21 Day Challenge: Crap That's Been Cleaned

Remember when I said I already cleaned out some of the items on my crap cleaning challenge list? Here is photographic proof, mostly in the form of before shots. So, photographic proof of what a shitstorm it was.

 

Above you will find my hall closet, looking so messy and gross, and the contents of my hall closet after I pulled everything out. 

That's what I threw out, plus some give-away stuff not pictured, and I had a stack of equal size or bigger that actually belonged in other areas of the house, like four handbags! I also cleaned out the handbags and scored 3 lipglosses and 8 hairties, at least.

From my bedroom closet, I cleared out a stack of clothes that I don't wear anymore but decided to keep anyway and a couple bags of give-away items. The clothes I'm keeping are nice quality that maybe I'll be able to fit again someday or might want to give to someone. (Every time I buy something on ebay, I think back to the clothes I used to have that I wish I'd kept.) Those clothes were put into an underbed storage container, which of course I had to clean out first.

Now to finish my challenge, make another one for actually organizing all the stuff, and then allow myself to even think about starting some of the other projects looming over my head.

21 Day Crap Cleaning Challenge

Achieving results, y'all (via Forbes, who else)

I’m still doing a decent job of cooking regularly, planning meals and using coupons to save money where I can, and exercising more than I had been (which was not at all, so that’s like an easy A.)

Now I really have to get serious about organizing the apartment because even when it's clean, it still feels like a huge mess. I’m going to have to do this in phases and eventually totally reconfigure how we use our storage. 

I am getting serious, Jermaine!

First up, I have to get rid of all the extra crap. I thought one of those 21-day or some other number of days challenges would help, but I had to customize my own because nothing I found made sense for our space. For example, I don’t have a laundry room, or the luxury of devoting an entire cabinet to Tupperware.

Behold, my 21-day challenge crap cleaning challenge:

1.    Linen cabinet

2.    Craft cabinet

3.    Under kitchen sink

4.    Under bathroom sink

5.    Freezer

6.    Refrigerator

7.    Mail/Paperwork

8.    Bedroom closet – clothes

9.    Bedroom closet – drawers and shelves

10.  Utensil drawers

11.  Baking and spice cabinets

12.  Dishware cabinet

13.  Pots and Pans

14.  Hall closet

15.  Medicine cabinet/storage

16.  Media stand

17.  Under bed

18.  Handbag

19.  Work bag

20.  Car

21.  Balcony closet

Except I’ve already done four of these, so I guess it’s my 17-day crap cleaning challenge? And do I have to do this in order? I don’t want to. This is my customized challenge, so I say no!

After I clean everything out, I will devise a system for organizing what’s left. You know I’m already on my Pinterest game for this one.

Getting it Together: Baby Steps

If you don't know what this is, get out. Or google "Perfect Strangers"

Hey, strangers. How you been?

I'm not going to bother trying to explain why I disappeared or what I've been up to since then because it's not even that interesting. I'll just start from today. (Also not that interesting, but hey.)

What I'm trying to do now is get my shit together in, like, every facet of my life. There are a lot of things that don't come easily to me - like organization, tidiness, and general having-it-togetherness - but I am basically going to try to force myself to change that and become someone I'm not! Starting off with a healthy perspective is so important.

Here's what I'm trying to do:

1. Get our expenses under control
2. Cook more, eat out less
3. Pack lunches
4. Use what I have, waste less
5. Keep the house clean
6. Keep the house organized
7. Exercise at least somewhat regularly

(Yes, at the age of 30, my goals essentially boil down to just living like an actual adult.) Some of those kind of go together, and several of them have sub-goals that fall underneath. For example, a sub-goal relating to numbers 1 and 7 is to stop driving to work, that way I won't have parking expenses, and I'll be doing some walking as part of my train commute.

Some of those can also work directly against each other on days when it feels like there just isn't enough time to do it all. If making time for exercise comes at the expense of cooking dinner, but we end up eating crappy fast food because it's cheap, what good is any of that? No good. So far I've done a pretty good job handling those kinds of roadblocks, but damn, it's hard.

What I do after a day of ass kicking and goal achieving

I'm doing pretty well with our expenses, cooking, packing lunches, and wasting less. (Except for Milkgate 2014, but that's a story for another time.) I'm doing alright with the exercise. The clear loser in this situation is the cleaning and organization. I want to get better at that and add some new goals into the mix eventually, like learning to sew, learning to take good pictures, talking with long-distance family and friends more often, planting a little balcony garden, and completing some lingering projects around the apartment. But let's not lose our minds here.

Baby steps.

From the Frontlines of the War on Crap Disguised as Food

I've already admitted to liking my fair share of crappy food. I eat junk food and go to McDonald's sometimes. Yeah, I said it! But I also try to incorporate organic products when possible and when (I think) it really matters. I follow the "Dirty Dozen" list, for example. Even when I don't buy organic, I at least prefer to get food that is actually food. These preferences can result in higher food costs. Higher than exclusive Whole Foods shoppers' bills? No, but definitely higher than my frugal boo would like.

Boo prefers shopping at places like Superior Grocers, a local chain with super low produce prices and several lines of crap, er, products that are also super low in price. In my opinion, some of these things are actually overpriced because they aren't really even food.

Superior Grocers: Purveyor of Fine Foods, like Sugar Water and Salt Covered Chemicals

Juice is the bloodiest battleground in my house. Sometimes my boo comes home boasting of the incredible deal he got on "juice" which is really just sugar water. I tell him I can make some sugar water for free, artificial color included, with what's in the pantry. Nevertheless, I decided to go to Superior on Monday to try to do the boo a solid and save us some money. That is when I found this:

Bottom center, look closely

CONTAINS NO JUICE. NONE. APPLE ARTIFICIALLY FLAVORED DRINK! Line your kids up, everybody! We've got apple flavored drink for sale!

Update on Those Bloody Shelves

They are finally up.

Where was our drill? We still don't know, but we borrowed one from my boo's brother. We didn't have the right bit to drill through the bracket so we could have holes that matched up with the studs. Improvisation was required.

Then, after we were finished, he found the correct bit in a bag.

The shelves look nice I guess, but one is about six inches farther to the left than I wanted it to be. I measured where I wanted them to go before I found the studs, and then once the studs were found, things got wonky real fast. Oh well.

This is my only real concern.

Are all my beautiful vintage cocktail glasses going to slide off and crash to the ground?

The Tale of Everything Becomes Annoying

Alternate titles* - The Tale of When Romance Helps with Rocky Moments, Except That Those Moments Make it Difficult to Generate Romance and The Tale of These Bloody Shelves. Pick your angle. Choose your own adventure.

Sometimes being in a committed relationship is like torture, only it's torture that you signed up for. Some of us even spent years longing for it and thousands upon thousands of dollars celebrating it. But you better believe most of us didn't see shit like this coming.

Am I talking finances?

Am I talking about matters in the bedroom?

Am I talking about trust issues?

No, worse. I'm talking about my boo's inability to buy a freaking stud-finder when he says he will. Stick with me. There's a lot to go over.

if it wasn't clear, the gorilla is me.

Sunday evening - After many, MANY sweaty hours of working on some of my projects, I sat down to eat some dinner with boo. I desperately needed a shower, and it was getting late, so he offered to go to Home Depot for me to get the screws and a stud-finder for hanging the bloody shelves I bought from Ikea.  I read one too many horror stories about these shelves ripping out of people's walls, even when they used real bad-ass screws, because they hadn't screwed into studs. It was important to me that we find studs.  I made this very clear to him. Very clear.

Approximately 30 minutes later he returns. He says he's found just the thing. I say, great! With these screws and the studs we should be in business! He says, I didn't get the stud-finder.

HE DIDN'T GET THE STUD-FINDER.

I'll get it tomorrow, he says. He works next to a Home Depot, so this should be easy. It should take all of ten minutes.

Monday after work- I'm running approximately 8,000 errands while he is doing things like going for a freaking jog and nerding out to photoshop tutorials on youtube. I'd like him to find studs during this time, but he can't. And why can't he?

BECAUSE HE DIDN'T GET THE STUD-FINDER.

He forgot. So, that became errand 8,001 for me.

I finally got home at 8:15, one hour before I needed to get in bed, only to find that he hadn't thought to vacuum our horribly gross carpets before his mom's visit. (She stays over every other Monday.) He also hadn't thought to read my mind to know that he should do it.

Instead of screaming, “WHY DIDN’T YOU RUN THE FREAKIN’ VACUUM”, I managed to say “oh no, the carpets are so dirty! We need to vacuum before your mom comes”

He said it was okay, I said it wasn’t, he volunteered to do it. I sat in the bedroom eating gummy bears so as not to criticize him for not vacuuming to my liking.

Tuesday  - the shelves were not even close to being up, and the idea of getting dinner made and cleaned up AND putting up shelves made me feel stabby. That's when I remembered this -

My boo says, on multiple occasions, “I can help you with dinner so you don’t have to do everything yourself”

It occurred to me that if he helped my slow-ass with dinner, we could get to the shelf business a little faster.

I say, I need to ask you for help with dinner tonight.
My boo says, sure, I can help after my run.

AFTER HIS RUN?!

I just can't even. Before I even got a chance to post this last night, we realized we don't have the right kind of mothafuckin battery for the mothafuckin stud-finder. I do recall that several months ago I came upon some of these batteries on clearance, only for my boo to proclaim "when will we ever need those?"

The time is now, it seems.


*a thousand thanks to my friend Cristina for input and title ideas!

Do You Ever Dream of Candy Coated Raindrops? I DO!

Do y'all love candy as much as I do? I fucking love candy. Kim Kardashian would smell a cavity on me if we ever hugged, I just know it. Sometimes I think I might be six years old. Give me some chicken strips, fries, and some candy for dessert and I'm goooooood. I also love chips, sooooo.

Remember this?

I bought a box of these tiny bags at Target. Now you can pack little tiny candy portions in your lunch!!!Target has all SORTS of candy varieties just waiting to be packed in your lunch, or your children's lunch I suppose. That may not be the greatest idea lest you end up raising a child that is a lot like me as an adult.

I bring two, which is 75 calories worth of pure sugary, chewy, fruity bliss.

Treat yo'self.