Saturday, 13th of March 2010 at 03:19:26 PM 
This is either an ad for HSBC Bank or a metaphor for my freakin' life...
What does it mean to spring clean? SO far, we mostly seem to think it means we have to get shovels and attack our crap-closets. This next week, please choose something horrible in your house and join us as we try to bring order out of chaos very literally. A word to the wise: Get your own most hatefully cluttered closet done NOW because I am hearing rumbles, both internal and from my fellow Platelets, that this literal understanding of spring cleaning will not continue for all four weeks. Some of us are going to go haring off into metaphor.
I know in my case, this is because 1) I hate cleaning and 2) the nooks and crannies of my house are SO PILED and FILTHY that my basement, attic , garage, and closets are probably all EQUALLY RIDDLED with bodies. How many times can I find a bloated corpse under an old pup tent and and still be surprised enough to blog about it? Twice, I suggest. After that it becomes passé. So I will get my kids rooms ready for spring this week, and then I shall begin to look for OTHER things I can clean out, reorganize, or renew, including my hard drive, my FILTHY brains, and even the rusty slice of soul I keep I my back pocket.
Here at the end of challenge one, my scale SAYS I am down 5 pounds since the start…to which I say, The Hell??? Down five pounds? My bloated peapod of a body says that’s crap—I am so swollen and puffed that I honestly look like I am up five more. And 48 hours ago I was OVER my start weight. So who knows? The shots are boogering me up, and I won’t know what horrifying number I actually weigh until I finish medicating in early April. At this point, though? I need the good news, so I shall cheerfully accept it. YAY! I am five pounds down, if you say so, scale. If my scale should tomorrow tell me I am an octopus, I am willing to accept that, too.
Considering how VERY dire my children’s closets are, I would find the extra arms quite useful this week.
Mir says: This week I gained and lost and gained and lost the same pound over and over until I killed it with large plates of spinach. I made it to 10 pounds. And now I am going to stop weighing myself. YAY!
For our next challenge, my goals are twofold: First, there’s no denying there’s PLENTY of just plain decluttering/organizing that has to happen here in my house (most notably: our master bedroom has become Crap Repository Central, and my son cannot seem to keep his room tidy to save his life, which I consider a failing of organization up there). So cleaning-wise, sure, I have more than enough to tackle. But second, I have been slowly inching towards greater eco-friendliness in our day-to-day lives, and I think I may be ready to take one more giant step: We are going to give up our over-reliance on paper products (paper towels, paper napkins, and my personal cocaine: Clorox wipes). That’s a lot to do in four weeks. I’m… a little frightened. We’ll see how it goes.
Gray says: As of this morning I’ve lost 2.2 lbs. Yay! This week I learned that Stelara can cause murderous thumping headaches. My first spring cleaning effort will be to make ready our spare-room/office/game-room/library/family-room for Joss to come visit later this year. I will be bucking hard against my husband’s desire to clutch every book we’ve ever owned tightly to his manly chest. In fact, to clutch EVERYTHING we’ve ever owned. Wish me luck.
Lydia says: I have lost 5 pounds and 1 ounce total in the ten weeks. And now I’m going to stop weighing myself for a month, while I continue to elliptical and diet. We’ll see. I’m increasingly concerned about being thinner for France. I don’t know how I’m going to interpret the challenge over the course of all four weeks but I am starting this weekend with our CDs, getting them off the shelves they’re on, out of all the wrong cases they’re in, and into the sleevey book things we’ve had waiting for them for maybe years. After that, I may do my closet three times.
Kira says: I have lost nothing, yet again. Still stuck at 6.5 pounds down. But I’m pretty pleased with myself, nonetheless, because I’m kind of hot. No, what I meant was that the pants I bought about a month ago are practically FALLING OFF ME (translation: a little loose), despite the fact that I haven’t actually dropped much weight since then. So I am clearly adding muscle and blah blah blah and sort of hot.
I’m going to start the next challenge by tackling my laundry room, which is a pit. No, that’s insulting to the good name of pits everywhere. It is a maelstrom of dust and piles of clothes that need a button or some stupid mending thing and papers I don’t want to deal with and old school work that I need to keep because their preshus widdle hands created it and wrapping paper and lint and broken toys. I am not exactly looking forward to it. It’s a good thing I’m sort of hot (drudgery is always easier on the hot).
This week I choose my basement. Sick cat = very bad news. I might have to do this again another week, but I shall consider any progress toward disassembling the “family room”/cat infirmary success.
For this challenge, I shall wear footwear. But I will show my independence for the rest of the month by cleaning in stocking feet.
I epic failed at the weight loss challenge. Failed so bad I refuse to get on the scale, because I am afraid it will tell me I actually gained weight these last ten weeks.
However, I plan to epically WIN the spring clean challenge. I am actually good at cleaning out and organizing, when I put my mind to it, unlike weight loss, which I am bad at. My house was infested with pigs and sloths this winter, and I intend to correct the damage this month. I will start with the guest room/crap repository this week.
My whole house is a black, dusty, cobwebby pit. The good news One, my partner is leaving town for two weeks so my only time commitments will be to my walk partner and my one yoga class. Good news Two, the entire house is 320 square feet. It should be spotless. I should be able to clean the whole thing in a half hour. Except that I hate hate cleaning. So, just as your good works in the weight challenge have helped me on the road to Regular Daily Exercise, I am looking to you for guidance in cleaning out the coop (it was once a chicken coop). And Steve will come home to a shiny clean house. And then he will have to do some stuff I’ve been asking him to do like add a vent fan to the skylight so this isn’t a sauna in the summer. I thank you.
This week I’ll target the studio. Next week the pantries. After that the bedrooms/wardrobes. And finally the basement.
You’ll laugh – but I chose my work Outlook inbox. I work for a company that makes smartphones and EVERYTHING is done by e-mail. In the just over a year I have worked there, I had filled up my allowed space on the server. So, I deleted a bunch of sent mail, and emptied my trash… and still had a couple hundred messages in the inbox. So I set up saved mail categories and filed everything I didn’t need to take action on. Now I have around 15 messages at a time. I’m either acting, filing or deleting as much as I can. OK, it might not count, but I sure feel so much better and more organized.
This challenge is so timely for me, because I am about to move, and badly need to de-junk. It’ll be grand to have others along for the journey!
I started cleaning out the office last weekend, but I stalled out during the week. I picked back up yesterday and tackled the kids’ bookcases of crap (art supplies and chapter books in one, stacks upon stacks of childrens’ books in the other). Today, I took the deep plunge and began working in the basement. It’s nowhere near finished, but I’m pleased with my progress for today. The biggest challenge for me is keeping the rest of the house from turning into a pit while I focus on an area.
@Mary Pat – I’m not laughing at you. My work inbox is almost 600 messages and I have folders and subfolders and messages within each one. And this is after only 2 years. I envy you your email triumph!
I had another off-again on-again week and finished exactly the same as last week: 10.75 lbs down. i win.
Which is a good thing, because I suspect I’m going to bomb out on the next challenge. Organising takes time and this week is not good time-wise. I’ve got a (very welcome) visitor, a church service to write, and an overseas work trip at the beginning of next week to prepare for.
So my goal is to clean up my study desk. it’s got about an inch of stuff on it and it’ll all stuff that drives me batty.
And I laugh at both your work inboxes. I’ve been at my work over 9 years, everything happens by email, and I’ve got thousands of messages in my inbox. Aargh.
Possibly something wrong with my brain but I think I would have labelled those pictures the opposite way.
OH do I need this challenge, and it is perfectly timed. Last week I defended my dissertation and now it is time to tend to my neglected house. Must figure out some specifics today. Probably I’ll start in the scary office and the overcrowded playroom.
I feel like I’ve been cheating because last week I did a big children’s clothing exchange and totally cleaned out and organized the kids’ closets. And then I caught the bug myself and my husband and I just did a massive goodwill run from our closet. I think I’ll tackle the scary underworld of my bathroom sink. Or maybe my makeup cubby. Hose can strike fear into any heart.
On the 10 in 10 challenge… It’s not over for me yet. I’m running my first half marathon next week. I started seriously training Jan. 1st. And with all that training, I’ve gained/lost the same three lbs that cling to me desperately. So as I stand, I’m 1.5 lbs above my goal weight. But my real goal this challenge has been to train for the race. And in that I think I’m ready.
I spent several hours today spring-cleaning my (very large) bathroom, which needed it in the worst way. It’s so sparkly now!
Next up is the front room/office, which is such a pit we’ve been completely avoiding it for weeks and working from the dining room table instead. But I have great motivation to clear it out… my bestest friend is coming to stay next weekend, and that’s the closest thing I have to a guest room at the moment.
I did not join the crew for the 10 in 10 challenge and I really should have but I’m all in on the organizing challenge. First on the list is my office.
I spent several weeks in late 2009 repurposing a room into a gorgeous new home office only to discover that due to the way our heating vents run, I was always cold and my husband was wasting away in his office from the heat. So we swapped. And I did nothing but move large piles into the new one.
My job tomorrow will be to assess what needs to be done and set goals for all of it. Here’s hoping for a short list!
[...] heart. (I am JUST THAT MOTIVATED, by the way. It has absolutely nothing at all to do with our next challenge at Five Full Plates, nope.) * Changed the clocks. Um, changed most of the clocks. Dammit. * Talked about all of the [...]
1st, I shall not discuss the last 10 week challenge.
2nd, I actually cleaned out our “office” or more accurately, our dumping ground last weekend. This more recently past weekend I did absolutely no cleaning because we were busy and out of the house.
3rd, I shall start with the clothes. My clothes and the kids’ clothes. The husband is on his own. He gets mad when I throw away his holey socks so I shall stay away from his stuff since I’d like to stay married.
So does doing my taxes on Saturday count? That always involves cleaning up and decluttering to actually FIND what I need to do the taxes and then throwing out a ton of papers that I don’t need for ANYTHING!
I’ve been working on decluttering the personal e-mail. I am down from over 700 e-mails to hovering around 400. Since a lot of these involve volunteer activity, I’m not feeling too bad about it, but would love to shed another 100 e-mails!
Last weekend I cleaned the two upstairs bathrooms which are horribly neglected because no one but us ever sees them. We also turned in an entire truckload of recyclables and old “maybe I’ll read that someday” magazines.
This past weekend I cleaned out one of the boys’ rooms and sold one of their beds in preparation for the arrival of new bunk beds. (Younger boy prefers sleeping on the floor anyway so he doesn’t miss the bed.)
This week I am begging everyone I know who has or knows a small child to come and take some of the pile of baby/kid stuff we’ve accumulated over the past 8 years (!) out of my basement. All of the outgrown clothes will be given to friends or donated to the daycare or Goodwill.
Before summer I plan to have both boys’ rooms cleaned out and redecorated, my office reclaimed and the basement emptied out!
In the first 10 weeks of 2010, I lost 11.2 lbs, with the assistance of the fine ladies of Weightwatchers, a free gym at work, and Wii Fit. An excellent start and only 51 lbs to go before I’m at a healthy weight.
Good health be damned! I want a cupcake!
Ahem.
I’m starting in the laundry room, which is on the way to the garage, and also contains our pantry, and therefore contains everything from greasy tools and various lubricants (minds out of the gutter), years old cans of soup, balsamic vinegar and cake mix, and of course clothes in both clean and dirty state.
I’m chiming in a bit late… um, by a week, because I’ve been out of town. At the official end of the ten week challenge I was still at 9 pounds down, which was rather amazing considering everything I ate that week. I also successfully did not gain weight after spending a week in Croatia. I attribute this to going to a country where the main specialty is seafood, which I don’t care for, oh, and walking what felt like all day every day.
For this challenge, I will be attempting to finish unpacking (I moved a year ago), and getting the rest of my boxes out of my dad’s basement. I’ve actually kept things fairly neat in my house since I moved in, but it’s small, and if I want to keep it neat there are things that will need to go. So, my main challenge is to throw things away.