Clutterfat Challenge

I've been thinking for quite awhile I need to not just declutter but to simplify my life. Get rid of a lot of stuff that I just no longer feel the need to have but is still taking up space in my house and in my mind. I've worked at it some, but the problem is if you don't keep at it, the clutter just grows.

So yesterday in my blog reading, I came across the Clutterfat Challenge through Zen Habits. So I signed up. The challenge is to declutter your home in 30 days. Even if I don't get the whole house decluttered in that time, at least I've got a plan, or at least that's my idea. (Jan. 7 was the last day to sign up for the challenge, but really, I see no reason why someone couldn't do it without registering. Just print off the inventory and go "like" the Facebook page if you want to join in).

So this weekend, I've started on the inventory list. I've gotten through the kitchen so far (I'm counting kitchen/dining as one room because that's just how my house is), and one thing became clear pretty quick: I have way too many mugs for one person. And utensils. I didn't even count all the utensils, really, but I'll certainly be taking a look at everything and if I haven't used it on a regular basis in the last few months or don't even know what it is, in a box for the thrift store it goes.

The inventory is a before and after, and part of it is to take pictures. So, without shame, here's my before pictures of the kitchen/dining area of my home. It WILL look better 30 days from now.

Draw of utensils I don't use very often. The BBQ ones are about all I use.
More utensils. Some of these I do use fairly regularly. But there's some knives and stuff in there I didn't even realize were there. Mom, if you want any of this stuff, you better come get it!
Countertop to left of sink. Some used, some not.
Countertop to right of sink. I do use these pretty regularly.
Cupboard above right of the sink. Most of the mugs are in the dishwasher (no, I'm not showing you that!)
I have an office area in a breakfast nook addition to the house. This area is in desperate need of decluttering.
This is probably the worst. Boxes of old documents that are destined for the next "free shred" day in our area. I can probably add to them before that.
Yeah.

I need to decide what to do here. I'd like to put in a tall cabinet for a pantry ideally.

If I can get just these rooms totally decluttered in 30 days, that will satisfy me, really. Then I can just use the same method to tackle each room. If that's the case, then within 5 months the house would be done. Of course, that's not counting the garage. Sigh.

Weird night

So imagine you have a colonoscopy in the morning. You have to drink a half a gallon of nasty tasting stuff in a couple of hours and spend the rest of the night with your colon clearing itself out. Then imagine what would be the LAST thing you'd want to do under those conditions.

How about get a bat out of your house?

Yeah, I've had a fun night.

I was just sitting in the living room, waiting for the latest round with the toilet bowl, when Buster suddenly gets up and slinks out to the kitchen like something's scared him. Before I can figure out if there was some thunder or what, I see this shape swooping around the corner from the kitchen. And it wasn't Christian Bale.

Fortunately, it flew into the exercise room, where there's not a lot of places for it to hide. I got the door closed, and called Mom to come help. Mostly I was worried about having an ... interruption in the middle of trying to catch the thing. By the time she got here, it had settled down and was hanging on the air exchange vent near the door. I managed to get a bucket over it, and while I held it there, Mom got a big piece of cardboard from the garage, which I was able to slip between the bucket and the wall, trapping it in the bucket. Then I took it outside and it flew away. And no sudden interruptions from my colon!

I just can't figure out how it got in the house. The dog door? Would a bat be strong enough to get through the door? Maybe it got in while I was going in and out last night while some friends were over for a cookout. But if it got in last night, wouldn't I have noticed it before now, or at least Buster should have been acting weird.

Thanks, Mom for helping out. And Buster got extra cookies for alerting me.

I just hope that's the end of the weirdness for tonight.

Fun project

With the all the garage cleaning, you probably think I'm not having much fun on my vacation. Well, if you think the only way to have fun on vacation is to be on a beach or something, then I guess you'd be right.

But I am getting to some things that I've been wanting to do for awhile that will make life a little easier if not enjoyable, and that's fun for me. Yes, I'm kind of a geek.

Anyway, here's one of the things I'm doing.

I've had this metal bistro table for about 10-12 years. It's a little well worn, as you can see.




I scrubbed it clean Tuesday morning and let it dry, then brought it into the garage for a couple coats of primer.

Then came the color. I wanted it to be red with black legs, because I think that's a pretty cool color combination, but it didn't feel like I had enough red spray paint. So I went with yellow for the top.


I was still going to go ahead and do black for the legs, but realized I had a LOT of green spray paint, so went with that.



Maybe I'll get some brown craft paint and make the top look like a sunflower. That'd be kinda cool. I'll need to seal it, too, to help protect the paint, but that's not real important at this point.

I put it on my front porch, so I've got something to set a cool drink on while I sit on the bench on nice evenings.



Anyway, I've got one more big, fun project to do, but I don't know if I'll be able to finish it before I go back to work. I still need to do a couple things inside the house, too (replacing the bathroom faucet, for one). But I think I could at least get a good start to where it will be usuable. More on that later.

Great Garage Cleanup 2010 — Final Day!

At last! It's done! I got the tools/work area all straightened up and somewhat organized this morning.



I also sorted through some of my boxes of stuff and ended up throwing a bunch more stuff out. I don't think I'm going to let another eight years go by before I do this kind of purging again.

I still have some stuff to get rid of. It just needs a lot of cleaning up. What I can just hose off, I'll do that in the morning and let it dry, then see about taking it to the local community thrift shop. There's some of Mom's stuff, that she said I could get rid of, so I'll have to get those and see what could be donated and what needs to be tossed.

But it's done! And now I have all kinds of room in the garage again. Which is good, because I've got a project or two I'd like to do before my vacation is over. But that's for another post.

Great Garage Cleanup 2010 — Day 3

The planting/gardening table, all cleaned up and organized.


The cabinet next to it holds (some) of the pots:



And in the drawers are the drip irrigation stuff:


And miscellaneous stakes and other stuff:


And I put up a couple extra shelves at my recycling center:


I think one more day of this, organizing the tools/work area, and I'll be done. But this:


is much better than this:

Great Garage Cleanup 2010 — after Day 2

More improvement today

Think I'll get some brackets and put up another shelf or two for my recycling center.

Yard tools all hanging.

Great Garage Cleanup 2010 — after Day 1

Getting better.

Great Garage Cleanup 2010 — before

What a mess:

After ecstasy, the laundry

That comes from a Zen saying I found long ago, and it's a reminder of life's ups and downs. And it kinda fits how the weekend went.

This is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and locally there is a Day of Caring event each year. It's a brunch with a speaker and then a fashion show, with breast cancer survivors as models. There were 14 models this year, and it was the second for me.

Things actually got underway Friday night with the models' get-acquainted party. It was held at a local salon, and one of the owners is a mammogram tech with the local hospital. She donated the use of the salon, the services of her employees, some of the food and a T-shirt for each of us. That was pretty awesome. We had a great dinner made by the daughter of one of the models and had some fun getting to know one another -- including the first-ever male breast cancer survivor model!

Then, when the night was wrapping up, we got our gifts -- three more bags full of stuff!

The loot:

The big, pink sheep was not one of the things I got, but I did win it at Day of Caring three years ago. She's been named Hope and is the mascot of my support group.

A couple closer looks:




The T-shirt:


A hand-knitted scarf:


Everyone was pretty amazed at the amount of stuff we got.

The next day was just a lot of fun, and it was also very moving. The speaker was another local male breast cancer survivor, and it was interesting to hear a different perspective of dealing with the disease, especially since the guy, I was told, was very shy, so it took a lot of courage for him to speak in front of a crowd. Several times, he had to stop and keep his emotions under control to be able to keep going, and it had all us models in tears.

But he joined us in modeling, which was pretty cool, and both he and the other male model gave their roses to their wives after they got out on the runway, which was cool. Everybody, even the first-year models who were nervous, had a great time.

I modeled for the local Harley-Davidson dealer.





I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon scrubbing the black, sticky, smelly stuff from the bottom of the dishwasher, then had dinner with a friend at a Mexican place. Then just took it easy the rest of the night. So all in all, a pretty good day.

Then came today. This afternoon, I started in on cleaning the kitchen, loading up the de-yuckified dishwasher and washing some things by hand. And afterwards, I discovered all the water in the kitchen cabinet under the sink. At first, I was worried the dishwasher had leaked into the cabinet, but there would have been much more water. Then I discovered it was the supply line to the faucet that was leaking. Then, a bit later I discovered there's also a leak in the drain or the garbage disposal. And there might be a pipe connection or two that are also leaking. So basically, the sink is unusable. Hopefully, I can get someone in this week to take a look. In the meantime, I'll have to figure out how to eat without using the kitchen sink.

Sigh. After ecstasy ...