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neadodsA lot of important and not-so important things, presented in one post to keep from spamming f-lists.
Mrs. Palmer
When last I heard, she was awake again (good) but not tracking well (bad, but not horrible). Again, all prayers, hopes, wishes, and lit candles will be much appreciated. (I called my Mother last night and basically said "Y'know some of the folks that prayed for you? It's your turn." She was amused - and is on the job.)
Reviewing the Evidence
My review for In Like Flynn, part of the Molly Murphy series, is up. Link @ right, my LJ.
My Review Site
Well, I've heard back from I Love a Mystery Newsletter and I'm going to pitch The Mystery Reader. However, I'm still mulling the notion of a monthly review site that would review books with female protagonists from a woman's POV. Hold that thought; I'm going to try to revisit it later this month and think about the mechanics.
PS - I have found 5 mystery reviewing sites online. Just FYI.
Also FYI, according to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bentleywg they're putting Dracula online as a blog, with posts coinciding with the posts in the text: http://infocult.typepad.com/dracula/ I think this idea is too cool for words. Maybe rather than starting the Public Domain Gazette right now, I should go find an epistlatory novel and blog it, and we can put supplementary material in the comments?
I also hear that Pepy's diary is being LJed an entry at a time.
Flyfan
Flylady has her good points. But she has some really annoying ones as well. I find her language cutesy, some of the things she insists on downright overboard (like waxing the sink and owning laceup shoes), and her aim at Stay At Home Moms well to the side of my Working Single Woman target.
However, it must be said (and I have eyewitness accounts) that my place has been so messy that I've lost large items, and once managed to misplace (and forget about) the notice to renew my car's license. For which I got duly ticketed.
I'm still getting things on gear but these things have really worked for me.
Going With the Flow
I lost my license renewal because I had the supremely stupid idea of putting Important Papers somewhere out of reach. Look, I'm always going to dump things on the inside of my door as I walk into the house, and I'm always going to sort the mail on the kitchen table. Trying to do anything else only led to instant failure because I was going against my own flow. Solution: a basket beside the door for keys, garage remote, phone charger. A chair on the other side dedicated to dumping coats and bags. (Yeah, it needs to be excavated once in a while, but still, I know where everything is!) Hanging files in the kitchen, one for bills to be paid and one for longer-term info to hold like stock reports and jury duty summonses. I even found cute cup-shaped holders at a craft fair, so the file holders look like the decor. A basket at a yardsale is the perfect size to hold a stack of magazines; it sits beside the sofa and I deal with it when it fills up.
Rule #1 - Don't try to change ingrained habits, that leads to failure. Instead, redirect.
Lists. Public Lists, even
I'm still stunned that anyone actually reads my resolutions list, but putting it online and particularly repeating it monthly with strikeouts has been amazing for me. Seriously, it has made me focus not only on what MUST be done, but what I want to accomplish, and the knowledge that it's going to go up every single month keeps me focused on it. Plus, I can't express the feeling of accomplishment to look at everything that gets struck out, particularly by the end of the year.
Rule #2 - Write it all down. Not just the punishing "you gotta clean ups" but the hopeful "I want to learn" or "I want to go to." They're goals too.
One Step at a Time
Flylady got this right. One thing at a time, and if you can only put in a few minutes a day on it, then put in those few minutes. If it's something huge, like decluttering a room, then give yourself a whole month to do it and plug away slowly but steadily. I dealt with my library, which was heaped waist-high in places, by going through it a half hour a day. And - this is KEY! - while the library was my problem NOTHING ELSE WAS! No recriminations for not working on other projects, no thinking ahead even. The library was my problem for that month and nothing else mattered.
Rule #3 - One thing at a time. Pick a month and a room, and deal with everything else later.
Baskets are a Gal's Best Friend
I clean with the 5 basket method. Literally, five baskets - well, four and a trash can. Everything that is out of place in the room gets picked up. If it belongs in the room, it is put into place. If it doesn't it is put into:
The Upstairs Basket - things to go upstairs. This basket will be filled and ignored until it's time to deal with the upstairs room.
The Basement Basket - ditto.
The Rest of This Floor Basket - When you are through cleaning this room, and only then, take the filled "this floor" basket and go into all the other rooms, emptying it as you go. If the room is cleaned, put the item in place. If the room isn't cleaned, DO NOT TAKE THE TIME NOW! Just lob it in and you'll put it in place when it's this room's turn.
The Donation Basket - shove things in this basket to go to Ebay, Prepare for Fair, a raffle basket, be put on Freecyle, etc.
Besides, baskets are great for:
Designated Clutter Areas
You're gonna make yourself apeshit if you Must Clean Up Everything At All Times. It's sure not in my nature, and I doubt it's in the nature of anyone else who ends up with piles of clutter. So y'know what? Look back at rule #1 and realize that stuff put in baskets neatly shelved somewhere? Is clean enough. My bills sit unopened in a pile in their clay cup until I'm ready to pay them. My magazines stack up in their basket until I get around to gutting them for the articles I want. It's the same principle as putting your books in a bookshelf - they don't have to be alphabetized, they just have to have a place to be in. Find a place, put things in the place, and don't worry past that right now.
Rule #4 - there's a difference between macroclean (things in places) and microclean (things in places which are organized, labelled, color coordinated, yadda yadda). Macroclean first. Yes, that's clean enough. Turn microcleaning into its own project for later.
Paperwork
I have a palm pilot, an LJ, and a pocket calendar, and I use all three of 'em. The LJ is a place to keep track of the BIG annual plans. The Palm Pilot keeps track of things that need to be kept long-term track of - birthdays, conventions, which zines do I own, how many days are 28 from now. The pocket calendar is a daily to-do list. Yeah, it's very belt-and-suspenders, but it's working. And the only thing I need to carry is the little pocket calendar.
Rule #5 - Have a way to know what you're doing, but don't make it big and complicated. A little calendar for notes is all you really need with you so that you can get through one day at a time.
Martha Stewart is Mentally Ill
You do NOT have to do it yourself if there's a product out there that will help you. I'm a great believer in bleach tablets for the toilet, shower curtains that can go through the washing machine, etc. Also, have things stockpiled where you can use 'em. Seriously, I have my windex, rug shampoo, and other cleansers in a stack in the hall closet where I can grab them quickly - and I have a stack of rags there too. That way I can use a rag or three, toss 'em in the wash, and still have more if I need one later.
Also, the Hoover floormate scrubber? Really is worth every penny. So's a little carpet shampoo-er, if you've got pets.
Rule #6 - Have things that make your life easier. Have them where you can get to them easily and quickly, and have more than one so you aren't stuck "without" when you need one.
And a Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven
My schedule is heavily calendar-driven, but not in the same manner as Flylady's. She's divvied up the house. I've divvied up house-wide tasks into weekly, monthly, and "as required." The weekly tasks were once subdivided so that I could "spend just a few minutes a day keeping a sparkling house." Wanna take bets as to how long THAT lasted? But still, I can do 'em all in about 45 minutes or less in a single day, and as long as they get more or less done weekly, life is fine.
Weekly - water indoor plants, run around with a duster wiping off TVs, pictures, and looking for cobwebs on the ceiling, sweep bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen, windex mirrors, squirt shower down with regular cleanser, and wipe bathroom down with a wipe-and-toss cleanser.
Monthly - wash shower curtain, bleach shower, change my earrings (long story), soak plants, update LJ list, mop bathroom floor
As required - laundry, running floorscrubber, and vacuuming.
Quarterly - rotate mattresses, check fire alarms.
Annually - it's worth it to get a carpet cleaning company or a rentasteamer to do your carpets once a year, at least for the high-traffic rooms.
I used to be a housekeeper at a camp (!) and they had the motto "A small job now saves a big job later." Which is annoying, but also true.
Rule #7 - a weekly and monthly routine really can save you time and effort over time.
If there's enough discussion in the comments, I could be talked into starting a clutter-dealing-with community.
As for Getting Rid of It All:
- I put Freecycle on digest so I'd miss all the tempting stuff I wanted but I had access so I could dump my things.
- I haven't sold on ebay yet... but I have everything to go corralled in one place and "sell on ebay" is on my annual list of things to do.
Free cleaning your stuff advice:
(Frommaureen_the_mad) You can use the stuff that bleaches toilets clean to also bleach the grout in your shower white again. They say to squirt it on and leave it for 15 minutes - I tend to squirt it on and come back in 2 hours. Leave a window open and the fan on!
Those lambswool dusters on a stick can be handwashed in your sink with shampoo. (Shampoo and conditioner is quite good for 'em.) Hang them to dry in the shower, then floof 'em back up when dry.
Used dryer sheets really do make great dustcloths. Particularly on static-inducing tech like TVs, cable boxes, and computer screens.
Mrs. Palmer
When last I heard, she was awake again (good) but not tracking well (bad, but not horrible). Again, all prayers, hopes, wishes, and lit candles will be much appreciated. (I called my Mother last night and basically said "Y'know some of the folks that prayed for you? It's your turn." She was amused - and is on the job.)
Reviewing the Evidence
My review for In Like Flynn, part of the Molly Murphy series, is up. Link @ right, my LJ.
My Review Site
Well, I've heard back from I Love a Mystery Newsletter and I'm going to pitch The Mystery Reader. However, I'm still mulling the notion of a monthly review site that would review books with female protagonists from a woman's POV. Hold that thought; I'm going to try to revisit it later this month and think about the mechanics.
PS - I have found 5 mystery reviewing sites online. Just FYI.
Also FYI, according to
bentleywg they're putting Dracula online as a blog, with posts coinciding with the posts in the text: http://infocult.typepad.com/dracula/ I think this idea is too cool for words. Maybe rather than starting the Public Domain Gazette right now, I should go find an epistlatory novel and blog it, and we can put supplementary material in the comments?I also hear that Pepy's diary is being LJed an entry at a time.
Flyfan
Flylady has her good points. But she has some really annoying ones as well. I find her language cutesy, some of the things she insists on downright overboard (like waxing the sink and owning laceup shoes), and her aim at Stay At Home Moms well to the side of my Working Single Woman target.
However, it must be said (and I have eyewitness accounts) that my place has been so messy that I've lost large items, and once managed to misplace (and forget about) the notice to renew my car's license. For which I got duly ticketed.
I'm still getting things on gear but these things have really worked for me.
Going With the Flow
I lost my license renewal because I had the supremely stupid idea of putting Important Papers somewhere out of reach. Look, I'm always going to dump things on the inside of my door as I walk into the house, and I'm always going to sort the mail on the kitchen table. Trying to do anything else only led to instant failure because I was going against my own flow. Solution: a basket beside the door for keys, garage remote, phone charger. A chair on the other side dedicated to dumping coats and bags. (Yeah, it needs to be excavated once in a while, but still, I know where everything is!) Hanging files in the kitchen, one for bills to be paid and one for longer-term info to hold like stock reports and jury duty summonses. I even found cute cup-shaped holders at a craft fair, so the file holders look like the decor. A basket at a yardsale is the perfect size to hold a stack of magazines; it sits beside the sofa and I deal with it when it fills up.
Rule #1 - Don't try to change ingrained habits, that leads to failure. Instead, redirect.
Lists. Public Lists, even
I'm still stunned that anyone actually reads my resolutions list, but putting it online and particularly repeating it monthly with strikeouts has been amazing for me. Seriously, it has made me focus not only on what MUST be done, but what I want to accomplish, and the knowledge that it's going to go up every single month keeps me focused on it. Plus, I can't express the feeling of accomplishment to look at everything that gets struck out, particularly by the end of the year.
Rule #2 - Write it all down. Not just the punishing "you gotta clean ups" but the hopeful "I want to learn" or "I want to go to." They're goals too.
One Step at a Time
Flylady got this right. One thing at a time, and if you can only put in a few minutes a day on it, then put in those few minutes. If it's something huge, like decluttering a room, then give yourself a whole month to do it and plug away slowly but steadily. I dealt with my library, which was heaped waist-high in places, by going through it a half hour a day. And - this is KEY! - while the library was my problem NOTHING ELSE WAS! No recriminations for not working on other projects, no thinking ahead even. The library was my problem for that month and nothing else mattered.
Rule #3 - One thing at a time. Pick a month and a room, and deal with everything else later.
Baskets are a Gal's Best Friend
I clean with the 5 basket method. Literally, five baskets - well, four and a trash can. Everything that is out of place in the room gets picked up. If it belongs in the room, it is put into place. If it doesn't it is put into:
The Upstairs Basket - things to go upstairs. This basket will be filled and ignored until it's time to deal with the upstairs room.
The Basement Basket - ditto.
The Rest of This Floor Basket - When you are through cleaning this room, and only then, take the filled "this floor" basket and go into all the other rooms, emptying it as you go. If the room is cleaned, put the item in place. If the room isn't cleaned, DO NOT TAKE THE TIME NOW! Just lob it in and you'll put it in place when it's this room's turn.
The Donation Basket - shove things in this basket to go to Ebay, Prepare for Fair, a raffle basket, be put on Freecyle, etc.
Besides, baskets are great for:
Designated Clutter Areas
You're gonna make yourself apeshit if you Must Clean Up Everything At All Times. It's sure not in my nature, and I doubt it's in the nature of anyone else who ends up with piles of clutter. So y'know what? Look back at rule #1 and realize that stuff put in baskets neatly shelved somewhere? Is clean enough. My bills sit unopened in a pile in their clay cup until I'm ready to pay them. My magazines stack up in their basket until I get around to gutting them for the articles I want. It's the same principle as putting your books in a bookshelf - they don't have to be alphabetized, they just have to have a place to be in. Find a place, put things in the place, and don't worry past that right now.
Rule #4 - there's a difference between macroclean (things in places) and microclean (things in places which are organized, labelled, color coordinated, yadda yadda). Macroclean first. Yes, that's clean enough. Turn microcleaning into its own project for later.
Paperwork
I have a palm pilot, an LJ, and a pocket calendar, and I use all three of 'em. The LJ is a place to keep track of the BIG annual plans. The Palm Pilot keeps track of things that need to be kept long-term track of - birthdays, conventions, which zines do I own, how many days are 28 from now. The pocket calendar is a daily to-do list. Yeah, it's very belt-and-suspenders, but it's working. And the only thing I need to carry is the little pocket calendar.
Rule #5 - Have a way to know what you're doing, but don't make it big and complicated. A little calendar for notes is all you really need with you so that you can get through one day at a time.
Martha Stewart is Mentally Ill
You do NOT have to do it yourself if there's a product out there that will help you. I'm a great believer in bleach tablets for the toilet, shower curtains that can go through the washing machine, etc. Also, have things stockpiled where you can use 'em. Seriously, I have my windex, rug shampoo, and other cleansers in a stack in the hall closet where I can grab them quickly - and I have a stack of rags there too. That way I can use a rag or three, toss 'em in the wash, and still have more if I need one later.
Also, the Hoover floormate scrubber? Really is worth every penny. So's a little carpet shampoo-er, if you've got pets.
Rule #6 - Have things that make your life easier. Have them where you can get to them easily and quickly, and have more than one so you aren't stuck "without" when you need one.
And a Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven
My schedule is heavily calendar-driven, but not in the same manner as Flylady's. She's divvied up the house. I've divvied up house-wide tasks into weekly, monthly, and "as required." The weekly tasks were once subdivided so that I could "spend just a few minutes a day keeping a sparkling house." Wanna take bets as to how long THAT lasted? But still, I can do 'em all in about 45 minutes or less in a single day, and as long as they get more or less done weekly, life is fine.
Weekly - water indoor plants, run around with a duster wiping off TVs, pictures, and looking for cobwebs on the ceiling, sweep bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen, windex mirrors, squirt shower down with regular cleanser, and wipe bathroom down with a wipe-and-toss cleanser.
Monthly - wash shower curtain, bleach shower, change my earrings (long story), soak plants, update LJ list, mop bathroom floor
As required - laundry, running floorscrubber, and vacuuming.
Quarterly - rotate mattresses, check fire alarms.
Annually - it's worth it to get a carpet cleaning company or a rentasteamer to do your carpets once a year, at least for the high-traffic rooms.
I used to be a housekeeper at a camp (!) and they had the motto "A small job now saves a big job later." Which is annoying, but also true.
Rule #7 - a weekly and monthly routine really can save you time and effort over time.
If there's enough discussion in the comments, I could be talked into starting a clutter-dealing-with community.
As for Getting Rid of It All:
- I put Freecycle on digest so I'd miss all the tempting stuff I wanted but I had access so I could dump my things.
- I haven't sold on ebay yet... but I have everything to go corralled in one place and "sell on ebay" is on my annual list of things to do.
Free cleaning your stuff advice:
(From
maureen_the_mad) You can use the stuff that bleaches toilets clean to also bleach the grout in your shower white again. They say to squirt it on and leave it for 15 minutes - I tend to squirt it on and come back in 2 hours. Leave a window open and the fan on!Those lambswool dusters on a stick can be handwashed in your sink with shampoo. (Shampoo and conditioner is quite good for 'em.) Hang them to dry in the shower, then floof 'em back up when dry.
Used dryer sheets really do make great dustcloths. Particularly on static-inducing tech like TVs, cable boxes, and computer screens.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-11 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:13 pm (UTC)Pepys' diary has been running for a couple of years [LJ]. The neat thing is, the entries are being annotated and cross-referenced as they go along.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 02:39 pm (UTC)Yesterday? The dining room and living room got cleaned. Top to bottom. Dusted, decattified (geez, it's amazing how much BLACK fur sticks to a PINK rug in the spring!), decluttered. STill have one or two more things to do in there, but it has been VACUUUMED. My sinuses were starting to drive me up a wall.
I own a carpet cleaner. Time to resurrect it again. :)
Today? We attack the garage while the sun still shines. :) Once the garage has some semblance of space again, we can use that as a "temporary site" for things that need to be done. :)
I like the baskets idea. Saw a BIG load of baskets at Sam's club the other day, and since we have to return the lamppost we got there (had a small issue with it not working), we can do that simultaneously. :)
Must make time to see a no-longer-pregnant lady this week. :)
Must keep determination to keep this up. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 03:54 pm (UTC)one problem is the "other stuff to do" category -- even with a weekend daytime free, i can't get into an all-day project when i have a deadline -- its one of those cases where i can't start a project of that magnitude knowing that i'll have to stop before its done, because that's where the mess can come from: half-started projects, rushed to completion because of the deadline, then no time to cleanup...the craft room gets that once every season.
hard enough trying to get into a project that involves taking stuff outside knowing that i have the deadline of darkness when i have to take things back in. today's garage work is already one of those, but i have no other time to do it.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 04:11 pm (UTC)The other thing is... I rarely set a big project at all day. I assume it's going to take all week, if not longer... for the garage, for instance, can you clear things to the middle instead of to the outside and just park outside the garage for a day or two?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 05:43 pm (UTC)the garage is THAT FULL, the cars have never been inside that place even once. there is no "move to the middle" because the middle itself is what needs to be cleaned up. trouble is the middle is what usually needs to be kept and whats in its way on the sides is what needs to be properly sorted. and none of it can stay outside during the nite.
hell, with no annoucements whatsoever anywhere in our neighborhood, just having the stuff on the lawn during the craft-room clean-sweep and we had no less than 4 visitors looking at us like yard-sale vultures.
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 06:16 pm (UTC)Ah.
Maybe what you need to do in the garage, then, is start by pulling out all the things you want to get rid of and going ahead and dumping them on the lawn for people to stare at, vulture-like?
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 10:04 pm (UTC)almost every single box in there is 10% critical-keep, 30% would like to keep, 60% trash.
EVERY box.
meaning its not as simple as just stick it outside to go away because there really are things that shouldn't go. and somethings that should go, but have personal financial info that shouldn't go in the generic trash (like lots of receipts and crap from the 90s).
so in reality, every box NEEDS to be sorted; every box IS a micro-clean project. and it can only happen at some point for 2 months in the spring or 2 months in the fall. any other time is simply too hot or cold to bother.
that's where the whole "don't how much of what we have" comes from. we could set aside a place for all of the "candle-making stuff", and then find a box we didn't know that was full of it. or a box of "yarn" (where already filling 2 boxes of yarn inside the house, 1 in the garage, and i've got 2 more bags of the stuff that won't fit in either).
and then there's all the boxes of cyd's financials from pretty much every year since she left school 'til she met me...some of those are all mixed up with other papers we don't give a rats butt about, but they're HUGE (2x2x3 FOOT u-haul boxes) and we can't just toss 'em like that. each of those boxes *might* have something related to cyd's MS which she HAS to keep. and then each of those boxes is (as i said), 60% stuff that can just go, but needs to go in the "right way" to avoid getting credit-card numbers and SSNs exposed to the generic trash.
to give you some perspective
Date: 2005-05-10 11:00 pm (UTC)it wasn't.
hidden down in the bottom was a plastic grocery bag. that bag appears to have come from a "dump" of crap of cyd's car, circa june of 2004 (according to the wegmans receipts and, well, you'll see)
that bag contains:
and that's just *1* small grocery bag that didn't even look that full. and at that exact ratio i described: 10% critical, 30% want to keep, 60% trash, some of which has to be shredded.
now imagine a 2x2x3 *foot* box just like that, or a 4-foot plastic "tub" (a dump from *my* car circa fall 2002), and you get the idea. more than half the boxes in there are just like that.
i'm keeping the nickel.
Re: to give you some perspective
Date: 2005-05-11 03:20 pm (UTC):*
no subject
Date: 2005-05-10 05:38 pm (UTC)