#NaClYoHo wrap-ups

[wordnerdworld]

NaClYoHo Wrap-ups

Another project that was on my NaClYoHo list that I never quite got to was reorganizing my kitchen cabinets, specifically my spice/baking/tea cabinet. I recently had a frustrating cooking experience (being out of spices I thought I had), so I decided to go ahead and order some organizers to help me get things under control and dove in today.

Here are the (mostly)Before pictures:

Spice/tea/baking Cabinet:

Uhhh, glassware cabinet?

Counter where I'd started to move stuff out of those two cabinets + other items that had collected:

I bought two organizers to help get things put away in a manner that would hopefully leave them easily accessible/viewable so I don't keep accidentally buying multiple of the same spice (I have multiple things of Cream of Tartar, Cardamom, Garam Masala, and Mustard Seed currently, Please send recipes.). I also specifically needed something for my hot sauce collection (a friend got me an advent calendar).

For the spice cabinet, I got a 3-step, expandable acrylic organizer. At first, I thought it was going to be waaaay too big. but it actually works out reallywell.

It's on the second shelf from the bottom. On the left side are misc. short spices in the front and all my "whole seed" spices in the back. On the right are duplicate/replacement spices in the back and misc. tall spices in the front.

I tossed some things that had expired about 2 years ago, and I'm hoping the brown sugar will soften up some and become more scoopable.

I also bought a set of really cool magnetic spice racks! For storing my hot sauces.

They stick to the side of my fridge, so I had zero installation difficulty. And I tried to roughly group them by type so it'll be easier to find whatever I'm in the mood to try. Not sure what I'll use this for once I use up those sauces. But clearly that's not gonna happen for a while. (This is not, by any means, all the hot sauce I own. I've got....7 or so full-size bottles of stuff elsewhere. Really need to start using these up!)

There were 4 racks in the set, and I didn't have room to stick the 4th one to the fridge b/c of how the cabinets open. So I used it to store my daily seasonings instead:

On the left is a Whiskey Habanero hot sauce I've been enjoying. On the right is a packet of hot toddy mix I kinda-sort forgot I had. Gonna try to use it up this winter! Tucked just behind it is a little journal where I can keep notes about the different hot sauces I try.

The Glassware cabinet didn't get much reorganization. I mostly just found some vases and other things to donate that I don't use.

That rectangular jar on the left in the second shelf holds dried chili peppers, btw. Can you tell I like spicy food?

I've also clearly reached a certain phase of adulthood that has a lot in common with early childhood and pet-hood. Being stupidly happy about cardboard boxes!

I was almost happier about the fact that my new things came in a cardboard box that is perfect for collecting my donation items than I was about the organizers themselves, lol.

I'm hoping that reorganizing these cabinets and making my various sauces/spices more accessible will encourage me to cook more often. I really enjoy it, but it's one of those things my depression has really impacted.

I currently have a roast in the crock pot (good vehicle for hot sauce) and plan to saute some spinach and zucchini to go with it (good time to use a spice blend). We'll see how that goes.

[storybookprincess]

naclyoho day 6!

one of my really big mental health pitfalls is unstructured time. i want nothing more than to enjoy my evenings and weekends, but i often find myself paralyzed when they arrive. i regularly end up lying in bed feeling miserable, unable to initiate any tasks that will be fun or productive

a few months ago, however, i came up with an absurdly simple solution. i know that once i get home, my brain turns to static & i end up lying in bed being sad, so in the last fifteen minutes of my work day, as i’m wrapping everything up, i make myself a tiny at home to do list

the list changes every day, and it doesn’t have to include chores or errands or anything like that. if i’m finishing the day exhausted or in pain or whatever, my to do list might simply be “make some tea, light a candle, listen to an audiobook.” it doesn’t have to be productive in the traditional sense; it just has to be something. just some reference point to provide structure to my free time

anyway, this was today’s to do list! i!!!! didn’t get to my bsd wall, but instead i hung some more fanart & loaded & ran the dishwasher. and i did all my other tasks listed, so i’m satisfied 🥰🥰 now i think it’s time to wind down for bed, but thank you for listening to me explain my silly little coping skill. i hope even one other person might find these tiny to do lists helpful!!

[copperbadge]

[ID: Three images; top left, a spray bottle of clear liquid, labeled PRO SPRAY, sits on a gleaming cutting board; top right, Dearborn the tortie glares at the camera from the work desk's copilot basket. Bottom, a white rug with blue patterning in my hallway, surrounded at the edges by dark dustbunny-looking lumps.]

NaClYoHo Day Two! Pardon my grossness.

Yesterday afternoon I did the first of what is usually several trips to the hardware store; I bought spackle, gnat traps, and a PROFESSIONAL spray bottle. PRO SPRAY. It has an adjustable nozzle and measurement marks on the side, so I can dilute the vinegar pretty accurately. Last night I filled it up with vinegar water and laminated the kitchen, and this morning found and killed several weevils it drove out of hiding. It's sitting on the wooden cutting board because I had taken ALL the cleaning supplies out from under the sink and was reminded I should oil my cutting board with some Walrus Oil.

Dearborn is very skeptical about this morning's activity: carpet cleaning.

I threw on an episode of A Date With Dateline, popped in my earbuds, took down my Tineco One X vac and vacuumed for the first time in Slightly Too Long. I didn't get all the way through the house because I was running it on high which drains the battery, but usually vacuuming is a multi-day process. For what I paid for the Tineco I could have a high-end corded vac that does a better job, but I know that I won't use corded vacs because I hate the cord, so I'm okay vacuuming more often with the cordless. In any case, I hit the rugs because the next step was to break out the Hoover Powerdash Pet carpet cleaner and figure out how to use it.

I know I'm dropping a lot of brand names but just because I usually get asked; I don't make money from affiliate links or anything.

Anyway, the Powerdash came to me secondhand from friends who were moving, and for a long time it sat in my hallway in its plastic wrapping because I was intimidated by it. We never had one growing up and I've never really seen one in use. But it turned out that it was super easy to use, you just add water and cleaner to the tank and go; you go over the rug once with the trigger down, to spread water/cleaner, then a second time without the trigger to rinse/dry. I only hit about half of the rugs in my home, just to see how it went, and then stopped because they all seemed to remain very wet after cleaning. (They've since pretty much dried and I'm assured by the internet that's normal.)

The white patterned carpet above is the cats' favorite place to roll around and shed on, and as you can see, those dark dustbunny looking things around the carpet? That's cat hair and other dirt the cleaner pulled up. Gross but visibly effective.

I got a slightly late start so I had myself on a hard time limit; I started at 7, finished up at 8, and still had half an hour left on A Date With Dateline (they sometimes run a bit long). The cleaning solution definitely adds a certain chemical smell to the air, so I'm running the HVAC's fan and I've added "scented candle or incense" to the shopping list. Which I wanted to do anyway; some people always have such nice smelling houses and scent never seems to stick around in mine, but I've never gone hardcore on Making This Place Smell Nice. (Yes, I promise to be careful about what scents I use, I know diffused scents can harm cats.)

Disposable nitrile glove count: Still just 1!

Hardware store trips: 1.....so far.

[snek-panini]

NaClYoHo day 11 is finished. I almost took today off. I think I need to plan a day for that because the pace is getting to me a bit and I don't want to burn out. If you don't schedule maintenance your equipment will schedule it for you etc.

But today (Nov. 11) I:

-Hung 3 items on the walls. For the first time I'm actually not nuts about how they look in those spots though, so I may have to reassess them on a different day and maybe move them again. But overall this brings me to 25 things hung up since the start of the month and only 3 regrets out of 25 is pretty good.

-Cleaned the bathroom mirror. It is easier to see myself in it now.

-Cleaned the bathroom counter and all the stuff that sits on it. It always seems so unfair to me that that area can get dusty. Like what do you mean there's dust on the toothbrush holder. We use that multiple times a day, it shouldn't have time to get dusty.

-Gave the bathroom sink a wipe down. It needs a more thorough cleaning to get all the stuff around the drain but it's better. I need stronger cleaner and rubber gloves for that and I don't have them right now.

-Threw out some stuff in the medicine cabinet, making room for some of the bottles and whatnot that were on the counter. It needs a full reorganization and clean-out but I don't have the momentum for that today.

I think tomorrow will be scheduled down time. I've got two bookbinding projects almost finished and I can wrap up at least one tomorrow. And the month's more than 1/3 over so I think I've earned it.

[drivemetogeek]

I'm taking part in Salty Pirate month (aka National Clean Your Home/NaClYoHo month) as coined by at @copperbadge. But given how infrequently I post, I figure I shouldn't go from 0 to 60 and post daily, so I'll do some weekly wrap ups.

I'm hoping to really focus on getting rid of things during this month. No particular reason other than just a feeling of too much "stuff" around, so a lot of my projects are going to be about sorting things for thrifting/donation/recycling/freecycling/resale. I figure the first part of the month is going to be about gathering it all up and then the latter part of the month will be a bunch of errands to drop things off places. Either that or alternating between the two.

And then I am kind of going counter to the manifesto in that I do want a clean house at the end of all this. Actually a bit before. These past few months have been chaos as I've been searching for, found, and now started a new job. And my place has become a physical manifestation of that chaos. So hoping this month can serve as a nice reset point, especially as I have a guest staying over mid-month, so need to have at least a surface level of order by then. And then the latter half of the month I can continue on the deep dive organization/donating aspect of things.

Short "week" this week, but here's what I tackled:

Friday November 1: This was more of a home away from home task, but at a studio I work out of (which I consider my "third place") I worked with a couple friends to reorganize a shelf of communal supplies that often suffers from a tragedy of the commons effect. While it was a bit of a cheat given it's not my actual home, it was a good task to start the month out with given the immediacy of the clear results.

Listening to: Each other as we chatted 😋

Saturday, November 2: Multiple projects:

Sorted through a bunch of clothes I want to get rid of to determine which can be thrifted vs recycled.

Sorted through part of my yarn stash and put aside a bunch to donate to a local used craft supply thrift store.

Reset my bedroom to a clean point for the first time in literal months.

Posted several pairs of Fluevogs that I no longer wear to the Fluemarket.

Listening to: episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, The Great Indoors, and How Did This Get Made.

Sunday November 2:

Signed up for a slot at the town recycling center for first of what will likely be several drops this month.

Cleaned out my car.

Listening to: The Thing about Austen

[philosophyofrachel]

#naclyoho day 22:

- removed the stuck screw from yesterday’s shelf attempt with pliers

- spoke to dad, he recommended to wait for a week or so before doing a 3rd coat of oil, more is not always better apparently

- hung all my posters, which have been waiting to go up since March 2020, when I was laid off and thought some posters would brighten up the place. Three years later, they do! (My favourites are: the depression nap, attack of the 50ft woman, Sherlock Holmes (because it has most of my name/the German word for revenge), and Captain Future (i bought this 15 years ago when I saw it on TBBT, I don’t care that the show was dumb, I like the poster).)

- moved my gift wrap supplies from the tote they were in (which the paper rolls stuck up out of) to the one I was storing the frames in (which they almost lie flat in, and at least lie low enough I can put a lid on it).

[ephemeralbutterfly]

NaClYoHo Day 15

Scheduled a (virtual) home visit with the cleaner from yesterday and got in touch with a second cleaner who responded to the ad today. And I’m wrapping up today’s NaClYoHo by practicing self-care and going to bed early.

[dignitywhatdignity]

New Year's Resolution Master Post

I should probably do my NaClYoHo wrap-up first, but meh.

My 21 for 2021 list was also kind of a dud. I review that as well.

So this year, I'm just going to focus on one room of the house each month that I can improve in small ways, NaClYoHo style.

There are three areas that I need to work on with Husband:

Basement

Carpet

Couch

TV

Put stuff back

Desks?

Office chairs

Decorate

Bathroom

Replace towel rack

fix or replace toilet paper holder

New linens? -Shower curtain -Bath mat -Towels?

Bag for bath toys

Front of house:

Paint

Wall sconce

Door bell

Camera?

mailbox

address numbers

screen door

main door?

And now, the monthly projects that I can do myself:

January: Our bedroom

Get the desk and computer out

Go through hanger clothes and get rid of what doesn't fit

Put away summer stuff and pull out winter stuff (hopefully will happen in December)

Bag up clothes to be donated

Replace the nightstands

Organize my nightstand (husband can do his own)

Vacuum under bed

Wash all blankets and pillows

Hang new art

Put all shoes in organizer

February: 5yo's room

Hang his art

Organize plushies

Wash all blankets and pillows

Box up and store outgrown clothes

Organize his dresser and closet

Organize his books

Fix ripped or battered books

Shop for new bookshelf

Consider getting cork board for awards certificates etc

Hang art in 1yo's room (that's the main thing his room needs, so I'm lumping it in)

March: living room

Go through recipe printouts. Copy them into my cookbook, try them, or throw them out.

Organize bookshelves

Get rid of dead plants

Repot live plants

Start seeds

Shop for shot glass case for husband (if found, save for his birthday)

Go through toy box for things 1yo has outgrown

April: Dining room

Organize coupon drawer (dividers, etc)

Organize craft cabinet

Go through "baby stuff" drawer; donate things like bibs we don't use anymore

Go through tray of 5yo's art; everything should be filed, displayed, or recycled

Generally tidy up the china hutch

Get rid of dead plants

Repot live plants

buy new tablecloth

Go through drawer of linens

Buy pillow forms for throw pillow shams

May: Kitchen and powder room

Contact paper fridge

put magnets back

fix broken magnets

Clean whiteboard; figure out new system for it

Throw out dead plants

repot live plants

consider buying new curtains

Buy new curtains for powder room

Consider replacing mirror

June: Take a month off. Evaluate progress. Make new lists to repeat in July-December.

[rpepperpotshipssciencebros]

NaClYoHo Day 9 - plus Day 8 update

Well, I did indeed get the dishes washed & the counter wiped yesterday, huzzah huzzah. But today is a new day, and of course there are again dishes to be washed. Le sigh. Will do them in about a half hour.

Yesterday's laundry did NOT get finished, because the dryer has decided that "extremely damp" is the best it can do, even after three cycles. So I've still got two loads waiting to be dried. At least they are out in the cold garage; less chance of them getting yucky and having to be rewashed.

Today's progress:

Extension cords from Halloween have been boxed up and taken to the storage unit.

Halloween lights have also been boxed up, but there's space for more items so that is unfortunately still in the living room for now.

Large bar light & big ol' roll of stretch wrap are back in the storage unit

Bathroom countertop cleared off & wiped down

The shampoo bottles that were all over the edge of the tub have been gathered & put in the holder where they belong

Two armfuls of prop-making debris have gone into the trash, and a large cardboard box that was too damaged to continue using is in the recycle bin. Trash can is down at the curb now for tomorrow's pick-up

Might go through the pile of boxes, tools, and PVC that's in front of the small aquarium, but don't count on it. Have been feeling anxious all day and just don't want to deal with anything. Thank goodness there's both stew and pasta in the fridge, which means I don't have to cook dinner.

[confused-android]

NaClYoHo Day 24

Today:

I dropped my car off at the mechanic for inspection and repair, and then scootered home on my electric scooter in VERY COLD but with no gloves

I bought gloves

the HVAC people came to repair the AC compressor. when they were finished, I triumphantly said "yay, now we can have heat!!" at which point they informed me that the AC compressor only affects the cold air, not the hot air, and I could have been warm for the last three weeks.

whoops

I spent two hours on etsy and bought a TON of holiday gifts, plus a mug and a cloth wallet for myself, and paid for them all with the money from the HIV vaccine study! (because if it doesn't go into my bank account, it doesn't exist!)

a handyman guy came to assess the drywall holes in Train Roommate and Clementine Partner's ceilings, and the basement corner

Scootered back in the slightly-less-cold to pick up and pay for the car

I moved one big box of wrapping paper, to the back of the basement, and consolidated all of the robot parts in three (3) boxes, and moved them there too

Origami Roommate collapsed the extra boxes from Burner Roommate's stuff, and we took them outside

I moved some big dresses from my closet to guest room closet

I emptied the dishwasher, filled it, and did a TON of handwashing. so much.

I also made some extremely wung chia pudding (mediocre) and the poolish for some sourdough. I am sleepy, but I need the poolish to get existed to I can mix up my dough for Thanksgiving rolls. Damn my freezing kitchen!

[wordnerdworld]

NaClYoHo--Wrap-up

Happy New Year, Salty Pirate pals! This month I'm hoping to post wrap-ups for a few NaClYoHo projects that got started in November but were, for whatever reason, never finished.

I visited my mom in November, and there's been a lot of rearranging, re-decorating, re-organizing going on at her place. When I left in November, that meant the bathroom looked like this:

Complete chaos!

Normally most of the things on the counter would have been tucked away neatly into drawers and cabinets...but we didn't exactly think things through. Said drawers and cabinets were already full of stuff that needed to be moved, consolidated, or thrown away, the liners needed to be replaced, some of the doors were loose. All I could do before I had to leave was corral my things to one end of the counter.

Thankfully, when I came down in December, the bathroom had been cleaned out and I could put things away properly. I bought organizers to hold the stuff that stays out on the vanity:

And a pretty new cup to hold my toothbrush!

Add on some new bathmats and towels, and the space is refreshed and waaaay more functional than before!

[franavu]

NaClYoHo 2020 Wrap-up

So, I dropped of the face of the earth for a bit there. Insomnia has been kicking my ass and fucked my sleep patterns up something fierce. That, combined with what I wouldn’t exactly call seasonal depression (but it gets dark before 5 pm now, and I am not dealing with it well,) meant I didn’t have the energy for posting.

I did sort of keep up with cleaning. At the beginning of the month I sorted my tasks list in definitely, probably, maybe, and possibly, and I got all of the definitely done, most of the probably and a little bit from both of the other lists, and I am quite happy with the result. There’s a lot less clutter in the living room, my kitchen is clean, and I can see out of the windows again. So even if I didn’t get everything done, I consider salty pirates 2020 a success.

[wordnerdworld]

Day 1 NaClYoHo

Today's goal is to un-decorate from Halloween!

This is going to involve:

Washing Halloween dishware Done!

Washing Halloween laundry--in progress, also found a load of laundry I forgot was already in the washer, whoops!

Finding/wrapping/packing decor items--in progress

Fitting everything back in the storage tote--in progress

A bonus for this item, since it's closely related, is putting out the last of the Thanksgiving decorations.

I plan to combine this with watching Life Below Zero (my dad and I watched the show as a bonding activity; he died last year). I forgot that I had set the series to record and a bunch of new episodes are sitting in my DVR. So during commercial breaks or between episodes or generally when I feel like pausing, I get up and work on un-decorating. And when I start feeling tired or overwhelmed, I sit down and start watching again. I'm hoping there will be enough "natural" reasons to want to get up or pause the show that I won't get sucked down into inertia again.

Here's a picture of one of my Halloween items! I collect these nutcrackers and get a new one each year. Gonna have to get a new shoe box for them soon.

[wordnerdworld]

NaClYoHo Day 9 & 10

Weekends are never long enough. I definitely could have used at least one more day off. Yeesh. But I was able to accomplish a lot! No bed/couch rotting this time.

Ran errands

Got groceries

Consolidated paper bags

Hung up new clothing

Did 3 loads of laundry

Cooked two meals

Did 2 loads of dishes

I'm mostly set for clothing--gonna check out 1 or 2 more stores to see if I can find exactly what I'm looking for. I may order those online.

But with everything laundered now, I think I can wrap up the wardrobe changeover and really focus on what items I want to purge, donate, or transfer as I do so.

[wordnerdworld]

Day 30 NaClYoHo

Definitely did not do as much these last few days of November as I was hoping, largely thanks to the sinus headache that turned into a migraine and left me feeling wiped. But I did do some feel-good things.

changed my sheets

put up some Christmas decorations

There's still some things I'd like and need to do. So I may do a few more NaClYoHo posts in December as a wrap up projects. And maybe a post reflecting on things.

Take care, fellow salty pirate pals, it's been great sharing this journey with you!

[wordnerdworld]

Day 14 NaClYoHo

So today has been a pretty decent day, all things considered. Not nearly so dog-tired as last week. Internal organs behaving better than they did earlier this week (but some of you are still on thin fucking ice).

Today's NaClYoHo goals are mostly about wrapping up previous projects and prepping for future projects. So far we have:

Donated the food items I previously cleaned out of my pantry

Emptied my shredder

Cleaned out my fridge, specifically the shelves of sauces/condiments

Got Roomba to remap my apartment

I bought myself a Roomba...sometime during the summer...maybe? I previously set up and mapped it, used it a few times....and then stopped using it for two main reasons.

First, I had a bunch of boxes of junk sitting around waiting to be donated that were in the way. Secondly, when I originally mapped it, it somehow missed a room and I also had moved the furniture out of the way. So I didn't actually have an accurate map that reflected the way my apartment is set up on a daily basis, and I couldn't do a new mapping run with all the junk in the way. Thankfully, I got rid of the junk, and now Roomba is happily trundling along (re)learning its new space. It already found the room it missed before!

Emptying the shredder is a precursor to a task I want to complete--sorting, shredding, and filing a bunch of documents I've been holding onto. To sort, I need files to put things into; to file, I need to shred old documents to make space; to shred, I need to empty shredder (which it turns out was totally full).

Y'know what was also full? My fridge shelves. Full of salad dressings to be exact. Like, at least 6 different kinds. I definitely did not need that many and was not using them. My issue is that I impulse purchase dressings thinking, "Oooh that looks tasty!" but then it's just not quite right, so I don't use it. Lesson learned. I'm gonna try not to do that going forward. Maybe make a list of the ones that I do genuinely like and only buy those. Only experiment with one new dressing at a time. Something to curb the madness.

Tasks accomplished! Have a picture of my Roomba successfully negotiating a carpet edge. It's off vacuuming the kitchen as I type. Best little helper!