The Remedy for Real

Well, I kept it real on Monday and showed you my hot spots around the house. Today I spent about 30 minutes total putting out those hot spots.

I set the timer for 2 minutes for my desk, but that wasn't long enough, so I set it for 3 more minutes. This is my desk now:



And here is my sewing area:



My husband surprised me by clearing off the cedar chest at the foot of our bed, and I put the clothes away in just a couple of minutes. I don't have a picture, though, because my husband turned right around and began decluttering his filing cabinet, with my daughter helping. When I walked into our room, there were papers literally covering every inch of our bed and the cedar chest! It took them a couple of hours, and now it's all clear again, but I was finished taking pics by then.

And our dresser is still a mess. It probably will be for the rest of the week. Remember, my husband is a pastor whose office is also our bedroom, and this week we are preparing for a special Friend Day at our church. He is preparing lots of things for that service in his office (our bedroom), so this week will be messy in there. This is part of keepin' it real. Real life requires a little give and take; this week it's my turn to give!

If you have an area that's a mess, set the timer and put 15 minutes into it. You might be surprised at what a difference 15 minutes can make!

Monday's Mission: Complete

I completed Kelly's mission for today in a little over 15 minutes. I wiped down all my counters with Vim cleaner and rinsed them well, and while I had things pulled away from the back of the counters, I went ahead and sprayed my subway-tile backsplash with Windex and wiped them clean with a paper towel.

For my decluttering today, I focused on the cabinet under my sink. I hate under-sink cabinets! To me, they always seem dirty and I'm almost afraid to stick my hand in, sure that there's some kind of creepy-crawly under there. I had been stuffing things under there, various cleaners and rags, dishwashing supplies, trash bags - all willy-nilly with no order to it. I even had an old frying pan down there! I pulled everything out, wiped down the floor of the cabinet with Formula 409 (my favorite all-purpose cleaner) and wiped it out good. Then I put back only the cleaners and trash bags. I do have several different cleaners, but I use them all for one thing or another. Now everything is in order . . . but I still don't want to stick my hand under there! ;) This cabinet took less than 15 minutes.

Under-sink cabinet before . . .

Under-sink cabinet after

Cleaning Up From the Weekend

Because we had such a busy day yesterday, my kitchen looked like an explosion last night. And you know what? It still looked like that this morning! I just didn't have the oomph to do anything to it last night, so I decided to leave it. Here's what I faced in my kitching and dining area this morning:

I can't say that 15 minutes solved this problem! It was more like an hour. I didn't have room in the dishwasher for everything, so I hand-washed several items, mainly those big ol' crockpots and pitchers. Then I did some decluttering in my church dishes cabinet to fit in the leftover plates and such from yesterday. Now my kitchen and dining area look like this: