Tackling My Very Neglected To Do List

On Friday I made up a To Do list of all those pesky little projects that I had been neglecting but were bugging me every time I thought about them or walked by them.  On Saturday I determined to address all of my little projects.  By Sunday, I'd only knocked one thing off my list.

I spent Saturday morning deep cleaning my bedroom.  I cleared off the dresser top, my drop spot in the corner of the room next to my side of the bed, the clothes thrown over the foot board, the clothes on the closet floor.  I convinced Hubby that he wanted to clean up his clothes at the foot of the bed and finish unpacking his suitcase from when he went to camp back in August that was still sitting in our room.  Next I dusted everything--flat surfaces, the bed, the walls, the windowsills, the door frames, the mirrors.  Then I did a thorough vacuum including using the hose to get the baseboards.

My clean dresser

After that was done, I deep cleaned my bathroom.  I washed the walls and baseboards, I purged the medicine cabinet.  I found a new home for the various bottles of things that we weren't using but didn't want to throw away just yet.

Monday I was running all day long so I didn't have time to do anything.  Tuesday I got down to business.  I washed all of the entryway and bathroom mats.  I cleaned off the big pile of junk sitting on the counter in the laundry room.  I decluttered the junk drawer in my kitchen.  I cleared off my computer desk.

Laundry room dumping zone--the water has been turned off since me moved in
since it is "conveniently" at kid height and perfect for little kid water messes
Next project: Remove sink and cupboard entirely

I can't say that I did a lot of work.  My bedroom wasn't that messy.  The laundry counter wasn't that horrible.  But there's something funny about decluttering.  Once something is no longer there, the space that it was occupying suddenly looks bare.  Empty.  Like something is missing.  I walk into my bedroom and it looks funny not having a suitcase against the wall.  My bathroom counter looks weird being completely cleared off.  My laundry room looks like it needs a new pile to replace the one that had been there for weeks (or was it months???).

I do love that these areas of my home are now picked up.  While it looks funny right now, I am getting used to the new, clean, slightly empty look.  Every time I am tempted to leave something on the dresser top or throw my sweater over the foot board of my bed, I stop myself and put it away properly because it's a lot easier to put away one thing than to allow the mess to accumulate over a month or more.  Then I will be faced with another long Saturday morning of deep cleaning my bedroom.