I’ve been staring at this mess for a few months now, periodically shoving aside enough things to make a work space, but never actually putting anything away. The only thing that stresses me out more than looking at that mess is the thought of cleaning it up. Which is why it stays there, and I mostly choose to spend my time in some other room.

Well, no more.

Usually when I return from the clayathon, I dump my supplies in a corner of the dining room, and don’t touch them for another six months or more.  The clayathon nearly always satisfies my polymer-related urges almost to the point of burn-out.  This time, though, it has rejuvenated me more than anything else, and I find myself feeling the urge to crank out more. More. MORE!

This, of course, would be easier to accomplish if my workspace didn’t look like a bomb went off in the middle of it.  It’s a pretty bomb of fabric, ribbons, thread, yarn, raw polymer, and recently-finished claythings, but a bomb nonetheless.

So yesterday I took a long hard look at the table, and decided that I need to be brutally honest with myself.  The first realization?  I’m not going to finish those quilts for the boys any time soon.  I’ve wanted to do it for months now, but I haven’t wanted it enough to take action.  So I admitted the fact to myself, and that allowed me to put away the sewing machine, the ironing board, the half-finished quilts, two tubs of sewing supplies, and miscellaneous fabrics and trims that were laying around.

What a relief that was.

It’s still pretty messy, as you can see above, but let me assure you it was much worse yesterday before the sewing stuff was retired.

This gives me new energy for tackling the rest of that mess.  I hope to get it done today or tomorrow at the latest, and then I can move forward with some fun plans, including a new videocast and teaching my son how to make clay-covered pens.  I may even combine the two…  stay tuned!

So, how does your workspace look these days?  Dealing with a mess, too?  Or are you one of those neat and tidy types?  And if you are a neat and tidy type, please tell me – what is that like?  Is it as blissful as it sounds?

I started switching out the Christmas this week in the kitchen.  I always start with the kitchen – it’s the easiest room in the house.

All I have to do is swap out the linens: napkins, apron, and table mat.

Today, I also had to clean up the mess that had accumulated there, but, oh, it was so worth it.  The room looks 100 times brighter when there’s no clutter on the table top.

It makes me want to have company and serve them cookies.  So I did.

For some people, the process of keeping house is a joy – it makes them feel especially good to maintain a clean and comfortable nest for their families.  Oh, how I wish I were like that!  Don’t get me wrong, I do feel good when I manage to be all domestic, make a nice supper, have the laundry folded and put away… it’s the process of getting there that I detest.

I hate to clean.  I hate to pick things up off the floor and put them away.  I hate to vacuum.  I hate to dust.  I hate to wash the dishes.  Shall I continue?

I can power through the more mundane of these tasks if I listen to an entertaining podcast, or if I stream something interesting on Netflix.  But it doesn’t really make me like the process.  All it really does is make me forget for a while that I’m working.

Anyway, I’ve been forcing myself to face the music this week. Yesterday I pretty much transformed the kitchen (yes, we do have a table!).  This morning, I straightened up and vacuumed the living room (thankfully it wasn’t too bad to begin with), took a mammogram break (I’m 40 now, these things need to be done), and then tackled this:

This is the pile of junk that was the result of my involvement in Project:Simplify.  Stuff from my closet (which still looks amazing, six months later), stuff from the top of my desk (which, sadly, is back to looking almost as bad as it did before I cleaned it), and stuff from the boys’ room (which is starting to get just a little bit scary again).  This stuff has been piled up in the hallway for half a year, waiting for me to get around to donating it somewhere.

Well, last week a rep from some charity called and asked if I had anything to donate and I said, “Yes, yes, YES! Please come take this STUFF off of my hands!” So tomorrow they will come.

Which means today, I had to lug all of those bags down the stairs and out to the garage.  All lined up like this, it looked like even more junk than I thought:

I hope they are bringing a big truck.

I am soooooo out of shape.  I mean, I already knew that, but if I needed any reminding at all, lugging a dozen (give or take) heavy bags and boxes outside, down the steps, down the front path, and into the garage was a good way to do it.  Holy cow.  I worked up enough of a sweat that I had to take a cold shower just to feel human again.

Tomorrow I hope to spend a little time in the dining room:

It’s probably not as hard as it looks, except for one box in the corner, which is full of all of the papers (bills, school stuff, junk mail) that I’ve been avoiding the last few days… that’s going to be a real bear to sort through, but it’s got to be done.  There are a few things I need in that pile, and I mean need, as in yesterday.

In other, less icky-housework-type news, Aidan wants me to knit him a sweater.  So, that’s cool.  Just need to find a pattern that I can do and that he’ll actually wear.  Any suggestions?

I took that photo Friday morning, figured I’d give it one more day to ripen, and then pick it on Saturday.  Only some thief-in-the-night creature made off with it before I could do so!

I had put the planter on top of a table, to help deter such thefts, but I guess I underestimated the resolve of the hungry neighborhood critter contingent.

So much for getting to taste my own first home-grown strawberry!  I hope it was delicious.

I’m considering moving the planter back inside.  Think it’s too late for it to bloom again?  I know next to nothing about this kind of thing…

In the meantime, I have no problem swinging by the local farm for my strawberries.  Always nice to say hello to the chickens and see what other yummy goods I can pick up while I’m there!

I transplanted the strawberry plants today.  I got them, oh, about a month ago.  I had put them temporarily in a plastic Chinese food container while I searched for a strawberry pot.

I found a pot pretty quickly, but then I chickened-out on the planting.

I’ve never planted a single fruit or vegetable in my life.  I planted flower seeds once about sixteen years ago, but they never came up. It was a lot of wasted effort and a big disappointment.

A gardener, I am not.

But I am so excited for strawberry season to start, and I want to be a part of it.  So strawberry plants, it is.

I know that I can’t expect to get much of a harvest from a pile of plants in a plastic container with no dirt, so I put on my big girl panties today and got to work transplanting.

I’m feeling optimistic about these plants.  If they could sprout a blossom while waiting patiently for me to pot them, then how much better will they thrive now that they are safely in the soil?

Grow, little strawberry, grow!

And, since I don’t really care for cleaning all that much, I never seem to make my way to the more private areas of the house.  Like the bedrooms.  That’s one reason I’m so glad I committed to doing this Project: Simplify.  So far, all of the missions have kept me upstairs in the bedrooms, dealing with things I have been neglecting for far too long.

This week was no exception.  The mission? Kids’ clothes and toys.

I took that as my cue to completely tear apart the boys’ room and put it back together again.  I think somewhere along the line I gave up on their space, and I gave up on making them maintain it.  But no more.  They deserve better – we all do!  So, let me just tell you, the before pictures that follow are, well, embarrassing!  I mean, I am usually for “keeping it real” around here, but only to a point.

Maybe I’ll show you my dining room clutter once in a while, but I rarely take you upstairs.  And to be honest, the only reason you are going up there now, is because these mortifying shots are of scenes that no longer exist.  So are you ready to see what I’ve been doing all week?  First stop: the floor.

Let’s just say that there were several bags of trash, and many more bags of donations generated by this cleanup project.

Next: dresser and the laundry baskets in front of it.

There were very little clothes actually in the dresser, since the drawers were blocked from being opened by the baskets.  The boys share this dresser, and to be honest they outgrew it years ago.  Four drawers for two growing boys just doesn’t work.  Their pants didn’t fit the space at all anymore, and needed someplace (besides the top of the dresser) to live.  Which brings me to: the closet.  (Please forgive the blurry photo – I had to balance myself on top of a pile of toys and wedge the door open to get the shot – not much opportunity to worry about camera stabilization!)

I bought these hanging organizers at Target months ago.  I’ve had this re-organization and purging of the kids’ clothes on my mind for some time, I just lacked the push to get moving until now.  (I think I need to do some laundry – Eamonn is all out of “comfy” pants, and Aidan is out of jeans.)

Next: the bookshelves.

I got rid of all of the board books, with the exception of a few Sandra Boynton books that had sentimental value, and I ditched a bunch of other books that didn’t seem worth keeping.  Now everything fits nicely on the shelves once again.

Next: the finishing touches.

The blank walls have bothered me for some time, so I re-hung the E that had fallen down, put up Eamonn’s favorite calendar from the local Chinese food place (you can’t see it from this angle), and bought a couple of posters for the walls.

I also was inspired to finish making twin-size quilts for each of their beds.  Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day, so I only managed to get 3/4 of Aidan’s top done, and nothing at all sewn on Eamonn’s.  For now I just put the lap quilts I made them a few years ago back on the beds, and am hoping I don’t lose steam on the new larger ones!

I’m so glad to have a weekend to recover now.  That hot spot took a lot out of me!  Fair warning: I may just phone it in when it comes to next week’s mission – I’m pooped!

This week our mission was paper clutter.  Oh, man, do I have my fair share of that!  There’s the kitchen table, which attracts mail and school papers.  There’s my desk, which has been host to a growing pile of who-knows-what for something like three years.  There’s a corner of my kitchen that I have set up for sorting the various bills, take-out menus, and school information that I want to keep.  And there’s a wicker basket in the living room filled with folders of important information.

If this hadn’t been such a busy week in other ways, I’d have attacked all four of those places.  But the truth is, the last two spots are not disorganized as much as badly-placed.  They’d be better off kept in other (less public) areas of the house.  At some point I’ll relocate them.  This week, though, I stuck with the first two spots.

It took me less than an hour to go through the kitchen table pile.

It’s always nice when I can see the table top

My desk was another story.  That took two and a half times as long.  But it was also at least two and a half times as heinous, so it’s understandable.

The right-hand side of the desktop had a pile that was both my own papers, and kid stuff that had crept over from the boys’ computer table right next to it.  The only clear spot on the desktop was just the right size to slip my laptop into when I needed to use the printer.

Beneath the desk and next to the chair (and under it, and behind it, too) was all kinds of garbage that had overflowed from the little trash can and never been dealt with.  That area alone nearly filled a big black garbage bag.  I filled up another half a bag from the stuff on the top of the desk.

One little confession, though: After I’d been at it for a few hours, and watched my fill of streaming Netflix, I had gotten everything dealt with except for all of the objects that needed to be relocated to other areas of the house.  I’m talking about things like earrings, nail polish, Aidan’s report card, and a photo of my in-laws from 1974.  At that point I kind of lost the will to continue.  So I swept the whole lot into a box, dated it, wrote “crap from my desk” on the top flap, and shoved the box somewhere out of sight.

I’ll get back to it someday.  And in the meantime, if I ever miss any of those objects, I’ll know exactly where to look for them.  That’s more than I could say when they were buried under the mound of papers on my desk!

So anyway, it feels really good to have that mess (essentially) cleaned up.  This desk is in my bedroom, actually, so between the closet last week, and the desk this week, my bedroom is finally getting the makeover I promised it ages ago.  In fact, this afternoon I did a little extra cleanup in other areas of the room.  It still needs some work, but I feel kinda motivated about it for a change.  I may even switch out the bedspread for a lighter weight quilt, clear off the top of my dresser, and put away the overflowing basket of laundry at the end of my bed later tonight.

Yeah, it’s going to be a craaaaazy Friday night at the Clarke house alright!

I wonder what we’ll be challenged with cleaning up next week.  Kitchen cabinets maybe?  I hope so.  I’m up to my eyeballs in too many cups and glasses lately.  I’m also seriously considering making a list of my own personal “hot spots” to tackle after the official project is over.  Hall closet floor? I’m talking about you.

I’ve decided to play along with Tsh at Simple Mom, and join Project: Simplify.  I’ve had decluttering on my to-do list for some time, but there’s always some reason not to do it, and always an easy way to talk myself out of it.  Tsh provided just the push I needed – she’s made it almost like a game, revealing a new hot spot to declutter every week, and offering prizes to participants.  It’s actually kind of fun.  And this week it’s forcing me into the deep, dark recesses of an area I’ve been ignoring for far too long: the bedroom closet.

When I get in the mood to clean, I always work on the very public areas of the house.  As a result, my bedroom kind of looks like a tornado tore through it, and the closet is probably the worst part of the room.

Or, at least, it was.

I tried on every last garment in that closet, and in doing so discovered a whole pile of things that look terrible on me – off to the thrift shop they go!

And the shoes? Oh! the shoes.  Until today, I honestly had no idea that I had fifty-six pairs of shoes.  Yes, I said fifty-six.  Ok, so sixteen of those are $2 flip-flops, and more than half of those have been accumulated over the course of thirteen years, but still!  I’m a little embarrassed by the excess.

I narrowed it down to my favorite eight pairs of flip-flops, and fifteen pairs of real shoes.  That still sounds like a lot, and I could get it down to ten pairs of regular shoes, but I didn’t bother, since I have the space for fifteen.  I may cull them further later.

So here are my two piles: “throw away” on the left and “give away” on the right.  Tomorrow I go through the give away pile and see what is going to the thrift shop, and what items may have other fates.  (If I were to put some gently-worn handmade shirts and skirts on eBay, would any of you be interested in them?  I’ve got about a dozen and I’m not sure if they’re worth listing, or if I should just thrift shop ‘em.)

Technically, the “hot spot” this week was just the bedroom closet, but if there is time before the week is over, I’m also going to deal with the contents of my dresser.  Or, more specifically, the things that belong in my dresser but are currently overflowing a laundry basket at the end of the bed.  Ack.

Hooray for Project: Simplify!  I’m going to go gaze lovingly at my clean and organized closet now.

Good night

I haven’t been playing with clay myself this week.  Know what I’ve been up to? I was dismantling something.  I’ll give you a hint what it was:  it was a welcome part of December, an eyesore by mid-January, and rhymes with Litmus Knee.

Yeah, I took that bad boy down (finally) and in the empty space it left behind, I set up a little “music nook” for Aidan.

We gave him a keyboard for Christmas, and he’s been using it every day.  Until now, It was on the floor at the foot of the tree, plugged in to the same power strip as the tree lights, which meant that Aidan had to turn on the tree whenever he wanted to play.  It was kind of funny, but the time had come to graduate to an actual chair, I thought.

Speaking of chairs, this one has a history.  Before it lived here, it lived in the Catskills, where it once was a part of the everyday life of my great-grandparents’ boarding house.  It’s not the most comfortable chair in the world, but I find it charming.

I don’t expect this little area to stay this way forever.  In fact, it’s already changed in the few hours since I took that photo (I re-arranged and replaced some of the items on the shelf).  What I’d really like is to see the kids’ computer table find its way out of my bedroom and down here, but I’m taking baby steps in that direction.  I need a way to make the table less ugly before I install it where I have to look at it frequently.

So, it’s Thursday night.  My favorite TV night.  Time to log off, put on my pj’s, grab some knitting, my comfy quilt, and something to drink, and go be entertained.  Perhaps I’ll see you back here tomorrow – it’s been a while since I’ve done the ol’ Friday Photo Love thing, and I’m going to dust it off if I find the time during the day.  G’night!

I hesitate to use the word “normal,” because as anyone who has shown up at my house unannounced can attest to, “company-ready” is not my normal.  I usually require a fifteen minute warning and an empty closet to stash stuff in before I would consider answering the door.

But things seem to be different this January.  When we cleaned up for Christmas, we started earlier.  There was less of a mad-dash, and more of a thoughtful putting away (and throwing away) of things.  And after we had our holiday gathering, we cleaned it right up.  There has been clutter since then, but we live here, you know? Messes are going to happen.  I’m fine with that, as long as they are not allowed to breed.

Multiplying messes are my downfall.  Once those dominoes start to fall, it’s a short trip to “where did I put my keys?” and “why am I always tripping over these shoes?” and “Mom, have you seen my flip camera?”  Nobody wants that.

So we’re ahead of schedule in putting away Christmas.  The living room is back to it’s regular state.  The kitchen is sporting it’s wintertime linens.  The dining room is almost there.

I dragged that pile of Christmas up to the attic today after taking this photo, but we’re still missing one little thing in here.  Can you see what it is?

Yeah, that would be the table.  Neil took it apart and put it in the basement so that we could set up a big cafeteria table for our Christmas dinner.  That worked out great, but the big table is gone now and I still don’t have my regular table back.

Neil jokes with me and says he’s not putting it back there because I’ll just mess it up with fabric and clay all over again.

He may not be wrong.  Remember this?

That was a month or so ago, but I have to admit, it spent about six months in that state last year.  So embarrassing.

At any rate, it’s so nice to have the main floor (mostly) back to a nice normal state, with (nearly) everything in its place.  I feel so much more energized and productive when the clutter is out of the way.  And maybe it’s me, but the rooms look brighter somehow.  I find this house to be too dark, but when it’s this clean? So bright!

So that’s the main floor.  Don’t ask me about upstairs.  The bedrooms are still a bit of a horror show, but I hope to spend some time tackling those areas when I have a little downtime.

And downstairs in the family room, well, there’s just one itty bitty remnant of Christmas left to deal with…

Maybe next week.