Week Four, Zone Four

Last week was I got a wonderful start, but ended up slowing down. I had gotten the bathrooms all done on Sunday and was debating whether to do the closets or craft area for the rest of the week. Well, on Monday we had a power outage from about 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM so I couldn't work in my closet. I got through the girls' closet super fast and then did my craft area. I was so inspired by the newly tidy area that I even did a quick layout after the girls were in bed.

When the power came back on I decided to start in my closet. Unfortunately there was a lot of dust on the top shelf and I ended up leaving when half done and spent the rest of the week dealing with the aftermath. It took two puffs of the inhaler to get me back up and running and then another puff that evening after taking out the trash. I pushed through and went to Disneyland on Tuesday which, while fun, was probably a mistake because I'm still running at around 85%. I've been taking it easy and am leery of doing what I want to do this week.

Even though this is the week to head to the bedroom I spent the morning tidying the areas I had cleaned earlier this month. It wasn't a huge mess, but little things like my knitting bag, the weekend's paper, one of the girls' games and a camera in the dining room. My apron, a cookie jar and slew of Barbies in the kitchen.

I finished up my closet and the master bedroom this afternoon.

I'm thinking of working in the living room (zone 5) for the rest of this week and then moving into the two spare rooms and the garage next week and into December. Then the house will be clutter-free for 2010.

My Dirty Little Secret

A bad habit of mine is to pile. I end up with piles all over the house. Then I get tired of them and do the "sort and tidy" where I take a pile (say from the shelves in the dining room) and sort it into toss/donate/put away. Anything to be put away upstairs gets tossed into a box or bag and piled on this built-in cabinet in the upstairs hall.

This used to be my craft area. I had a nice, open countertop on which to scrapbook. The lower shelves were dedicated to yarn and I could easily find what I wanted. No more.

I recently did a major "sort and tidy" in the kitchen, dining room and living room so my junk pile is over-full. Instead of tackling it, I've been working on keeping the pile from forming on the main level. I think I'm finally ready to tackle the upstairs. 

I'm going to apply my Flylady skills to this task and spend 15 minutes at a time on it before moving onto other (fun) stuff. I figure four 15 minute intervals a day over the next week should get it done pretty pain-free.