This year I plan to start my spring cleaning way early. My mom gave me the idea when she was talking about doing her spring cleaning this winter. I thought what a great idea. Here’s why. We live in the south where spring temperatures last for two weeks if you are lucky – that’s not two consecutive weeks – more like 14 days over two months. So it is very hard to really have a good run of spring days to get any real cleaning done.

This January has been very pleasant. We slept with the air conditioner on two nights ago. When it’s bitterly cold, I don’t want to do anything but most days it is not extremely cold. So why wait for that crazy spring weather? Also when spring finally rolls around, we all have cabin fever. The last thing I want to do is spend time inside my house. I want to be in the sun even if it is just standing around – I don’t care. I want out of the house.

So since I’m trapped in the house for winter and the temperatures are still pleasant, why not clean? We are taking it room by room. I cleaned one of the bathrooms – removing all items from the sink that are not being used. It is very bare now with just a razor and toothbrushes but now you can actually use the space.

This weekend I plan to tackle the living room. Oy Vey. We will be rearranging our living space to hopefully make more room. By spring I should have a clean and organized house. What a wonderful feeling that will be.

How did you welcome in the New Year? I started the New Year cleaning – which is a good thing since so many of my resolutions depend upon a clean, organized house. Since our house needs a lot of TLC, I decided to take it room by room. Up first was the girl’s room that had gotten way out of hand.

I would have taken before/after pictures but the before pictures would be way too embarrassing. Imagine a room where you can’t see the floor because of clothes, stuffed animals, and other toys. I spent two days in her room cleaning and organizing. We are still not done yet but it is so much better than before.

We bought some moving boxes for temporary storage of items that we just don’t want to deal with right now. Our idea is that it goes into a box and doesn’t come out in six months, it leaves our house. The stuff is already packed and ready, too.

When my daughter walked into her room and noticed the cleaniness, she was excited and said that this was the best room ever. There are still a lot of toys to be organized but at least we have a room that she can easily walk into and manuever around. It also feels great to start the new year by working towards one of our goals.

Recently our satellite Internet equipment was updated. The guy replaced both the modem and the satellite dish. He also left both of these items at our house. So now we have a satellite dish in our yard that needs a place to go.

Every two years our city hosts a day for junk removal. You just bring your unwanted large items, and they will take care of it for you. It is recycled, so it does not wind up in a landfill. Too bad this service is not offered all the time.

There are places that have this type of service and will pay you for your junk. 1800gotjunk.com services several Texas locations. For example, Those looking for Bellaire junk removal can easily set up an appointment to have someone haul off their old stuff. If only this service was in our area. This sounds like a win-win situation. I get rid of unwanted items and get paid for my useless stuff while keeping it out of landfills.

Removing old junk from the yard gives me such a sense of accomplishment. It is so nice to have these looming issues resolved. Soon we will be doing some renovations and will have a lot of junk to salvage. We plan to get rid of an old air conditioning unit and hopefully find a home for that old satellite dish. Here is hoping we can find a local junk removal operation that will gladly take our unwanted items off our hands.

Thanksgiving is a week away. We go to my Mom and Dad’s for Thanksgiving. In the 16 years we have been married, I have never cooked a turkey. I am a total freeloader when it comes to Thanksgiving meals. Sure I’ve made desserts in the past but never a main dish. I have also never hosted Thanksgiving although I would like to when we finally have a house.

So while I really do not need to clean for Thanksgiving, I plan to take advantage of the extra time off from work to do so. Christmas will be here in a flash. After Black Friday, I will need a place to stash presents – so it is time to clean up and move out some stuff.

On our list is to go through the girl’s toys as she has many of them. She will be getting many more in just a few weeks. It is time to cull and cull well.

Our bedroom is a wreck. It is not a peaceful sanctuary but more like a huge unorganized closet. Definitely time to make decisions about what is really needed and what is just in the way.

The kitchen has way too much in it for someone who never cooks. Seriously I cannot remember the last meal I cooked. So these items(pots, pans, plates..well maybe not plates. we do eat, just not my cooking) need to be stored somewhere since they are just in the way.

The yard needs some TLC. It looks like the grass is still growing. Time to round up the half-chewed shoes(Thanks to Moo our dog) and other bits.

While I may not need to clean the house for Thanksgiving, a good cleaning will be a great kick-off for the holidays.

I love/hate working outside the home. I love the money but hate not having time to do anything at home. I spend my best hours at work. By the time I get home, I’m tired and ready to relax even though there is plenty of things to do.

With Christmas fast approaching, I want to set up a deadline for organizing the house. I want to enjoy the holidays and not be burdened with clutter. So by Black Friday, I want to have an organized home.

To make more time, I plan to give up watching television at night. I only watch a few shows – so I won’t miss that much. I will just have to record them and watch it later.  If I can gain one hour or productivity a night then I would be happy. This pushing everything to the weekend just isn’t working out. It is a busy time of the year with many activities happening on the weekend. I have to get more done around the house through the week.

So I will start with small goals and work up from there.

This week is premiere week. Most of our favorite shows have new episodes this week. It is all very exciting after a long, hot summer of reruns. With the new fall season I have a renewed interest in watching television and strangely enough, cleaning.

Maybe it is because I am spending more time in the living room watching TV and not doing other stuff that the clutter bothers me. It bothers me so much that I am willing to do something about it. I was reading an old blog post about clutter. In it I mention this bit of advice from the tv show ‘Clean Sweep’ -

If you haven’t used it in 12 months, toss it.

If you have to think about whether to keep it, toss it.

I will be keeping that advice in mind as I go through our living room. We really need a couch but really have no where to put it. It would be wonderful to enjoy my favorite shows while stretched out in front of the television. Ah the simple joys of having a couch – how I miss it so. With the new fall tv shows I realize how much I want a couch. It is enough to give me the motivation to take care of this clutter. Let’s just hope that desire is there for the duration of the fall cleaning.

Yesterday as I hurried through Wal-Mart to pick up a few household supplies, I noticed that Gain now has a dish washing liquid soap.

Of course, I had to buy it. Dish washing soap was on my list and I love to try new products. I also mix up my dish washing liquid.

Once I put the Gain dish washing soap is my basket, one shopper did a double take. Yes, that is Gain dish washing soap. We are huge fans of Gain laundry detergent. It smells so good. The dish washing soap seems to work well and smells great. I’m glad I went with the big bottle, since I will be enjoying Gain for a while until I rotate to another brand.

Today while using a public bathroom in a health care facility, I glanced over the instructions for washing your hands. To get the job done right, washing your hands isn’t just tossing soap on your hands and then quickly rinsing it off. It takes time and diligent scrubbing to get the job done.

First use warm water. Then lather up with soap. Wash with soap for at least 20 seconds and clean up to the wrists. Make sure to clean between your fingers. Then rinse off the soap and dry your hands. Now that you have clean hands, how do you get past the germ-ridden closed door? You can’t assume that everyone before you followed these detailed hand-washing instructions. Some people may cover their hand with their shirt to open the door while others may open the door with an extra towel.

Properly washing your hands is an important thing to do especially in a work environment.

This week I have been tackling one task that I have been putting off. Today it is the bathroom. It has gotten way out of hand in there. As I’m cleaning, I think that some items would just better thrown out than cleaned. That’s how bad it is. Specifically I’m talking about the toothbrush holder.

Our toothbrush holder sits on the counter, so all kinds of nasty, gross grim winds up inside it. I did clean it and was trying to think of a way to keep it cleaner when I remember a trick my mom used to do when we were growing up. She would line the soap dish and the toothbrush holder with aluminum foil. When I was a kid, I couldn’t fathom why she did that until I started cleaning the bathroom. It is so much easier to remove tin foil than to deep clean these small crevices. Much like we use tin foil in the oven to make clean up easier, my mom uses it in the bathroom to make cleaning a breeze.

From now on I will definitely use aluminum foil on the toothbrush holder as I never want to have to clean such a mess again.

This past weekend we went out of town, so yesterday I dragged a little and didn’t get started on my spring cleaning plan. Today I will start. I have a list and am ready to start tackling it.

Yesterday’s agenda is all about the living room. I rearranged some furniture, move some out of here, and hopefully make more usable living space. Next plan to work on some of our clutter that is in storage. My mistake when going through boxes that haven’t been touched in months is sorting out what to donate and what to keep. Now I will have two piles – throw away and donate. If I haven’t used it in 6-12 months, then I’m not going to use it. There might be a few items I keep but only if I know I will use it sooner than later.

Spring weather is still here this week – so I have to take full advantage of it. Soon enough it will be just hot with no reprieve from it. Let’s hope I can get done what I haven’t been able to do in three years. I do have to admit that I’m more motivated now than ever before to clear our clutter.