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February 20th, 2008
06:58 pm - Housecleaning report, week 3
Once again, I was sick for most of the week, so not a huge amount got done. But I'm better now; thanks for asking. :-) This week we got some of the sweet payoff for the earlier work:
* Finished decluttering the back of the kitchen (yay!). The bay window is clear for the first time in... um, maybe since it was installed? Heh. Now I want to get a cushion made for it, so we can sit there. That'll be really nice once spring comes, when we can gaze out upon the daffodils and lilacs and lilies-of-the-valley in the back yard. Matthew already thinks it's pretty cool to stand in there and watch the squirrels.
* Continued decluttering the entryway area.
* Moved the drop-leaf table from the back of the kitchen to the entryway area (along with an accompanying Windsor chair). It's now a very pleasant, sunny place to sit and read the paper!
* Rearranged Matthew's play area to accommodate said table in the entryway. We also needed to cover up the builtin bookshelves, as he's decided that the books are quite fun to pull down from shelves en masse. This just took a little bit of creativity with the baby fences and a distracting pile of cardboard bricks. But now it appears that there's more room in there, which can't be right... oh well. It seems less cluttered, anyway.
* Bought a toddler-sized table and chairs for Matthew, and put them into the back of the kitchen where the big table had been. Now he can sit there and eat snacks, or more typically, climb all over the new furniture. :-) Happy baby!
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February 12th, 2008
12:06 pm - Housecleaning report, week 2
I'm a couple of days late posting this, but...
* Reviewed a stack of old magazines and put them into recycling.
* Cut up a bunch of cardboard boxes into small pieces, and put them into recycling too. Total of 8 bags generated.
* Charged up and cleaned out the Dustbuster, and used it upstairs. I'm trying to get into the habit of regularly Dustbusting the hall and Matthew's room, to keep it from getting too nasty too fast. It's a heck of a lot easier than hauling the vacuum cleaner upstairs.
* Decluttered more of the rear of the kitchen (not done yet). Enough has been cleared that we can now move the antique table from there to somewhere else in the house, thus making room for a playspace for Matthew! Sometime in the next few days, I'll go get a toddler-sized table and a couple of little chairs for him. And a roll of butcher paper, to catch whatever creative messes he makes. :-) But I'm getting ahead of myself.
....And when that was done, we all got sick with a stomach bug! When we got over that, Matthew and I caught a ferocious cold, which we still have. So no other progress got made last week. We did achieve homeostatis, at least, which means laundry, sweeping, dishes, food cooking and consumption, etc. etc. Hopefully we'll all get healthy again and make some more progress this week.
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February 5th, 2008
09:20 pm - Housecleaning report, week 1
In the last few days, here's what Rich and I have accomplished, over and above homeostasis (laundry, vacuuming, dealing with food in all its stages, etc.):
* We cleaned up a "clutter corner" by the stereo. We sorted out a pile of random stuff on a TV tray, throwing some of it out, filing some of the rest. We dusted and cleaned all the TV trays and folding chairs that stood in that corner, put them downstairs where Matthew can't knock them over, and vacuumed and cleaned the dusty floor. We also brought an old box of tapes up to the attic. It looks SO much better!
* I bought a set of plastic bins, plus some other storage supplies.
* I emptied every single drawer in the sewing cabinet in Matthew's room, inspected and sorted the contents, went "oooooooh" at the cool 50-year-old steel attachments for the 100-year-old sewing machine, and stored the good stuff into one of the new bins. Matthew can now safely pull the drawers out and play with them. He doesn't know how, yet, but he will someday soon... better not to have pins and needles in there, I think.
* I cleaned out my crafts bin, threw some old junk out, and consolidated some of it with the stuff from the sewing cabinet. There's still too much stuff in there, but at least all the old yarn fits in it now.
* Bagged, labeled, and put out the old paper diapers for people to pick up. Except that no one picked them up. I'll try again when it's not raining outside! (Anyone want diapers of size NB, 1, or 3?)
Current Mood: accomplished
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11:51 am - Housecleaning
Our house is a mess! There's nothing new about that, but it's starting to make me a little crazy.
I've become less and less tolerant of a messy house over the years, but (1) Rich and I are both terrible housekeepers, (2) Rich is still more tolerant of mess than I am, which means he doesn't have the same emotional investment that I do in cleaning (that's not a slight on him!), and (3) Matthew adds an amount of mess completely disproportionate to his size. :-)
Of course, having a child around who can now WALK (!!!) means that we need to get serious about the clutter, because it can become dangerous. We've caught him reaching up to countertops and tables to pull things down, for instance. No disasters yet, but it's just a matter of time.
So we've kind of reached a crisis point. I've concluded that these are the factors that will help us reach a better state:
* Do a serious decluttering. I want to get rid of a lot of stuff, which may involve freecycle, ebay, the local PTO thrift shop, Goodwill, consignment stores, or the curb. For things we want to keep, I want to get yet more big plastic bins, bin stuff up, label it, and move it to the attic or basement. The problem? This takes time, and my time is worth MONEY these days! Literally, since I'm contracting by the hour!
* More storage space, and more intelligent use of the space we already have. We've built an immense bookshelf system -- already mostly full -- which we need to use better. Our closets are small, and we don't use them terribly well either (they need decluttering too). I'm convinced that we three messies can live in this small house -- we just need to be smarter about it.
* We need to get our daily "systems" working better. We tend to leave random stuff lying around, to leave laundry on the couch, to not move recycling out to the storage area, to not break down the boxes we get in the mail, to not clear off the kitchen counters... With enough self-discipline and better daily habits, we can keep the clutter down without having to explicitly "declutter" nearly so often. I'm working on that, habit by habit, but it's maddeningly slow work.
* Dirt! I'm actually not bad at getting rid of dirt -- the clutter is in the way, that's all. :-) When I get on a cleaning kick, Rich knows to stay out of my way, and not a cobweb or speck of food remains after I'm done. We have the tools: a nice new vacuum, a good rag mop, non-chemical cleaners (soap and vinegar), a Dustbuster, etc. But we need to keep the clutter down, and I need to find time to get rid of the dirt more frequently. Only the time issue would be solved with a maid service, not the clutter.
So ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) recordersmith and I are going to keep each other accountable. :-) We'll both post weekly about progress we're making in our respective houses.
Current Mood: determined
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June 27th, 2007
11:33 pm - The yard was out of control, so...
I caved and contracted it out. :-)
Since Matthew was born, I've tried to maintain this enormous and complex yard in my rapidly-shrinking free time -- I've tried for ten years -- but I need to face the fact that I just can't handle it myself anymore! (Rich mows the grass and deals with the poison ivy; I do most of the other stuff. I consider it fair, since I enjoy working outside.)
Anyway, the yard got really scary. In New England, the forest is always trying to grow back, and our yard is no exception. It's overgrown with sassafras saplings, Norway maple saplings, Japanese bamboo, bittersweet vines, columbine, English ivy, wild violets, multiflora, barberry, and Lord knows what else. Oh, and poison ivy, which I'm miserably allergic to. Tree limbs have fallen, the lilacs have grown a thicket of suckers where I could once walk among the trunks, and the stone steps have sprouted slippery grass that is dangerous to walk on.
So I called in help last week.
A local guy, just starting out in the landscaping business, came by last Tuesday and spent four hours weeding and trimming and pulling out saplings. Today he spent all day at it. He'll do it again next week, and the next, until it's "done." I feel really good about this. He uses hand tools and hard work instead of power tools, which I like -- I did not want the racket and stink of leafblowers and hedge trimmers. (We keep an organic yard, more or less.) The areas he worked on look fantastic, but natural, not straightedge-perfect. He put most of the clippings in a tidy brush pile, with one (!) extra bag of yard waste and one plastic bag of uprooted invasives. He shows terrific judgment about what to pull and what to leave behind, so I don't have to worry that he's going to uproot my rosebush after telling him to "pull out the things with thorns." *facepalm* (Yeah, I did that; the barberries and multiflora and brambles really did have to go!)
Now our house doesn't look like it's abandoned! Yay! And if I want to start planting new things -- nice native plants, like ferns, that won't run wild all over the yard -- I can do that!
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June 22nd, 2007
10:18 pm - Matthew's room
I recently cleaned up Matthew's room, and I thought it would be fun to take pictures of it so that I could remember later what it looked like when he was a baby. (I.e., before he becomes mobile enough to make certain things dangerous, and before he has his own decorating ideas.)
Note kidlet snoozing on the futon. :-) Note also the magazines -- Mothering for me, AAII Journal for Rich. The bedspread I crocheted when I was 15 years old. The artwork: the two framed things are traditional Sherpa paintings that I brought back from Nepal, and the farm scene on the pillow is a South American arpillera (a fabric sculpture), Matthew's favorite age-inappropriate toy. I see no reason not to put good art in a baby's room!
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October 24th, 2006
05:10 pm - Continuing the beige ban.
Oh boy, it's been a long time since I posted the previous set of pictures. My apologies, everyone, for taking so long to get these last two up! I've been busy. (And since you were wondering, no, the baby's not here yet.)
Anyway, so here's our "new" front door. It's actually a salvaged antique door, for which one of our contractors built and installed a custom frame. If you think this is a good idea for you too, take note: it was NOT any cheaper than buying a nice new door! Quite the contrary. Oy, had I known... but it's done now. Pretty grain, hm? And those are eight beveled glass lights up at the top.
And then we had the study painted blue with white trim. A couple of months ago, we had floor-to-ceiling shelves built onto the lefthand wall, in our endless pursuit of more storage space. I think they came out very nicely -- good job, Mike!
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) calm
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October 6th, 2006
05:33 pm - Beginning the beige ban.
Look at our new house colors! The house was beige before -- inside and out -- and we wanted colors that were more interesting. On the outside, we wanted natural colors that would look good with all the fieldstone, and which would be true to the house's colonial style while still being fresh and current. We chose to not use white at all, even on the new windows (white is sort of the default color for windows and doors these days). So now it's red, sage green, and deep brown on the outside...
...and in the kid's room, white and sunny yellow! It feels so pleasant in there now, especially on sunny mornings. The shutters haven't been installed on the new windows yet, so you can see them in all their glory.
(Click the pictures for larger versions.)
And today, finally, for the first time in weeks -- no contractors were here! :-) But we're not done yet. Another room will be painted, along with the rest of the window casings. A "new" antique front door will be installed. And we're waiting on a stained glass piece for the new stairwell window.
Current Mood: satisfied
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September 16th, 2006
11:36 am - Catching up with last week
We did a lot of things last week, and I've been lame about posting...
First, my father and his wife Lana visited us for a while. We had such a good time! We didn't get out and do much, but we had lots of time to sit around and talk, and that's what counts. (We did get a spontaneous private fife-and-drum concert when we took Lana to Lexington to see the Tavern on the Green, which was cool.) Despite my pregnancy, Dad brought us some wonderful wines, of which I had a very few sips. Damn, but I miss drinking wine!
Second, the contractors have been tearing out and replacing our upstairs windows. Remarkably, I have absolutely zero complaints about them. They are competent, polite, and patient, and they clean up after themselves really well! :-) (They even put down temporary carpet in the house's main pathways so that they wouldn't damage our floors and rugs.) And the windows look fabulous, both inside and out. I should take a picture of the woodworking they did on the inside; it's just lovely craftsmanship. Not done yet, though.
Third, we went to see Cirque du Soleil's "Corteo" the other night. I think it's better than the last couple of shows we've seen; the narrative thread (such as it ever is) holds together better, and the stage setup and visuals are beautiful. Unusually, they do a "real" theater in the round, and bring people on and off the stage via a narrow corridor running across the center of the stage. Our first-row seats were dangerous -- I almost got hit by a flying prop! Plus, being that close to the band and onstage drummers, the baby woke up; he kicked and rock'n'rolled during the whole first act (ouch!).
Finally, last Saturday we brought an American flag up to Cannon Mountain and flew it in honor of the 9/11 victims. This is a semi-organized memorial event done every year by area hikers; we fly the flag from each of New Hampshire's 48 peaks of 4000 feet or higher. You can read my "Flags on the 48" post here.
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