Give me two sticks of dynamite and an alibi....

[vanillafluffy]

Laundry is happening. (It's in the dryer now.) I'm not on target as to the load-a-day strategy, but any laundry is good laundry, right?

On the way back from starting laundry, I rearranged my cupboards/pantry. I made room for all the tomato products and pasta in one place, while all the other canned veggies and beans are elsewhere.

And, geting really productive, I cleaned out the three top shelves in my fridge. The fridge clean-out is my greatest achievement; one of the reasons I haven't been cooking for myself (as opposed to sandwiches and things fried or nuked for immediate consumption) was because there was NO room to put the leftovers.

It's amazing how we'll do disagreeable things we're been putting off to avoid things we perceive as more unpleasant. The living room, oh God, the living room! I don't know where to begin! Honestly, I think it's some kind of domestic retardation...I just look around, slack-jawed; it's all right there in my face.

But. Positive. Have made progress elsewhere, that's something.
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Comments

[ruric.livejournal.com]

Baby steps - it didn't get messy in one day ergo it will take more than one day to clear. consistently chipping away at the chaos leads to successes! Just keep going a bit at a time. *G*

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Any and all encouragement gratefully accepted!

Part of the problem is, I never actually left the nest---I interited it. I've been here since 1974, without adult supervision since 1985. And I'm a packrat. It's not pretty...though at the moment, I'd settle for habitable.
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[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

Dynamite would be fast, but I'd hate to have to start sending care packages to Prisoner Fluffy. :D

Would it help if you narrowed your focus in the living room to one item -- say, the magazines? Pick up just those and do the keep/fling routine. Then do the next single item and the next. After the first three, it won't look so overwhelming. *hugs*

(I used that technique in cleaning my mother's horror of a bedroom: first the stray papers went -- she saved every scrap of junk mail -- then the clothes not in the closets or drawers, and after that I wasn't hyperventilating every time I went into her room.)

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

I'll give it a shot. I find it hard to categorize in there because the stuff is so much and so varied. I tend to try to clear off a piece of furniture, then the space next to it, and so on. Which worked in the dining room...after I got all the empty boxes out of there.
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[pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea about focusing on a chair or the sofa. That way you won't have to handle the same stuff twice, which is the drawback to the "pick one kind of item" method.

Except for the papers, Mom at least only had bedroom stuff in her bedroom. The pile of clothes on the unoccupied side of the bed, though, was so high I could not see over it when I first walked into the room. *shudders*

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

Guh, Yahoo has not been giving me half my LJ comments!

My bedroom was that bad,,,had cans and pop bottles on the far side of the bed, knee-deep. Had clothes and crap hip-deep in front of the closet. I'm trying really hard to pitch the crap and rein in the acquisition of MOAR. It'll get there a little at a time....

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[ultraviolet9a.livejournal.com]

Break it down into baby steps, maybe? Like, clean this table first and then the sofa the next day etc? It's always the hardest before you begin, but once you do, you get rolling.

[vanillafluffy.livejournal.com]

I'm trying not to overwhelm myself and start by clearing little by little. Like, a couple weeks ago, the area around the front door was so congested I was tripping over things, and now I'm not. So it IS getting better. I'm just not terribly patient---I know it didn't get this way overnight, but damn! I want it on the cover of House Beautiful next month!
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