Little by Little
After I broke the glass here in the office, I carried the rest of the dishes downstairs. DH and the older girls had arrived home from their outing by then.
As I put the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter, I told DH, "Be careful with these dishes, because they might have slivers of--" CRASH! A little glass bowl slid off the stack of dishes in my hand, hit the linoleum and shattered.
There was a long pause, and then I finished my sentence: "broken glass in them."
DH and I laughed until we couldn't get our breath. The kids couldn't quite figure out what was so funny, but they laughed along with us anyway.
So the kitchen floor got cleaned, too.
7 hours after I broke the first glass, the area under my desk is the cleanest it's been since we moved in over 3 years ago.
########################
The piles of papers, toys, puzzle pieces and bits of junk are gone. The floor is vaccuumed and the printer paper is neatly organized. All the envelopes, packing slips and receipts I had saved from when I was selling on eBay are filed or thrown away.
For the first time in recent history, I can roll my chair across the floor without the sound of paper crunching under the wheels. My feet are actually sitting on the clean carpet instead of on a pile of saved paper bags with magazines and junk mail mixed in.
My dad brought over the shop vac, and it did a great job removing the glass slivers from the chair and floor. I filled two big bags with papers and clutter to throw away.
As I was searching online for tips on cleaning up broken glass, I stumbled across a website called squalorsurvivors.com and was drawn in. It helps you rate your degree of squalor and gives tips for digging your way out. There are 4 degrees of squalor listed. Our home is pretty solidly at first and second degree squalor (more clutter instead of actual filth), but the area around my desk was probably getting close to third degree with the bits of old popcorn and the occasional stale sunflower seed mixed in with weeks-old coffee cups and crumpled bits of paper.
The site looks quite interesting, and the photos and stories are motivating. The information on learning to let go of clutter and make better use of living space seems helpful.
Now that I have the area under the desk clean, I think I'll tackle the desk itself tomorrow.
We finally moved Baby E's crib into her own room today, and in the process did some organizing and decluttering in both her room and ours. Earlier this week I sorted through the kids' pajamas and got rid of all but a few in each size. I'm getting a stack of clothes ready to take to our local consignment store, and filling bags with things to donate as well.
DH and I have been catching up on laundry and organizing/decluttering everyone's clothes in preparation for our upcoming trip to Mexico. Today DH packed most of the clothes the girls will need into their suitcases. We're working on these things ahead of time, giving ourselves lots of leeway to get them done. It feels good to be planning ahead and not waiting until the last minute like we usually do.
Hopefully by the time we leave, our house will be presentable enough not to be embarrassing for a housesitter to come into while we're gone. :)
One of the FlyLady testimonials today was a letter from a member that talked about how when Israel was coming out of Egypt, God opened the way a little at a time so they would not be overwhelmed by wild animals. Exodus 23 says He made the way "little by little . . until [the Israelites] increased enough to take possesion of the land." She compared it to taking baby steps to get out of our clutter: reclaiming our lives "little by little" without trying to do too much at once.
FlyLady mentioned in her reply also that our possessions are like manna. If we pick up more than we need they become wormy and rot!
She said, "Since FlyLady started I have often thought about our clutter as Manna from heaven. If we gather up just the right amount and don't hoard then it won't turn to worms.
This is why it is so important to only surround ourselves with things
that we love and use. We can't hold on to all of it. Release your
clutter and find the peace you have been searching. Less clutter makes
it easier to do your routines."
Looking at the before and after pictures on the Squalor Survivors website made me realize even more how much I like an uncluttered environment. It's so much more peaceful to live without clutter. I'm glad to be making progress in that direction, even in baby steps.
As I put the pile of dishes on the kitchen counter, I told DH, "Be careful with these dishes, because they might have slivers of--" CRASH! A little glass bowl slid off the stack of dishes in my hand, hit the linoleum and shattered.
There was a long pause, and then I finished my sentence: "broken glass in them."
DH and I laughed until we couldn't get our breath. The kids couldn't quite figure out what was so funny, but they laughed along with us anyway.
So the kitchen floor got cleaned, too.
7 hours after I broke the first glass, the area under my desk is the cleanest it's been since we moved in over 3 years ago.
########################
The piles of papers, toys, puzzle pieces and bits of junk are gone. The floor is vaccuumed and the printer paper is neatly organized. All the envelopes, packing slips and receipts I had saved from when I was selling on eBay are filed or thrown away.
For the first time in recent history, I can roll my chair across the floor without the sound of paper crunching under the wheels. My feet are actually sitting on the clean carpet instead of on a pile of saved paper bags with magazines and junk mail mixed in.
My dad brought over the shop vac, and it did a great job removing the glass slivers from the chair and floor. I filled two big bags with papers and clutter to throw away.
As I was searching online for tips on cleaning up broken glass, I stumbled across a website called squalorsurvivors.com and was drawn in. It helps you rate your degree of squalor and gives tips for digging your way out. There are 4 degrees of squalor listed. Our home is pretty solidly at first and second degree squalor (more clutter instead of actual filth), but the area around my desk was probably getting close to third degree with the bits of old popcorn and the occasional stale sunflower seed mixed in with weeks-old coffee cups and crumpled bits of paper.
The site looks quite interesting, and the photos and stories are motivating. The information on learning to let go of clutter and make better use of living space seems helpful.
Now that I have the area under the desk clean, I think I'll tackle the desk itself tomorrow.
We finally moved Baby E's crib into her own room today, and in the process did some organizing and decluttering in both her room and ours. Earlier this week I sorted through the kids' pajamas and got rid of all but a few in each size. I'm getting a stack of clothes ready to take to our local consignment store, and filling bags with things to donate as well.
DH and I have been catching up on laundry and organizing/decluttering everyone's clothes in preparation for our upcoming trip to Mexico. Today DH packed most of the clothes the girls will need into their suitcases. We're working on these things ahead of time, giving ourselves lots of leeway to get them done. It feels good to be planning ahead and not waiting until the last minute like we usually do.
Hopefully by the time we leave, our house will be presentable enough not to be embarrassing for a housesitter to come into while we're gone. :)
One of the FlyLady testimonials today was a letter from a member that talked about how when Israel was coming out of Egypt, God opened the way a little at a time so they would not be overwhelmed by wild animals. Exodus 23 says He made the way "little by little . . until [the Israelites] increased enough to take possesion of the land." She compared it to taking baby steps to get out of our clutter: reclaiming our lives "little by little" without trying to do too much at once.
FlyLady mentioned in her reply also that our possessions are like manna. If we pick up more than we need they become wormy and rot!
She said, "Since FlyLady started I have often thought about our clutter as Manna from heaven. If we gather up just the right amount and don't hoard then it won't turn to worms.
This is why it is so important to only surround ourselves with things
that we love and use. We can't hold on to all of it. Release your
clutter and find the peace you have been searching. Less clutter makes
it easier to do your routines."
Looking at the before and after pictures on the Squalor Survivors website made me realize even more how much I like an uncluttered environment. It's so much more peaceful to live without clutter. I'm glad to be making progress in that direction, even in baby steps.
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Posted by purple_kangaroo at 12:51 AM[Permanent link]
4 Comments:
So glad the baby wasn't with you! I'm working on de-cluttering too. It's so depressing to move a pile of stuff just so you can put down another pile of stuff.
I couldn't believe another dish broke! LOL So glad the clean-up went alright, though. :-)
Well said, Liz.
Amy, I couldn't believe it either. Then after I swept up the broken glass I dropped the dustpan.
Powdered Glass
You probably broke a 'tempered' glass mug. I broke a tempered glass window, 8 feet by 10 feet in my living room and the A/C blew powdered glass around and contaminated my whole house with the finest/smallest of it. Every sheet, towel, item of clothing, the carpeting, books, furniture surfaces and floors were covered/contaminated with the stuff. It doesn't wash out. It doesn't vacuum up. It moves around. If you walk in it or on carpeting tainted with it, it will build up in the skin on the bottom of your feet, which will eventually just peel off like a big rubber sole. Drying yourself after a shower is painful, leaving bleeding scratches all over your body. Sleeping under a top sheet leaves your knees, butt and chest red and sore. And if that isn't enough, eating anything with glass powder on it will kill you. It took a whole year and Hurricane Katrina to eventually clean the glass powder out of my life. I'm single; with a baby in your house, you have to get rid of any tempered glass that remains intact in your house. It is a real threat to the lives of everyone in your house if, Heaven forbid, you break any more.
Post a Comment
<< Purple Puzzle Place Home