New Daily Task

Well, I didn't do all that great keeping up with my daily tasks this week. The first part of the week went okay, the rest of the week, well...

Okay. This week should be better. And now it's time to decide on a new daily tasks.

Wipe off the stove.
I do this almost every time anyway.  Normally when I wash the dishes, I just wipe off the sink and the stove anyway, so I decided I should just make this a task anyway.
Maybe that's a cop out, but it's what I want. So it's what I'm going to do.

Lazy days

So a little about my personal life. I'm always sick. Well not always because if someone reads that and believes it, I'll feel bad since there are people who are actually always sick. Anyway, I'm sick a lot. Just this morning I woke up at 6am (which to me that hr is just obscene!!) due to abdominal pain and puked twice. Fun. I take at least 4 pills a day. I have a long laundry list of things I am just never going to be able to eat again. (I also have a laundry list of things I shouldn't eat but just can seem to excise them from my life.) Why did I say all that. Because I've realized something lately. I either have good days or bad days. Either I'm productive and hard working or I barely get up and do anything. I want to say that my illnesses has something to do with it. I feel better now, but I don't have high hopes about getting tons done today.
By the way, Russ is still sleeping. It's a quarter to 2 in the afternoon. Today's going to be a lazy day.

It's kinda funny...

I've said that when I get overwhelmed, it's hard for me to do chores, but today I buckled down and got stuff done and then I remembered, I LIKE to get stuff done. I love the feeling of accomplishing a task and crossing it off my list. And the more I crossed stuff off, the more things I wanted to do, and the more I got done, the better I felt. PLUS the cleaner my house got, the better I felt. A clean house just feels better  than a dirty/disorganized one. Here's what I did today (besides go to the dr- Ick. What a horrible way to start the day.)
1. Picked up all the stuff off the floor and vacuumed. Look how pretty our floor looks:

Ok, it's not perfect. And our carpet is stained, but it's clear! and SOOO much better than it was yesterday.
2. Swished out the toilet
3. Washed my sheets and made the bed
4. Wiped off the bath counter

5. Took the dishes out of the dishwasher

6. "Found" this bucket:

Here's the story behind this. One day I was in a big hurry and wanted the perfect outfit. So I tried on a bunch of outfits and didn't want to take the time to hang them back up so I threw them in this bucket that sits on the bottom of my closet. I thought this was a much better alternative to my (apparently--in my head) only other option: throwing them in a pile on the floor. So here they sat. For some time. I can't even remember what I was getting dressed for. So I put all these clothes away and put the empty container back in my closet.

Not sure what I'm going to do with it now.

7. Found a place for my cleaning products.

There's not much storage space in our place and I could never find a good place for my bucket of cleaning products. For a long time it sat at the foot of the bed. It was a weird spot and Russ kept tripping over in the mornings. So today I thought about it and the only place it can go is under the sink. But the sink is stuffed. There's no room. So I did some reorganizing and even got rid of somethings- such as really old gross ratty towels and I made room.

It's a small thing, but I'm excited. Most of these products are only used in the bathroom anyway, so this just makes so much more sense. It's the little things I guess.

Anyway, my mood is sooo much better and I have a lot more hope in my doing all of my daily tasks the rest of the week.

I still have problems

1. Whenever I get upset/depressed/overwhelmed I cannot do housework. Why is that?  No idea. I'm trying to work through it but it's as if housework is like 20 times harder to do during these off times. Right now is one of those times. I told myself over and over I have to do my daily tasks at least, and I did do my dishes, but I doubt anything more will get done today.
2. I think that I'm not 'hoarding' it if it has a place to go. See this thing:

I think I've had this thing for over 3 years. But it had a spot. So it wasn't in anyone's way. And I could use it one day, so I thought it still held value. But I never did use it, but I also never threw it out. I kind of assume that if it has 'a place to go' then it's okay to hold on to it. This can't go on. I have to learn that even though it's not on a pile on the floor that it's still junk. Anyway, I saw it today and I realized how old it was and just had that thought to myself, 'why am I still holding on to this?'

I still have a lot of progress to make. It's okay though. I have to remind myself that it's okay. That this is about the progress, not about what I didn't do, or what still needs to happen. Before I probably would have thought about how old this was and left it there. That's progress!

Week 5 To Do List

This week's to-do list is going to be a little on the light side. I just want to get through this week, and then I can sleep again. That's how I feel.

1. Wash sheets
2. Make the chicken in the fridge before it goes bad!
3. Pick up the stuff that's piled on the floor
4. Work on Code 5 stuff. Mainly: finish E.R. Interview
5. Organize recipe folder
6. Just keep up with daily tasks.

That's it. I'm sure I'll think of more things that need to get done, but I have so much to do: work, appts, gym...I can't let it overwhelm me so much. Life goes on.

Oh boy!!

So I don't think I have ever checked off everything on my to-do list for the day. I usually make a very long list on purpose, do all that I can, and carry the rest over to the next day, adding more tasks to the list and on and on I go. So I always have something to do. There's always something that needs to happen. I'm never done. Normally it doesn't get to me but sometimes weeks like this happen. Where there's SO MUCH to do, I get so overwhelmed.I have to be at work at 8 in the morning (which to me is like having to go to work at 2AM!!)  And then, I have a drs. appointment- ICK and then I have to work again on Wednesday at 3-11. 

And this place is starting to look like it did before I even started this blog. And then because it's a mess again (and how easy it was to become a mess again) I get even more overwhelmed. It's a vicious cycle! And one I know I need to break out of, but it's still very hard for me. I have really failed in my daily tasks this week, which makes me disappointed in myself. Hopefully this week, even though it's going to be full, I can still get this place back on track and make myself proud again. 

My new daily task for this week will be: Swish out the toilet everyday.

Cleaning the bathroom is hard for me, especially the toilet. It's the last thing I do. And I've seen my progress on the bathroom counter, so I'm hoping I can have this effect on my toilet. I don't want to do a full deep-cleaning, Just take the toilet brush and a little cleaner, and just swish it out. 

Daily check in

Yeah! I feel great. I worked for 8 hours today so not a lot got done but I did do ALL of my daily tasks! Plus I made dinner. (I love love love my crock pot!!) I:
did the dishes
wiped down bathroom sink
checked for diet cokes
picked up for 5 minutes.

Hopefully I get a lot done tomorrow but I do have to go to work for part of the day, so we'll see...

Daily check in for yesterday

I didn't check in yesterday. I was just too tired. I worked all day, either doing chores or my actual job, and then at 7:00 I went to my parents house. When I came home I cooked dinner. Then Russ and  I went to his sister's house till 1:00. Then we had to swing by his parents house to drop something off and they both live 20 minutes away. So we didn't even get home till 1:30 and I had to work at 9:00 this morning. I'm tired. Yeah, I got 6 hours of sleep, but I need at least nine to function. It was bad this morning!
Anyway....

I did:
do the dishes
check for cokes
wiped off the bath/sink
wiped my desk.

I didn't do the pick up even though it needs it, but I was just too tired and I knew I needed to wake up in early in the morning.
Excuses excuses I know. But this is a process. I'm growing I know I am and that's what matters to me. My house looks good and Russ and I are happy.

The Shelves behind my toilet

What are they called? You know what I mean.

Anyway, I organized them today. And once again I forgot to take a before picture. but here it is now:

Here we have: two jars (ok, I'm too cheap to buy apothecary jars and instead they're just drinking glasses that my parents were going to throw out) filled with the essential toothpicks and q-tips. next to that is a basket full of all my extras. Extra lotions, body wash, shaving cream all that. On the bottom shelf is the emergency extra rolls of toilet paper and then the tissue box. I used to have all the extra bath towels and wash clothes there which was a mess, but I had an extra basket so I switched them to that and stuck it in the cabinets under the sink. I tried my best to organize that space as much as I could, but it's still a little crazy. I need to get to that soon. But these shelves look much better.

New Daily Task

Ok. I decided. And I came right here to share. My new daily task is:

Wipe off desk every night.

Here's why: my desk is small. I bought a small one on purpose. But it gets cluttered WAY fast. Whenever I clean it off, it's a mess the next day. A MESS! I think I've shared photos before. Here it is today (in relatively good shape.)

Ever since I decided to wipe my bathroom counter off every night, it hasn't gotten cluttered! It's stayed clean. In fact....

This is what my bathroom looks like today. Ok, it's not pristine, but remember what it used to look like? Huge difference and I'm proud of that. So I got to thinking, that if I wipe off my desk every day, i'll keep it cleaner and more organized like my bath counter.

Hello again

So, I've been absent for a few days now. Russ's brother and sister-in-law moved this weekend, so we went to NV to help them. We just got back tonight and I'm worn out. Tonight I'm going to get a MUCH needed night's sleep and tomorrow I'm going to get to my long list of things to do:

1. Meal plan/ grocery shop. (All I know about this weeks menu is tomorrow Pot stickers and for dinner)
2. unpack
3. laundry
4. Get to the dishes that I didn't do on Thurs.
5. Gym
6. clean off showerhead
7. decide on a new daily task. (I've been thinking about it since Thurs and still not sure...)

Daily check in

Today I worked alllllllll day. Well it feels like it anyway. I did:
-make dinner.
-did the dishes
-checked for diet cokes
-did a quick wipe of the bath counter

I tried to do a 5 min pick up but like two minutes in, there was nothing left on the floor to put away. So I plucked my eyebrows for the rest of the time. It needed to be done!

The bookshelf

Remember when I cleaned up my bookshelf. It looked so nice. It stayed so nice for a while, but then...it got cluttered again. How? Dunno. How am I going to stop this in the future. Dunno.

But I cleaned it off again. I forgot to take a before pic, but here's the after. Here's the top of the bookshelf that got cluttered up. I have a thing about my purse being on the floor but that's where it often goes, since there's no place for it.  Then I decided that this would be a perfect spot since the bookshelf's right by the front door, but... the bookshelf's always too big of a mess to put it here. I need to keep this cleared off for that reason alone. The other is I bought flowers the other day, to bring life and brightness to the room, the whole feng shui thing, but there was no place to put them. So here they are. Very nice. 

here's the whole bookshelf.

Not super clean and organized but it's functional and it suits my needs and I'm very proud. 

Daily Check in

Today I:
-cleaned off the top of the bookshelf
-Called the Dr. and made an appt
-Folded the laundry from yesterday
-Took the dishes out of the dishwasher
-Vacuumed the bedroom
-swept and mopped the bathroom
-worked for 3 hours
-did the daily tasks: dishes, diet coke check and bath counter. I would do the 5 min pickup but there;s nothing to pick up! The room looks so good today I'm so excited. Even russ said how good it looks! I love it.
I did pick up the floor since I vacuumed so it's still nice.

The nightstand

For some reason, we keep everything on our nightstand. Are we that lazy, that once we're in bed we need everything to be at hand's reach. It's been a mess for ages now and so I decided to tackle it today.
The before:

If you're wondering why there's a diet coke there since I did my coke check last night, it's because I got it this morning but never opened it. So there it is in the photo. There are some other embarrassing objects in this photo too, but I wanted to show it accurately. This is what this looks like every day. And I call it a nightstand, but really it's Russ's laptop table. We never used it for that, and it got set up by our bed and here it is today. Anyway on the table is the essentials: alarm clock, remotes, etc...
But there's also Vitamin C pills. Why? Business cards.Deodorant. Really weird stuff that doesn't belong.
Here's the after:

It's from a totally different angle, but when I went to take another, my camera died. So this is what you get. The essentials are still there. The rest has found a new home. Mostly they got tossed in the junk box. This is MUCH better. Hopefully it'll stay this way for a while.

Daily Check In

Good day. Today I:
-Went to my first class at Sage Hills Yoga and it kicked my butt!
-emptied dishwasher
-did 2 loads of laundry (1 load is folded, 1 load is awaiting folding)
-went to the bank (ick but necessary)
-folded the load of laundry from Friday. Yes, Friday
-cleaned off the nightstand
-Refilled perscriptions
-"donated" a pile of old magazines to the break room at work
-recycled a whole bunch of plastic bags that I've accumulated 
-Returned Netflix
-wiped off bath mirror
-boiled some eggs for future lunches/dinners
-did a PILE of dishes. Ran dishwasher
-wiped off kitchen counters and stove
-swept and mopped
-Made dinner: healthy nachos from Cook This Not That
-took out the bedroom trash
-took out the kitchen trash
-did daily tasks: dishes. bath counter/sink. 5 min pickup. diet coke check.

daily check in(s)

I forgot to check in on sat and sun. What is it about the weekends? everything gets out of rhythm. The daily routine gets outta whack. Russ is home all day and I just wanna play instead of do any actually chores. I can't quite remember what I did in the way of daily tasks, other than I tried. On Sat, Russ and I shopped all day mainly groceries. And on Sunday it was a way lazy morning and then I worked all day so no projects got done. Today should be much more productive.

Week 4 To Do List

Week 4 is here! New to do list

1. Sweep and mop kitchen
2. Clean the bathroom
3. Vacuum the bedroom
4. Practice piano
5. Make EME flyers
6. Clean off the top of desk
7. Clean off bookshelf
8. Clean up side of freezer
9. Clean and org nightstand
10. Go to the bank
11. Grocery shop

New Daily Task

This week is wrapping up and I have to admit I failed at the task this week. I made my bed like twice this whole week. Honestly, it didn't add anything to my life. With the other tasks, I've really noticed a difference and it (sorry if this is corny) but it felt good to have those things done and clean. It wasn't this way with the bed. Honestly. I'm not just trying to get out of making my bed.

So I'm replacing this task. Russ and I were talking today, and he gets upset at my diet coke cans. You see, I love diet coke and sometimes I cannot finish a whole can and the forgotten can just lays around the house till it get knocked over and we have to rush to clean up the mess. K, it really is a bad habit. So this new daily task is to pick up ALL the diet coke cans at the end of the night and recycle them.

My daily tasks:

-dishes every night

-wipe bath counter/sink

-pick up for 5 focused minutes

-pick up ALL diet coke cans

The microwave

Today I did two things I cannot remember the last time I did. (did that make sense?)
1. Wiped the kitchen counters
2. Cleaned out the microwave.

Not the best quality of picture, but here is the microwave before. Actually it's in the middle. I started wiping it up when I realized I should take a picture. So here it is.
And after:

Much better. Sad thing is I didn't even know that the ridge in the bottom there is white. It's been yellowish for forever. Gross! Oh and that dark spot back there is from when Russ's old roommate burned popcorn.
Anyway, the kitchen looks ten times better. I still haven't swept or mopped yet though. gotta save something for tomorrow!

Daily Check in

Busy day today. This isn't quite a check in post, just a...recap of today I guess.

Went to the gym and worked out for like 1.5 hrs!

Cleaned the kitchen (did every dish! wiped down the counters and cleaned the microwave- pictures to come)

took out the trash (trash day tomorrow. I kinda love trash day)

dyed hair

did a load of laundry (that's yet to be folded)

got my work schedule

scheduled my new yoga class. (An old friend opened her own studio! Can't wait. I've really missed yoga in my life)

Did not make my bed though.

Daily check in

Just a quick check in today. Not much got done due to work but i did:

-wipe off the counter

-pick up for 5 min.

No dishes still. I will clean the whole kitchen tomorrow so hopefully that task will pick back up. And like I mentioned before I forgot to make the bed. I'm not liking that one.

Oh man

I forgot to check in last night! I normally wait to check in till all of my tasks are done, but I forgot to do my tasks last night! Yikes. Plus I forgot to make my bed this morning!

Yesterday I:
-did 1 load of laundry from start to finish
-wiped the bath counter
-drano'd the tub
-went grocery shopping
-dropped off donations to the DI
-organized shoes and the bottom of the closet (should've taken pictures)
-found a place for my keepsake box and culled what was inside
-sewed the hole in my apron

Tonight I just want to do my daily tasks
Tomorrow I need to:
-Go to the gym!
-Take out the trash
-Clean the kitchen (it's getting gross)

Daily check in

K, today was not a good day. Just not a good day! So not a lot got done.
I:
-organized my coupons
-picked up the floor
-made a meal plan
-sewed my apron
-made the bed.

I'm still struggling with those dishes. I'll probably do them tomorrow. I haven't done the sink yet, but there's still time.

And as for the bed, I'm not quite sure of it yet. There's a difference, yes, but it's a small one. I'm not quitting on it but I don't think the fact that I hate our comforter helps. Maybe if we had better bedding. Russ (probably) wouldn't even let me bring a throw pillow into this house, but a new comforter would be nice. I'll give it at least 1 week to see if it's worth it. hmmm....

Week 3 To Do List

There's a lot on my list this week:


1. Pick  up over the door hooks
2. Organize shoes
3. Find a place for my keepsake chest
4. take out trash
5. daily tasks including make bed
6. Drop off stuff at the DI
7. organize coupons
8. Add to price book
9. Go to Anytime Fitness
10. Schedule dr appt
11. Go to Costco: apples, breakfast sandwiches
12. vacuum
13. practice the piano
14. Laundry- Russ's sweatshirts
15. Draino the tub
16. sew apron
17. put diploma up
18. organize nightstand
19. make EME flyers


Thats it. I really wanted to make it a nice round number but, I couldn't think of anything else. I probably will by the end of the day though. 

Daily check in

The dishes still aren't done. Russ promises he'll do them, and I am that stubborn that I'm going to wait for him.
Today I
-vacuumed the floor
-cleaned the bathroom

Wiping the counter was part of cleaning the bathroom which I only finished doing about oh..15 min ago. Plus when I vacuumed this afternoon I had to pick everything up off the floor so there's really nothing to pick up tonight. Kinda lazy but two big projects got done today.

While we're on the subject, I've decided what  my new daily task should me: make my bed.
I've always been in the camp that making one's bed is unnecessary since you're just gonna mess it up anyway. My bed also seems to serve as extra shelving. It's very informal. I practically never make my bed.
But I read somewhere that if your serious about this whole project of cleaning and reorganizing your home, than you'll begin to make your bed. Apparently, it makes quite a difference. I guess we'll see.

Daily check in

well Russ never did the dishes.
nothing has gone right today and I'm in a very sad mood. I don't want to do my tasks. I'm not gonna do the dishes. Russ has to! I guess I'll get up now and do my other two.
K did 'em.
-wiped the bathroom counter.
-picked up the floor for 5 min.

You know it's amazing what 5 minutes'll do. At the beginning of the week, this place was a wreck and now, it's actually starting to look dare I say, clean?
Remember the foot of the bed? You couldn't even see the floor. And now:

K it's not perfect, but hey it's a good start. (despite the dishes debacle) I'm quite proud of my progress.

Daily check in

Just getting around to the check in post, with all the festivities and all. (Happy New Year!) Tonight, I:
-wiped the bath counter
-picked up for 5 min

I didn't do the dishes because Russ made a whole lot of them and I told him that he has to do them tonight. If he doesn't I'll do them tomorrow...hopefully. I work till 8 tomorrow and then Russ and I are going to a friends house till I don't know when. I'm warning everyone that I may be too wiped out to do the tasks. But Ok, stop.
It's 2010.
Wiping off the counter takes 1 min. Picking up takes 5 (I set my alarm [mainly to make sure I last the whole 5 min, not flake out at like 3]) and doing the dishes takes about 15 minutes. None of these take a lot of energy.
I will do my tasks tomorrow. I cannot be that tired that I can't do these simple things required of me.
It's a new year. No more excuses!!