Paper Clutter

Yeah still struggling.  I like this month's habit of ditching the paper clutter.  good incentive to get my books together and inventory them and get rid of them.  Yup ya read right. the inventory list is so I can replace them with ebooks.  Ya see most all of us have a computer.  I am blessed I have an iPad (on which I have the nook, kindle and ibook apps) and a Nookcolor.  My daughter has a Kindle.  A large number of books out there also come in an ebook format somewhere. A large portion of magazines and newspapers also are available for the eReader.  Some of those that do not are online and you can get updates in your email box.  Those pictures you like to clip? You can right click on many of those same pictures on the internet and save the picture.  Catalogs?  Get em in your email box.  Yeah this clutters your email box a bit but if you set up a few message rules they can be autosorted into appropriate folders so you can go look (and discard) when you are ready and they don't hide the stuff in your inbox that you want to see. You know this also works for your bills too right?  I have a only a few bills and almost all of them are online. Electric?  Yup. Cable/Internet? Yup. Mortgage? Yup. 

What can you virtualize?  Just a word of caution.  when you sign up for services and don't want more email than what you have requested make sure that you check (or uncheck as the case may be) the box about sharing your info with 3rd party advertisers and such.  Also Check your email daily to keep the virtual clutter down.  Read what ya want and file it where it goes be it file 13 or a designated folder for those items. An empty inbox is always a nice thing to see when the day is done.

BLB

Struggling

I have been struggling to crawl out of chaos.  I haven't been able to do the baby steps at all.  I have tried doing some crisis cleaning to get to a point where I can just do baby steps to keep it clean but not working.  My living room is only half cluttered now.  There are exactly 5 places to sit now.  When peeps who know me and understand my clutter come over they don't have to stand they can sit. Laundry is trying to slip away from me. I will not let it go.  I can't do a load a day as I don't have enough for that. And thus the habit doesn't take as well as I would like. And the last two loads didn't get put away for almost a week.  Must change this now.  Dishes are about a load and a half behind. With the set up of my kitchen there is no way to shine my sink unless I do my dishes.  The kitchen itself is now reasonably decluttered.  Should be able to set my timer once or twice to be able to get it cleaned.  Need to sweep and vacuum the house.  Small house will take less than 5 min.  Being sick yesterday made it impossible to get the trash out.  It gets picked up today so guess whats on the todo list.

The Flylady tools came in pretty quick.  Minor problem tho.  I put the sweepa together like it was supposed to according to the directions provided and the head piece snapped in the first 15 min.  Curses ensued. it took me over a week to get it fixed.  I tried a dowel and glue and that didn't work.  so its duct tape.  Duct tape fixes everything including rubba sweepas. My swiffer busted tho in a way that I can't fix yet.  It won't squirt cleaning fluid anymore (pout).  I think I still have my Clorox brand swiffer around here somewhere.  I can use it as long as I can make sure the fluid is ok for hardwoods.  If I have to I can get the swiffer bottle and pour it into a clorox swiffer bottle and use it that way.  I love the purple rags in the bags and the swisha and the dish brushes as well.  Haven't had an opp to use the scrubba yet.  In fact I think it may have gotten lost in the clutter.  Time to go try to find it by decluttering. I really need to use my timer more. *sighs*  I am rambling again. Sorry.  I need to find a home for the bin I use as a bath tub.  No really I don't have a bathtub  I have a shower stall and sometimes I just need a bath so I have a bin I use for that purpose.  There is no room in the bathroom for it unfortunately.

I hate being sick and tired.  I always end up seeing only the bad things and that starts me on a vicious cycle downwards.  Well lets stop bitching about it and get started.  First a load of towels and a cup of coffee...

Crash and burn

Heh I knew that exercise was bad for me.  I never managed to do another baby step after that.  I tried but failed.  Time to start all over again.  Day 1 again.  Been reading the daily digests and reading a lot about back door flying and flying in through the side door and I think that is what I need to do.  Sorry FLY lady gonna have to skip some of your steps for my own good.  But I don't think she will mind anyway as she wants us to adapt the system for our own use.  We don't have to do everything her way or anyone else' way either.  Our way.  My way.  What works for me and my household.  I like keeping lists close to me but I don't like creating excess trash.  I found that a 3x5 index card folded in half fits in a CCG (Collectable Card Game) Card protector easily.  I have managed to declutter most of my Magic The Gathering cards out of my house.  I sold the vast majority and kept a few.  I have found other uses for the card sleeves one of which is to hold my todo lists.  They work well with Dry Erase pens too so I keep one of those on me and mark items off as they get done.

Took me a while to get my butt out of the dumps.  Depression is a real killer.  Took me going with OES sisters on an afternoon/evening road trip out to Harriman to the Dyllis Chapter for their official visit.  Had a blast.  I just needed some spur of the  moment outings.  The trip to the Farmers Market downtown was another Blast for me.

I did managed to clean out my MBR for the most part but clutter is creeping back in.  Perhaps this weeks missions will assist in helping me get it permacleaned out (sorta)  You see one of the favorite hotspots in my house is the bed.  And well in order to go to bed it has to get cleared off.  Most of the time stuff gets shoved in the floor, on the dresser or desk and I end up tripping over so much crap it ticks me off.

Well I went ahead and with the hubby's permission ordered some FLY tools.  Am looking forward to using the Sweepa on  my carpet in the LR.  You almost cant tell what color its supposed to be for all the white dog fur.  I am still gonna use my swiffer for most floor cleanings tho  I love that thing so much.  Have hardwood floors thruout and the carpet in the LR is an area rug that the dog loves because when she sits or does anything other than stand there she doesn't slide around.  Found that music or some kind of sound is essential.  Have to have it to clean.  Found another tool.  HGTV.  Watching their shows motivates me.  Only one problem we don't have cable anymore.  Solution: they have full  programs on their website but the commercials are a bit short for getting stuff done in.  Yup I clean during commercial breaks.  Have to move laptop round the house tho and that can get a bit annoying but it helped me do the mass clean on the MBR the other day.  Lets pick a show and do it again after I do my MR...

6-2-2011 Day 5: Write down what you hear

As I said previous this one is dangerous for me.  I pulled out some paper and I gave my depression a voice and wrote down what it said.  The pain still brings tears to my eyes.  I don't know how to negate what it said or turn it around and say nice things about myself as I can't think of anything nice to say.  I was hoping my DH would be able to help me but instead of turning them around he simply had responses  that mainly consisted of "Bull S**t" There were some that had more to them than that but I don't think we were able to do what FLYLady expected.  I don't know what to do with this list right now.  I know reading it will bring me to tears but I don't know that throwing it away is what I need to do at this time.  I just wish I could declutter the depression out of my life as easily as I can declutter the stuff out of my life and even that isn't easy.  At this point all I can do is shut up the negative things...  Remember what your mama said:  If ya can't say anything nice don't say anything at all.

I think I may have kicked the Farmville habit for a little while. I have both farms to the point where I don't have crops withering in the plots so i can leave them alone without guilt. I managed to get my MR and ER done and managed to reboot the laundry and the dishes.  Sink is shiny and I was dressed to the shoes.  I think I know part of my problem.  I have been trying to clean without sound.  No music or podcasts. I think that needs to change... we will see what we can do tomorrow.

Tomorrow is bill pay day.  have Mortgage and a Home Improvement loan to pay on and unfortunately having been laid off I can only pay one of them.  Unless DH got a decent bonus that is.  The unemployment bennies have been somewhat irregular in showing up in the acct thus far so I am afraid to count on it showing up when we need it.  Life is about to get very tight financially.  The bills have to be paid.  I need to get off my franny and get out there and sell Avon.  Staying around the house is only making me miserable especially since I can't seem to get the house clean all in one fell swoop.

I need a redo

Well it took way too long to finish my morn ritual yesterday and because I didn't work my blog last night its going to do the same today.  And yes I was right. Difficult to walk after the previous night's excursion.  Blister deep in the pad of the ball of my foot hurts and ankles hurt.  I am so frustrated at myself. And that of course only makes the depression worse.  But I can't let go of it.  Yesterday was supposed to be Day 5 and I can't do that day's assignment without my DH close.  I need him there when I finally give voice (words) to all the negativity in my soul.  Doing that is dangerious to me mentally and I need him there specially since I don't know how to turn some of it around into something good.  All I can think is that its all justified.  Why would I think it if its not true.  And when I go over why the depression gets deeper near suicidal.  A few months ago I had a talk with myself and God stepped in.  He lifted me up and at that point it was then I decided don't give voice to the negativity because doing so gives it the ability to harm me more. (Can you imagine dealing with this incident where you have to maintain composure while you deal with customers coming and going from your convenience store almost constantly)  I need to find that piece of paper where I wrote it all down and go over it all again. Perhaps post here.  I hope I haven't accidentally thrown it away.

Lets see what I got done vs what I didn't get done.  The latter is longer than the former I wll tell ya that right now.  I got my MR done but none of my daily chores, not the day 5 assignment and not my ER.  I left a couple of items in my shiny sink.  Mission assignment was Zone1.  Well I dont have a dining room and my entrance is a part of my living room so that leaves the front porch.  I can do that.  I went and grabbed my hose and spray nozzle and sprayed off the front porch of all debris.  It looks much better now I just need to take the old broken chairs to the trash.  I also need to take some time and plant bulbs in those pots out front... I also took this time to have fun with water and semi torment my dog (thus the pic above)  You see she gets underfoot in the house and needs to go outside.  It was 96 deg outside yesterday and she is a white husky who is still trying desperately to ditch her winter coat.  So I took the hose and chased her around the yard with the water.  I managed to get hold of her tie out and thoroughly soak her fur to the skin.  The pic above is after she shook it out getting me wet too LOL.

Well its 10:46am and I still haven't hardly done my MR yet today.  Hubby has already called and told me its ok if thats all I get done.  I need to hear that.  Even tho my Motivation Ctr says it I still need to hear it.

Tuesday 5.31.2011 Day 4 Write These Things Down

Hows this?  Looks like I am running out of white board or am I using the space inefficiently?  I wonder if I can fit these routines on sheets of paper the size of a playing card.  You see I used to play Magic: The Gathering and I have lots of card protectors and dry erase pens obviously so I can mark of the items as I do them and clean them at the end of the day.  Hmmmm must think on this....

Today was not an especially good day for me mind wise.  I kept forgetting to do things my DH asked of me to the point where he jokingly and lovingly asked that when he asks something of me I put my finger in one ear so what he says doesn't go in one ear and out the other... Lets just hope I don't plug the wrong ear so it can actually make it in one ear....  I also kept getting distracted LOTS.  My MR didn't get done til 12:30pm  Part of it was distraction part was trying to catch this blog up.  I got up at a semi reasonable hour. (Alarm set for 7a didn't get up til 8:30a) Everytime I tried to do something on my living room something came up that I needed to do.  There is something in my head that is shying away from cleaning that room I don't know what it is.  The room is driving me crazy as is this thing in my psyche that is keeping me from cleaning it.... even for 15 min. I expressed my frustrations to my hubby via txt msg and he replied back "Flylady would say not to be just soldier on and do better next time"  I love him.

Well all of my dishes are done and just simply need to be emptied out of the dishwasher in the morning.  Sink is shiney (even DH is impressed with that one) second load is in the dryer.  If not dry in the morning will just start dryer again and start another load in the wash as soon as I take my shower. As for the 15 min of loving movement.... well not sure if its loving if I tripled the time and my feet and ankles are telling me the payback will be hell in the morning and to make sure I have my stick right by the bed.  I went for a walk shortly after sunset and just kept going till I felt it was time to head home...  unfortunately my feet and ankles were threatening me before I got home...  I will pay for it tomorrow... lets see what I can get done in spite of them.

Monday 5.30.2011 Do What we have done before

Ok Doing that.  But I have a problem.  I can't leave a mess alone.  I get done with what I am told to do and I can't just sit around.  You see I am used to working 50 hrs a week.  I have managed to chill out a bit but there is a saying in my old work world.  "If you have time to lean you have time to clean"  It was understood ya gotta have breaks from time to time but I can't spend all day trying to read with this mess cluttering my mind.  check the Flikr photo stream on this page.  This is my house now as I am trying to declutter.  I live in a 2br house that has only five rooms total, the other three are a bathroom, living room and kitchen.  In total its about 850sq ft.  I have a 12x12 storage building out back that is also mostly full.  I have enough stuff to furnish a 4br house with dining room, living room and den and it would still be cluttered (but at least the furniture wouldn't be part of the clutter as it is now)  I have begun enhancing the Motivation Ctr and as I have read through the pages I realized that some stuff is perpetually on the TO DO list.  so I have started a Morning Ritual list and an Evening Ritual list and a Daily Chores List and a Weekly Chores list and will go from there.

Sunday 5.29.2011 the new Motivation Ctr

You see I have been trying to get these up for quite a while (and failing)  I wanted to put them up in the hallway but the only place avail wasn't that great for the large blank one as it was too heavy to be mounted on glass.  Oh you don't know.  The previous owner of this old house tore out the old non functioning fireplace and chimney that was between the bathroom and the BR2 and removed the tub in the tiny bath and put in a shower.  he then put a window from the shower to the hallway. (check the photo stream below) I have a shower curtain there now and my laundry sits in front of it in the hall way.  So what I did was move a big brown shelf unit that was not being properly used and moved it to the BR2 and put everything up here in the kitchen.

Sunday 5.29.2011 Day 2: Dress to the Lace Up Shoes

Ok I don't have any lace up shoes that are comfortable for any amount of time. so I have these.  These are water shoes that don't care if they get immersed in water.  They have the issue when I try to take them off quickly tho that the insoles threaten to come out and often do *sigh* So I just leave the durned things on.  But they are comfy and protect my feet from the mess on the floor. 

My Shiny Sink on Friday 5.27.2011

Day 1: Shine your sink

Well I did and not as satisfied as I would prefer to be with it but I understand Perfect is a four letter word with the FlyLady (+ 3)

Getting Started

I am creating this blog as kind of a "diary" of my journey as a FlyBaby.  Whats that?  Well... It starts by going to www.flylady.net  and reading her page.  As you begin to follow her steps in learning to love yourself and creating a CHAOS free home you become a "Flybaby."  I am kinda late starting this as I started as a FlyBaby on 5.27.2011.  Well lets get started and see how this goes...