Pay no attention to the blog behind the curtain

I got a new app to port from my iPad and I've clearly gotten in over my head as I have no idea what I'm doing.

Bah - November Recap

There's very little I can do right lately.  Not only did I fail to report progress or lack thereof leading up to our Thanksgiving visitors' arrival, I didn't actually do much of anything.  We managed to make the place slightly less embarrassing, but that's about the best I can say.  Oh well, they weren't here to see the house, and they didn't spend a lot of time here anyway.  It was a good visit and a great meal - other than the cherry pie taking a header off the dessert table.  Something has to go wrong, right?

So, about the month of November...I never did an October recap and it's certainly too late now.  It's almost too late for November for that matter, but I'll do it anyway, because I feel like it. :)

10 - days I actually tracked points
4 - days over 4,000 points - all of which were the weekend (Fri-Mon) before Thanksgiving
46,880 - points earned all month
2 - high school football games attended - 1 over an hour away
2 - major video game releases
2 - movie premieres attended
2 - out-of-town visitors
19 - blog posts - none of them here because I suck like that
6,153 - emails and RSS posts read and deleted
0 - birthdays to celebrate
3 - dr. appointments
3 - books read
7 - school and church functions
$26.49 - earned from rebates and surveys

That's about all I can come up with right now.  Yay November.

T-23

As usual, I start something and then it's 4 days later and nothing else has been done.  So, Thursday I did start in the bathroom, but I didn't get very far.  I dealt with about 2 square feet in the back corner between the toilet and the tub.  My "after" looks like a normal person's "gee, this hasn't been cleaned in months, I'd better get on it."

In my (minimal) defense, a large part of that is issues we inherited with the house, like lousy caulking that won't come clean no matter what I do, and a floor that is a project unto itself.  There were 3 layers of linoleum in there when we moved in.  The bottom one is cemented to the wood floor and after trying to scrape it up I gave up about a foot into the door.  There's no removing that stuff short of a sander or new planks.  Above that was another layer, and above that linoleum tiles.  The tiles were relatively easy to get up, and the middle layer only a little more difficult.  This back corner had never been finished though, so I had two layers to remove.  I have tiles I bought years ago but don't know if they will help or if I can put them down any better than this bottom layer is.  Anyway, while I was down there I cleaned the bottom of that side of the toilet and tried to clean that seam between tub and floor and about then my back and knees decided there would be no more of that.

The weekend blew by uselessly.  Today I'm back on it...as soon as I eat something.

T-28

In 28 days my in-laws will be here.  For 27 days I will be in hyper-clean mode and see if it is possible to run through a whole pccx in a month.  Actually, I'm sure it is, but I'm not sure *I* can.

I don't always guarantee pictures, but I will post progress, hopefully daily.

I think I'll try to take things in order of the room-by-room track, so first up is the bathroom.  That's both good and bad.  Good because it's a very small space and therefore should take less time; bad because there is a lot of repair-type work to be done that I just can't right now.

More to come later today.

Oh, and Did I Mention?

My in-laws are coming to visit at Thanksgiving.  Oh yeah.  5 weeks I have in which to cram a year's worth of cleaning.  I'm planning some kind of blogging event to go with it, but I haven't decided what yet.  Open to suggestions.

This Time...

This is mostly the same as a post I wrote today at Spark People, but the same principles apply to housekeeping as weight loss in many ways.

I think everyone, at some point, falls off of whatever wagon they're clinging to.  This is followed, almost inevitably, by a point in the future at which one says, "This time I'll do it right."  I'm all for positive affirmations and goals, but "This time..." is more like a promise, and one that is often destined to be broken.  

I've been slacking for quite some time now, and I wanted to start today fresh and trying harder.  But something about "This time..." rubs me the wrong way.  Maybe it's because it implies other times, more opportunities to fall.  Maybe it's because it implies picking up right where I left off instead of backing up a few steps and building back up to where I was.  Maybe because it's just too general.  Maybe it's because it's been said hundreds of times before and it carries the weight of all those failures with it.  Maybe it's because it encompasses too much time.  "This time..." could be months or years.

I think I'll go with "Today..." instead.  "Today..." I will pay attention to my priorities.  "Today..." I will get some - any - cleaning in.  "Today..." I will track what I need to.  Today I can handle.  It's one day, a finite time.  And if something goes wrong Today, there is always another Today - tomorrow.  If I said "This time..." and fell today then I wrecked the whole thing.  

So far Today is going fine.

I'm Soooo Behind

It's well into October now, and all the screw-ups, mis-steps, and failures of the last 9 months are rearing up to bite me in the you-know-where.

Any progress I made earlier in the year - and some of it was considerable - has backslid so far that I'm nearly back at square one.  I haven't planned diddly and the upcoming holidays are looking a little bleak.  A major, crucial project that should have begun in August is still in limbo today.  Financial decisions are almost always regrets around here.  My house is a wreck - no better now than it has been at any point in the last 4 years.  I'm not looking forward to fundraisers, cold-weather clothes, pictures, cards, presents, baking, etc. in the next 3 months.

I'm frustrated with so many things, not the least of which myself.  I have issues.

Goals, New and Old

So let's see...a month ago I said this:

Specific tasks to complete:
Get my sort-of-secret project up and running
Get up to speed on the holiday planner
Finish any one section of PCCX cleaning
Write a minimum of 4 HK101 essays

Yeah...not so much.

That project - progress has been made, but it's not finished.  It NEEDS to be, NOW.

Holiday planner - not looked at.  Winged it for A's birthday.

PCCX cleaning - I barely did any daily cleaning.

HK101 essays - not a one.

So that was a waste of perfectly good goals.  Most of those I forgot I even made.  Let's strive to do better in October, shall we?

1. Have a functioning business site and marketing materials dispersed.
2. Prepare for Halloween before 10/27.
3. Daily rumbles regularly - at least 1 week's streak by end of month.
4. Dial down expectations - 1 HK101 essay.
5. 4 lbs. lost.

That will do for now.  I'm also setting a reminder to look at these daily so I don't forget and blow them off.

Who's got a goal for October?

September By the Numbers

Once again it's time to look back on a month and see what happened. 

1 - day I didn't track points

10 - days I passed goal (4,000)

104,655 - points earned all month

3,489 - average number of points per day

3 - pounds I lost

5 - friends and family birthdays

8 - medical appointments

2,140 - Spark points earned

5 - days over 100*

7 - days of rain

8,555 - emails and RSS posts deleted

20 - blog posts

27 - days of Wii Fit body tests

13 - books read

61,499 - steps recorded

$87.35 - earned from online book sales

1 - teenager in the house

1 - new dog

And there we have it: September 2011 boiled down to a few statistics.

September Goals

I have 2 basic goals for the month: consistency and improvement.  Vague enough for ya?

Consistency:
I want to start with consistent record-keeping.  I want to have complete POAs and food/exercise diaries for every day of the month.  Even if I didn't do anything, or I ate way too much, I want a record.  Am I going to do everything on my POA every day?  Uh, no.  Even if I tried I'm not sure I could. Well, I *could*, but I'd never get that far on my current energy and health level.  That's a goal for another time.  It is enough right now for me to know how much I *am* doing on a fairly regular basis, and to work on improving upon that amount.

Speaking of improvement:
I want to have a higher points per day average than last month.  I want the house to be cleaner at the end of the month than it is now - by which I specifically mean having it picked up enough to really *clean* on a regular basis.  I want to see progress on the scale and other measurements of health and fitness.  I want to spend less time on pain-killers and more time up doing things (not a whole lot I can control about that, except that if that last goal is met it should help).

Specific tasks to complete:
Get my sort-of-secret project up and running
Get up to speed on the holiday planner
Finish any one section of PCCX cleaning
Write a minimum of 4 HK101 essays

That'll do for now.  My POA is full of other things to do daily, weekly, monthly, and once.  I will have plenty to do in September.

5 & 1/2 Months Later

Yep, it's been over 5 months since I've posted which I just happened to notice because of Amanda's new post, so I'm posting an update and a few goals for the month of September.

I ended up slacking on the decluttering process back in April because I'd started college classes. Last week I'd finally decided that I was going to just have the garage sale with what I'd already decluttered and attempt to go through the garage as well (which I did). I'm pretty sure I sold well over 500 items, leaving me with 2 totes, a box and a rack of coats.

During the month of September, I plan to:

• Sort through the garage sale items and sort to donate or sell online.
• Drop off donation items
• Post items online for sale
• Scrub the shower & tub (I hate hard water...my tub is a "goldenrod" color (5 points if you know that color) and I'd like to see it white again
• Attempt to remove the paint from carpet in bedroom with goof off (pointless but going to try anyways)
• Begin job
• Start new college classes
• Clean out filing cabinet

I *intend* to post before/after pics now that I have a memory card reader again.

August In Review, September Preview

Technically the 50point bonus reminder came out Tuesday, but I figure as long as it's done by today - the day after the end of the month - it's worthy of the points.  That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

So, here's August by the numbers, cuz ya know, I'm a numbers gal:

5 - number of days I didn't track diddly

4 - number of days I only have points because I forced myself to add up the abysmal "accomplishments"

12 - number of days I exceeded the daily goal

93,215 - number of points earned all month

3,007 - average number of points earned per day

0.5 - number of pounds I lost

2 - number of pounds I gained back

3 - number of times I was called by a school in the first 8 days of the school year

4 - number of family and friends' birthdays

19 - number of trips to Sonic - that I can document

31 - number of days the temperature reached 100+

6 - number of medical appointments - none of them mine!

8,767 - number of emails and RSS posts I received and deleted

609 - number of Spark Points earned ((re)joined 8/18)

There was all the usual back-to-school fervor to contend with of course.  Clothes and supplies to buy, and mountains of paperwork to fill out, much of it repetitive.  I don't think there was anything else truly interfering with my progress last month other than inherent laziness and the semi-excusable time spent in bed with pain meds.

In September we have 3 birthdays to celebrate - heh, all on consecutive Mondays, how 'bout that.  A will be a teenager in less than 2 weeks; heaven help us all.  I have 7 medical appointments already on the docket and at least 1 more will be added after tomorrow's visit to the orthodontist, I'm sure.  This season of True Blood will come to a close and the next season of Boardwalk Empire will begin.  I'm anxious to see what the HBO winter headline show will be now that Big Love is finished.  Neither of my A-list network shows begin this month (House and Bones, premiering in Oct and Nov, respectively).  

In other words, there's not a whole lot going on that should impede any progress I'd like to make.  Next up, goal setting - but that's another show.

Miss Me?

It's been far too long, I know.  I've been so spotty in my progress that it isn't really funny.  I've been tracking points all year...when I do anything.  I made it through most of the month of January, then skipped the first half of February.  Then I lost 4 days to the hospital but got right back in for the first half of March.  Skipped almost 2 months and then worked most of May.  June and July are empty, but I've been working this month.  My next mini-goal is to keep it up until after Labor Day, which will make this my longest streak of the year.

I've got a POA that mostly works for me, and now after a couple of solid weeks I'm starting to add weekly drills back in.  I haven't even looked at PCCX or holiday planning since January, which is likely to be my downfall in the next few months.  Now that school's back on and I have 3 out of 4 kids out of the house all day, yet it's not so late in the year that I'm tired of it all and just want summer back so I can sleep in the morning, I'm putting on a major push to not only get things done but get them done well and consistently and to keep track.  I'm also working 3 weight-loss programs at once to see which one I will settle on.  I *also* have a major (secret) project or three that I'm working on.  I really do like doing multiple things consecutively rather than add one on now, another one later, another one later, etc.  It's the overall consistency that I really have to work on.

So that's my goal, and I'm sticking to it.  If I don't post again in the next week, call out the cavalry.

A quick update

I do have another corner of the kitchen to talk about, but I thought I'd do a quick post about cleaning my desk today.

Before:

After:

It looks soooo much better now, don't you think?

Knock, knock?

No, it's not a joke, I'm just coming back in from a long absence and thought it would be polite. :)

I've started up here and there with a plan or a poa or basics, but I just wasn't getting anywhere.  And I could blame it on illness and things, or I could just suck it up and admit that I'm a lazy wench most of the time and just wasn't hauling my ample butt up out of this chair (or bed, more likely) to get any real work done.  I'm not sure what bit me Saturday night, but suddenly I thought I was really ready to get moving.  I decided to start in one end/corner of the house and move out from there doing anything and everything I could reasonably do along the way.

I woke up Sunday morning, ran over to the dollar store across town (which of course uses "run" in the sense that I drove, because there's no running from me, especially across our admittedly small town), and plunked down a bunch of money on cleaning supplies and came home to get to work.  Incidentally, all that stuff I bought?  2 things I thought I was out of I had several of, 2 things I thought I had I can't find, and in the first 5 minutes the new long-handled duster went missing.  Oh, and I still don't have anything that will cut through grease effectively.  And so it goes.

I really did work yesterday.  Probably a solid 4 hours all together.  What I got done was a generally unused, small corner of my kitchen - but it's DONE, man.  I'll give you the tour:

Oh yes, let's start here.  I was mixing dilutions of a few cleaners into empty spray bottles, when I spilled straight-up bleach onto my navy stretch capris. *headsmack*

I remembered to start taking pics after I moved the popcorn machine out of this corner and picked up the first few things - including the lid to a round, covered trash can which we haven't owned in about 2 years.  This is possibly the "deepest, darkest" corner of my house, kind of an afterthought corner in the back end of the kitchen.  The only thing it's good for is storing the popcorn machine, and as such has been much neglected an abused.

After picking up, sweeping, and scrubbing, this is as good as the floor gets.  The vinyl flooring came with the house all scratched up that badly,  I swear.  The tall piece of wood leaning in the corner is part of the door frame of C's room...a story for another day.  It's staying there, out of the way, until I work my way around to there and figure out how to reattach it decently.  Or maybe it's the one from my room?  One of us is missing part of a door frame.

That's my large freezer on the left, which at one point - when my desk was in this part of the house - was "cleverly" used as a white board.  The last brainstorm session stayed too long and now it won't come off.  At least you can't see it from the rest of the kitchen.  Oh, and one of the kids *coughCcough* added to it later, I found.  The hanging cords were disGUSting.  I barely remembered to unplug them before cleaning, but I did.

There are 2 windows in this corner, which was lovely when I spent the day there at my desk.  Now, they're really just pointless.  Worse, they're awful.  I cleaned the glass and trim inside, but they're no better to look through than when I started.  It doesn't photograph well, but the screens are torn, and there are hundreds of bugs, leaves, and other things stuck between the screens or storm windows and the interior pane.  I don't even know how to clean that all out.  I'll work on that later, when I'm cleaning outside I guess.

Here is the aforementioned popcorn machine.  It, itself, still needs to be cleaned, but it's back in its home now that the surroundings are much better.  It's hiding the cleaned and better contained cords.

Once again I started moving things before taking the opening picture.  Perhaps you can see above that there were random dishes stacked to the left of the microwave and others on top, in addition to Santa there.

The microwave was actually worse than it appears, because half the mess was on the glass plate that I'd already put in the dishwasher with everything else I moved from this area.  This poor microwave, by the way, is from around 1983.  I distinctly remember when we got it; it was such a "new" thing that the appliance store that sold them held cooking classes free with purchase for something like 6 weeks, to teach new owners how to use them.  I used to have the microwave fudge recipe from a class memorized.  The fancy button settings don't work anymore, the meat probe thermometer is long gone, and it isn't even-heating anymore, but by golly it's still kicking.

The left side done...

...the right side, not so much.  Those boxes there have been sitting, unpacked, since my mom moved in, in 2007.  I found Christmas plates, crystal glasses, and an almost full (large) bottle of rum.

The microwave done...

...and there it is.  That's a lot of Pediasure on the left, that used to be stacked on the floor in front of the microwave.  The picture on the windowsill is an old one of the family from when C was a baby; I found it with the boxes and cleaned it up.  Inside the buffet is almost entirely Christmas dishes, so I'll clean those and the interior shelves in November when I get them out.  There's no need to open it until then so I'll leave it alone for now.

So that was my Sunday triumph: one useless corner, one piece of furniture (exterior), and one countertop appliance.  Onward and upward from here.

So I was talking to some of the girls the other day about my decluttering for my Memorial Day weekend garage sale.  Because I have such a headstart, I'm limiting myself to going through 10 items per day.  A box does not have to be completed in a day.  The attic does not have to be completed in a day.  I'm grabbing a box from storage and sorting into 4 piles: Keep, Donate, Sell, Trash  (Note: This is NOT 10 items per category. JUST 10 items per day) 

Keep items are packed away if I can (for my future move) or simply cleaned and put away.

Donate items are put into a box and any time I go into town, I drop it off at the charity donation center.

Sell items are priced, which can take more time to research online, but then put in the garage "staging" area for my future sale. 

Why am I telling you this?  Because it was pointed out that in one month, that's 300 items!  Just try it, you'll be amazed how quickly you can sort through 10 items!

1/2 Month Check In

Well, it's the middle of the month and I haven't even posted pictures. I've had the pictures taken since the first week, I just haven't gotten them off the camera. Talk about lazy!!

Anyway, as far as the update. I'm rather embarrassed because all that I've done so far is have the kids undecorate the Christmas tree. It's still sitting naked in the game room, though. The toys in there have been picked up and spilled about over and over since the beginning too. Other than that, nothing looks different, unfortunately.

I did find out that in the middle of February, I'll be having a group of teens over for a game night for my daughter so I have to get busy working on this room, plus the rest of the house to make everything presentable.

It's time to kick it into high gear and get some things accomplished. Hopefully, I can do more in the next 2 weeks than I did in the last.

Clean up, aisle 7

Homeless produce + binless toy shelf + dollar store bins = personal produce department.  Special thanks to Kim, Jamie, and Teresa for the brainstorming and outright idea.

I need to get a move on

I'm having a hard enough time getting through the day-to-day so I haven't even looked at the back pages.  So today I brought one of the office tasks forward as one of the daily challenges: clean an office (or playroom, or similar) wall, ceiling to floor including molding.  I didn't do it today of course, but I gave us all weekend to complete it for bonus points.so, just for grins, here are a couple of pictures of my wall before, and hopefully by Sunday I'll have an after picture that actually looks better.  Any ideas how to get the blue, um, marker? I think? off of badly painted paneling?

EGADS! What happened to my desk?

So my desk area has become the catch all for mail, school papers, jewelry making supplies and other misc papers. Everything has taken over to the point there's not a clear surface to be had.

I've taken before pics of it, and will try to take after pics when I finish it. I forgot after pics of my house but will try to get the desk pics up.

I did something right

I wrote the new program specifically to encourage prioritizing and doing the important things over the piddly things.  And you know what?  It works.  It's come back to kick me in the you-know-where.  I did plenty of work today.  Hours, even.  Stuff on my list, stuff that needed to be done.  But it wasn't the stuff that *really* needed to be done.  The things that I had decided this morning were the most important.  So by dinnertime I'd worked all day but was at barely 65% of goal.  And it's a modest goal y'all, really.  I "wasted" the entire day working on less important things, and it shows.

But that's exactly what it's supposed to do.

Checking in with nothing to say

It hasn't been much of a week.  According to my self-imposed schedule I was supposed to write this yesterday but since no one else would know that except that I just told you....well, let's just say it's not a big deal.  Although it did kill my streak of blogging every day.  Oh well.

About my house, since that's the whole point of this particular blog, I can't say a whole lot.  I have been making a concerted effort to keep my room picked up after Chris cleaned the heck out of it not that long ago, so that's good.  On the other hand, after ALL that work writing the new point system and making a lovely POA to go with it, I have made goal exactly once in the last week.  Oddly enough, if I don't get up and clean stuff each day I don't get many points, even if I spend the day "productively" sitting at my computer.  I can't blame the system since a) I wrote it, and b) that's what it's supposed to do.

One thing I have yet to truly understand, is how I can log such a small percentage of time doing useful things.  Around 11am the other day I'd been up for 5 hours, I'd been working or at least feeling like I was working almost all of that time, but I only had about 2 1/2 hours marked as cleaning or writing or whatever.  That's something I'll have to work on.

In the end, we're week 1 into the new year and while I don't really see progress I also don't see much backsliding into the pit, so that's good.  Right?  How was your first week?

New year new me!

The new year has come and gone and I've been doing alot of thinking.... it's time for a new outlook on life. I've decided I need to get my house in order, I need to lose weight, I need to quit smoking and I need to get back on track with school. I know those are all things everyone has said before but this year is my year. I'm sick of being fat, I'm sick of the CHAOS in my house, I'm sick of smoking, and I want to have a college degree.

So I was telling my grandma about my new plan and she told me I needed to schedule my day. My therapist said the same thing. So last week I sat down and planned out my entire day. Making time for cleaning, exercise, family time, school work and even a couple hours for making jewelry. Monday I start my new schedule. My husband is going out of town for the month of January and I'll have plenty of time to get the schedule in place while he is gone.

I've taken pictures of my house in it's current state, trashed. And when I finish cleaning today I'll post after pictures.

I'm cranky today

I won't go into why, just thought I should mention it in case anything in this post sound snippy.

I'll own up; I haven't started the deep clean.  I can't really call it PCCX anymore I think, because now the whole group, year-long thing seems to be that.  In fact, we discussed at some length what the X might now stand for instead of extreme.  Excellence, exchange, execution (as in doing something, not killing someone), exercise, expectations, expedition, experience, experiment, exploits, exploration, exposition, extension...any thoughts, votes, alternative suggestions?  Let's remember that the PCC stands for purple chat and challenge...not my first pick for a group name, but that's what we've got so let's go with it.

That wasn't exactly the point of the post, so moving on...

I haven't started on the back pages (annual deep cleaning), because I haven't yet done even a decent, much less good job on the front page (dailies), and I've ignored the middle pages (weeklies) too.  Figuring a mere 1 hour each on the top 3 priorities, 1 load each of dishes and laundry, a whopping 15 minutes of exercise, and around 130 for 3 special challenges, the total is a little over 3,000.  I should have far more than an hour in each of those priorities, and there's usually more than one load of dishes, laundry, or both.  Five days a week there are weekly tasks.  Accordingly, I've set my goal at 3,500 for weekends and 4,000 for weekdays.  Reasonable.  So far I've made between 2,300 and 2,800 each day.  Why?

My back has been giving me fits for weeks and most days I can barely move without pain, but that's just a lousy excuse.  For one thing, I've still spent hours sitting here at the computer, so why don't I have more writing and desk work hours logged?  Everyone else around here is able-bodied, so why isn't there more delegating going on (half points for those)?  The facts of the matter are that a) I'm inherently lazy, and b) I don't know where all the time goes.  Those are excuses too, and I'm really sick and tired of excuses.  It doesn't seem to make me get up and do...um...stuff, it just makes me irritable.  I'll leave it at that.

The next time I check in I expect to have some progress to show for the time.

3 days in

Just thought I'd check in after a couple of days on the new system.  It's working - for me - so far, though I've discovered one very important thing.  In order to meet goal, I have to actually GET UP AND DO those basic maintenance things at the very least.  Just the rooms alone are 875 points, and another 175 minimum for dishes, laundry, and getting rid of something somewhere.  That's more than 1/4 of my daily goal, so when I don't do them, I pretty much can't make goal.  I know, right?  That's so rude.  Who writes this stuff?

Oh yeah.

Never mind.

New, New, New Everywhere

It's January! A new month, a new year, a new format and a new outlook!!

I am determined to make this a great year and I really think this change to monthly areas will be a HUGE benefit to me, and hopefully to all of us involved in the group. I haven't felt this positive about things in a long time and I look forward to seeing how we all conquer clutter and dust this year. This is the year for us! Now to put down my pompoms and move into my house and the real work.

January is Playroom/Office/Den month. I had to think about this one for a bit. There's not really a set playroom in my house. Toys are everywhere. With 5 children, it happens. The desk is in a closet right now so obviously we have no office. I haven't heard of a den in years. Exactly what is a den? I think of the room with big leather chairs where the men sit and smoke their cigars. LOL I'm sure there's some modern version, but I don't think I have one of those.

Anyway, thinking some more I came up with some rooms. First, I have a music/game room. That sounds like a playroom to me since we play games and music in it. Also, we don't have an office yet, but I know where we are going to put it when the room gets cleaned out, so why not start working in there? It's the Florida room and right now it's full of boxes that need unpacked and stuff that needs to be given away.

Since the rooms are chosen, it's time to take pictures and post them. Then it's off to the races we go. One month, two rooms...GO!

Kicking off the new year

There's been a significant lack of posting around here, and I have a very good reason.  I've been burning the midnight oil getting a whole new plan ready to go for 2011, and I came in just under the wire.

The biggest part of this change is that PCCX as we knew it is now spread over 11 months instead of intense bursts 4 times a year.  The theory is that with more time per room at one time we'll be more likely to get things done.  Just to put it out there FYI, here's the breakdown:

January: playroom/office/den
February: bathrooms/laundry room
March: dungeon
April: attic/basement/storage
May: outside
June: porch/entry/halls/stairs
July: bedrooms
August: living room/family room
September: garage/workshop/autos
October: kitchen
November: dining room
December: nothing scheduled due to holidays

There's also a plan for similar tasks to be done together rather than a whole room at a time.  I don't know how many people will be using that one, but I wrote it anyway, just in case.

So this is the new schedule I'll be using, and I'm hopeful for this year.  How are your plans coming?