One Fell Swoop

Untitled
Originally uploaded by Sofia Ajram

I've discovered a great new method for superfast de-cluttering. Yes, I am getting cluttery at school. I blame it on my high levels of busyness and low levels of actually caring about stuff other than food and sleep.

Anyway, my desk looks pretty horrible right now. My camera's dead, otherwise I'd show you. The desk looks like a colorful, toddler copy-machine android vomited on it. It got to be too much, so I took everything unnecessary off of my desk and put it on the floor. (The bed would also work.) Now the clutter was in my path, and at least for me, I can't stand a messy floor, because I feel quite obligated to clear it up. So, it got cleared up!

For those of you who don't mind paths obstructed by clothes and confused papier-mache gone wrong, the bed really would work better. Just pick somewhere that you're going to need to clear to use in the near future, and put all your clutter on it so you're motivated to clean it up. My desk was not a good place for my clutter, because I could easily work around it. Find what works for you, as always.

Now, this may end up taking you in circles, as you find more and more places to relocate your clutter, and eventually end up sleeping in a dresser drawer and bathing in the neighbors' kitchen sink. But it works short-term, and that's really all you need, to start.

Garbage Disposal

My mother's wrist puncture wounds got infected, so that means she now has a huge splint on her left forearm and has to wear a sling. This also means that I have to do most of the housework. I just spent about 75 minutes doing dishes and I noticed, the same as I did a couple days ago when doing dishes, that the black rubber of our garbage disposal opening is a nasty yellow color. I Dawn'd it up and wiped off the crap with a wet paper towel. Much to my disgust, it was filthy!! Not just old (what kind of black fades to yellow anyway?). Feeling very un-green but determined to get the nastiness away from where we clean our dishes, I used many paper towels in the same way to get under the rubber surface, too.

You guys, it looked like FECES. :(

I looked online for ways to thoroughly clean garbage disposals and came upon AskTheBuilder.com. Tim Carter's article primarily offers solutions for smelly garbage disposals, but the ideas are great for everyday switch-flippin'-water-runnin'-food-crushin' fun. He says, in a nutshell:

Grind up the garbage with the water running into the disposal. Then, when it's finished, turn off disposal and stop it up. Fill the sink 2/3 of the way up with water, then add soap generously; finally, let the soapy water run into the disposal and turn the disposal on. The blades will swirl it around, effectively cleaning up that nasty poo-maker. (Ok those two are my words, not his.) There are many more great suggestions at Thrifty Fun.

Thanks to AboutAppliance for today's image.

Housesitting

This past week, I house-sat for a family I've also been babysitting for. The family went on vacation to Disneyland for the younger daughter's 4th birthday and asked me to care for their 2 dogs, 2 cats and 2 rats. It was an interesting experience... culminating, on the last day, with the dogs running away and my mother's wrists being punctured by one of them as we tried to lead them back home. She had to get stitches, and it was very traumatizing, but she'll be ok.

I learned a lot from observing their house. Keep in mind that it's a pretty busy household, but here is what I noticed:

• Box clutter: We had this problem at our apartment, too, of keeping enormous boxes for no reason. And I've talked about it a lot. :) This family had a four-foot tall empty box from a portable air conditioner just sitting in the master bedroom - they got the AC unit two weeks ago, around when I started babysitting! I know that they might want to keep it for the two little girls to play with, but big boxes should have a proper home, either in someone's play area, the garage or in the recycling.


• Clothes: I have a feeling the little girls are a tad spoiled. I love them to death! But they haven't yet learned the value of picking up after themselves. Ok, fine, they are four and eight, but still! Keep those adorable hampers accessible, not jammed in an already-bursting closet. I do like their dresser system, though, when they use it! The eight-year-old has categories for each drawer, and the "star drawer" is specially for pajamas.


• Garbage: It was difficult for me to find a trash can in most rooms of the house. The kitchen didn't even have one! So I used some Safeway bags that I assume were for that purpose. Even more sad, the recycling was hard to find as well. I admit, it may be because I'm not used to their system and they don't need/use labels. But I've found in my own living spaces that having a trash and recycling in each room (or at least most rooms) makes things a lot easier. It's funny how lazy we can be if the recycling is even one room away!

I tidied up as best I could (and as much as I dared, for fear of seeming rude), but I was depressed to see that all my work had been erased when I went back two days later to babysit. Toys and food all over the floor! Kitchen table hardly visible! I guess I shouldn't try to change them if all they're paying me for is animal care and babysitting...

Thanks to Housesitting for the photo. :)

Be Even More Greener

Things you may do to be green but may not do the most efficiently:

RECYCLE
In this age of the green trend, more and more Americans are recycling. This is definitely a good thing! But old habits still die hard - you may still choose the wastebasket over the recycling bag out of laziness. I'm certainly guilty of this! But just remember that there are so many things you can recycle! Jewel cases, styrofoam (just find the right service!), many plastics, and the traditional paper/plastic/glass/aluminum. Depending on your location, you might even be able to get money for these things! Think twice about our rising landfills when you want to throw non-biodegradables in that garbage!


SPRING CLEANING
Many people have a great routine set every year for spring cleaning, which I truly admire! But you can always do better. :) Instead of viewing it as a horrible chore that you have to tackle on your own because no one else around the house helps, make it a fun family event! Make a game out of organizing and cleaning out for the kids, and devise rewards for the grown-ups. The outings to Goodwill etc. can be fun mini road trips, too.

SHOPPING GREEN
Shopping green is the best kind of shopping. You feel great about your purchases and can sometimes save money, like when you buy local at the farmer's market. But make sure you get the most out of your experience. Don't buy fancy green products unless you NEED them and will USE them! Otherwise it's just more clutter and a waste of money. For example: knickknacks made of reused plastic bags are great, but are they going to clutter up your home more/will they get any use? Also, try re-using the produce bags when you shop at the farmer's market. I have more about plastic bags if you're interested. :)

Anything I left out?

Thanks to Tales at Twilight for the image.

Quick Tips

I'm back! I didn't post for a few days because the traffic was really low and it bummed me out. But here's a short and sweet update with some tips:

• A lot of our clutter was huge empty boxes! I don't know how we amassed them, but I think it was the whole "this could come in handy someday" idea. I was kind of relieved that most of the boxes were empty, because it was so easy to just break them down and recycle them. Try ridding yourself of these space Napoleons (=coup d'etat, really bad joke, etc.) today and see how much more open you can make your home.


• Always be careful about letting clutter pile up again once you clear it away. Make sure everything has a place and that things go there! A lot! All the time even! If you don't do this, you might end up using every possible flat surface as storage, like we did, and it can get ugly.


• ARGH BOXES! I'm still bothered by the topic. Let's discuss. Even despite and during this whole process, our living room is still full of boxes, but it's not empty stereo boxes or empty shoe boxes. It's boxes of the things found while de-cluttering that are marked "to keep." Problem is, they're those awful white cardboard boxes with handles that people use for cleaning out their cubicles when it's time to move on. This won't do. I'm thinking of switching them out with something like this in something bright - green or red maybe.


• The whole box thing has resurfaced because I'm making big progress on our front closet. I mentioned that earlier but I'm still really happy because hopefully soon we will have somewhere to put the boxes so that visitors won't be appalled and affronted by them.

Clutter Personality

I've noticed a pattern or two as I've been slogging through the living room. Today, as I was starting to clear off the third of three sitting spaces (1: couch, 2: love seat, and 3: big chair that goes with the couch), I thought to myself, "There is SO MUCH PAPER here." That reminded me of this article I read on clutter personalities.

I revisited the article today and decided that, out of the five personality types listed there, my mother must embody at least four, these being: the hoarder ("This might come in hand someday!"), the deferrer ("I'll think about that tomorrow!"), the perfectionist ("Next week, I'll organize everything--perfectly!"), and the sentimentalist ("Oh, the little darling!"). The fifth is the rebel, who's still bitter about mom's nagging to clean that room.

This melee of personality types may make it sound pretty bad, and it is, but I do acknowledge that it could be a lot worse, like those people in the video I posted a couple days ago. But I think the combination of all these deadly personality types makes me understand a bit better just how much my mom needs someone else to take initiative in de-cluttering.

The paper-pileup is definitely a byproduct of her hoarding personality. She brought me up to always consider that something might be useful later and to never get rid of anything if you can help it. But this is only sensible to a point. There were receipts up the wazoo on the chair I was cleaning today, from Jack-in-the-Box nine months ago (that depressed me a lot) to endless printouts from online. I really don't think proof of your Junior Bacon with Cheese is going to come in handy soon OR later. About.com has some nice tips on how to eliminate paper clutter.

Think carefully about what kind of clutter personality you have, then take the appropriate steps to de-clutter yourself! This is a very important step that I'm feeling the weight of right now.

Thank to this site for the image.

P.S. I hope the people who have found this blog with similar projects underway are finding my tips and progress helpful/inspiring in some way! Always feel welcome to post comments about your own progress and projects. :)

Search and Destroy

Or: Search and De-clutter. That might work better for our purposes. Anyway, here's a technique I've found that helps me a lot in de-cluttering. I never really formed it as a complete thought until somebody posted about clutter in the Livejournal community ourbedrooms.

Tip: If your project seems overwhelming, take it one step at a time. This seems so basic, and it's hard to actually put into practice because you see the mess every day, and every time you think about it, it seems like this monster undertaking that could never possibly get done by doing small pieces of it. However, I find that I make a lot of progress by identifying a single area in a room that has been bothering me in particular, and tackling it.

For example, we couldn't open our front door all the way, like I mentioned the other day. That bugged me a lot. The door was blocked by my mom's wire shelving unit where we stored paper products. I looked around the living room, which has been my main de-cluttering project lately, to find a place I could relocate the shelves to. I cleared out a spot, then made the change. At the same time, I was organizing and not simply moving the clutter around, because I dumped all the paper stuff out and reordered it based on category.

Now our lovely door gets the swing space it needs and, while it still doesn't open all the way, it's a really nice and refreshing change. A helpful one, too, since I don't have to do acrobatics to get all my trash/recycling out the door anymore!

So try the "this bugs me" method and see how far you get! If you have any of your own techniques, feel free to comment and tell me about them!

Fancy Box How-To

After charging my camera batteries for around 815 hours, I have photos ready for a little tutorial. Keep in mind that I am only slightly creative at best, and my execution is kind of horrible. But the idea is what really counts: taking ugly old moving boxes from when you moved 13 years ago (hey hey) and making them look semi-decent so you can use them as storage anywhere in your house! This project is also good if you have over 50 rolls of wrapping paper that you need to use for something. Click the photos for bigger versions.

1. The box.



This is what my bedroom closet looked like before I cleared it out - I de-boxed the top shelf and I de-clothed about half the clothes rack, and I de-crapped the floor. The boxes were still hanging around after all that, somehow, so I came up with the project I will now demonstrate via pictures.

2. Wrap it like a present.



I estimate my boxes to be around 8x13x8, so the wrapping paper didn't quite fit perfectly on each side (you'll see this more in later pictures). But you can start by just laying the box on top of the unfurled roll and cutting it so that the paper covers each of the wide sides. I then folded the extra paper onto the inside of the box and taped it there.

3. Cut diagonally at the box corners for easy folding.



Just make little snippies at the inside corners of the box, so when you fold the paper up over the remaining sides of the box, you don't get paper bunchies. Have some yummies as a snack, maybe rub your tummy, listen to your munchies go crunchy. K I'm stopping.

4. Now fold the new extra paper in like before.



The remaining two sides of your box should now look like this on the inside. Keep in mind you can also use a square box or any other shaped box if that's what you have on hand and want to fancify.

5. When you fold up those two remaining sides of the paper, you should get a triangle-like shape down at the bottom.



This is a little tricky to explain, but hopefully you can use your present-wrapping skills, along with the photo, to figure out what I mean. If you need to, go back to where we made those snippies at the corners. Now pick up the tips of the paper that's hanging off the side of the box and bring them in to meet the center of the box side. Folding over the paper onto the inside, with the help of our snippied part, tape that extra paper down to secure it. Now smooth out the doors of paper you just made against the box; you should get something like the triangle I have here. If you're better at wrapping presents, then you'll get well I don't know what you'll get, just move on, you queen of present wrapping. Whateva.

6. Fold up that triangle.



Easy as pie. Now just tape that pie slice (the triangle) up to the side of the box. Smooth out any weird paper waves.

7. Be "creative" and cover any mistakes you made.



Since I'm not the queen of present or box wrapping, I had an ugly strip of my old box showing, and the triangle was shorter than I expected. So I took out some old poster board I've had since high school and made this little strip. I did it on both sides because I like symmetry. You don't have to like symmetry, but you also don't have to call me up in the middle of the night when your ugly box is haunting you from the closet.

8. Wrap the box top.



Pretty self-explanatory. I just barely had enough paper left on this dying roll to do each short side of the box top. My creativity knows no bounds, so for the top...

9. ...Be creative. Always.



I used more of that same poster paper to cover up the still-hideous top of the box. Got many different paper media used up that day! Success.

10. Labels!!



Labeling is important, as I've said before. So do something sorta makeshift or whateva. You can see how laughable my own writing and labeling is here (I didn't have enough room for the word "contents" so I cheated in a very erudite manner by making it French - "contenu"). Do your own thing. Or copy mine. Better, though. Of course.

Tell me your project ideas! And link me to photos (completed projects or incomplete, doesn't matter) if you want. I may even try them for myself. Better, though. Of course.

Bay Area Awesomeness

Today we went to the Alameda County Computer Resource Center to drop off a box of jewel cases. I am proud to say I now have no more commercial jewel cases in my room (by that I mean cases that came with CDs I purchased; I have a few of the slim ones for CDs I'm going to use to back up my computer before we take its half-dead self into the Geek Squad)! Next is to donate our now-superfluous CD storage.

I've had the site for the jewel case recycling place up here on my "resources list" since the first day, but we hadn't made the trek out there till today. Turns out they take much more than jewel cases; just check out the site. I'm very pleased in general that it's so easy to find sustainable solutions around the Bay Area. Maybe it's because I haven't lived in New York long enough to understand all their environmental workings, but it seems like a less progressive place than the Bay. I constantly see people in New York toting their plastic bags, often throwing them out, and the littering is a huge problem, even though it's improved a lot over the past decade (I hear). San Francisco, on the other hand, made the decision last year to ban non-biodegradable plastic bags, which I appreciate. When I'm home, I love the fact that I see so many people whip out their canvas or other eco-friendly bags, not only at the grocery store, but many other places too.

This past year, after my suitemates and I quickly amassed a collection of plastic bags by the end of the first month of school, I grew to hate the plastic bag. But I found a way to take advantage of it: Tip: Keep one plastic bag in each of your purses or bags (yes men you can do it, too), so that when you're out and buy crap on an impulse, you don't have to consume more plastic bags and realize later you have no idea what to do with them. Another nice option for around the home is the Cole Hardware Biobag (an SF-based company :D), which my mom told me about.

Thanks to Art.com for today's image. You can buy the print, by artist Daniel Menchaca, at that link. P.S. for the non-natives, that's the Bay Bridge, not the Golden Gate. :)

Linen Closet - Before and After!

Today I started on my closet goal! I'm so proud. My mom said she wanted me to start with the linen closet, which disappointed me because I thought it was the one that needed the least work. But ohoho was I wrong. Man.

Since we have such little space around here, the linen closet hosted not only linens but a lot of random toiletries like TP, tissues, little paper cups, bars of soap, uhh girly things (we ARE girls after all), and laundry supplies. I found no less than 9 boxes of Kleenex, to give you an idea of what went on in that disaster of a closet! So I spent a good amount of time rooting through all the duplicates of things we had in the closet and reorganizing/folding our towels and bedding.

I realized that one big problem we have as pack rats is that all the mess gets so hidden by the rest of the new messes that are constantly piling up, that we often profess things we can't find as lost forever and just buy new ones. The Kleenex for instance. So think of it this way, if you're facing a massive decluttering and just can't get yourself started: you may save money! Tip: Organize your supplies, whatever they may be, in a way that helps you see all of them all the time. That way, there's never any confusion about what you have enough of.

All in all, I'm still sure we have way too many freaking towels (most of them pink - why??), and in retrospect I didn't follow my own advice about stuff's visibility, but here are the before and afters anyway! Since this is an ongoing project, I'll probably redo everything later; this is just the first step. Also, keep in mind that I did this one on my own! So it's not neat as a pin, per se. The before pictures are inaccurate, because I forgot to take them before I started! They were taken about halfway through, when I had thrown a bunch of crap out into the hallway.

Click each photo to view a much bigger version.

Before:


After:





As you can tell, I ended up a little pressed for space in the end. My Space Bags have holes in them. :( So I couldn't vacuum the linens up to save space like my mom suggested. Hopefully the comforters crammed at the top of this closet can go somewhere else once we, uh, have space somewhere else.

Sites I Like #1: Clutter Busting

The Internet is a big place. Surprise! Haha, I'm sure you knew that. But it hit me the other day when I installed the StumbleUpon add-on for my browser that there are so many things out on the interwebs that I've never even dreamed of. Cheesy, yeah, I know. But I also discovered that there are a lot of sites relevant to my own blog project. So I'll introduce you to my favorites by blogging about them!

Today's site: Betty Kramer's Clutter Busting column

Perfect relevance, right? This woman lost everything she owned in a fire and started her life anew sans clutter. She's a professional organizer, too, with a business called Professional Organizing Services. If my mom and I had the money, I think she would be perfect for cleaning up our place. At this point, though, I think we're invested in this as a DIY project. :)

Kramer's main column has lots of neat little how-to articles, including a recent one that I think has worked well for my mom and me: using a timer (image thanks to Kramer's site) to make sure you get in some time every day to work on the de-cluttering process. In fact, my mom came up with pretty much the same idea (and even a little better) on her own without the Kramer lady's help!

Tip: My mom's suggestion is even green-minded: take at least one waking hour out of your day to not use electricity. Naturally, for us, that hour is what we spend to work on de-cluttering. Generally, we take it during the afternoon, when we can get good light from the now unblocked balcony window area. This time period is also good because it's peak time, when electricity costs are high and everyone is using their computers, etc.

Wrapping Paper Row*

Here's a cute and witty cartoon that somewhat pertains to this whole project. Click the image to see a larger version on the original site, BasicInstructions.net. (If it doesn't work, try this.)

Yesterday afternoon was an event. Bored with yet another jobless afternoon, I decided to clear the clutter in the doorway between our kitchen and living room, where a large box of wrapping paper rolls has overflowed for years. I started unrolling one of the wrapping paper rolls, when my mom came over and demanded to know what I was doing.

A short spat ensued, with Camp Mom arguing for keeping the paper, and Camp Alex arguing that it never gets used and that it needs to be cleaned up. Eventually, her being the mom, I backed off and started on the bookshelves instead. I was a little annoyed, because arguments like this happen rather often when there are questions of what to donate or recycle or whatever. This time, like all other times, I was sure I was right, since there were numerous wrapping papers that we so seldom use, and it would take forever to get through using them all. Wouldn't it just be better for everyone if we recycled the majority and kept only the useful ones?

But in talking with my good friend (who is so conveniently an objective eye to this project), an environmental studies major and green enthusiast, I discovered I would have to admit defeat and ignorance. Her advice was this:

     The order is reduce, REUSE, recycle!

I had never even thought there could be a reason for the word order in that old adage! But it makes perfect sense. My friend elaborated further, reasoning that recycling the old wrapping paper would be like buying something then discarding it. It's completely true. Now I feel a little guilty about recycling a lot of my old blank notebooks. Tip: Research organizations in your area to see if there's something like my good old standby, Books for the Barrios, that takes old school supplies in addition to the traditional stuff. Try to think of ways you can donate or reuse your stuff before you just chuck it. Tossing stuff is the easy way out!! Too easy...

So basically, doooon't follow the cartoon 100%. "Throw away" should be "recycle," and you should have a fourth pile for "reuse"!

* - Apparently the word "row," when used to mean "a quarrel," is pronounced to rhyme with "cow"!