neat freak on the loose!

a list of the cleaning/de-cluttering tasks i’ve undertaken in the last few weeks:
– consolidated four boxes of personal filing into one, highly organized plastic file storage box. there is a bag-full of shredding to do, but it’s nice to know everything is in one place.
– went though my clothes closet, organizing by colour and clothing type. took a HUGE bag of clothes and plastic hangers to the Salvation Army. also, found at least ten items of clothing i’d totally forgot i owned. it was traumatic, but i definitely like the results. discovered most of my clothes are black.
– went through my collection of shoes. just as traumatic as purging clothing, but i managed to find seven pairs to take for donation. i could probably purge another three if i really wanted to, but you can’t make me!
– sorted/organized my desk drawers. i have too many pens and pads of cute paper. it’s a sickness.
– emptied, cleaned and organized the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. why i had so many sparkly hair accessories, i’ll never know. discovered perfume is not like wine and does not get better with age.
– took keyboard apart and scrubbed each key clean of many years of crud. boyfriend was shocked at the state of it, which says a lot about how gross it was.
– sorted the piles of books stashed around the house. set about returning all borrowed tomes because if i haven’t read them yet, i probably won’t any time soon; and, i can always ask to borrow them when i’m ready to. have two books i don’t know the owners of and four more belonging to people i don’t talk to any more. oops.
– got ruthless with the various candle-holders and nick-nacks cluttering my shelves. piled them into a whole foods shopping bag and put them in the free stuff section of our building. they were gone within a few days. that’s nice and satisfying.
– took all the knobs and dials off the stove top and scrubbed off the grime. seriously, i don’t cook that much. how is it my stove can get that disgusting? ew.
– decided that owning six polaroid cameras is excessive, so found a new home for one, put another on ebay, am testing a third for keepability to replace the fourth. my two sx-70’s are non-negotiable and will stay with me forever. by this time next week, i’ll be at 50% polaroid capacity. sweet, less to dust!
– consolidated all my various stashes of (good) knitting supplies into the awesome red tote bag i got from Dove (post about that sometime soonish, i hope). the hope is that having it all in one handy place will encourage me to actually make progress on my yarn projects.
– after a shower from hades, a bathroom with water quite literally dripping off the ceiling prompted me to finally wash the walls as i’ve been threatening to for at least a year. you wouldn’t think walls could get that dirty, but when the exhaust fan makes more noise than moves air, things can get a little swampy in the loo.
next up:
– attack the storage closet. no one needs that many gift bags or extra keyboards.
– get ruthless with the linens. i only have so much space and hardly ever have houseguests. i don’t think i require so many blankets and throw pillows.
– socks? don’t talk to me about the crap-load of socks i never wear any more. then there are the ones with all the holes i keep putting off replacing.
– find some way to deal with DVDs. there are quite a few and they’re not very pretty, especially now that the living room is getting slicker with the recent chair exchange. there’s got to be a good compromise between access and organization.
– the inside of the oven and fridge are gross and need serious attention. after having to clean six years worth of oven yuck when i moved from my last apartment, i promised myself i’d never let an oven go so long without cleaning. well, i’ve been in this place four years so far… oops.
gee, think i might have a problem? ;)