday was a great start.  I have a list of rooms in my house, which also includes the van, the car, the basement, each out building that we have, and the yard.  I put the date at the top of the list and at the bottom of how far I wanted to get was the van, which needed to be done before the ground thawed out to a muddy mess.  I put an hour value to each and how funny, but I had two 8:00 time slots.  I did the van at 8 am instead of 8 pm, despite it being last on my list.  I didn't actually follow each by the hour, it was just that was how many hours I had to commit to cleaning and wanted to at least get as many things done as I had hours available. 

So, I chose basically the worst mess in each room.  Here's what I accomplished:

laundry room - laundry!
kitchen - a section of my counter (been trying for days to get it cleaned off - more keeps getting added to it!)
dining room - laundry (cedar chest full of clothes that needed to be put away)
living room - cleaned off the coffee table 
bathroom - more laundry!
our room - even more laundry!  (starting to look like a monday!  and yes, I did laundry basically all day!)
hallway - 10 item pick-up
wes' room - 10 items
spare room - 10 items
closet - 59 items!
yard - lol, I looked after the horses and counted that!  ;-)  sarah's at horse camp, this week, so I need to help her.
car - Joe had it at work all day and by the time he got home and put it in the barn, that was enough work for me!  :-O
and the van! - cleaned off one seat area, including the floor area for that seat and the car-seat organizer pouch in front of that seat.

I started to get really tired by the end of the day, so I started doing just 10 item pick-ups to get through the rooms that I still wanted to do something in.  Some of those rooms are just overwhelming, anyway, so that was perfect!  The closet - lol, 59 items?!  I just grabbed a stack of stuff off the top and sorted through, counting as I went.  Threw 59 items into the burn box - mostly sheets of paper, but there was at least a couple of books in there, too.  If I really wanted to have some fun, I could say I did one victory in the basement, too.  I untangled the garden hose that was down there, brought it upstairs and outside and put it to use.  It helped me water the horses.  Three big bins full of water!  :-D  They're good for today, too!  yay!  It's sooo muddy outside, today.  The ground didn't refreeze overnight.  :p

Also, if it looks like I did a lot of laundry, I did!  I put three garbage bags full of laundry in Sarah's room, alone!  I wasn't folding that much laundry for her - she usually does her own laundry and can fold that on her own time.  I still have more of her clothes, in the dryer, waiting to be added to the pile.  lol.  I used to limit the amount of clothes my kids have.  Was much easier, then!  :-)

Today's a busier day for us, so I don't have as much time to commit to cleaning.  I do want to make good use of the little time I have, today, and then really go out and enjoy visiting with some friends.  Wesley's going to a sleep over and of course we have to do some visiting, too!  :-)  I've already started today by making a couple of batches of peanut butter cookies!  yum!  :-)  I might take some to share in our travels.  Thankfully, no allergies to deal with, today.

 

so, what's next?
Christmas and New Years have now come and gone for 2006 and my house never quite got to the point of company-ready.  Awesome improvements in some areas and greater failure in other areas.  So, just what is next?  Valentine's Day and Easter!  OK, so, off and running....

working on the kitchen... this may take a while...

dishes, dishes and more dishes - wash the dirty ones, wash the clean but dusty ones, find those cupboards and clean them, too.  My   biggest um, problem, will be figuring out what to keep and what to sacrifice due to lack of space.  It's not easy.  lol

 Monday night, I cleaned my laundry room to a point that it's never really seen before, and if that wasn't wonderful enough, Joe also cleaned out the cupboards and organized all the tools and junk that was in there!  Yay!  :-D

still working towards my goal...
just not quite how I'd planned, but as long as the work gets done, that's the main thing.  Right now, life is so crazy that I just don't get something done, each day, but the days that I can, I'm counting the clutter I get rid of - basically so I can guage my progress.  Thursday was my best day, this past week - got rid of 125 items plus did four loads of dishes!  My house lost weight!  :-D  Yay!

November's here - 8 days ago, already?!

Wow, we've been so busy.  I just got another job and renewed my job at Domino's Pizza!  Sarah and I have been to the International Women's Show, in Toronto, as well as the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair!  But still cleaning!

Realized, yesterday, that there's seven weeks left until Christmas.  I've divided these seven weeks into seven rooms and divided each room into one task per day.  Some weeks leave me an extra day here and there for catch up or whatever and I haven't scheduled anything for any given Sunday - every body needs a day to recover!  :-D

This particular week is Laundry Room week for me and with a fully scheduled day for yesterday and today, I started simple - yesterday, my goal was to clean off my washing machine.  Now, it's wonderfully clean, shiney, sanitized and makes my laundry room look already so much brighter!  Today's goal; my dryer!  Yes, also rather simple, but will help create good momentum, too!  I'm going to need it because the worst is yet to come!  Shelves, table and floor!  eeek!  The table will be the worst, because it's really hard to reach - it's between the dryer and the wall and just plain awkward.  Also, because our dryer doesn't vent outside, properly, it's really bad for collecting killer dust bunnies.  I did clean it out, earlier this year, but it's ready for another round of cleaning.  I basically have to hang upside-down off the dryer to reach the back of it.  Terribly awkward.  :p

 

still cleaning!!!

spending more time cleaning than posting, it seems!  Next big goal, Monday night, 4-H meeting, must be ready for that!  :-D

Been wanting to update...

two days ago was one of my first days to be home - I did a 30-second sprint in three different rooms, PLUS laundry and dishes.  I still have lots of catching up to do, mostly with laundry, but definately feeling good about what I did get done!  Also moved the fence around for the horses, so they have more fresh grass to eat.  Takes them a couple of days to eat what I give them when I do that.  lol  It's a lot of work for two days' feed, but still it's free food for them and free lawn mower & fertilizer, for us, all in one.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of time looking for my one wallet - I use it to carry what I don't use as regularily as my driver's licence, bank card, etc.  I need it for hockey season - has my coach and trainer certification cards in it.  Didn't find it, but I did sort through a lot of stuff and managed to get rid of a lot of junk!

Time for an update...
Two full days away, leaving before the crack of dawn and coming home right around bedtime, didn't get much done.  Monday, I wanted to accomplish something and not sure that happened, either.  So, today, updating my weightloss blog and figured I'd do a 30-second sprint in between loading pages - dial up is soooo slow, but sometimes that's a good thing! ;-)  So, yes, a 30-second sprint, here in the computer room, which it desperately needs a few of, anyway!  Want to get Steve moved into this room before Christmas, too!