Washin' and sweepin' and cleanin' up this joint!

I am so proud of what I accomplished today! To some it doesn't seem like much but after the week I've had, it felt good to do some physical work, at my own pace, and work mostly alone.

My aunt and uncle are coming for a visit. They should be here tomorrow or Monday- maybe even Tuesday- so Daddy- O decided he and I should do MAD cleaning. I cleaned all the things today.  The house isn't disgustingly dirty but we haven't done "deep" house cleaning, spring cleaning style, for awhile.

I cleaned the kitchen, including wiping down cupboards, emptying the dishwasher (and filled it again, ran it and then emptied it again), sweeping the floor, and putting away all sorts of stuff. I vacuumed the dining room rug and carpet, and cleared off the table, which was craft central but now we can eat meals there! I cleaned up the laundry room. I carried all my stuff to my attic room that was downstairs and put it all away. I also vacuumed the living room rug and carpet, and Daddy-O's room. I scrubbed a bathroom and hand mopped the floor on my hands and knees. I did 3 loads of laundry. I gathered trash and replaced all the bags. I went to the grocery store, too!

I also walked the dog and finished a novel.

I bought a bunch of "grill food" so Daddy-O grilled it all so now neither of us have to cook tomorrow or Monday.

When the fam calls to confirm an arrival date and time, I'll mop the kitchen and run the vacuum downstairs one more time. Daddy-O is in charge of dusting. I hate dusting.

This was a good day. (Not as fun as spending the day with Lilith yesterday!!!) but a good day nonetheless!

Now, I'm relaxing with watching reruns of CRIMINAL MINDS, and tomorrow I can relax too- it will be finish the laundry and write letters day!

xo,
Mags

Simple, easy, quiet, low-key- what I want out of a marriage

I think we all go through different stages in our lives and want different things and right now I want to either be completely alone or I want a boyfriend husband who will agree with comply to my demands OCDs.

And I want to point out to everyone, including Daddy-O (especially Daddy-O), that I'm not talking to or about Daddy-O. He has nothing to do with this. NOT dad!!!!!! Now...

When I get married again (okay, if I get married again though after this many years the odds aren't good but...) I think the poor man is going to think I'm nuts. But I am so sick of cleaning up after... well, Mac. I love him and he is getting better. He really is but I'm just tired. I think this is why at age 18 years the kids are adults because we, as parents, are tired of cleaning up after them. Age 18 is the limit and I've hit it.

I also think part of my issue is that I've made all the decisions for Mac and me all alone, for the last 16 years. Until moving in with Daddy-O I had to do every single thing myself from cooking, cleaning, errands, phone calls, arrangements for anything, and make all the decisions. I am so tired of doing that.

And it's more than just that. If I buy food, I want it to be there when I go to eat it. I'm so sick of getting in the cupboard or freezer and stuff is gone or I take out the container and it's empty or almost so empty there's not hardly anything left (really, why put the box of crackers back with 3 crackers in it??? Seriously.) I don't want to have to cook a meal if I don't feel like it. If I want popcorn for dinner, I'll eat that. If I want summer sausage, cheese, bread and wine for dinner, I'll have that. If I don't want to eat, then I won't. If I get married, he is going to just have to understand and accept this. I do like to cook but I'm sick of it. And Future Husband Guy better have a wide range of tastes in foods because I'm tired of fixing the same stuff all the time. I cook to cater to Mac most of the time and I want different foods.Future Husband Guy should know his way around a kitchen and realize that if he wants something and I don't, then he can go have it.

I'm a person who keeps stuff. I'm not ready for the show hoarders nor could I even be called a pack-rat, I don't think, but I do keep things. But when Future Husband Guy and I get together there is going to be no clutter. Everything will have a place in a drawer, cupboard, closet, basket, or even in a Rubbermaid container stacked. If something won't fit in those places, then I'm throwing it out. I will not stack shit around. His stuff too. DOWN WITH CLUTTER!

I don't want to hear rap music ever again in my house.

I want things left where I put them! I don't want to hunt for the remote control or a magazine.

I hate cords and they will NOT be strung around my house.

If I'm going to have a full time job and Future Husband Guy has a full time job, I am not going to be a full time wife, either. He can help with the cleaning, cooking, laundry, shopping, paying bills, chores and all that other shit. I will not do it alone any more.

Seriously I dream of having someone come and clean my apartment once a week, when I'm living on my own with Future Husband Guy. I'd keep my weekend receptionist job to pay for that alone. I am NOT kidding! There would never be dust or cobwebs. There would always be clean sheets! I wouldn't have to touch the vacuum cleaner!

I will compromise and communicate but let me clear up front, I'm going to be fanatical about this stuff and I will live alone if I have to because this is the stuff I'm not willing to bend on. And no, I don't need medication.

Maybe I'm just a little stressed....
Maggie

38. Re-arrange/ re-decorate my bedroom, or Anti- Nesting? Cleaning?

Since Mac's left for college, I've become a freak about a cleaning project. The attic that Mac and I shared was full of our stuff, huge piles of my parent's stuff, piles of my Bro's stuff, and then stuff that no one would claim so I guess it was piles of strangers' stuff. When I moved in the attic didn't look to bad except the closet was a catch all for... everything. And Daddy-O canNOT say that he stuck things in the closet since I moved in. There was stuff in that closet that hadn't seen the light of day since 1996! And in one corner, behind some furniture, were boxes and piles of... other stuff.

Mac and I lived in between the stuff.

Until now.

A week ago Sunday, I decided to clean that room. I was sick of looking at the mess and with some of Mac's junk gone, I thought I could at least tackle it. And, in complete honesty here, Mac would never help when I asked so I was usually pissed when I thought about doing it before; I was pissed that he would turn around and make it messy again, and finally, because his 45" flat screen tv is now gone and I don't have to worry about bumping it.

So, I started, with the help of ITSam, last Sunday.

First, I had to clean out the closet because some of the piles of stuff behind Mac's bed were going in my closet. So I had to do that first. I found lots of Christmas things, an old set of barbells, some of my Bro's knives, half missing pieced puzzles, and numerous other items that went straight into the trash, or to Goodwill, depending. The closet took about 3 hours to clean. This is a huge closet- it's the width between a twin and full sized bed and is about 12 feet long. Yes, a closet around the size of a room, but it's totally a closet. ITSam and I lugged crap up and down stairs, to and from the garage, and to the trash and the car.

Next, I tackled the piles behind Mac's bed- stuff went into the closet and then to all the other aforementioned locations. I even found some of my mom's old paperwork from when she was a social worker, which was about 6 years old, according the the dates on the papers (we shredded these and then tossed 'em.). I gave my SisIL in a box of my Bro's knives. Things you think you'll never say: "hey, thanks for the loaning me the book. By the way, take home this huge box of Bro's knives, would ya please?"

Then last week, we work a few evenings: vacuuming and taking bags of trash downstairs.

Then last night and tonight, we kicked the room's butt. We took down my Christmas trees (I love my pink trees and they make me happy so I leave them up all the time but I needed to take them down for this project!), we vacuumed, we dusted, we moved all the furniture around, we dusted some more, I cleaned off the dresser tops and clean out my jewelry armoire, we vacuumed and dusted SOME MORE, we moved a bookcase upstairs and filled it with all my books and magazines, we put away laundry, sorted the piles I found under Mac's bed, and did I mention we dusted and vacuumed all over the place?

Now there are no piles of anything. There's space for Greco-Roman Wrestling in the middle of the floor, according to ITSam's sense of humor, or for a couch, according to Daddy-O! I think neither because I just want to revel in the open space of it all. I don't have to climb over piles of laundry or weave in and out of a path of boxes, dirty clothes, Rock Band instruments, barbels, or a globe. Everything has a place.

This would've been the best post for before and after pictures. I have none of each. I didn't think to take pictures of before and without 'before' the after doesn't seem like such a huge deal.

And to think, Mac and I lived in this huge space that was made tiny because we looked like an episode of Hoarders and now I feel like I'm living in a ballroom. All after he left. Weird.

I don't think I was ever so obsessed with a cleaning and organizing project as I was with this one. I can't even explain it. I just HAD to clean it. I do think, however, several things:

• My mom always said to leave a place in better shape than I found it. I'm not planning on leaving the attic anytime soon (sorry Daddy-O)!) but it will be easy to follow her advise if I were.
• Mac is sharing a 12x12 room with another teenage boy at college. Now when he comes home on the weekends and sees his part of the attic- his part is 15x15- it will be really clean and he'll be able to spread out, even though he's still sharing it with me (the whole thing is about 15x33 so each of us have about 15x15. the other 3 can be the stairs!) so he might feel more at ease
• I needed to declutter and control something.

Ah, yes.... use your best Freud voice here: "You need to be in control of something?"

Yeah, well.... like I said, do we call it de-nesting with the kid leaves home and mom goes on a cleaning frenzy? Or do we just call it cleaning?

I'm counting this as a 40 before 40 item because it was a LOT of work!

Mags

Well, you said it was FREE!

The other day Daddy-O and I cleaned out the garage. It was a few hours of time but we got lots accomplished.

One thing we both decided when we started cleaning that we were NOT going to have a rummage sale. At all. I had a rummage sale a few years ago and I did it because I really needed the money, really badly. But unless I'm in that sort of dire straits again, then there is no friggin way. So we agreed.

We threw stuff away and we took stuff to the local mission store. And we came up with an idea. We had some things we didn't want to "wrap up" and box up to haul away. So we lugged a super old, beat up card table to the side of the street and set all the stuff on it with a huge sign that said "free." There was an old oil lamp, and a bunch of candle holders. There was an old Mary Engelbreit picture, and old birdhouse, and an old computer monitor that still worked but was old and bulky.

As the day went on, stuff disappeared off the table. Cars would slow down and take a looky-loo. Some stopped and others didn't. People took stuff. It was all good.

I ran a few errands and when I got home, there was one thing left: the computer monitor. The cords had been taken (probably someone wanted to sell the copper) and left the monitor.

And the monitor was no longer on the table but on the grass.

Because someone had taken the table. Seriously! Someone took the old, ramshackle, broken down, table all the stuff was on.

Well, the sign did say "Free".

Maggie

Busy day abloom

Yesterday Daddy-O and I cleaned the garage. To the naked eye, it wouldn't look like it was clean since half of it is still full of boxes and stuff, but now the boxes and stuff have been condensed and re-stacked neatly. The floor is swept. More space was created. Junk was thrown out, things were donated to the thrift store, and cardboard hauled to the recycling bins. We worked out butts off and things look completely AWESOME in the garage!!!

And while it was a beautiful day outside and I was running around outdoors, I thought I would snap some pictures of the flowers in the yard; they're better than pictures of the garage! Here are a bunch of peonies:

Here are the roses that climb on the back fence:

Here are some more of the roses that grow on the side of the house. We're going to wait until all the blooming is gone and then move it so it climbs along a trellis on the side porch.

Finally, here's some random pictures around the rest of the house:

Corabelles

Russian Sage

Cats & Kittens

Happy Summer!
Maggie