Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Pre-Spring Cleaning Confessions

Soap and Dishes Back

In spite of introducing a cleaning schedule to my homemaking, this winter it was a struggle to stay on top of cleaning. This was primarily because we were sick more often this winter season than I ever remember. Combine sickness with the holidays, multiple trips out of town, and a funeral, and you don't have a good equation for keeping things organized and spotless.

Oh yes, and I have a one year old. He makes for some fabulous cleaning excuses. He wrote on the wall for the 1st time yesterday...

Excuses aside, now it's Spring! We are all healthy, the air is warm, and I have been in cleaning/purging mode. My house needs some serious organization.

Are you ready to see some of the nitty gritty? Prepare to lose all delusions in which you thought I had it "all together."

The top 10 things that need to be organized/cleaned in my house:

1. Squishy's Closet. The Christmas decorations are stashed haphazardly, and the space is ill-used. Ill-used space is a crime in a tiny apartment.

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2) Our closet and chest of drawers. A taste of the clutter to be seen there...

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3) Bookshelf in Squishy's bedroom.

4) Squishy's chest of drawers. He's growing fast, and many of his clothes need to be sorted.

5) The bathroom shelves. Oh deary me. These deep shelves are wonderful, but easily fall into disarray.

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6) The bathroom cabinet. This is a shocking state of affairs. Especially since there's no door to cover this up. However, I do spy a cheery love note...so that's nice. :)

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7) Bathroom drawers. Time to organize all the stockpiled shampoo, tampons, deodorant...you name it.

8) My recipe binder. My number of go-to recipes has multiplied at a crazy rate and my binder is bursting at the seams.

9) The kitchen cabinets. I tackled the kitchen yesterday and it's almost done. Here is a before and after of my "catch all" cabinet. The first picture makes me thankful that cabinets have doors.

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10) The refrigerator--done! Did you hear the hallelujah chorus after this baby had a good scrubbing yesterday?

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All cleaned out and ready for condiments again.
My game plan for this week of Spring cleaning is to tackle one room per day. Yesterday I spent most of my time in the kitchen and today is dedicated to the bathroom.

Now that you've seen the true state of my house, what's on your spring cleaning list? Want to clean along with me?



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Linked to Top Ten Tuesday,Tackle It Tuesday, and Homemaking Link-Up.
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19 comments:

  1. Our cellar is on the big to do list this year... I don't even want to begin to think about that lol craziness

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  2. You really inspired me there! I need to tackle the kids' wardrobes (sorting and putting everything into NEAT piles) and my refrigerator screams "CLEAN ME PLEASE!!!". And I want some baskets for my drawers, I love it when things are in baskets when I clean. I think you are very courageous to show the before, lol!
    Love Amelie

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  3. I've been cleaning out our closets as we've been working on an addition but my pantry could really use some organization!

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  4. Oh - it's a constant state of cleaning and organizing around these parts. Yesterday, I finally got around to the lower half of my front closet and solved a shoe storage quandry I had there. Now I just need to implement the plan that I came up with for the shoes. Great plans! Love the idea of putting it all up there so you can add to it as time goes on.

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  5. We've been spring cleaning/purging as well. All of our apartment is on our list, since we're trying to condense the amount of stuff we have. My pantry is the most desperate though. I can't find anything in it!

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  6. I can identify with every last thing on that list.....and then some! My hive-inducing area of the house right now is the "play corner". Thanks for sharing the dirty truth with us!

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  7. Awesome plan and great tackle!!!

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  8. Oh my gosh! It is SO encouraging to know that I'm not the only one feeling like I have SO much to organize, clean and purge! With two little ones under 2.5, it is so challenging. I've lived in tiny apartments and now we're renting a huge house from friends and it is so overwhelming to keep clean! I think I need to clean my fridge today after seeing yours! :-) great job!!!

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  9. My apartment {especially the girls' room} is in a sad, disorganized shape. But, as we're still pushing forward to sign on our new house on the 31st {woot!}, I've decided that all my spring cleaning will be pushed till April.

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  10. Oh boy, if that's your clutter and disorganization, please don't look at my house! :)
    I have my share of excuses from this winter (a one-year-old and morning sickness and a wacky schedule), but I am SO ready to start purging and organizing, too! I spent an hour yesterday in the garage rearranging a shelf, and it felt great.

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  11. Great job.. My house in the winter always gets cluttered and I can't wait for spring cleaning. We just moved recently so the spring cleaning is already done.

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  12. We're about to celebrate 3 years of living in our home and have yet to tackle the "forbidden front room closet". I am very much afraid. We'll everything else in our house is fine, that's our disaster zone. It's all you've posted, and much more. Yikes! Mostly the kids' toys that we rotate. I have pleaded with our families not to buy the kids more stuff.

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  13. Your messes still look so nice and bright. My messes are ugly and I totally understand about the closet, my little boy's closet is the same way. Good luck on your spring cleaning!

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  14. It's funny because we just moved into our new house, so I don't have to do spring cleaning, just spring organizing!! This is where it starts off good, and then declines into craziness!!

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  15. You have been very busy! Great job!

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  16. This is great. Your one liners about your messes made me smile this morning. :) Love you.

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  17. Weather is finally braking here and this is a motivation type of post. I to have way to much clutter and I think I will be making a list of stuff to declutter. Again, great post.

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  18. Alicia, you are on it!!! I'm in need of some major organization from our recent move so, I'm hosting a little linky for spring cleaning posts in a couple weeks. It's mostly to keep me motivated...but hopefully it will help others as well! You of course, have your own motivation :-)

    Your fridge looks a.ma.zing. by the way...sparkley clean and white! Want to come do mine next? lol!

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  19. Too funny! I second the comments about your messes not being so bad. :) and I just cleaned my fridge yesterday...it was so overdue! I will say the toys and kids clothes need to be sorted and donated...top of the list! and then I will work my way around the rest of the house. I have just started going thru my stockpiled food. I have a few canned items nearing their best before date so I must make them into something before then, one happy benefit of organizing and cleaning...things don't get wasted. (I never use food past the BBD! so this is a big deal for me to not throw any of it away!)

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