Day 2 of the New Me

Well, I'm starting early today. Well, early for ME. LOL! The only things on the babysteps to do today were to shine the sink and to get dressed to the laces. Since I shined the sink last night right before I went to bed, I am feeling like I don't need to do that and I had accomplished something before I even got out of bed this morning! I also knew I was to get dressed to the laces today and the second that my feet hit the ground, I went to get dressed and ready for the day. According to the second day of babysteps, I am only supposed to shine my sink and get dressed.

Well, I am motivated to do more so I have a few small projects that I'd like to get done today. I'd normally put on my "To Do" list to clean an entire room (including vacuuming, dusting and everything be totally put away), which of course can not be done when I accept nothing less than perfection. Keeping this in mind, I have 2 hot spots in my living room (the desk and the loveseat) that I want to take care of. I also want to declutter the counter left of the sink, clean out the bathroom cupboards, wash & dry 2 loads of laundry, fold both loads of laundry, put away both loads of laundry, and set out clothes for tomorrow (for me,  my DD, and DS). And this list does not overwhelm me. AT ALL. I'm pretty excited about it actually. I'll update this blog post later with before and after pictures when I'm done. But for now, I'm grabbing my timer and setting it for 15 minutes. Let's get started!

I am going to post as I go. I am on a break right now. (DH is making lunch then we'll eat, so I'm just waiting right now.) So I started with the counter in the kitchen. This is what it looked like before touching it:

So I started by putting the dishes away and the dishrack elsewhere for a little bit.

I then set the timer and went through everything on the counter for 15 minutes. At the end of 15 minutes, this is what I saw:

Wow! What a difference already! I drank a glass of water and set the timer for another 15 minutes because I was rather encouraged. I know, I know... I'm not supposed to do that, but I was excited! So off I went. Cleared the counter, putting stuff away, and then decided to Soft Scrub the nastiness away off the counter.

Got to the end of the second 15 minutes and this is what I saw as the finished product:

Yes the drainage rack is up again, but I needed to quickly rinse all the plastic containers (and wine glasses) that had been gathering dust on the counter. And look!

I still have my shiny sink! ;)

Next, it was time for my loveseat. We had cleaned this mostly off last week, but didn't finish. So here's the before photo:

And after 15 minutes, I had had time to put everything away or throw it away, vacuum out under the cushions and get the cat hair off the cushions and back of the loveseat. Now, this is what I see:

Next up is the first load of laundry.... then off to work on the bathroom cabinets. There are 4 cabinets, so I'm figuring it's going to take at least an hour to work through them. Right now, I'm gonna eat a much deserved lunch and gear up for the next rounds!



 So I've finished the bathroom. You read correctly. I started off with the cabinets and couldn't leave it there. Anyway, here are before and after pics. First the medicine cabinet, which has 3 doors on it.

And the medicine cabinet after:

 I filled up half of a large garbage bag with expired medications. A little overwhelming, actually. Gotta go and get some kids ibuprofen and acetaminophen now, but everything in the cabinet is now up to date. Thank goodness....

There is a built-in cabinet as well with two doors. Here are before pics:

As you can tell, these were a bit more scary than the medicine cabinet.  We couldn't find ANYTHING in that mess. So here are the after pics:

MUCH better, huh?

Next up was the under sink cabinet. This became a serious catch-all, especially of miniature toiletries. Here is before:

And now it's SOOOO much better:

As I was saying earlier, I couldn't leave it at that. I was just gonna do a quick swish and swipe of the sink, toilet and mirror and decided that the shelves over the toilet needed a good cleaning and a good dusting. Don't have before pics of these, but here are the afters:

When I was standing on the toilet seat, cleaning the shelves, I decided to dust the yuck on the top of the medicine cabinet. As I was leaning over, I ended up having a bit of a problem and the seat broke. LOL! I've been trying to find a way to convince the hubby that we needed a new toilet seat. I think I might have found the rationale! ;D Note the crack in the seat and that the lid is broken off....

And now, off to do 15 minutes of cleaning up the mess that is our desk. The drawers were cleaned out and organized last week, so I just need to do something about the top of it. Will post pics when I'm done....

Here is the desk before:

And after 10 minutes:

I am pretty excited about where we're headed with all this stuff done! My DD (7 years) even started getting into the corner between our couch and love seat. We have an old end table there that has gone to overflowing with junk. So there is a bunch of stuff that is difficult to get to because it's tucked into that corner and is under the end table. Anyway, she started climbing back there and picking stuff up. And no, I didn't ask her to do that. =) Amazing, huh? I'm VERY excited. Now to get the DS (21 months) to stop trying to thwart all of our progress as we finish each project... ;D LOL!