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!

I almost forgot

Thursday in the regular group I declared my dungeon to be my laundry room. In all of the previous seasons as far back as I can remember my dungeon has been my storage shed. Guess what? In every season it's either too hot, too cold, too wet, or too overgrown out there to even set foot in it. This time around I decided the laundry room was a more achievable goal and in nearly as much need as the shed. I think it's #9 on my diagram, so after my kitchen (#1-8) that will be where I go. Of course, if I play my cards right I'll be doing laundry all along and whittling away at the mountain taking up half the "room". It's really a back porch closed in enough to make a breezeway between the house and what was the garage. The door to the outside is blocked by laundry. The door to the back yard is nearly always open for the dogs. So it's hot down there when it's hot outside, but not quite as hot as full sun. Anyway, that's what I'm planning. We all know how well that goes.

Looking Back....Looking Forward

Well thank you for reminding me that I have fallen down on the job here...LOL, just kidding.

I seriously have not done much that could be classified as PCCX during these last 5 weeks. I hang my head in shame......

And on that note, I say that this next 5 weeks will be different. I will actually find my list that I printed, um, had someone print for me, and I will try to do as many of the remaining jobs on the list as I can. I have company coming hopefully the weekend before Christmas and since one of those people is a bit of a clean freak/OCD about germs/picky person I would like to be able to open my door to her with peace this time.

First goal: To get in my laundry room and restack all boxes I've let get out of place. This will actually let me walk on more than a foot of the floor in there.

Second goal: To dust all rooms in this house from ceiling to floor. Trust me it needs it.

Third goal: To declutter yet even more toys, beyond the 2 trash bags in the trunk of my car.

Fourth goal: To get my kitchen cleaned and keep my dishes done up each day. I know that's not technically a PCCX goal but hey, it will help me to be able to eat to keep up my strenght.

and finally,

Fifth goal: To thoroughly clean all the floors in this house, hopefully with a steam cleaner and a good mop.

I will be posting more often hopefully...don't hold your breath for more than a sentence or two each time though. Wouldn't want to disappoint you.

What was I thinking?????

I am such a glutton for punishment and I really have the desire to have a clean and organized home, I really do.....BUT, I can't seem to get it all together AT THE SAME TIME *snort* I am a 1 step forward, 9 steps back kinda girl apparently, lol. I did manage to get all my coupons clipped, organized, sorted and shared last night....this used to be part of my Sunday routine and beleive it or not helped me get on track for the week, when I did it regularly.

On the other hand...........I have a 60th surprise birthday party for my dad that is only 1/2 planned, homeschool with dd every day, hair cuts for both myself and dd, eyebrow waxing, family holiday portraits, sign language class for dd, pe for dd, art for dd, a community yard sale that I am in charge of, weekly client work, a field trip to the pumpkin patch, shopping for birthday decorations, meal planning and preparing, quarterly payroll returns, personal tax prep, unpacking, cleaning for said surprise birthday party this weekend. Ummmmmm, where oh where do I put in pccx and going potty????????????????????????????

One tada and then I am outie....Dd and I sat in her room for 5+ hours on Saturday and cleaned out her closet, under her bed, all her nooks and crannies. She has bins for all her toys, but enjoys irritating me by putting stuff where it doesn't belong....the only thing left to do in there is hang her wall art, hang her window treatments and go thru her closet to purge smallish clothes and summer wear. I also managed to scrub down, clean and polish our stainless steel gas grill. I took all the grill grates....8 peices in all and then I used stainless steel cleaner on the outside. Saturday was wrapped up with trimming and watering all hedges out front and cleaning up the scraps. OOH, OOH, OOH....I guesss that cleaning the grill and trimming the hedges could be on PCCX under "winterizing".....hmmmm, I definately need to check that out, lol.

Tomorrow will be spent on client work, clearing off my desk, credenza and filing cabinets and hanging clothes back in my closet. After losing 3 dress sizes, I was forced *gasp* lol to buy new clothes and they are ALL on my bed....my closet is completely empty, so that MUST be taken care of tomorrow.

Part 1 of my dungeon

Before & After Photos of the Coupons - Part of my dungeon

The first photo is of all the MONTHS, yes months of inserts that I had accumulated as well as coupons I picked up along the way or received in trains or from other group members. There was NOT semblance of organization, they were scattered everywhere and I had no idea where in the heck the ones were that I actually needed to use. My daughter went to her dad's this weekend and I spent a total of 13 hours on organizing the heaps of the mess. (4 hours on Thursday night, 6 hours on Friday and 3 hours on Sunday)

First, I had to go thru all the uncut inserts and determine which were expired (sadly, that was alot). This was approximately 9 1/2 " of inserts to go thru and does not include the enormous stack that was already clipped. Then I clipped all the good dated coupons. After getting them all clipped, I sorted them into stacks of coupons I need/use and ones that I will send to friends and members of my coupon groups that can use them. I tackled the "other" coupons for the groups first and grouped all like coupons together. I keep these in a bin with cards labeled by month. I chose to do this by month because when we send out coupon trains in the group, we must make sure that the coupons aren't short dated to go around to 4 people. I keep the current month first and then in month order work back. The coupons photo'd in the very back of the bin are either NON expiring or expire 12/2010 or LATER. Yes, I grabbed an entire stack of organic coupons. I don't see them often, use them when I can and I experience NO SHAME in helping myself and my friends :D

Once that was accomplished, I did the happy dance, not only for completing 1/2 of that task, but also because I got to take fling points for all those wasted coupons :) I "auctioned" off several stacks of the unwanted coupons to the girls (the collaborators of this blog) and I think we all thoroughly enjoyed it...we kinda felt like we were at an auction, lol. Next began the task of organizing all my personal coupons. I do the organizing for those a little differently. I organize my personal coupons by "type" of coupon. For example....beverages, breakfast items, bread, ice cream, frozen, frozen veggies, medicine, deoderant, paper products...you get the idea I hope. I shop the sales and I stockpile, so I often times have multiples of coupons and actually welcome them from friends, neighbors, family and fellow couponers. :) If I can get items for free or close to free that we won't personally use, I donate them to women's shelters, pet shelters, churches and even victims of wild fires, tornadoes and hurricanes. I paperclip all like coupons together, with the earliest expiration date first. I also like to have each variety of coupon clipped together, meaning.....I have a section for soups, but I have all the chunky campbell's coupons together, all healthy choice campbell's coupons together, all cream soup campbell's coupons together, etc. That's probably a bit anal, but if I see a sale, I can grab the coupons quickly and take them with me.

The final step in completing the coupon organizing is to organize my bin by ailes in the store. I have not done that yet and am waiting when I can leave my daughter at home to walk the aisle at kroger. I do shop at other stores, but mainly kroger, and I could actually probably just do this at home since I am smart enough to figure out that all cheeses, milk, yogurt, butter, cookie dough, etc are all in the same section, same with all the frozens, canned goods, etc. :)

I think I mentioned I have several BIG issues with my dungeons in trying to get unpacked, but I am happy that I was able to get this large task completed although it was only a VERY VERY small, minute dent in the big picture. I went shopping Saturday afternoon and it was so nice to look at the ads, make my list and pull my coupons....took me 30 minutes tops for this weeks shopping at 5 stores. YAY me!

I LOVE Fall!

I never realized that I loved fall until I spent time in Tennessee the past two years. I lived in Florida the past 14 years and our fall's consisted of 80 degree days instead of 95. ;) I always did my "major" clean every January. I had renewed energy after the holidays and hope to continue that, but I really want to be prepared and organized for the holidays this year. The air is dryer and cooler and days of windows open are just around the corner. With the start of PCCX each time, I am optimistic I'll get EVERYTHING done, and it never happens. I will take what I can however; because I do get MORE done when PCCX is in the midst. I make my daily points and stay active, but just can't get quite to PCCX, lol. For now, I am ok with that. Maybe if I can get all this other "stuff" done, I will be successful at PCCX the next time.

I have made goal each day this week; however I haven't completed all I wanted on my list. Things come up like middle of the night upset stomach's and laying wide awake when I am supposed to be sleeping...not condusive to a 5:30 alarm sounding off. This morning I got to add two extra loads of laundry to my list as my daughter didn't quite make it to the bathroom early this morning....fun, fun. I have had emergency client deadlines come up and dishwashers go out....but I am plugging along.Today, we managed to get two days of math done and I reorganized the stockpile of food in our stairwell closet. We have more we are gathering to put in there, but for now it's organized should we need it. :) The photos are above....

The remainder of the day will be spent whittling away my 48 item list, errands and client work....another day with no PCCX items completed, but I'm ok with that. :)

Tackling My Tuesday

Do you know how when you don't manage to get done the things you wanted to get done during a day that the day feels like a complete bust? Yeah, I had one of those days...

Initially, my plan for the day was to take Dad to radiation and get some Psych reading done; Take husband to hospital for surgery and get some more reading done; Come home and clean for 3 hours.

I took Dad but had another patient arrive in a chatty mood so I only got 4 pages read.

I took my husband to the hospital (for an outpatient surgery) but 2 chatty women in the waiting room and were tired of their discussion with each other and then had to ask "what's your husband here for? ohhh my husband had that done and this is what happened and this is why we're here now." One benefit of living in an urban area is that nobody talks to each other. Move to a rural area - everybody knows everybody and if they don't know you, they will talk long enough until they do.....So I wasn't able to get any reading done until those women left, which means a whopping 2 additional pages.

Sigh.

I was hoping to get the entire chapter read. 6 lousy pages. Unbelievable.

So I came home and had every intention to start cleaning. But at that point, I was wiped out. 3 hours of driving and 3 hours of sitting in hospitals just took everything out of me. I sucked down a pot of coffee and did manage to get dinner done and cleaned the entertainment center in the living room.

PCCX Work
I didn't require my son to do anything pccx wise, only because he managed to get out of the house before I got home from hospital #2. Previously, the entertainment center looked like this:


I took out all of the DVD's, books, and VHS tapes. Dusted/polished the shelf and then sorted through the items determining what to keep, what to toss, what to put in Jordan's room and then put it all back in alphabetical order. That was the hard part. The rest was pretty easy as I dusted/polished the rest of the center and cleaned all of the electronics. In the end, this is what it looks like:



So I got something done for pccx, just not enough reading to make the day feel like I accomplished enough. Oh well, such is life.

Jamie's Befores

Jamie's Day 1

My computer is EXTREMELY slow and photobucket was extremely uncooperative this evening. :( I made my daily goal and am pleased with my overall day, although I did not get any PCCX done, so to speak. I got somewhat of a gameplan together and will only be able to work on PCCX two full days a week. I am going to have to stay on task and make sure I am following the schedule that I have set up to keep my work, homeschool, dailies and pccx done. I am pleased that I kept up with my POA, I worked steadily, I got my water in, we completed school and I got all my rumbles done.

Off to bed....tomorrow will be full with school activities for dd, so I will have to work after dinner.....toodles.

Teresa's Intro

Hi, I'm Teresa, single stay at home mom of an 8 year old daughter and a 20 year old daughter who is married and has a home of her own. We have a cat and dog who let us share their house, LOL, and an outside cat who adopted all of us.

I am probably the oldest blog contributor and should by all rights have all this cleaning and "housekeeping" stuff down but to be honest I don't have it down at all. Life has a way of keeping me off kilter most of the time. Currently, the curve ball that has been thrown my way is that my 8yo has just had a feeding tube button put in and we are still trying to get the routine care of it and the associated feedings incorporated into what little routine we had prior to this. My house is serving a dual purpose right now in that it is our home and is also a temporary storage place for my older daughters stuff that stayed when she left home. The house is small and there is no storage outside. There isn't very much space inside either so finding somewhere to put everything is a challenge.

Currently, my 20 year olds stuff is housed in the laundry room which also houses all of the "off season" things such as the fans we used during the summer. Because one of our heaters is in the laundry room and is totally blocked by stuff right now I am declaring the laundry room as my dungeon. I won't be able to totally clear it out unless I can find storage somewhere away from my home, but I do need to at least have access to the 2nd Dearborn heater in there for the coming winter months.

We rent this house so there won't be any major changes done during PCCX but hopefully I'll be able to at least do a thorough cleaning job on it. I will be posting pictures shortly so hang around and I'll give you the guided tour.

Jamie's Introduction….Productivity….Completion

My name is Jamie and I am a 30ish WAHSHM….for those of you still learning all the email/blog lingo (like me), I am a Work At Home Single Homeschool Mom. I stumbled across yahoo groups and PCC all in the same week completely by accident. :) At the time, I was married with a 2 year old and was joining a local Mom’s group that was recommended to me. That opened up an entire underworld of yahoo groups, lol. My mother has always said that I am an organized person, but I wasn’t feeling very organized trying to care for my toddler, be the lover and best friend to my dh, run a perfect household right down to the hot, home cooked meal every night, regular dinner parties and play dates, perfectly ironed sheets and pillowcases…yes, you read that right….all that while being perfectly healthy and fit! Something had to give…..SO, I chose to ditch the dh, put the perfect household on the back burner and opted for getting healthy praying that fit would come along, lol.

All kidding aside, I thought I was coming along in my quest for a tidy and organized home and life. I was on track to complete PCCX last year prior to selling our home and moving out of Florida, so that my husband could take a job that he wanted. It was October and I had our Thanksgiving dinner planned and was well on my way to having Christmas organized. I even had my baking/cooking lists prepared and budgeted to make goodies for our neighbors and friends. I had begun listing on ebay regularly and was looking forward to reclaiming my guest bedroom. The day we got the contract on our home my husband told me he wasn’t happy with his job and wanted to move to Texas where there were more opportunities in his company. In a nutshell, our daughter and I were to come to Texas and stay temporarily with my mom and dad until he could get his transfer to come join us. We got to Texas the week before Thanksgiving and put all of our items in storage. He went on his merry way for several job interviews. He called me the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to tell me that HE wasn’t marriage material (uh, we have been married 7 years) and that he wouldn’t be joining us out in Texas. I no longer had a home that I dearly loved and was enjoying getting in order and I no longer had one of the most cherished “roles” of my life….housewife.

The past year has been a roller coaster of emotions, events and new learning experiences. I am so incredibly blessed to be working from home and homeschooling my daughter as we had planned all along. I have a home that is still in the VERY beginning stages of being unpacked and I am re-learning how important it is to be organized, so when your life is turned upside down, you have a fighting chance. I am learning and tweaking my daily routine which has to include cleaning/maintaining the home, meal planning, my work (to earn a paycheck), schooling my daughter, activities with her, activities with my parents and my brother and some how manage to find “me” time, exercise time, errands, church and all those other things that make you wish there were 40 hours in a work day instead of the work week.

My dungeon: ALL unpacked boxes in the house (did I mention, we have been here 10 months and are still unpacking!) and the storage unit where the rest of our “stuff” is, including all items that we have purged so far for a huge garage sale in November. If I complete the unpacking of the boxes, my “reward” is a new digital camera. I want one of the ones with the detachable zoom lens.

I will be posting photo links of my “before’s” and “after’s” and I hope you enjoy the journey that we are on as well as your own. I have learned in 3 years of attempting pccx, that it comes around more than once a year, so I get multiple tries! :)

Ann's Intro and Plan of Attack

Hi all! I’m Ann, stay at home mom/step-mom of 5 children, ages 11, 8, 7, 4 and 4 months. I’ve been married to John since November 2008. We live in Ohio. We home school our 11 year old daughter, who has Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome and uses a wheelchair. Our 8 (who has Asperger's /ADHD) and 7 year old boys go to public school and our 4 yo daughter goes to a preschool where my husband works. Also, the children are in various extracurricular activities. Can you tell we're busy?

We’re in the process of trying to buy a larger house. So, it’s very likely that I’ll be pccx’ing (is that a word?) 2 houses at once. Granted the new house will be empty when I clean so that will probably help. Hopefully, this week I’ll know for sure what will be happening. Then I’ll be able to plan my attack a little better.

Drumroll, please!!!! My dungeon is…..the garage! Due to combining households, we have boxes of my stuff that hasn’t gotten unpacked yet. I’m still looking for my plates. I know they are out there somewhere. We’re using a mishmash of what my husband collected. I can’t wait to get matching plates again. Anyway, I must have the garage clean before winter sets in, which could be any time. We would really like to park the vehicles in there so we don’t have to trek through the snow to the house.

I think for this week, I’m going to work on the 2 bathrooms. They need a really, really deep cleaning and it will feel good to get them done. Besides, I’m pretty sure I can get both of them done in a week and still have time to find my dishes. Finally, I want to get my fall decorations put up even if I will have to change them to a different house.

Anyway, I’ve introduced myself, declared my dungeon, and made my goals for the week so I think I’ll end here for now. I’ll check in tomorrow---the 1^st day of FALL PCCX!! Happy Cleaning all!!

Ye Olde Dungeon

A definition for those new to the concept: a dungeon is a room or area of your home that is so cluttered, so over-run by *stuff*, that you are thoroughly embarrassed to have anyone see it. Usual suspects are craft rooms, offices, empty rooms that become catch-all storage areas, garages, storage areas (sheds, attics, basements), but any room in the house can be one. When we talk about dungeons we're talking about *clutter*, not dirt. A grimy bathroom is not a dungeon, but a slightly dusty room piled high with sewing patterns, fabric, scrapbook supplies, and other crafts is.

The points for dungeons during PCCX are as follows:

• If you cleared (not cleaned, cleared) a dungeon in a previous PCCX period and it is still clear, 500 points.
• Flinging (getting rid of) items from your dungeon (give away, throw away, sell), 10 points per item, paper and other very small multiple items are 10 pieces per 10 points.
• Every 15 minutes spent decluttering your dungeon, 200 points.
• If you completely clear your dungeon during the PCCX period, 1000 points in addition to time and flinging points.
• If you clear your dungeon, have time to spare, and decide to clean the room as well using the appropriate room list, double the task points for that room.
• Finally, if you begin PCCX with no area you can call a dungeon, 1000 points and our congratulations.

If you have one and are participating, you must declare a single dungeon at the start of the period. You don't need to list any other rooms you have, though you may if you wish.

For example, my dungeon for this time around is my storage shed in the backyard. My home consists of 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 2 hallways, a living/dining room combo, the kitchen, and a laundry room. And *if* I get all that done and am feeling ambitious, mom's "apartment" has a bedroom, office, bathroom, and walk-in closet, but I'm not counting on that.

The day before....

It's the day before pccx starts and I'm not sure where to begin. I think I might start with the bedrooms since they'll be the easiest. Easiest to get done and easiest to maintain. I need to go through my children's toys. They have far far too many of them. I also need to take the carpets out of the rooms and wash them. I'd like to get that done before it gets too cold outside. Living in MO you never know when it will get cold.

Dungeon.....I've put some thought into this. Since I don't have alot of extra stuff laying around I need to get my filing cabinet in order. It's a mess. Too many papers and not enough space for them. I've also decided that my husband will have his own dungeon. All his Army crap needs to be gone through and organized. He's taken over our entire bedroom. So there we go.....I have two dungeons to get done. I don't do points because I just can't get the hang of it. But both these areas need to be cleaned up and organized.

Good luck everyone and we can do it!

Before pics are posted in the sidebar.