The poor vacuum cleaner needed a bit of love and attention today, so I got some scissors and cut away the long hair and other materials wrapped around the brush roller. I do this about once a month otherwise it gives off a horrible burning smell.
Here it is all clean and it only took about ten minutes. It looks as good as new don’t you think?
Clean brush roller
90 day checkpoint
I can’t believe that I’ve been decluttering and introducing mini systems around the house for exactly 90 days. It’s harder to focus now that everyone is at home; however, I’m still making good progress. I’m getting positive comments from the rest of the family too.
I’ve been longing to get to the day where I have enough time and motivation to declutter our en-suite bathroom. Today was that day and this was the embarrassing mess that I was faced with…
I took everything off the shelves and placed them into an empty washing basket.
Then I sorted those items into the ones that I wanted to display and those that needed to be put away. Here’s the transformation…
I still need to find a place for the items that I didn’t put back. To be honest, I’ll probably just squeeze those into the cupboard under the sink for later sorting. That’s a job for a other day. It’s all about baby steps.
We have to remember that we’d never do anything if we planned to do it all in one day.
Now we’re at home all day, I’m trying to fit in the housework around the rest of the family. Whilst vacuuming the stairs (something I don’t usually like doing as my handheld contraption isn’t working) I had this urge to s-l-o-w d-o-w-n. What was the rush today?
Just like that, I changed the speed at which I was pushing the machine. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of this before. I have always rushed cleaning; trying to fit it around my working hours and cutting many corners (not ideal). I have never actually taken the time to get that piece of clinging fluff off the stair carpet, I just huff and puff and pick it up with my fingers. Today, I just went over the area slower, and low and behold all the dirt disappeared into the machine. Magic!
I’m going to clean slower as me more mindfully from now on. Hey, I might even do a better job.
I must add this bit in to show my girls’ appreciation… they actually said ‘the carpet looks so nice and clean’ and I got a thank you for cleaning their bathroom sinks the other day. Yes, I know that they could help, and they do sometimes, and will more in the future; however, right now, I’m enjoying the mindfulness whilst cleaning. With spa music in my ears today (sometimes it’s Mama Mia Here We Go Again or something else upbeat), I appreciated every minute.
It doesn’t take long to clear and clean one area. Faced with this mess in the main bathroom today…
Before decluttering
….I removed the basket of could-be-clean-or-dirty-clothes-I-don’t-know and then threw all of the unused and empty bottles that were around the sink into the bin.
After wiping down the surfaces, sinks and shelves and organising the rest, I was left with a nice tidy area.
After decluttering
It only took about ten minutes leaving me more time for other things.
Those who are following me will know that I don’t know much about drains but I’m certainly learning by buying different tools and knowing who to call if it’s a bigger job.
Today I decided I couldn’t leave this particular sink in the en-suite any longer. The water hasn’t been draining properly for a while so I decided to try this new tool that I bought from Amazon for £1.31.
Small drain cleaning tool
Here’s how it went…
I unscrewed the plug and pushed down the drain cleaning tool. What came out was way more than I thought.
Unclogging the plug
Although not a nice job, it’s a very satisfying one.
It motivated me to clean the bathrooms, and mop the floors.
I can’t believe that it’s day 85 of my decluttering challenge. The sun shone again today and I was itching to get some more gardening done or sort out a drawer, cupboard, corner, shelf etc., but I just didn’t get the time.
It wasn’t until this afternoon that I realised that I’d left the lawnmower in front of the garage after mowing the lawn yesterday afternoon. No one stole it, ha ha, firstly because it’s a pretty safe area around here and secondly because no one is walking around anyway due to the current coronavirus pandemic. Thankfully, it also hadn’t rained overnight. My battered old lawn mower is now safely back in the garage.
What I did do though is foolishly glance beyond the door of the garage and my heart sank, so I quickly shut the door! That’s going to take a whole lot of weeks or maybe even months to sort through. Maybe I’ll go in there every day and take one item or box out, and bag up or bin the contents. It’s all been in there for so long I don’t think there’s much worth keeping.
On second thoughts, I shouldn’t get distracted with the garage. I will continue to focus on the house and garden otherwise I won’t see the progress around me every day.
As I looked around the house this evening, I saw lots that I could have started decluttering, but after a full days work, making dinner and clearing up, I just felt like going to bed a bit earlier.
As I was having a cuddle with my youngest teenage daughter, I said “I’m feeling tired, what shall I declutter this evening?” She said “Why don’t you declutter your mind.” I thought that was an absolutely perfect answer!
Synctuition Meditation
This evening I’m going to switch on my Synctuition meditation track a bit earlier than usual and declutter my mind. I have been doing this every night since I started the trial back in February. I signed up for year recently and really look forward to it every night. I’m 30% of the way through level 2 and tonight’s track is called ‘Time’. Here goes…
I’m so grateful for the weather at the moment. The sun shone again today and although there was a bit of a chill in the air, it was pleasant enough to sit outside and eat my breakfast before I started work in my temporary office in the conservatory.
When I logged off my work laptop this afternoon, I felt motivated to do some gardening. Let’s call it ‘decluttering the lawn and shrubs’. I first picked up all the rubbish that had been blown about in the high winds a few weeks ago and then mowed the lawn with our old and battered battery operated mower (that I have to bash and kick a few times for it to work, and then not turn it off until I’ve finished!)
It did a good job though and when I sat and had a look at the garden through the conservatory window, I remembered that I hadn’t quite finished pruning the shrubs the other day. So, I had another go at them.
This additional chopping and hacking at dead branches revealed a plant that I didn’t know was there. It could be a weed for all I know, but it looked ok to me. It made me think about my grandad’s words when he was alive which went something like ‘if it looks nice and you like it, then leave it. It doesn’t matter that it’s a weed’.
So, I left it there, and we’ll see if it flowers.
Unknown plant
Keeping occupied
I can always find something to do in the house and garden, but I know that others are finding it hard being stuck in. I had a friend message me earlier this evening saying that she was feeling down. I offered to catch up over the phone with her this week. I think it’s important that we are there for each other during these challenging times.
Hope you have all had a good day and are managing to keep yourselves occupied in your homes and gardens.
I was a bit disappointed this morning when Tesco cancelled my online grocery shopping order by text message just after it was due to be delivered (due to store issues). I’n sure that they must have had a good reason. Instead I had to do what I was trying to avoid which was to go out to our local Asda supermarket and get some food.
Thankfully, everyone was being sensible with social distancing. I also got all the food that I needed, as well as a free bunch of flowers that they were offering to every customer. Thanks Asda, nice touch!
Conservatory partly decluttered
When I decided to use my conservatory last week for home working, I knew that I had to make a few changes in there.
Before decluttering
Yesterday, I had a bit of time to move a couple of pieces of furniture out so that I could work more comfortably.
Today I placed my free flowers on the small table next to my desk and did a little bit more tidying. This is the picture of how it’s looking now…
After partial decluttering
Being a sunny day, it was a pleasant temperature again; however, I might need to dig out the fan if it gets any hotter. I’m not complaining about the warmth, I just want to be prepared.
The other side of the conservatory needs decluttering but this is enough for now.
I couldn’t go out and buy the cards that I needed for Mother’s Day the other day, so I made my own. I decided not to post this blog until today in case they saw it 😊.
Due to the decluttering I’ve been doing this year, I was proud of myself for actually being able to find the box of plain cards, the tub full of ribbon and the gold pen. That’s all I needed to make these simple cards before the last post on Friday.
Conservatory and Gutters
Our window cleaner came round to clear out the gutters and clean our conservatory roof this morning. This is what the roof looked like from the bedroom window before the clean…
Before cleaning
… and this is the view we have now.
After cleaning
We were really pleased with what he’d done as it was a big job (it hadn’t been done for a while). After that, I spent a bit of time making some space inside the conservatory, as I’m using it for home working at the moment.
The plan was to get things up straight in there before I log back in for work tomorrow morning, but I didn’t get very far. I felt so relaxed and warm with the sun shining through the windows and ended up falling asleep in the armchair.
When I woke up, I moved one of the armchairs into the dining room and put a low table next to my work desk for my books etc. I’ll add some ‘before’ and ‘after’ photos tomorrow once I’ve made some more progress.
I woke up quite early this morning and immediately thought of the cluttered kitchen/dining room. Like I said yesterday, I wasn’t worried about it, I just didn’t want to tidy it when I didn’t feel like it. This morning I was actually in the mood to do it.
I spent most of the morning pottering about (love doing that!) sorting all the stuff that was lying around from the last week. It has all congregated due to us being in the house all day every day now, and not yet getting into a proper routine (plenty of time for that though).
The overgrown shrub
The sun was shining today and I just wanted to feel it on my skin, so I added something challenging to my day and decided to cut down the shrub in our back garden that was masking the view from the conservatory. Probably not the most urgent of jobs, but I’ve been meaning to do it for a while now. It felt more necessary now that I have to look at it from the conservatory (my new working from home spot).
Shrub before cutting back
I didn’t have a clue about how to properly cut down a shrub so I googled it. I found a few good tips, but I think I needed something better than a hand pruning tool. So, I sort of hacked at it.
I managed to keep some foliage and still have a bit more shaping to do. At least I can see over it from the conservatory now. As it’s spring we should start to get a few more leaves on it soon.
Cutting down the shrub
I probably should have been wearing gardening gloves as my hands are quite sore and dry now. It might also have something to do with the increased washing of hands over the past couple of weeks. I must get a decent hand cream.
Sandra Madeira 