Day Two-Project GID!

Yesterday I purged and cleaned two more areas for Project GID. You can find day 1 here. The first project was our hall towel closet. For some reason this closet piles up SO fast. The Hubs is also into the fine art of collecting massive amounts of useless crap. He has a hodge podge of computer bits, random wires, tools, etc. But he never wants to sort through anything or HEAVEN FORBID, throw something away. This closet is one where his junk starts to collect.

The before picture with my collection of candles, all kind of lotion, mismatched towels, and The Hubs' crap stowed behind it all.

Still a lot going on, but a little more organized. I threw all of The Hubs' junk in the green and blue buckets and I am now going to dream about the day that he will sort them.

Here is the top of my microwave. I have tried a large number of techniques to manage the amount of paper crap that accumulates around here. In baskets, daily sorting, shredders blah blah blah. It all works for about a week, then I lose the steam and the paper builds up again.

In all of it's glory.

Sorted, filed, shredded....

Throughout this week I will be doing the girls' closet, computer desk, a few more kitchen cabinets, and laundry area. Do you have any areas that you just need to GIT R DONE????

Project GID

Project GID has now begun! GID, or rather Git Ir Done, is something I have been meaning to do for umm..ya know....about...umm....okay... carry the one, yeah 4 years. You see, The Hubs and I are both packrats (to the tenth degree). We have no concept of cleaning up after ourselves or putting things away. Every once in awhile I will go on a cleaning binge but I really am a terrible housekeeper. I am working on it though!!

I have a lot of areas in my home where things just pile up. Things that have no specific home get shoved into these little corners which start to take over the entire house. Flylady calls these things "hot spots". My specific hotspots are all over the house, and are in need of MAJOR decluttering and organizing. Since these things have been on my list so long I finally broke down and said "You know what? Just git r done!" So, here we go, here are my hot spots in all of their glory, followed by pictures of my new shiny drawers and cabinets (cold spots?). I would never share these pictures unless I had a nice clean shiny one to follow it with. :)

I have four drawers in my kitchen that hold utensils, spatulas, etc and they get SO cluttered. Both of my monkeys like to play in there, so they don't stay organized for long. But they are now!

Our bathroom cabinet. It was in bad need of a purge. In going through the vapo rub, old crusty toothpaste and dried out deodorant I discovered a few LONG past expiration dates. I guess this calls for a trip to Target to restock my cabinet. Dang. If I have to.

My shameful bathroom counter. Our bathroom is small, so it seems like the counter is cluttered when there are only two or three things out. When there are 73 things out, it looks terrible.

Gleaming.

Thanks for looking. This weekend I am also tackling my towel closet, laundry area, computer desk, and the girls' closet. Git R Done!

Vacuums and Vodkas

Hello, my name is Julie. And I am a binge cleaner.

Just like a binge drinker, but with a broom instead of a beer. Like a college co-ed, I abstain for most of the week. Then the weekend hits, and I find myself spending hours cleaning as much as I can.

After a weekend of heavy drinking and partying, the binge drinker usually needs a day or two to recover. She rests in a dimly lit room, pops Advil, and runs to the bathroom. She vows to the toilet bowl "I will never drink that much again!"

Likewise, the binge cleaner needs to recover after a weekend of heavy scrubbing. She collapses on the couch, the lingering scent of cleaning fumes still thick in the air and vows "I will never clean that much again!"

But alas, the weekend comes, and with it the promises of mops for one, and martinis for the other. One throwing trash out, the other throwing tequila up. Both will probably spend time on their knees, one scrubbing the floor, and the other..er...

As much as I loathe cleaning, I much prefer it over raging hangovers and cheap beer.

Utter CHAOS!

My house is in CHAOS mode. According to http://flylady.net/, that means "Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome." My living room is a mass of toys, dirty laundry, diaper changing paraphernelia, dirty dishes, shoes, you name it. My kitchen sink is overflowing, the floor needs swept, and something is growing a rather pretty bluish/greenish tinted fuzz in my refrigerator. Chloe's room is bursting at the seams with clothes, books, toys, stuffed animals, and who knows what else. I have a laundry pile that is close to 6 feet tall. In the interest of adjusting to sharing my time with two kids, I have competely neglected all things related to housework. Ali is still nursing around the clock, and it is rather hard to fold clothes with one hand. My poor family is suffering as I haven't made a nice homecooked meal in weeks!

It's time to get back in the swing of things. Before I had Ali, in about my 7th month of pregnancy, I started FLYing. I started following FlyLady's routine daily, along with a group of Mamas I met online. We kept each other focused, motivated, and accountable. My house was gleaming! DH was ecstatic, and I threw out many, many garbage bags of unused clutter. It was so freeing! And the daily routine was easy to follow. But I really regret letting my house go down the pooper for nearly a month.

So today I began Flying again! The great thing about Flylady is that she stresses BABY STEPS. Don't do it all at once or else you will get flustered and frustrated and burnt out. Then the house will get just as bad the next day. So today I began by setting my timer for fifteen minutes and straightening up my kitchen. When the timer went off, I stopped. I barely made a dent in the massive clutter....BUT tomorrow I will do another fifteen in the kitchen, and fifteen in the living room. I should be caught up soon. It is so wonderful to have a clean house! Plus getting off my rear end and working does wonders for losing that darn baby weight! And since Ali is a rather attached child, I can pop her in the Mei Tai and she is content to snuggle up to me as I put a little elbow grease into scrubbing the crap out of a grease covered pan. The joys of being a housewife!

So check out FlyLady's website. She has a lot of ideas for getting your house in tip top shape, and even better, KEEPING it that way!