Tag Archives: Cleaning

Yesterday was not nearly as productive as I had hoped. I allowed myself to not feel guilty about it as it was my birthday. I’m 28 already! I think I finally feel my age. I’ve always felt older than my actual age. I spent a good portion of yesterday trying not to be upset that I’m 28 and childless, but I didn’t mind getting older. After all, 28 is just a number!

I don’t know why I did this, but I scheduled a visit to the optometrist on my birthday. My last eye exam was in 2006 so I was overdue for new glasses. She dilated my eyes and they also took photographs of the inside of each eyeball. Very cool! My eyeballs are healthy, though my vision is worse. Yay.

After the doctor’s visit, hubby took me to Chipotle. I had to stay in the car while he picked up the food, as the lights were bothering my dilated eyes. Then we came home and watched The Reading Room. I didn’t realize it was a Hallmark film, but it was quite good! After that, my eyes were really tired. It might not have been a good idea to watch a movie right after doing an intensive eye exam, but I sat far away from the screen so that I could actually focus on it. Reading anything up close was impossible. It’s very weird to lose your ability to focus on something within a foot of your face!

Today was much better for productivity. I forced myself off the computer, set the timer for an hour, and got to work. After lunch, I did another hour long session. I was able to wash the dishes, sweep the kitchen, vacuum the apartment, tidy the living room, make the bed, wash two loads of clothes, hang up one of those loads to dry, clean the cat boxes, sweep the master bathroom, wash off the counters, and scrub the master bathroom’s toilet. Whew!

Then I sat down this afternoon and studied Japanese for an hour. I’m going to implement another aspect of study. I was thinking this morning that studying Japanese is good. However, I need to start trying to read primary material. At first I thought I would try reading the Bible in Japanese. Unfortunately, that is way over my skill level. Next time we go to the library, I will check out some children’s books in Japanese. I think 3 sessions each week, 15 minutes each session, tacked onto my normal study time will be very beneficial.

My quiche is almost ready to pull out of the oven and then we’ll be finishing up this week’s episode of The Biggest Loser. I hope everyone else is having a great evening!

Tuesdays are my day to work on the living room/dining room. Our dining room is actually just an extension of our living room. The “dining room” contains my desk (in all of its messiness) and our kitchen table, which is my husband’s laptop desk. Sometimes I’ll ask him to move so I can sew there or we will play games on that table, but most of the time it’s covered in paperwork and a laptop.

Our living room has the game shelf, my husband’s main desk with his desktop computer, our printer stand, sofa, and two end tables. That’s it. We still live like college students and probably will for a couple more years.

Today I completed all the basic cleaning – the bar between the kitchen and dining room, dusted, vacuumed, and picked up. I was supposed to work on my desk for an hour but I got really shaky this afternoon and couldn’t do anything for awhile. So my desk remains messy until next week or until I finish a room early and have extra time.

Tomorrow I’ll be working on the spare bedroom. I’ve posted pictures of that room before, both clean and messy. Right now it’s messy because I pulled out everything that had been stored in the closet. The spare bedroom is our “storage” room and we really need to get rid of everything we don’t use. I can’t wait until we can move into a smaller apartment because we don’t need the extra storage.

I used to have a pretty decent housecleaning schedule. For some reason, I can’t find the paper copy and I never typed it out on the computer. I guess I’ll have to recreate it!

Mondays are Kitchen days. I still need to work out which tasks are weekly vs. monthly, but I started deep cleaning the kitchen this morning. I pulled everything out of the cupboards on one side of the kitchen, consolidated spices and bags of flour, threw away the outdated items, and wiped down the shelves and cupboard doors. That side of the kitchen looks really good now! Next Monday I will tackle the other side of the kitchen.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’m going to designate as Dining/Living room day. Our game shelves and my husband’s desk are still pristine, which he is extremely happy about. My desk, on the other hand, is a huge mess. My main project tomorrow is going to be getting rid of all the clutter on my desk, throwing things out as necessary, filing the rest of the paperwork, and stacking the books neatly. I will also dust, vacuum, and clean the patio doors.

Hubby is at a client site right now, so I’m going to relax on the couch and try to finish The Well-Trained Mind. I’m really enjoying the book but I am ready to move on to something else! If I can get hubby’s computer to work properly, I’ll play a classical cd while reading. If not, I guess I’ll have to use my laptop to play something.

Hopefully hubby’s work goes quickly so we’re not eating a late dinner. If it’s late, oh well! Sub sandwiches are great at any hour.

Today really felt like Monday. Our air conditioning died yesterday so hubby spent a couple hours this morning at the mechanics’ trying to figure out what is wrong. They needed to dig deeper into the electrical system and hubby had to be at a client’s office at 11:30, so we’re taking the car in on Tuesday. Hubby spent the rest of the day at a client’s office and is just now on his way home.

As for me, I spent a good portion of the day being productive. I closed my laptop and forced myself to work. Nice change! The laptop being closed actually keeps me productive because I know it’s off limits until my break. If the laptop is open and I’m connected to the internet, I will sit down for “just one thing.”

Instead, I ran a couple loads of laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned out the cat boxes, and made this season’s first pumpkin pie! I’m really excited to taste the pie tonight as the recipe called for freshly grated nutmeg. I actually found a whole nutmeg at the health food store and grated it myself. I’ve never done that before! The fresh spices smelled really good.

With our vacation a few weeks ago, I threw myself off on the habits I was working on. I’m going to start over. As I’m familiar with these habits and just need to get back into the routine, I’m going to work on all three this week. Hopefully that goes well!

Habit #1 – All dishes washed, every day. (Day 1 – check! I’m so happy that the kitchen is clean, even after making a huge mess with the pumpkin pie. I spilled cornstarch all over the counter!)
Habit #2 – Both cat boxes cleaned every day. (I’m switching this habit from the morning to anytime in the day. I found myself more likely to get it done every day if I didn’t have to force myself to do it first thing in the morning.)
Habit #3 – Daily flossing. (Dentist appointment next month!)