Cleanin' Up

Kris Knits' St Patrick's Day Dishcloth

I started the year on a major dishcloth-making kick. I probably the first month and a half I made four (I probably could have made them faster but the fourth was part of a KAL and there were some major delays in clue-posting). Not only were the dishcloths extremely satisfying quick knits, they were great ways to bust through about a quarter of my stashed cotton, and as it would turn out very useful in the near future.

This weekend, in attempt to try and push Spring a little faster into existence, Mike and I have declared it The Big Spring Cleaning Weekend.

It's much needed.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, I will for the sake of honesty. In the two and a half years we've lived in our house, we've never deep cleaned it. And scarily, I don't think we've "done" the windows at all, ACK, I know!

Chinese Waves Dishcloth

So this weekend was marked a few weeks ago as THE WEEKEND.

We tackle the house.

Mike, being Mike, drew up detailed task lists for both of us (I absolutely despise him giving me tasks! I'm the one who is supposed to be giving "Honey Do" lists, not him!), and it seems I've been given the monster rooms.

You know, the rooms with the most stuff. And I only have half a day each to complete them. He's ambitious, what can I say. Well-meaning, but certainly not realistic. It could take me the entire weekend to tackle all the deep cleaning in the kitchen alone.

I'm pretty sure we have very different ideas on what "deep cleaning" means. I'm thinking that involves pulling everything out of the fridge & freezer, scrubbing it out, purging the old stuff, organizing it back in, taking everything out of the cabinets & pantry, wiping them down, reorganizing the places that weren't working, among all the normal stuff like scrubbing counters, sweeping, mopping floors.

Oh! And did I mention I spilled 16oz of fruit punch tonight. Luckily it was in the kitchen and before I did my massive cleaning. But the front of my oven is stained red and the floor is a sticky combination of fruit punch, dog saliva and dog hair.

Pleasant, I know.

But this is life.

Kris Knits' Be My Dishcloth

Instead of getting the head start I thought I would tonight (hey, I did dust my cookbook shelves which were caked in greasy dust...and managed to drop my beautiful Nigella Lawson's "How to Become a Domestic Goddess" cookbook with PMS 871 metallic gold ink into Nibbler's full water bowl), I decided it was a good time to blog.

I never claimed to be logical.

I blame the cup of hot chocolate at 9:30pm for the lack of #1 tiredness & #2 focus.

.Kris Knits' January KAL Mystery Dishcloth (psst, it's a snowman)

I must also note that I don't actually plan on using any of these dishcloths in our cleaning binge this weekend. That way when one of my family members receives one of these come Christmas, they aren't a little grossed out that I gifted them a hand knit, used dishcloth.

My plan is to continue to add to the pile of dishcloths throughout the year. Kill two birds with one stone. Use up my stashed cotton (part of my 2010: The Year to Finish It Up) and have useful, handmade things to give out to family members as Christmas gifts. So dear family, if you read this now, act surprised up December, ok? Sure it may be weird to receive a shamrocked dishcloth on Christmas Day instead of St Patrick's Day, but know they were made with love and are just as handy as something that would be seasonally appropriate come December. It's not that I don't love you enough to make something to match your decor, I just think you'll have a better chance of actually using them to wash your dirty dishes if you're not TOO in love with it.

Unclutterer: The Mystery Boxes

This is Sarah's. Keep Out or Else.

Since my mom brought down the last of my stuff in August, I have been dying to know what this box (as well as it's companion seen here) holds. Surely it must be something fabulous to require such warning. Perhaps all my childhood secrets scrawled in journals? No wait those were dug out a few years ago and have been residing in the guest room closet. Maybe evidence of childhood transgression? I'm pretty sure the worst thing I did was sneak Cheetos from off the top of the fridge after school while waiting for my sister to get home.

Had I lifted the boxes I probably would have known what was in them, as they were nearly light as air. But still as I hacked away at all the stuff piled in our basement, I was intrigued and couldn't wait to see what was in there.

The seal is broken.

As I cut through the tape and opened the flaps, a slight sigh of disappointment slipped through my lips. What should have been obvious from carrying the box across the basement to the worktable was visibly confirmed.

All that the boxes contained (plus 4 or 5 others) were my childhood buddies - my stuffed animals and dolls - ranging from birth I'm sure to about 11. It was fun to go through and see them all again. I remember all of them at least vaguely, and though some have very specific memories associated with them, others I just remember having and not much else.

The contents of the 2 "Keep Out" boxes.

As I pulled things out of the two "Keep Out" boxes I photographed everything in them and then in flickr wrote any recollection I have of the doll or animal in the photo description. It would be interesting to see if my mom, dad or sister have any further recollections for the pieces (Mom, I know you read this, seriously I'd really be interested to hear what you guys remember of me and these guys!). That's kind of what I was hoping this whole Uncluttering project would be like. Going through boxes, taking pictures and remembering, but as I've gone through everything I've found that a lot of the stuff I was hanging onto doesn't have much interestingness to it. It's either self explanatory (like a report card or essay) or I can't figure out why I kept it in the first place. Needless to say, it's been a lot easier going through all that stuff than I thought it would be, until I got to the stuffed animals.

Now I know you don't want to know what happens to them all, Mom, so you can stop reading if you can't bear to hear even possibilities.

But anyways...

it's not feasible to keep all of them, I mean there were at least 6 copy paper boxes filled with them. Some I have fond memories of, others I remember but they hold no special memories or feelings. So a few will stay and others will go, my hope is not to a landfill, but you never really know because though they are still in good shape some are 20+ years old, will Goodwill even take them? It's a tough decision, but I know it's the right one.

I do know that I plan on photographing every one of them in my lightbox and documenting them in flickr before they are either put back in storage or are donated. Basically what I did above but a bit more professional looking. It will be a nice little momento to remember them all by without having to keep them all.

Unclutterer: Down and Dirty

After being anxious to jump into the project for about a month, and then getting Mike psyched up for the task as well, we decided to jump right into the uncluttering this morning. Mike had brought back the last load of his boxes for his parents' house the night before, so everything was brought into the center of the basement (from the car, from the coal bin storage area, from under the guest room bed and from the depths of the guest room closet). Because you're not actually standing in the space, it might not seem like that much stuff…but it was.

Boxes and boxes of stuff.

Unused wedding gifts. First grade report cards. Soccer trophies. Old printers. Zip disks. Artwork. Boy Scout leather work. You name it, it is probably there.

Arming ourselves with garbage bags, water and a label maker ($40 model obtained for $10, thank you Black Friday!), we started, pulling box after box onto the table and pulling everything out. Being my first foray into uncluttering, we weren't super diligent - we each have a box of things to keep and/or scan before tossing and we're maybe only halfway done with the pile of boxes - but we're making progress.

We have piles of things to donate, one of things to sell, but then the real show of progress is the garbage and recycle piles. I'm happy to report, though extremely messy therefore making it look like we degressed instead of progressed, the recycle pile is huge and over flowing. And it's not taking us as long as I had thought it would to go through things.

It will still take awhile to get through everything. To purge, then organize, but I'm confident we won't be at this for months, which is good because that basement gets pretty cold when the snow starts to fall. We just have to hope for no heavy rains until we get through the initial phase because as it's set up right now, everything is right in the path of the little streams that start to form once the ground is fully saturated.

The Prep Begins.

The official Thanksgiving prep has begun. A couple weekends ago I roasted a practice turkey (we ate off that for a week)and now with only four days left, the real preparation is in full swing.

Right now (at 10 pm)a cranberry cheesecake is cooling on the counter. The house went through an initial clean up today. Our bedding was all washed and aired out in the beautiful weather today. The duvet cover has finally made a reappearance this year (I've been too lazy in the years since we got it). Fleece cuddle blankets have been laundered (yowza, did they stink of Nibbler after sitting in a pile for a couple weeks) and are currently trying to be dehaired, not sure how that will work as fleece acts as a magnet to the dog hair. Groceries have been purchased, in 2 pricy trips to two different stores. The menu is set. And the kitchen has been "staged."

I have this thing where I really like to take pictures when we clean well (see here and here and here). Maybe that says something about our cleaning habits, huh? Today was exciting though, because the kitchen was cleaned up and we put up a new piece of artwork that brings the kitchen one step closer to being done.

And more importantly I got a new gadget that solves a problems we've had the last several months...a bread box. I really don't think I should be this excited about a bread box, but I am. Up until recently we kept our bread in the fridge, I'm not sure why we changed (maybe the fridge was packed one week so the bread had to go on the counter and it just stuck) but the bread tastes better when it sits on the counter, so we haven't gone back. The bad thing is that bags of sandwich bread, bagels and french bread tended to just accumulate on the counter. Plastic and bread everywhere. Not cool, nor attractive. So we decided to finally get a bread box. I've been looking into them for awhile, but the whole jump situation put a hold on unnecessary spending. Now that things are more stable (oh yes, did I mention I accepted a job offer on Friday? I did, Friday was my last day of work and I will start my new job on December 1), Mike said that while I was out grocery shopping to see if I could find something I liked. So I did, and I am happy...no longer will plastic bread bags pile up on the counter in an unsightly heap!

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Oh, and I got some pics of the newly organized junk drawer (see before here) and the decluttered "command center" in our kitchen. Both Mike and I are getting anxious to start some hardcore uncluttering of our basement, we just need to get through Thanksgiving first.

Unclutterer: A Beginning

A few weeks ago I discovered the blog, unclutterer.com, an inspirational source for leading a more simplified life. Like all new blogs I discover and enjoy, I dive way back into the archives to the very beginning and work my way to the present.

Along the way I became more and more inspired to actually get rid of some of the junk in our house. And I think my first successful sale of an item on Craigslist helped fuel the fire. There are tons of things that I've just been hanging on to for no real reason…guilt, thinking I might need it some day, etc. But I'm beginning to see that it's ok to pare down.

I wanted to jump in right away. To start sorting through and purging the boxes & boxes of stuff that hand been accumulated throughout my life and then neatly deposited to me by my parents (whether it was sending a box home when we visited them or my mom bringing the last of the boxes when she came to down in August). The boxes have been sitting under the bed in our guest room and when that area was taken, they were stacked in the basement, and Mike was actually getting ready to start prepping our attic to be more accessible, so we could store them up there. That's when I decided to put my foot down, I needed to end the cycle, so I convinced Mike to let us tackle it all as a winter project.

And though I wanted to jump in right away, I stopped myself. With baby gifts and ornament swaps and parties and commissioned hats to knit, I knew I wouldn't get any of the stuff that NEEDED to be done done if I started a new exciting project.

So I held off…until today, when I finally cracked (after weeks!) and needed to get some unclutterer action. So at lunch today I jimmied open our junk drawers, dumped it all out and started sorting/purging/organizing.

I couldn't finish on my lunch break, so I'm not done yet but I can tell you, it's awesome to be able to open the drawer easily.