Just starting a new thread for the new month. The dishwasher installation guys did a great quick job but now the kitchen’s a bit of a mess, little pieces of insulation around and stuff. And it snowed in the morning but I still had to go into work because I only go in at 1 on Thursdays and it started to rain. 
I faithfully cleaned the bathroom today, and scrubbed my bathroom floor and washed the bath mats. Yay me! And I did the grocery shopping, as it will not be possible tomorrow.
Since we are having guests tomorrow for dinner, that’s pretty motivating. So tomorrow I’ll do the other bathroom floor and mats, and do a general clean-up, and cook a lovely dinner. And a dessert. And do school, and have little friends over, and I’m supposed to go to the gym. Hm, I’m getting tired just thinking about that; I think I’ll go veg out and then go to bed.
WhyNot, a question, if I may: you kicked this off by pitting yourself about your general messiness and your inability to see clutter. Now that you are shining your sink daily and doing more chores, are you finding that you are more cheerful? (I ask because mess makes me grumpy, and I hear that’s very common.) Also, are you noticing clutter more, or do you have to stop and look around and seek out messiness wherever it may be? Feel free to ignore my nosiness, of course.
Well, I have a goal for the month. My goal is to notice clutter, mess, etc more. I’m now doing the stockroom job for the labs in my department, and the lab coordinator said the dishes were getting piled up. The sink is tiny, so I saw what she was talking about. I did two loads of dishes and felt quite proud of myself for getting it all done yesterday. Then today I walked in and saw the stacks of dishes on the egg incubator and blue cart. They were there yesterday. I passed them a dozen times. I just didn’t really see them. I did get them today, and for a brief, shining moment there were no dirty dishes. This time for real.
Then I got stuck making new solutions. I see more dishes to do on Wednesday of next week.
I hate the process of making things clean, but I’m much happier when things are clean. I’m really particularly happy when I come home, and someone else has cleaned.
Today I do the laundry and vacuum. I might mop, too. Not doing so well at the no-overnight-dishes thing, but I’ll keep working on it. As in, actually trying.
Yes, I’m feeling better (emotionally and physically) AND I’m noticing clutter more easily. I think the later is for two reasons: one, it’s simply easier to notice a pile of papers on a clear table, or a single dirty dish in an empty sink and two, I have a vision in my head now of how my place *can *look, and tumbleweeds of cat hair don’t fit it.
It’s not perfect. My dining room table is a black vortex from hell attracting clutter like the Olsen twins attract cocaine and laxatives, but I’ve beaten the clutter back from nearly every other space. It’s got a few things working against it, this room - it’s also the office, and it’s somehow turned into the main play space for the baby and I (because I check the Dope so often, I guess I got into the habit of playing with her in here where the computer is), and it’s also a large attractive space on the thoroughfare right smack in the middle of a long narrow apartment - so anyone carrying groceries, mail, books, dishes from the front room, dirty baby clothes taken off in one room “on their way” to her laundry basket - all that sort of stuff gets set on the dining room table rather than making it quite all the way to its final destination.
I think maybe I’ll simply set the table for dinner in the morning, so the table is full *and *there’s one less thing to do at dinnertime.
My life got a lot better when my mother took up her weekly visits again. Which doesn’t mean I’m reformed, but my ENABLER IS BACK!!!
(I promised to get laundry and dishes done more regularly, and that has been happening - even without my mother).
The table has remained pretty clean for more than a week. This is a record. We are terrible stuff-dumpers.
I just wanted to say that I unofficially joined your club a while ago but I’ve just been lurking along. I thought it was time to stick my head in here and say howdy.
I went through three days of major decluttering and cleaning over MLK weekend. I figure it is easier to stay clean once you are clean. And that is, for the most part, true. However, I have a very small house and I only got about half of it cleaned in three days! And I worked from early morning to late at night.
I am quite proud of myself for keeping the clean parts clean. My sink rarely has anything in it now. It is an old enameled farm sink that has worn away to bare metal in spots so there is not much shining involved, but I do try to keep it cleaned up and wiped out. I keep everything picked up off the floor so Roomba can actually work - I had him shut off for several months just because of all the clutter around. And I am keeping my coffee table, dining table, and counters free from stuff.
I just want to say that the sink cleaning/shining idea is really more brilliant than it sounds at first. It is something that you use every day. It gets dull and extremely dirty looking pretty much the instant that you use it. By shining your sink everyday, you can see a marked improvement in the overall cleanliness of the kitchen. What it really is, is a habit forming exercise. You could do it with any daily chore, but the kitchen sink is a perfect candidate because you can see real and dramatic results on a daily basis. And when you can see results in your kitchen from this habit you might branch out into other areas and form good habits there as well.
Next steps for me. I need to clean my blinds - my goodness they are filthy. I need to go back over the clean part of my house with a dusting and vacuuming. I feel that this is important as part of a habit of keeping it clean. Then I need to delve in to the cluttered half and work on getting that clean so that I will have the opportunity to keep it clean later. One project that I started but never really got that far into is sorting through clothing. My closet is crowded and I have winter clothes in the attic and summer clothes in the closet. I also have clothes that I can get rid of and some that are sitting in my closet that I can’t wear because they don’t fit that need to go into storage.
I will also be instituting the “throw stuff in a box” method of filing not-so-important papers. I had already started this for receipts (I have no idea why I keep receipts, but it did come in handy when I needed one for a waranty), but was not insightful enough to do this for bank statements and whatnot as well. The good thing about this method is that they are basically sorted chronologically without really trying.
So in summary, I am much happier with my living condition now and I am excited to get to the point where I can be in maintenance mode permanently.
I really have found the importance of an empty (not necessarily clean) sink. Is the dishwasher dirty? Then why put it in the sink? Is the dishwasher clean? Then why didn’t you empty it? I’m trying to make it so the only reason to put dishes in the sink is that the dishwasher is running. Soaking should no longer be an issue with my new dishwasher!
It has been much more difficult training the boyfriend. He can get them to the sink - the dishwasher is another story. Lately he gets them into the dishwasher, and I can’t stand how he loads it!
I’ve had a bit more of a struggle the past couple of days because of overtiring myself with an insane work schedule, so I’ve just done what I could and not worried about the rest. It probably hasn’t helped that I’ve added the yarn collections for several new projects to the pile already in my office, but I can always come up with an excuse for that, and I’ve got a dilly this time (needing projects for after my knee surgery).
But I have been cleaning the sinks, doing a quick wipe through the bathrooms, and keeping my desk much neater, as well as getting laundry done, so all has not been lost. And it was so pleasant to go to bed early last night and sit there watching TV with the cat on my legs, looking at the clean and neat room!
I have successfully scrubbed the bathroom floor, and the mats are in the washer. It’s amazing what dust-traps those bathrooms are–there’s very little filth and a lot of dust. I also have a cake in the oven. The rest of my jobs are to sweep the floor, get the table ready, finish cleaning up the counter, and generally tidy up (I did some already). No gym today, but we might go out to the library for a quick trip–I promised I would go over before I go to work tomorrow, because there’s a new computer system I should look over.
We had a horrible morning, because the little one woke up at 5am needing to go potty. She did that successfully (yay!), but didn’t go back to sleep–and by 9am she was a grumpy, whiny, fragile wreck could only sit at the breakfast table and cry over her oatmeal. Happily, she is now taking a nap; I hope she isn’t horrible this evening too, when our guests come over. I’ve never met them; it’s my husband’s former co-worker who didn’t stay long, and we wanted to get to know him and his new wife.
I’m a reformed packrat - can I still come in here? You guys inspire me to do better even now. Since my dad moved in with me and my husband last spring, I have been very good about washing dishes every night. The trick has been that his “job” is to empty the dishwasher every day, so it’s easy enough to fill it as I’m cooking. And then do up the few remaining after dinner. TV shows get me motivated! Idol comes on at 7? Dinner is eaten and done by then - usually. Or I do stuff during commercials.
I have two dogs and lots of dog hair, so I’ve taken to vacuuming (with the attachment) the edges of the kitchen and the bathrooms, just for that. It looks much cleaner! I’m a slacker when it comes to mopping, so I “spot mop” - just take a dishrag and wipe up little spots as I see them.
I bought some new drip pans for the stove - after a while I just can’t get them clean, so new ones make the stove look spiffy! I bought black ones for my white stove so you can’t see the grease as easily. Only $14 for 4 at Target.
Keep up the good work!
:::throwing my slob membership fee into the kitty:::
I think it’s time I get started around here as well. We moved into a new (to us) home three months ago and I decluttered like crazy before moving in and for the first couple of months the entire family committed to keeping the house looking good. Between holidays, our grown kids coming home with their respective families every other weekend, and having an exchange student displace our son into the living room temporarily the place is getting styish.
Mr. AdoptaMom mentioned last night that our neighbors have a very good, reasonably priced cleaning lady who is looking for work once a week or bi-weekly and we’re debating on whether or not to get her to come in and do the really grungy stuff like oven, baseboards, floors, bathrooms & stuff. Can I still be a member if I hire her or will that get me kicked out of this club?
I’m hereby recommitting to keeping the house picked up so that I won’t be embarrassed if a neighbor drops by to visit. I also promise to organize my bill center, conveniently located next to Mom City (my computer area) which currently has three empty root beer cans, two boxes of snack crackers, a couple of empty cigarette packages, and overflowing ashtray, a bra, and a couple of burned down candles that need to be tossed littering the surface.
Hmmm … I think I’d better get up and get started - now!
I don’t think hiring someone gets you thrown out of the club. The point is to get the place clean, and to form good cleaning habits. You’re still going to need those to be able to have someone deal with the truly awful stuff.
I did two loads of laundry today, and tidied a tidge around my space.
I wish I could hire somebody, but you know, even if I had the money I don’t think there’s that much she could do! I mean, it’s not like she can decide what to do with all my clothes, or organize my cabinets better, or anything, and those are kind of the roots of a lot of my messiness. The actual grunt work isn’t really that bad - I don’t have kids, and my house is pretty small. I mean, what actual cleaning do I have to do - the bathrooms, and vacuuming, and the kitchen and kitchen floors. It’s more clutter than dirty.
Me, too, Zsofia. In my case, doing the bathrooms and floors is 90% of the heavy cleaning that needs to be done – I’ve stayed on top of the kitchen since being married to Papa Tiger since he makes sure the dishes are washed; and since he does the vast majority of the cooking, I always make sure the kitchen is clean before he comes home so he has a good workspace – hey, self-interest is the name of the game, right? 
So for me, clutter is my perennial enemy as well. That and the time/energy to take care of it, which is what I’ve been shortest of recently thanks to piles of rush work.
It becomes a matter of figuring out what’s the most important thing I need to be doing right now. I have a habit of pushing housework to the back of the queue when paying work walks in the door, but having pushed myself to the wall on paying work, and actually feeling healthier and better from what little getting up and working on the house I have been doing, I’m realizing that I need to change my priorities. Do I want a clean house enough to put in the work necessary for it? I’m at the point where yes, I do. Just like I’m at the point where I’m willing to do the exercise and surgery/therapy to end up with a functional knee again.
Motivation, that’s the key for me. Everything else falls into line when I can summon the motivation.
I think hiring someone is permisable within the carefully constructed by-laws of the SDMB Slob Reform Club. 
After all, as **Zsofia **and Mama Tiger say, there’s still lots you have to do on your own.
I left really subtle hints for my husband at Christmastime (*really *subtle, see if you can catch it: “Honey, we’re having all our families over here for the first time in a few weeks and I’m really overwhelmed with the housecleaning, but I want the place to look great for them, so if you would take on the task of clicking that link I left up on the computer and scheduling a cleaning crew from Merry Maids to come in and do their Deep Clean, or whatever they call their most intensive cleaning package, that’d be the best Christmas Present ever, mmm’kay?”) but it didn’t happen.
Speaking of which, do we have any MEN in our clubhouse at all? What’s up with that?! :dubious:
I don’t think I’m going to get to my Weekend Chore of cleaning the bedrooms/office this time. I’ll probably dust a little, yell at SpazGnome to clean up his paper explosion on the office floor, and work on all my backlogged homework instead. It’s been a very demotivating week.
Yeah, there’s a couple of men here. Right? I thought there were some guys…
We had a really fun dinner with the two people I’d never met, and used every single dish in the house, so there are still some waiting to go in the dishwasher. But I washed all the pots and cooking things I could, so it’s a very manageable, neat pile! Yay!
Can I vent about last night? Right about the time we were going to bed and planning on a good night’s sleep, a party started up about a block away. We couldn’t sleep through the bass thumping. Then people started throwing fireworks. Then someone rang our doorbell 15 times and ran away. Then people started yelling. And we called the police. The police came eventually, and someone managed to produce a 30-foot geyser of water by breaking something. So a fire truck came too. I think my poor husband got to bed at around 2.30–I was in bed but mostly awake. So now I’m a draggy mess, and my husband is still deservedly zonked out, and I have to make the pancakes we promised the girls.
I think it’s allowable to hire someone to help clean.
Goodness, dangermom! That is ridiculous. I hate loud parties like that. When I was in college, I lived on THE party street for my freshman year and half of my sophomore year. What a nightmare that was! I wished I’d known the street’s reputation before we’d moved in. When we moved out, and I went to change our electric bill, the woman looked at our address and said, “You’re moving off of X street? I can’t imagine why.” Apparently she lived four streets down and was considering moving just due to the noise.
As for me, my cleaning got started today before I even had a chance to brush my teeth. How is it that the cats always know when my husband’s swept and mopped the floors? I walked into the bathroom today to find the litter box on it’s side, and half the litter and associated grossness on the floor. So I had to clean that up right away. I guess it put me in the right mood, though, because I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher while I was waiting for the water to boil for my tea, and I’ve gotten out the vaccuum so I can vaccuum the couch. I’m not sure what else is on my plate for the day. Finishing the laundry, I think. I’ll figure a couple of other things out.