…9 months later.
In August last year I wrote this ask. You can tell when summer in Seattle happens based on the time of year I’m compelled to do this. Well, needless to say I didn’t do it then. I was too cowed by the grossness. But today I was inspired. Turns out all it took was a magic eraser, a warm bucket of water and a rag.
Drain volcano time!
Ate my lunch and washed up the dishes. While I was washing I noticed a bit of a smell coming from the sink, so while my dishes were drying I got out the baking soda and vinegar to have fun with science.
I did actually push the baking soda down in a little bit with my fingers in the regular drain and dropped it all down through the rubber flaps on the garbage disposal side, but that was after I took the pictures.
Then comes the foamy explosion of science and cleaning. One of the pieces of lemon peel that I keep in my vinegar to make it smell a little less like vinegar (Thanks to whichever member of Team UfYH I got that tip from!) fell into the drain, but I just sent it down the garbage disposal and ground it up since it could only help with the smell.
Then since there was baking soda and vinegar residue, I scrubbed the sink itself a bit while I listened to my science explosions bubble on down the pipes.
Yay! Sometimes cleaning is fun!
Above: at 12pm [in the hot sun] Below: at 6pm [my son and I chalked up the cement]My mom has a tendency to throw anything on the porch. Luckily, I like cleaning.
I had difficulty draining the punching bag’s base, but wiping shoes, trash can, and kid toys and throwing stuff away was easier. I left some flat planks and white marble tiles on the left side of the porch in the grass because I don’t know if she still needs that for renovating the bathroom.
The finished result. Here are the befores. I realize that the floor and chairs are still really nasty, but Brian’s asleep so I can’t vacuum. Also, I might be terrified of vacuums. I take the cats and we hide in a different room. Yes, I know. I’m pathetic.
That vase was just given to us by Brian’s mom. It was her mother’s. She passed it down to Jackie, and Jackie just gave it to us. I’m thinking Bob was going to throw it out (b/c he’s an asshole like that), and that’s why we have it.
Before
Blackened, crusty, greasy and gross.
I will sometimes clean out the thingies under the burners, but the rings around the burners rarely get any attention.
After
I started with baking soda, which took some of the black stuff off, but then I had to use Easy Off to really get anywhere. It is not perfect, but it looks a million times better.
Even more baking soda and a toothbrush didn’t get the baked on grease along the rim of each burner, but I’m satisfied with the outcome.
it’s the little things that make me happy
like now I know I need to go buy green flip flops
I gasped a little. It’s lovely.
Floor in front of desk unfuckery part 2
Pic 1 & 2: disgusting felt pad, miraculously clean felt pad!
Pic 3: omg you guysssss!! I found so much good stuff!! Groceries and cash even! For a single parent who can barely afford the month-to-month, this is like winning a little mini-lottery all to myself. :) It’s like a reward for cleaning!
Pic 4: chair and drawers moved back, achievement unlocked.
Pic 5: bed full of stuff, and bin I’d like to get it all into… Eep!
Pic 6: well, I got it into the bin, the carrying bag, and a few extra project bags that need to find homes yet. At least this stuff is now all in the room that will be the craft room soon, and less disorganized than it was… (Rome wasn’t built in a day. I know, I say that a lot. I need to right now, lol.)
Pic 7: that corner’s in a lot better shape now and the pile in front of the cupboard from a previous unfuckery is STILL CLEAN! :0
Bonus pics 8 & 9: before and afters of the candle area on my dresser. It’s nice to have that cleaned up again too, it really helps that area of the room. And candle-light is super relaxing and helps my anxiety a ton! :)
So, while I’m still really in the weeds right now, I’m making a little bit of progress at a time, every once in awhile. But by doing that, I’ve been able to keep up with each new level of cleanliness as it emerges, and keep the progress moving forward even if it’s in such little jumps. But they’re big jumps too, at the same time.
Okay now I’m not even making sense, lol. But yes, wins and progress and such.
It’s going to be okay. :)
Today’s UnFucking: nightstand drawer
After shoveling up the bedside avalanche, I realized it was time to do something about the top of the nightstand. I wanted to keep things I use a lot on top of the nightstand for easy access, but I find it just becomes another dumping zone, it’s a bitch to dust, and half the shit ends up on the floor anyway when the cat jumps up there.
So today’s question: how hard would it be for me to open the drawer to get a pencil or hair band or hand lotion? I decided, probably not very. But the drawer has become a catch-all for random “little things” I pull out of my pockets or purse. Time to free the drawer.
Essential Tools:
• small cardboard jewelry boxes
• my trusty labeler
How to:1: Pull out the whole drawer. (for drawers that don’t come out, I pull it all out indiscriminately into a box) Take everything off top of dresser. Add everything from top of nightstand into the mix (so I can REALLY figure out what I ACTUALLY need up top.)
1.5: Have mini anxiety attack over what to do with all this shit. Also feel like an old junkie, looking at all the migraine meds in the drawer.2: Start making little piles of categories. Here were mine:
• meds
• spare glasses/reading glasses
• random electronics components (earbud covers, old iphone dock, remote control, etc.)
• pens/pencils/highlighters
• cat stuff (her nail clippers, old collar, laser pointer)
• personal care (lip balm, lotion, nail file, hair bands, etc.)
• shit that goes elsewhere
Happy me! I actually only had a few things in the “elsewhere” pile, so I put them away immediately (since I know what “I’ll do it later” means to me.) Spare glasses went in the dresser drawer with the other glasses/sunglasses and things (like swimsuits) I only occasionally wear. All but one pencil and highlighter went into the office where they belong, as did the electronics stuff (since I don’t use them in the bedroom.) Tossed the “just a little left” lip balms and lotions (reminding myself how grossly old they are.) The Beastable’s old collar went into the “nostalgia” box.
3. But the meds…oh the meds… First of all, I used to travel a lot for work, so I’d put a few of this and a few of that into an empty pill bottle for my suitcase. I’d do the same for my purse. Result: lots of bottles of god-knows-what in my nightstand drawer. Meds are expensive and I don’t have insurance, so I don’t like to throw away anything. But can I tell you the expiration dates on any of those unlabeled bottles? No. So I bit the bullet and tossed them all.And then: Why don’t pharmacies have different sized bottles? Why must tiny sized or small quantity meds be in such big ugly bottles? This is why one of the things I will not part with are small containers and bottles. They’re useful and I’ve learned to keep them all in one gallon sized bin so they don’t add to the clutter. So I’m once again going the “travel-size-refill” method. I put tiny pills in small bottles and pills from large containers into smaller bottles AND LABELED THEM ALL with the name and expiration date. When I run out, I’ll just refill from the “toiletries” bin (kept in the storage closet.) But now my drawer will not be overflowing and I’ll know where my meds are and that they will actually work.
4. Now for the other thing I’ve hoarded and am glad to have done so: little jewelry boxes. They’re awesome for organizing drawers and keeping little things separated. So I grabbed my box o’ boxes and founds ones to fit the categories of items to go back in the drawer. I ended up with:
• meds
• personal care (with a tiny box inside the box for hair bands and bobby pins)
• writing instruments
• cat stuff
• one box in the back for important small random stuff (like mystery keys or a button from “something”)
5. Now the only things on top of my nightstand are the lamp, my UFML (UnFuck My Life) notebook, and a tray to keep the things I positively use every night before bed and every morning upon waking: hand creme, earplugs, meds, a tiny nail file, and space for my glasses so The Beastable doesn’t knock them to the ground in the middle of the night.
Now then…let’s see how long it lasts. ;)
Unfucked the pile of crap in front of my tv.
I thought I took a before picture of my desk, but apparently I did not. :( So here is are After pics that don’t have a before reference…..
I am going to put office supplies in plastic boxes I already have on the side of the computer screen. They are soaking right now.
All the crap from in front of my keyboard sorted out into 3 ice cube trays to be processed and assimilated into another part of the room.
Charlie car trunk update! Still unfucked and full of emergency supplies nicely organized. ;)
Oh my god the things. I cleaned all of them.
Last night I turned my bed 90° and swapped it with the tall bookshelves. This afternoon I switched my nightstand out for a medium bookshelf, and turned the nightstand into my shrine table, and stacked the wee bookshelf that used to be my shrine table with its twin. And I returned the five pairs of shoes that had been loitering in the sunroom to their proper places in my closet. Plus two loads of laundry. That little rocking chair was mine when I was in elementary school; I can still fit in it if I cant my hips diagonally a smidge.
In the sitting room I moved the TV into the corner at an angle, brought the rocking chair, the bowl chair, and the printer table forward towards it, consolidated the random boxes and bins into the back corner with the other things waiting to go into the attic, moved the exercise bike to the wall, and vacuumed and dusted everything. There’s a futon downstairs that will come up to complete the empty side of the TV area, but that was the only thing I couldn’t do by myself.
Our new vacuum is fucking amazing. I was only gonna move the TV today, but I had to vacuum the bit of carpet it would now be covering and the difference between the clean stripe and the rest of the dog hair-encrusted room was so dramatic I couldn’t just leave it like that, so I had to do the rest.
I did marathon it…an hour last night and four hours today. I have trouble keeping my momentum for these rearrangement projects otherwise. But the good news is I can maintain it going forward with 20/10s, now that it’s no longer in a horrifying state. And I feel awesome.
Over the past three weeks I’ve been buried under end-of-junior-year bs, and my habitat has seriously fallen to the wayside. I knew I had to fix it, but I’ve been putting it off in favor of sun and homework. So, I decided to have some fun with cleaning. At the end of every 20/10 I used my phone to take a panorama of my room to see how it progressed.
The last one turned out to be a bit more of a 35/10 because I couldn’t bring myself to leave my fish stranded and unfed for the sake of sticking to the 20/10. They needed a new filter.
So I had a messy apartment. Then I discovered Unfuck Your Habitat, and worked hard on it, and had a less messy apartment, and lo, it was good. Then I got pretty depressed (again) and had a messy apartment (again). I’m less depressed now, and have more free time to boot, so it’s back to unfucking. I’m trying to ease in slowly, because that way lies sustainable momentum, and also: it’s the weekend. Come on.
So I set my alarm for 20 minutes, and attacked the coffee table:
(with bonus supervisory cat!)
In less than 20 minutes, I had this:
(with a different supervising cat; apparently it was shift-change time.)
And I had enough time left on the clock to gather up something for a return to Radio Shack, put all my shoes and scarves away in the closet, throw away some junk mail, and get myself a glass of ice water as a reward for all that hard work. Yes!
I unfucked my desk. It actually only took like 5 minutes and I found $20
This is what happens when the primary cleaner in a household has spine surgery and is given doctor’s order not to do ANY lifting, bending, scrubbing, or housecleaning of any kind for 5 weeks afterward (they put a plate & screws into the bone of three of my neck vertabrae, ouch). I got the okay to start cleaning again two days ago, and have been slowly working the UfYH program since. This is my shower stall, which was scrubbed thoroughly (with a magic eraser!) just a few days before my surgery.
My husband was gone for 2 weeks during my surgery recovery because he had military orders. So this is 5 weeks of yuck on a shower stall that was only lightly used for about half of that time. Ugh, I had no idea it got that bad that fast. Thank heavens I can clean again!!!
Room Progress!
Also, I’m basically prepared for the most epic sleepover ever with all of my pillows and blankets. I’m not saying Tumblr-con in my bedroom but…
