Project Simplify: Week 4, Unfinished Projects

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, what the hell is this? It has been weeks since week 3, surely she was done already?! Alas, no. I have many excuses but I’ll spare you. Here is the Very Important Bottom Line: Sometimes it doesn’t matter when you finish, it just matters that you do finish. Get it? Yay!

So, truly, this final week was the reason I committed to doing all the Project Simplify weeks. Unfinished projects eat up valuable real estate in my brain. SERIOUSLY. It is an unfortunate addendum to my subclinical OCD (I’m not kidding about that, so don’t be insulted if you’ve got full-blown OCD of any variety, I feel for you deeply because sometimes this brain betrayal really sucks). I can’t forget these things that I’ve committed to, no matter how long it takes me to complete them. Example: I bought a tiara last weekend at the Georgia Renaissance Festival in part because I promised a picture of myself in a tiara to my dear teacher, Francesca De Grandis, about ten years ago. I bet she doesn’t even remember that promise, but I do! (The good news is, I finally found the right tiara! I cleaned my house wearing it! Yay!)

But enough of that. You want pictures, right?! Well, here ya go!

Sweet Sally… she’s a leopard gecko, and just not prone to complaining, but her aquarium was desperately overdue for a cleaning…

Sally’s aquarium, before

I took everything out and washed it, then refilled with fresh sand and clean accessories. She was diggin’ it!

 

fresh and clean!

I also had a bookshelf to put together to help with the Boy Room Chaos. What Boy Room Chaos? THIS!

Boy Room Chaos, take 1

Boy Room Chaos, take 2

I think the shelf helped:

Chaos contained!

It certainly relieved some pressure here:

Hey, it’s still a boy’s room. okay?

With that, my work here is complete. Now I just need to take that picture wearing the tiara…

 

 

 

 

Project Simplify Week Three: PILES!!!

I have really been looking forward to this one. Piles happen and even though I know they will happen again, it’s nice to clear them out once in a while. So Many Things can hide and be forgotten in a pile! My house is tiny, which is mostly fabulous for a subclinical OCD cleaning freak like me, but it does sometimes stretch my imagination beyond the breaking point to find homes for All The Things. With three kids, one of whom is rather a hoarder, and it gets a little dicey. But check these out!

before pile #1

The box is all my seeds I ordered this year (so many explanations and excuses embodied by that box…). The shoes and at least 75% of the basket contents were donations, some was trash, with only a tiny bit falling into the “Where the heck does this go?” category. Voila!

pile #1, vanquished!

Here’s another spot where a combination of donations and items to put in storage accumulated:

pile #2

Vanquishing this one took an additional sorting stage:

sorting into keep in storage, keep and put away, and donate

Persistence pays!

pile #2 all gone!

I even took all the storage-bound stuff to the shed and the donations to the thrift store! DONE!
Just to prove I’m really not kidding about being subclinically OCD, I also cleared off both desks… the first wasn’t too painful:

desk #1 before

desk #1 after

Oh, and the top of the printer:

printer after

But this was truly the piece de resistance:

my poor, poor desk, before

Can you imagine trying to work here? Of course not. That’s because it is impossible. However, I have been reading Lori Pickert’s Project-Based Homeschooling: Mentoring Self-Directed Learners, and right off the bat she dives into talking about the child’s workspace and how it needs to be easy to use and set up to show the work done there is valued. Well duh, don’t I need that in a workspace too? So I worked this area over with that in mind. I moved kid books to the kid shelves and put away what didn’t belong. I also selected a two-foot tall stack of books, magazines, and workbooks to give away. The end result?

a workspace I can use!

Hallelujah! Anyone wanna take bets on how long I make it before it’s all covered up again?

Project Simplify: What Happened to Week Two?

I have a confession that might offend: I don’t really have any terribly pesky closets. Don’t hate me. I do, however, have a troublesome boys’ room:

room for boys, before

I had begun picking up a bit in order to vacuum before snapping these, so they aren’t 100% “before” pictures, but I’m sure the gist is clear.

elder brother bed, before

I stared and stared at this room until I figured out a few things that might improve the flow. After vacuuming I rearranged the furniture (all by myself!) and organized their clutter, er, stuff, er, toys. The end result, at least for now:

 

after rearranging (note Wolverine on the top bunk)

boys’ room, after

Much better. Now to catch up on week three!

 

 

Project Simplify Week One: Drawers and Shelves

I managed to tackle a few drawers this week! Yay!

desk drawer, before

The first step for this one was to dump everything in the floor, then sort out what didn’t belong in this drawer before putting it all back together.

emptied onto the floor

sorted into “stay” (on the right) and “go” (on the left)

desk drawer, after

Ta-daaaa! I may pick up some additional dividers at some point, but I’m very happy with this result just as it is.

I also reworked another drawer in my office area:

office drawer, before

office drawer, after

I even had time to rework the kitchen “junk drawer”:

kitchen junk drawer, before

kitchen junk drawer, after

 

With these results I am looking forward to week two!

 

 

 

 

Project Simplify!

This is Tsh's annual cleaning-palooza (read her original post here), and I love how she has it set up this year and the fact that it's exactly where my brain is sticking as far as household messy crap is concerned. So I am DOING THIS THING!
If you want to join in, just do eet!! It starts next week, with your choice of "drawers and shelves." Post before and after pics somewhere if you like; link back if you like. Or, just clean it all up and revel in the absence of mess. I know I will!

NanoLessons

For those of you who are finding your way here because of NaNoWriMo, I want to repeat myself in the interest of full disclosure: I am not writing fiction. I feel, as I am amassing these word counts that I was so certain were impossible before, that I must confess this, that I am cheating, that this must be easier… I’m not truly sure that this is true, as I have no plan and no idea where I am going with what I’m writing, but still. It keeps working, and I keep feeling like I’m ripping somebody off… can writing really be like this? Is word count– dare I say it– easy for me??

Here on day 13 and still on track to finish, I am soon to tip the scales and have more words behind me than in front of me. If I do not die in the next week I will most likely reach the halfway point. Why is this so bizarre? Why should this not be commonplace? Why have I never been here before? I’ll tell you why, and it’s a simple, one-word answer:

Chickenshit.

I have been a chickenshit for my entire adult life thus far. That’s it. I clearly have no other excuse. I laid the blame for my previous lack of productivity squarely at the feet of my children and spouse.  “My kids are sooo needy,” I said. “I homeschool!” I declared. “My husband never helps with the kids or the housework,” I whined. “I have an anxiety disorder,” I pleaded. Well, guess what? All those things remain unchanged, but what has changed is that I have written 22,365 words in thirteen freaking days.

Now, it may be drivel. And it may get edited down to less than half of its final volume. And in the end, it may be a rehashing of the works of others that never leaves my laptop. But I no longer have the excuses I had to explain why I don’t produce. In fact, I have no excuses for not producing. I have had “zero days,” where no words left my fingers save a few comments on Facebook. But somehow this 1667 words-per-day thing is propelling me along, and I keep catching up again. I could fail. No one would care; few would even notice. Why is this working for me? I have no idea.

Perhaps I’ve harbored the words for so long that they are now just spilling forth. Perhaps I am utilizing my subclinical OCD to my greatest advantage. Perhaps this is part of my midlife crisis. Perhaps I will soon come to a screeching halt, abruptly at a complete loss for words altogether. (This looks unlikely, even to me.) But whatever comes, I have been writing, and I am no longer afraid.

Gotta See It to Believe It

I have written 16,825 words in ten days. Over 5500 of those were written today. I am more than a little bewildered by this. I am beginning to wonder, when will I run out of words?