Ramblings.

Once again, I'm getting to bed entirely too late. My head is racing with thoughts, and I'm having a hard time turning my mind off to go to sleep. 


I hate when that happens.


I spent about 12 hours today working on part of Bugster's birthday gift. Even though none of it was difficult, I'm tired tonight. Cold, too. 

Bugster's birthday gift.

The other day, I talked about cleaning about our dryer, because it was absolutely filled with lint in places that should not have lint. 

See what I mean?

That greenish lint? It wasn't moldy, but it was very thick. I couldn't get over how much lint there was! 

After I cleaned all this lint out, I took the covers off that are shown in the picture and cleaned the fan and the area where the lint filter goes.  In where the lint filter hung down was the only place I found actual caked lint where it had gotten wet and dried hard. Scary to know that fire starters are made by scouts out of dryer lint!

Just days after I completely cleaned the dryer and vent of lint a local family lost their home to a dryer fire. The lost everything. They were home when it happened, and they were able to get out alive, but it spread so quickly that they lost everything. I felt so bad for them, but I was also very incredibly thankful that our dryer didn't catch on fire in spite of the lint.

So, if you haven't cleaned your dryer out any time recently, please do. 

Go now.

I don't want anyone to lose their homes or their lives due to something so preventable. 

Seriously. 

Go.

Now.

Can you keep a secret?

I probably should have worn a mask today, but I didn't. One of these days I'll learn.


After working in the laundry room and doing as much laundry as I could (3 loads of sweats before I ran out of pretreater), I worked for a few hours on Bugster's birthday gift. I'm taking before and after pictures, which I will post once I'm done, but I dare not say what I'm doing. She reads my blog. Sometimes.


When she was younger, she had a habit of finding out what her birthday or Christmas presents were entirely too often. Often enough that we finally told her that, if she found out what her gift was before the special day, she wouldn't get it. In spite of the fact that she claimed she never went looking for the presents, (she claims I was horrible at hiding them but don't believe her), she sure was good at finding them. I don't recall taking anything away. We threatened once, but I think we kept it and gave it to her for whatever the next holiday was. Let's just say it was an effective deterrent. 


We've learned to hide her presents better than we apparently did when she was little. It helps that she has her own home now, and she isn't over here snooping all the time. I'm just wondering, if I'm going to be able to keep this one under wraps before we celebrate her birthday. 


She's definitely going to want this one. =)

What a spaz.

It's cold downstairs. Cold enough that when I'm working down there I often have to have a space heater going in the cooler months, or I ache for a few days. The laundry room is the worst, because it has unfinished cement floors. I can't handle being in there for very long, if I am not wearing my shoes. Would't you know that the other day I spent several hours working in the laundry room in nothing but my slippers? 


You would think I'd learn, but... 


The last couple of days my back has been spasming as a result. I'm not letting it keep me from accomplishing things, but I'm not able to do as much as I'd like. Maybe tomorrow will be the day it decides to stop. Regardless, I will be wearing my shoes down there from now on. 


In the meantime, I've been cranking out the laundry and trying to get it finished up once again. I am hoping I'll finish up tomorrow, but then again, I've said that the last few times I've posted, and it hasn't happened. That's why I don't like giving myself deadlines. Instead of them inspiring me, I feel horribly guilty, if I don't meet them. I know the laundry room will get done eventually. Soon, even. But life happens in the meantime, and finishing the laundry room is just not my top priority. 


Besides, I'm still making good decisions and processing things. I've been able to let go of things that I wasn't able to even a year ago. I didn't think there was even enough in the laundry room to fill 2 trash bags full to throw away, but I surprised myself and made it happen. I tossed things like old paintbrushes and rollers, buckets that I realized I really didn't need, and old clothes that I realized were just taking up space and weren't good enough to give away. I feel as though the weight upon my shoulders gets lighter each time I'm able to get rid of even one more thing.


The biggest thing taking the weight off the shoulders? Mom seems to be doing better now that she's home from the hospital. Further testing is needed, so we know what the next step is, but we're all just very thankful she's doing better right now. 


Now if I could just figure out how to stop the political calls. And to think we have months left before the election. 

My favorite F words.

When we moved into our home, the laundry room was almost empty. The washer and dryer were in there as well as the hot water heater, water softener, and furnace, but that was about it. There was one small closet at one end of the laundry room that had shelves on side and an open area to store mops and brooms on the other side, and a double wide closet with stationary shelves at the other end of the room. There wasn't a single shelf on the wall, and in spite of the fact that the room was huge, it really lacked efficient storage space.

We stored everything from canning jars to toys to under the bed storage containers with the kids' projects and out of season clothing to gallons of paint in the closets. The shelves were too deep and were spaced too far apart to be practical. I finally got wise and took them out of the large closet at the end of the laundry room a few years ago, and it made all the difference in the world. It's where we now store all the holiday decorations packed away in plastic totes. We finally realized a year or 2 later that the smaller closet was more convenient to store the outdoor Nativity scene than under the stairs where we'd stored them for several years. It took awhile, but we finally figured it out.  

Hubster helped me put adjustable shelving up on the wall above the washer and dryer, the wall above the water softener, the wall above the dresser that I sold on Craigslist last week, and above the double tub mud sink we'd had installed. It made all the difference in the world. We finally had a place to store some of the extra kitchen appliances, the laundry and cleaning supplies and extra rolls of toilet paper and paper towels. 

I've probably gotten rid of a full 1/3 of what had been on the shelves initially, and I periodically go through and purge even more from time to time. The last time I tackled the shelves was when Mom was here a year ago helping me out, and I got rid of a lot back then, but I decided, while working in the laundry room the last few days, that I needed to purge a bit more.

About 10 years ago, we bought a new mattress set, and we got a small plastic tote with cleaning supplies specifically for the mattress. It included different cleaners that worked on various stains and deodorizers to take care of any leftover smell. We use mattress protectors that keep the mattresses clean and stain-free for the most part, so we didn't use it. We used it once after a particularly bad stomach bug, but other than that it. just. sat.  


I realized as I was dusting it last night that I would probably never use it again. I didn't need to hang onto it 'just in case' any longer. It dawned on me that the reason it was so hard to get rid of was because of that stupid little plastic tote. The sticker on the outside announced the store we had visited, and it held everything very neatly. And while I know that the tote itself only cost the company about a dollar, it made it somehow made the contents more important than the other bottles of cleaning supplies on my shelf. It made it nearly impossible for me to get rid of.


For years, I have dusted that thing and placed it right back on the shelf, because I just couldn't seem to let it go. But I am stronger now, and my thoughts are clearer, and I made the decision to get rid of it. I put the bottles of cleaner in a plastic bag for Bugster to use at her house, since she has pets. I thought it might be useful, and if it isn't, she can throw it away. I took the sticker off the outside of the tote, washed it out, stored the floor cleaning pads and replacement duster heads in it, and threw several half-empty boxes in the trash. 

While it was a small victory, it was not the only small victory I had yesterday. We had 3 bottles of the same disinfectant on the shelf, but only 1 of the bottles worked properly. Two bottles always leaked from the sprayer onto my fingers when I used them, eating into the flesh on my fingers. I could never remember which one worked, so I put on a rubber glove to protect my hand, and checked to see which bottle worked. I emptied the 2 that didn't into the one that did, put the rest of the cleaner in the refill bottle, and chucked the others in the trash. 


I came across 2 more sprayers for the gallon jugs of laundry pretreater, and threw them away, as well. I'd tossed 4 the day before and kept 2. I tend to find one that works well and use it until it wears out. I know. I know. The new bottles come with their own brand new sprayers, but they have been known to be defective. I have had to open 3 brand new sprayers before to get to one that actually worked. I hate to be caught flat footed, and I think that's why I felt I needed to hang onto all the extras at the time I'd set them aside. I certainly did not need to hang onto 8 of them, though! I'm going to have to be more conscious of that when I get a new bottle of pretreater.



I have a bit of dusting and laundry to finish up today, and I should be done with the laundry room. It's nice to know that I should never have to tear it apart to organize it again, since it is... 


Finally. Fully. Functional. 

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This? Hardly!

I feel like I can finally breathe. Mom is no longer in the hospital, and is finally doing better tonight. Praying that she will continue to heal and will be back on her feet soon.

My OCD got the best of me yesterday. I was working in the laundry room. I'd started at the door and was working my way around the room with the cleaning, organizing and purging. I'd made it to the dryer about 2/3 of the way down the opposite wall when I realized how horribly dusty it was and decided to do something about it.

We have always been diligent about cleaning out the lint filter, but it seemed like we always struggled with dust collecting behind, under, and around the dryer. In years past, it has had to do with the vent going from behind the dryer to the outside. It seemed like we could never get the thing tight enough to keep the lint inside the vent. It leaked out at every seam. I finally fixed it with a couple of large hose clamps and quite a bit of duct tape. It was such a relief!

But even though it cut down on the amount of dust in the laundry room, it never completely took care of it. So when I came to the dryer yesterday as I was cleaning the laundry room, I tried to take the dryer apart. Turns out it's not as easy as it sounds. I could undo the front panel, and that allowed me to get to the more accessible dust and lint, but I couldn't get to the rest. I tried taking the back off the dryer, but it's sealed in some way to prevent access. 

So I went back around to the front of the dryer and took a look at what might be a bit easier to get to. I saw there was quite a bit of dust around a black case. I took it apart and realized it was the case that covered the lint filter. I was in shock at the amount of dust and lint in it, considering I poke the upholstery attachment on the vacuum cleaner down in there several times a year. The lint was not only several inches deep, but it was also hard as a rock. It had definitely been accumulating for years. 

It was the stuff of nightmares! I have no idea how the thing didn't catch fire. There but for the Grace of God and all...

I took the cover off the fan, so I could clean the blades and try to vacuum up the dust, too. It's amazing that clean clothes thrown in a dryer to dry produces lint that eventually turns into what looks like dirt. Maybe more like a silt. Just dirty and gross. From looking at what I found in the dryer, a person would think that we only dried nasty, dirty clothes year after year. 

Unfortunately, I didn't get the dryer put back together just yet. I'll be doing that tomorrow. We had errands to run today, and we forgot to pick up a coil brush that is used to clean the dust off the coils under a refrigerator. We have one somewhere, but I can't seem to find it. When I do, I'll give it to Bugster, so she has one to clean under her refrigerator, and I won't have 2 floating around here. I'm hoping to get the laundry room finished up completely tomorrow. 

Once it's done, I don't think I'll need to do anything but minor dusting from time to time in the laundry room. I'll eventually go through the holiday decorations and pare them down, but I'm totally okay with leaving the rest of the room as is. 

Now, to just get it done...

Pass the ice melter stuff, please.

I have so much on my mind. I'm trying hard not to let it paralyze me into not getting things done. So far, I've been moderately successful. I've been working in the laundry room, but it's been taking longer than I anticipated. It all goes back to that not being able to gauge how long things will take me to finish, but I really *am* going to try to get it finished up tomorrow.


I keep forgetting about taxes and other must-do paperwork, so I'll have to get busy on that in the next few days, too. Paperwork that takes up valuable space in my head. Space that is at a premium. And I need to get it done, so I can think straight once again. 


Each time I think of the paperwork, the laundry room, or Mom and what's going on with her health, my stomach starts churning. It's been so bad the last couple of days it feels like my gut is a figurative snowbank, and there's a tire spinning without getting the least bit of traction, because the car is stuck in said snowdrift. 


I'm think I'm ready for Spring!

1, 2, 3......375, 376, 377........793, 794, 795....

Praising God and counting my blessings tonight. 


Mom is out of immediate danger with her heart, and the surgery has been delayed for the foreseeable future. I have been weak with relief all day and so very, very grateful. Thank you to all of you who have had us in your thoughts and prayers. They have been very much appreciated!


I spent much of the day working in the laundry room and making some decent progress. I'm hoping to finish up in there tomorrow. 


The laundry room is  huge. It's approximately 1/4 the square footage of the basement. Granted, it has the hot water heater, the furnace and the washer and dryer in it, but there is still a lot of room for storage. There's a double utility sink, an upright freezer, a small closet with our outdoor Nativity scene stored in it, a small dresser with a hutch on top, the 6ft long credenzas we just put in there over the weekend, and a couple of closets at the end of the room that contain roughly 3 dozen plastic totes of holiday decorations. 


Like I said. It's big.


I had to do some rearranging in order to get the everything in its place after bringing in the credenzas for storage. Part of the reorganizing was back near the holiday decorations where we had a bit of miscellaneous stored. The wrapping paper has been stored back there, but I haven't really simplified it in years. Last year when Mom was here helping out, Hubster brought a huge plastic tub in from the garage that had most of our wrapping paper in it. It kept the paper clean, but it was a major pain in the backside, because it stored the paper horizontally instead of vertically. 


It was one of the things I decided to tackle today. I gave myself permission to throw a lot of small scraps of paper today that I'd hung onto for little gifts. I also threw out paper I'd saved thinking I'd use it again, because it was pretty. I haven't used it in all these years, and I realized I never would, so out it went. I sorted what was left into 2  plastic wrapping paper holders using 1 for Christmas wrap, and the other for everything else. It is so nice to have it all upright and easy to see. 


When I was trying to get thing put away in the laundry room yesterday, so I could get to the washing machine to do laundry, (it was torn apart before we knew about Mom, and I had to get some semblance of order in there, so I could get clothes washed, in case we headed out of town), I had to sort through what I had left of school supplies. I'd had them stored on a small bookshelf, so I'd have access to them when we needed something, but when I started going through things again to put them in the credenza, I realized I still had way too much stuff, in spite of having gotten rid of so much already.


Since I started dehoarding, I can't even count the number of packages of theme paper I'd give away. Yet when I was rearranging things in the laundry room yesterday, I counted over 50 packages still on the shelf, because I'd put it there as I came across it while dehoarding in different areas of the house. I have to admit that I was shocked I still had that many. It was obvious to me the hoarding still had a pretty strong hold over me when I was going through the theme paper a year ago, or I wouldn't still have that much left. 


I packed up over 25 packages of 200ct  notebook paper, (I didn't actually count them), for Bugster, Bubster and Frank to use for school, so they don't have to buy any for awhile. 

Notebook paper for Bugster's family.

In fact, the stash may actually take them all the way through school. If they can't use it all, Bugster will take donate it. I also gave them a couple packages of pencils, since they're always needed for school. I did keep just under 25 packages of 150ct theme paper for us, so I ended up getting rid of well over half of what I had on the shelf. All of the school supplies fit in one area of the credenza, and I love having the perfect place for them to call home. 

What's left of our notebooks and paper. A shelf sits right above them with the rest of the school supplies like markers, pencils, crayons and glue. I love that we will know at a glance what we have, so we won't buy anymore!

I'm hoping to finish up the rest of the laundry room tomorrow. I don't have too many loads of laundry left to wash, but I do have some I need to fold or bag up for donation. It will be nice to get all of it out of there and put it where it goes. And it feels really good to be making progress once again. 

Dehoarding: 1. Stress: 0.

We haven't felt well since we went on vacation to my nephew's wedding. There have been chills, fevers, lethargy (Hopper actually slept 25 hours straight the other day, and the girls slept about 18 hours straight last night), body aches, (my elbow has hurt so much I can hardly use my right arm and have been using one of those band things around my forearm that are used to treat tendinitis and wearing leg warmers to keep the elbow warm), and some rather unpleasant side effects of the intestinal sort. It's been rather discouraging. I'm just hoping we're almost done with this bug, since we've already had it right at a week.

The good news is that we're unpacked from the trip. I just have to put the suitcases away and finish up the laundry. I quite liked having the laundry room floor clear of dirty clothes, so I'll be working today and tomorrow to finish up the rest of them. It's been so nice knowing we have a place for everything to go, too. It's the first time in 18 years we've had a place for all of our clothes. It definitely helps that we got rid of probably two-thirds of the clothing we had, and I'll be working on getting rid of even more. 

This is only the second vacation we've taken since I discovered that I have a hoarding problem. The first was last June when we went back home for Mom's birthday celebration. When we went back home then, we put the car-top carrier on the car and loaded it up and filled the back of our car. I can't think of a time we haven't used the extra space on vacation. 

Car top carriers are great for transporting those extra things you don't have the space for in the car, but they also make you a major target for thieves who can tell at a glance you're away from home. They also tend to be cumbersome to store, and as much as they're convenient, they're not. It can be quite the pain to attach them to the top of your car, and it's not entirely convenient to retrieve your belongings standing on a step stool. So it seemed really strange to try to go on vacation this year without using it. 

Things are always a bit tight in the back of the car. We have a small station wagon that can't possibly even be half the size of the one my family had when I was younger. (Those things had storage!) Still, we were able to get everything we needed for clothing for 2 weeks for 4 people, the pinata which was quite large, 4 winter coats, 4 sweatshirts, some items Mom asked me to take out to my sister's house and a few pillows from home in the back of the car. Granted, Hubster had to rely on the side mirrors only, but it really wasn't an issue.

And not having to load or unload the car top carrier was huge! It may have even saved us from having an accident. The carriers are not all that aerodynamic, so the wind can really bat you around the highway. On the way to Rochester, the wind was so strong, Hubster didn't dare take either hand off the wheel. There were several times that the wind buffeted the car enough that we nearly ended up in the ditch the way it was. I don't doubt that's where we'd have landed, if we'd had the car top carrier in place.

Honestly, I think we'd have ended up using the top of our car for storage for our vacation, if I hadn't started the dehoarding process over a year ago. Realizing we all have hoarding tendencies and trying to change the result of those tendencies made all the difference in the world for this trip. Obviously, the car top carrier situation was huge, but that wasn't the only thing.

It used to take me forever to get things packed for a trip. Because we had so many clothes, I was always doing laundry up until the last possible minute. There were times I'd forget to wash a much needed item, and we'd have have to haul it along to launder it while we were on vacation, or we'd have to buy something new when we arrived to replace it. And because the laundry was stacked in baskets in several rooms in the house, it would literally take days for me to pack.

I could never seem to sort out in my mind what shirt would go with what pants with what socks, etc., when I never had the room for the clothes to all be in the same area. I would think one set of clothes would make the perfect outfit only to find the right colored shirt in the dirty clothes. It was exhausting and incredibly stressful. I would get by on no more than 5 hours of sleep nightly for a full week or more before heading out of town. Considering I need a minimum of 8 hours to function properly, I felt like a zombie most of the vacation.

My, what a difference a year makes!

I was able to pack the girls' suitcases in less than 30 minutes. 

Total. For. Both. Of. Them. 

It took me about 10 minutes to pack my own bag, and The Hubster packed his, so I didn't have that to do. I was in shock that it took so little effort and so little time to get everything ready to get on the road for a 10 day vacation.

 

There was still stress. There always is. But the amount of stress getting out of here for this trip compared to vacations in the past is minuscule. 

Just one of the many perks of dehoarding. 

I think I'll keep it up...

Home Sweet Home

For years I have tried to get the laundry room organized. We bought this house 9.5 years ago, and I've never once succeeded. Don't get me wrong. I've come close, and I've made amazing progress at different times. 


Let me back up a minute...

The laundry room is more of a utility room. It not only contains the washer and dryer, but it houses the furnace, water softener, upright freezer and water heater as well. It's a huge room. It takes up 1/4 of the basement-about 250 sq ft. We have room to not only store the outdoor Christmas Nativity, but we also have room to store 20+ totes of Christmas and other holiday decorations. The room also contains one small chest of drawers with a hutch on top, a 9 drawer dresser to use as storage, and a double utility sink in the room that we put in a few years ago.

For the most part, the laundry room is unfinished. The previous owners put in some drywall and a couple of closets, but the drywall is only on one one wall. The other wall is concrete, and the ceiling and floor are unfinished. I did what I could by painting the room a light mint green, so it wasn't so dark and painting the furniture to match. Overall, it looks okay. But it's never been organized.


The last 3 days, Mom and I have dusted, scrubbed, sorted, purged and organized. I'm exhausted, but thrilled beyond belief. For the first time since I started Project Laundry Room 9.5 years ago, the laundry room is exactly how I wanted it all along. And while it only took 3 days with Mom's help, that's 9.5 years in hoarder years. 

I'll post pictures later, but suffice it to say, I'm delighted that so many more things have homes than did a week ago. Whether that home is the shelf above the washing machine and dryer, the small chest of drawers with the hutch on it, or the trash, I'm thrilled they've found their way home.  


Slowly, but surely, I'm finding my own way home.

One Fish. Two Fish. Red Fish. Blue Fish. brought to you by the letter H.

For years, I've done laundry a certain way. In many ways, it's tedious. I get that. Our clothes didn't show wear very quickly, because of the way I do laundry, so it saved us a lot of money by not having to buy new clothes. My trick? For the most part I only dry sheets, towels, undies, socks and sweats in the dryer. The rest gets 'fluffed and hung'.

During a 'fluffing and hanging' episode, the clothes go straight from the washer to the dryer, and heated until the wrinkles come out. The clothes are still quite wet when they're taken out and hung on hangers to air dry. In the summertime, the hangers of clothes are hung on the clothesline to dry and to have that incredible hung-in-the-sun smell when they're brought back in.

Over the years, clothes were passed down from one daughter to the next, and they often looked like only one child had worn them when we did finally part with them. The fading was minimal, and shrinkage was almost non-existent. It saved us money on the utility bills as well as on clothing replacement costs. I felt it was my duty to save as much as I could, because my husband works so very hard to support our family. I felt it was the least I could do.

Over the last couple of years, I've let up a little. I've dried a few more loads and fluffed and hung just a little less. But one thing I haven't let up on is a little obsession I have with the hangers. They have to be sorted according to color and style.

We have big fat chunky ones we use for coats, the kind with the notches on them to hang strappy things on, regular plastic hangers, and some big chunky ones with swivel heads on them. Some with swivel heads are orange. Some are yellow. The chunky ones for coats are yellow, white, blue and green. The notched ones for hanging strappy things were bright pink, teal and white. And then we had 2 colors of light blue, dark purple and white regular plastic hangers. And they had to be sorted according to color first and style second.

So not only did I sort hangers as I took clothes off them to fold or when the clothes were removed to be worn, but I also had to sort the hangers as I got things out of the dryer and fluffed and hung them. The lightest blue held my clothes. The darker light blue and dark purple were for my husband. The bright pink, teal and white were all for the girls. But sometimes I had strappy things, but I didn't have any light blue hangers for mine, so I had to use white. And the swivel hangers were used when we ran out of hangers and still had clothes to hang.

It was all quite tiresome. It wasn't just that I felt an obligation to sort the hangers. I couldn't stop myself, if I tried. And I did try. But they were such a jumbled assortment of hangers that I always felt stressed when I saw them messed up. It was distracting and it made the laundry room look less neat, and let's face it. I need all the neatness I can get.

But at what cost?

I have no idea how much extra time I spent on sorting hangers, but over the years, I wouldn't doubt, if it added up to an entire week. At least an entire business week. A M-F 8 to 5 sort of week. I know I spent a lot of time sorting hangers.

Today, I sorted hangers in a totally different way. I sorted them to give them to a friend who has a lot of kids and never seems to have enough hangers. She doesn't have the sorting problem I seem to have. All our hangers now are white, except for the chunky coat hangers. There are still two styles of the main hangers I'll use.

But that ain't nothin' but a thing. :)