The Pursuit of Cleanliness

A reference....

2008-08-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

For those of you who would like a reference of what the kitchen looked life previous to the staging experience.....

And the same angle--though bigger--after.

Star of scream and stage.....

2008-08-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

So, my in-laws came to my house a couple of weeks ago to help stage the house. For those who are not "in the know", staging is when you make your house look like no one lives there. This included packing half of all that we own and storing it. Good news is, the garage is beautiful!!! Bad news is, I am going to go nuts if I have to spend the next couple of months living in a better homes and gardens magazine!!!!!!!!!!! My children are constantly making messes and I am constantly cleaning them up. My day now consists of getting up, making all the beds, picking up all the toys the kids just took out, going downstairs and cleaning the kitchen, feed the kids, cleaning up the toys the kids just took out, going back upstairs and cleaning the bathroom and picking up the toys the kids just took out.......lather, rinse, repeat. Since it may never happen again, I am posting two lovely pictures of my home as it currently looks--like nobody lives here.

Moving, Root Canals and other fun things to do!

2008-07-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

So, I am not getting a root canal (that I know of) but, I am moving. So, this blog is about to take a surprising turn. My Hubby just got a new job. So, my organizing is going into warp speed so that I can get the house ready to show.
I have set some goals....
1. Reduce the amount of stuff we own by 25%
2. Completely organize the garage and all that is in it.
3. Remove all things that I have not worn for a year from my closet.
4. Get rid of icky stuff living under our couches and other furniture.

So there you have it.... I am about to experience my least favorite thing- Change.

boooooo.

Please Hold....we will be right back

2008-06-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

So I had a garage sale....that got rained out. This means I sold only about a quarter of the stuff I wanted to sell and the rest is back in the garage. The Canadian Diabetes foundation will be coming in two weeks to pick up the rest of the stuff. I will not be posting a picture until after that. Right now the garage looks worse. This garage has become my Everest. I don't know if I will ever get to the top!!!

The garage sale-she is a comin'

2008-06-17T20:07:00.002-07:00

So, yah-I know. I am totally lacking in self control.... I have a messy home and a stunted, slightly better garage. I have no real excuse. Life took over and before I knew it....it was the middle of June.
So this Saturday is the long awaited garage sale!!! YAY! People will come and take away my clutter for me!!
In other news....I really love mangoes. The obsession is getting out of control. They are such a pleasing fruit-both in flavour and smell. Just thought I would share.
Anyhoo-I will post all the exciting stories about my garage sale on the weekend-complete with an updated pic of the garage-post sale!

My camera and other excuses.....

2008-05-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

So, I have not been posting recently. There are some excuses for this. First, I keep forgetting to charge my camera battery so that I can take pictures of my progress. Second, my husband's grandpa died and we went away for a few days to a funeral. Third, We just got busy. But I have been cleaning my house. I am currently working on my bedroom and as soon as my camera battery is charged, I will post the before and afters. The garage situation is at a stand still until after the garage sale. There is just too much going on in there and nothing to do with the stuff until after I sell a bunch of it.
In other news though....I discovered the world of freecycling!! It is a wonderful thing. I posted that I had an old rusty cot and two days later someone came and took it away!! Yay! My stuff will not be going to the landfill after all! I highly recommend that you all take a boo at the local freecycle group for your area. The website is www.freecycle.org . From there just look for your city (or a city near you). You will need a yahoo account to join.

A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Garage....

2008-04-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

So, really I was going to work on the garage last week. Seriously. I haven't quit on you!! But...I had a baby with a double eye infection AND a double ear infection. He didn't sleep for the better part of a week. Yawn. I am still in a haze. So, I felt guilty and decided to mega clean the garage for an hour and a half yesterday! I flung open the door and ushered out the dust and spiders and bad air! It was glorious! I folded up boxes and tied them with string. I gathered items for garage sales into one pile. I swept the floor and moved furniture and did all that fabulous stuff! I even hung up the bird feeder! It was a banner day in the Mills household! Yippee it is spring!

Into ones life a little bug must fall....

2008-04-06T13:16:00.000-07:00

I have a cold. I have a nose drippin', eyes waterin', up-all-night coughin' kinda cold. I have not cleaned much in the past week. I pick up balled up tissues about 500 times a day (I am not the only one in the family with this cold) and spray stuff with lysol, but that is about it. My daughter coughed herself awake dozens of times a night this past week and when she wasn't awake, my son was. It was one of those weeks.
Interesting story. My daughter was feeling okay on Tuesday. She hadn't slept much but seemed alright. So we took her to school.... probably not the best idea-but you have to understand-we hadn't slept either. When Greg went to pick her up, he was called into the classroom and handed a note. It read, "I wrote on my face and shirt, I'm sorry. Love Adia". Yup, we should have kept her home. But, the happy face on her shirt was quite cheerful!
Anyways-it is a lovely day! I think I will swing open the garage door and usher the spiders out and into the wild! Then I can continue my journey.

Spiders....ewww.

2008-04-01T06:58:00.000-07:00

So, I was cleaning in the garage yesterday, and happily seeing that I was nearing the home stretch! I came across a stack of shoe boxes left from something Greg was doing for work. I decided that I would flatten the boxes and put them in the recycling bin. As I began I saw something black on the box I was holding. It was about the size of a dime. Then, it moved. It was a spider!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH. So, I dropped that box, did the eww a spider dance (hard to describe) and moved on to another box. There was a spider on that one too. I looked down and there were two more on boxes waiting for me. I then not-so-calmly dropped the box I was holding and ran out of the garage. I think I should make more Banana bread. Cleaning is stressful.

Sweet Relief

2008-03-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning at 8 am the most wonderful thing happened. Our friend Dwight and his son Dan came to our house with a pick-up and a mission--to remove the junk from our garage! So, off it went. Goodbye wobbley old bookcase, see ya broken chair, hasta la vista rusty stroller that won't close!! I'm free! So, with the loss of those old friends-I can resume my cleaning! Yay! As soon as I recover-I'm sick. But, here you me--I will clean this garage! Then I will head to the basement.

In other news, Greg won this weeks biggest loser contest-boo.

Seriously--the junk is reproducing....

2008-03-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it with my own two eyes-the junk is reproducing. It is creating new, baby junk. That is the only explanation for the fact that the garage is taking a lifetime. I feel like it may never be clean. I will go on forever trying to clean a garage that clearly does not want to be clean!
Well, no matter. I made some progress yesterday-as promised! So here is the picture to prove that I am a woman of my word!

Okay, so I fell off the wagon.

2008-03-23T08:31:00.000-07:00

Yup, I have had a small set-back. I have not cleaned the garage for a week now. It is cold and dark in there---and it smells like lawnmower....(it has a specific smell)! But, it is time to recover--to get back on the horse---to power through!! So today I WILL clean the garage!

Into every life a little trash must fall......

2008-03-19T10:16:00.001-07:00

So, the garage is looking worse (as you can see) but there is a good reason! A friend of ours is bringing by a truck to take some large items to the dump. That explains the big pile of stuff in front of the garage door. I also have a huge basket of papers that I found in the garage-- bills and other useless paperwork from as far back as 2001. (did I mention that we are pack rats?) So, now I have the illustrious job of shredding the paperwork. This will take a while.....
In other news--I am currently in the lead for our little Biggest Loser competition!! Yay!

The kitchen and other atrocities....

2008-03-15T19:54:00.000-07:00

A wise person once said, "a kitchen is like a room full of preschoolers, you don't want to turn your back on it for too long.". Okay, well, maybe no one ever said that, but they should have!
In my journey to clean up my garage, I kinda forgot about the part of the house that we live in.
So, the kitchen and the rest of the house need my attention. So, I have taken a short break from organizing 101 to tackle life. While I'm working on that...I will plot my next move in the battle against clutter...
In other news, Greg and I are having a competition. We are going to diet for one month and weigh in at the end of each week. The person who loses the most weight each week gets a point. The person with the most points at the end of the month wins a movie! The loser must watch said movie with the winner and not complain* or sigh in a disapproving way.

*Greg and I have the most opposite taste in movies that two people could have-so this is quite a challenge!

Progress takes time......................lots of time

2008-03-12T20:23:00.000-07:00

So, I did some cleaning today in the garage. I am pretty sure it looks the same as it did. It is like it is regenerating..... The junk is creating baby junk to take my house over.......

So here is a during picture for you. I know, it looks like the other one--but there are subtle changes.....very subtle changes.

second verse....same as the first!

2008-03-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, so today was not a productive day. The before picture in the post below....is how the garage still looks. But I guarantee that tomorrow will be better. I did however have a lovely time baking banana bread....but that doesn't have anything to do with cleaning or organizing.....

Lets start at the very beginning...a very good place to start

2008-03-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

So, this week I have decided to tackle the scariest of areas in our house--the garage.

There it is to the left here in all it's glory! A two car disaster just waiting for someone to help it!

So, I first need to get rid of all the stuff that is junk or just not needed by us. I have to also go through about a million boxes.

This could take a while......

In the beginning was a mess....

2008-03-11T14:19:00.000-07:00

I have been a slob my whole life.... really, MY WHOLE LIFE!!! I was happy in just tossing things and leaving them where they landed. My motto as a kid was "why clean my room when there is a whole world out there to enjoy?". As I grew older-there was always something else to do. Then I got married. My husband was also a slob so it worked out great! Our house was a disaster, but who were we hurting?? Well, in a way, we were hurting ourselves. Shame from the status of our home kept us from having friends over and at times made us frustrated and caused us to fight. Then our daughter came into the world! More stuff, more mess. Then I got pregnant with our son. Around the 7th or 8th month, something strange happened--I started nesting! I was obsessed with organization. I could not get enough of it! I would lie awake at night thinking about what I could clean next. After he was born I thought the nesting would leave...and it did-sort of. Our house returned to a messy state as I was figuring out how to care for 2 kids instead of 1. But deep inside of me was a voice. The voice of the clean freak I had become during pregnancy. So, here I am. With a goal. I want to organize and clean my entire house and rid it of all useless items. I want to reduce the amount of stuff we have. So, I am going to blog this experience in hopes that it will give courage to the other slobs out there who long to be neat freaks. Wish me luck---I'm gonna need it.