WORKING HARD

I had a list of rooms to clear last night. Guess what. I didn't even make it through half of it. I had 3 h 45 min to work. I probably wasted at least 45 min on the phone and chatting doing nothing. I spent 30 min on laundry instead of 10 and those rooms where simply more work than I expected.

I finished the first room. The guest room. I thought I had 2 weeks to prep it, but it turned out it needs to be done by tomorrow 11 am. I meant to leave the vacuuming to the cleaning fairy, but ended up doing it myself. It only needs bedding now, than it is all the way done. Oh wait. At least for this guest, it will need some more prepping and clearing of shelf space for guest #2 who is staying a lot longer.

The second room I worked on was the bedroom of my girls. That room is such a night mare. I ended up only picking trash and broken stuff out, discarded it and put things in baskets and boxes attempting to pre sort it. I had every intention of a 6 am wake up call (that happened) and going through the stuff before school. That kind of didn't happen. I forgot that Ella has early start and I highly overestimated how fit I would feel myself. In the end Marie did a few things half heartedly, Ella was sent off to practice reading and I focused on not yelling at anyone. 

I dreamt about doing it in the afternoon, but of course that never happened. Somehow I doubt it will ever happen and that room will just return to it's terrible state and it will all have been in vain. 

1 DOWN, 3 TO GO - ROTM

Believe it or not, I ALREADY dealt with 1 of the baskets. True. "Already" might not be the correct term.  I DEALT WITH IT! Yes, I cheated a little and put some stuff in other baskets. But only because I really needed the empty basket to do laundry. I was only able to do that because I have been taking things out of the other baskets, too. I put things back where they belong. I fixed things, I tossed things. I DEALT WITH IT! I might want to step it up a little. I don't want to be working on this for another month, but I DEALT WITH IT! Yes, I know, I already mentioned it. Deal with it. hahaha!

THE BASKETS OF HORROR

4 Baskets. 4 horrific baskets. I moved them from the girls' room to the boys room. I told them 1 day. 4 days later they are still there. Yes. I am dealing with them. But I am far from done. I am halfway through the first. Most of it ist stuff that actually needs to be dealt with. And every item that I can simply toss I have to earn. Puzzle pieces, Barbie shoes, pens. Legos. LEGOS. Always Legos. The boys gave me permission to keep the baskets there for a little bit longer. I know if I move those baskets back into the girls room they will tear them apart and stuff will be everywhere. AGAIN! I don't think that I can handle that at the moment. 

I have made progress. I really have. And it was easier than expected. One day at a time. 

ROTM - FYI

FYI: The room of the month is the downstairs bathroom and I got it done LAST WEEK! Yes. Last week. Seriously. I washed the tiles and got rid of the hard water deposits on the faucet by soaking it in vinegar. So there. Good enough. Trust me. The cabinets are organized and I will not burden myself with taking them apart just for protocol.

My house fairy and I also spent almost 30 min in the girls' room just picking up stuff that was lying around, throwing it into baskets. Can you believe it? No sorting, just pick up and toss it in a basket. Okay, so maybe I sorted a tiny bit, but almost nothing. We didn't even manage to vacuum in those 30 min, Just pick stuff off the floor and then I sent her off before we were done so she could catch her bus. 

Now I am left with 4 baskets to pick through and a table with a 15 in layer of stuff on it to go through. Oh and never mind the book shelf. But let us not look into a bleak future up a steep rocky path ending in the clouds making me think I can never reach the top. Lets look back and enjoy the view of the now empty floor. I can do this. Yes, yes, I can.

ROTM - NIGHTMARE

What a nightmare that room is! January will haunt me for the rest of the year if this is not resolved soon. I made the boys work on their room to keep up appearances. And I just worked in the girls' room for an hour keeping them working without seeing much progress. Yes, I see progress, but if we keep going at this rate this room will at least 4 full hours of work with the 3 of us. And that is assuming that they won't play in it or toss clothes around. That'S also assuming their little brother will stay out of it. Fat chance, I know. We already spilled the same game box 3 times. I am ready to just toss the game if it weren't for the fact that Ella bought it with her own money just 6 weeks ago. Not even my husband's approach to cleaning seems to help in their. He just takes a broom swipes everything into one big pile and then picks out the keepers. But if you first have to clear enough floor space to even start sweeping you know you are doomed. 

On the upside. I am finally catching up with laundry it seems. The hampers might be pretty full, but none of them is full enough to justify starting one load. Only one load to fold and about 3 or 4 to put away. If I stick with it, I can get it done today.

Editors note: I didn't. I was too busy having fun with the kids!

ROTM - MY TIME IS UP

My time is up. The room isn't done. I am trying to feel like I failed, but I can't. I started in the middle of the month and the project was insane. To add to the madness last week brought with it 6 additional appointments that took a total of 15 hours out of my week. Basically to full work days on top of my normal madness. 2 things I had no control over, 1 was a doctors appointment I made weeks ago not knowing how full this week would be and the other 3 were school and medical appointments where I felt if I didn't act fast I might miss out on getting the help we need. 

When I first picke dthis room I had no expectations of actually finishing, which makes it hard to feel like I failed.

So the room is a mess still. But less of a mess. there is enough free floor space that the girls actually started playing in their room again. we are far from done, I know. The last thing I did in that room was 5 days ago and I added more stuff figuring it wouldn't make a difference. It didn't. 

What now you wonder? Well, pick a new room of course. That means now I have 2 rooms to work on. The boy's room is next. Why? Because that was almost done during the 14 day challenge and I can take advantage of the progress made back then. Plus. They will be doing most of the work, which means I can focus on the girls' room still. 

SYSIPHUS

Sysiphus I fell your pain. I have this 3 year old living with me. If I put it in a box, he will take it back out. If i collect it off the floor, he will throw it right back. If I  make a neat little pile he will walk right through it. It couldn't have been much worse for you.

Despite the cruel 3 year old I got 2 waste baskets full of recycling out. I have also started picking pieces to games out of the random things on the floor. I have 8 days left and I will make the most of it!

ROTM - PUTTING THINGS BACK

As I predicted, little people went through the things left on the floor and created extra work by dumping out games and spreading the content of boxes. I knew better than to leave the stuff out. Case of self sabotage? Most likely. But the Unstoppables have made some serious progress. Besides picking up at least 300 items in this room every day, (we found the floor! Yeah!) I put all the clothes and linnen back into the wardrobe. Most of the games went into the big wardrobe in the guestroom in the basement. Why? No time to deal with them, plus they were stacked in so tightly the girls couldn't even get any game out without creating a mess.

Over the last few days I realized that there is not much storage space in that room. There is a wardrobe that has enough room for clothes. A bookshelf, loaded with books and a tiny cluttered bookshelf in the corner. Anything that is "art related" is packed into dense piles on the little table and the rest, which is a lot, is more or less flying around loosely. I have a random assortment of boxes the stuff is supposed to go into, but the boxes have nowhere to go. I am not quite sure how to solve this dilemma yet. I would love to cut the amount of stuff in half, but will settle for parting with a third. SO far things are looking good. My head cold is a nuisance but so far can't stop me. I can do this!

ROTM - TEARING APART THE WARDROBE

I had fun tearing apart the wardrobe. I took all the clothes, games and linnen out, and washed the shelves. Too bad I lost my stamina and never got the stuff back in. Games and puzzles are out for little people to peruse and clean clothes and linnen are available to be torn apart and trampled into the dirt. Considering that the floor is covered in toys and clothes and no floor is visible, the wardrobe  that was in semi order might not have been the most obvious place to start with. On the other hand it is the only section of the room where everything already has its place and it was more a question of cleaning and sorting out items, torn or too small. Which I did. I got a few items back in but most is still stacked across the room. Funny thing is Marie assumed it was her little brother and came to tattle. I am not sure how she thinks the little one reached the top shelf, but I am glad I am not suspect #1 when chaos is involved. Tomorrow's mission is to get the stuff back in.

ROTM - THE GIRLS WILL CRY

Why would I pick the girls' room as the room of the month? It is definitely one of the rooms that will be the most work and the month is half way over. I picked it because this room REALLY needs some TLC. Every time we were able to clean it up, it fell apart within just a few days. Proof enough that something is off, or we would be able to maintain it. Other reasons to pick it are:

• I have helpers (like it or not)
• I have started this room a few times and never finished
• I was in no mood to tear apart rooms like the bathroom just because I didn't wipe down all the shelves

So here are the rules:

• take apart
• deep clean
• declutter
• put back together
• available time: 1 month

Lets get cracking.