Deep cleaning and other goals

This week I decided it was time to get organized and get some things done. There isn't much I want to accomplish before we travel to Taiwan, but I would like to deep clean my house. I want to come home to a clean and organized home. So I've set some daily goals for myself:

30 minutes of exercise (trying to lose a couple of pounds)
60 minutes of Chinese (trying to become a tiny bit closer to fluent)
30 minutes of organizing/cleaning (beyond my normal chores)

So far so good! I've exercised both yesterday and today. I studied yesterday for 62 minutes and have 45 more to go today. And I've done 30 minutes of cleaning both yesterday and today. Here are a couple pictures of my progress.

before

after

before

after

before

after
I'm not sure the before and after photos look terribly different, but I did get rid of a few things. I am keeping the KonMarie principle in mind as I clean. "Does this bring me joy? If so, keep it. If not, get rid of it." I discarded some really old and ratty kitchen towels, outdated spices, and a few instruction manuals that are available online. And now all three of these cupboards are scrubbed down and organized.

If we have a few dollars extra before we leave, I'd like to buy a spice rack. My spices are almost all bulk purchases from Whole Foods so I have a ton of little baggies on the bottom shelf of my cabinet. It is a mess! It's hard to cook because I have to pull out handfuls of baggies and sort through them to find the spice I'm looking for. I'm doing to do some research to see if the bulk spices are actually fresh or if I should just buy jarred. If I go to the bulk route, I want to buy glass jars to store what I purchase. If I go the jarred route, I want to toss out everything I have and buy the staples I need. Either way, I'd like to organize the spices so that I can start teaching my daughter how to cook.

Half an hour still until the Women's World Cup game between Japan and Netherlands so I'm going to sneak in some Chinese studies before the game.

Happy cooking!

May wrap-up / June goal

May's 30 day challenge has not actually ended. Yes, May is over but I got a late start to my cheesemaking and it took longer than I expected. The cheese will be ready to taste-test on Wednesday. At that point, we'll decide if it's edible. If so, we'll be making pizza with it.

I've been thinking about June's challenge and I don't think I can set one. We are still hoping to travel to Taiwan at the end of July, though if the judge doesn't issue first ruling soon, we may not be traveling until August. I have an overambitious list of things I want to accomplish before travel. I don't think it's wise to concentrate on just one challenge this month. Instead, I'll be working my way down my list.

Here's what I am hoping to accomplish before travel.

Packing test run
Finish KonMarie'ing my house
Deep clean my house
Write up a menu for the first two weeks home
Grocery shopping for all non-perishables for the above menu
Summer clothes shopping for Jeff, Cin-Ru, and myself
Plan the actual trip
Finish blog design and launch my new blog

And, I want to make decent sized strides in my Chinese ability. I did join a June mini-challenge to read Chinese materials for at least half an hour each day. This means something written by native Chinese speakers for native Chinese speakers, not for those learning Chinese. There is a huge difference. This is in addition to my normal flashcards and my writing attempts.

Looking at my list, I'd better get busy!

Small projects make a big difference

Today I wrapped up several small projects. First, I finally retrieved my CD out of my husband's retired laptop. His old laptop is the only CD drive left in the house and I accidentally left the CD in the computer when I played it a week ago.

Then I scanned the photo that my grandma mailed to me last week. I'm sending the hard copy to my mom but wanted a scanned version for my photo albums.

This is me at 13 months' of age. I actually rather like this photo!

Finally, I decluttered and rearranged the bookshelf in our dining room.

before

after

I decluttered KonMarie style. (Which reminds me that I really need to write up a blog post about the book itself...) I pulled every item off the shelf and asked myself, "does this bring me joy?" If so, I put it back. If not, out it went. Sort of. I now have a growing pile downstairs of stuff that needs to be physically removed from my house.

I'm happy with the results! The top shelf holds my sponsorship notebooks where I keep all of the letters from the children we sponsor, my library books, and review books that I am in the middle of reading and reviewing. The second shelf now holds our Bibles and a row of children's books. The first couple books are ones that we purchased for Cin-Ru. The rest are library books that I will be reading to better discern what we should actually buy.

The bottom shelf now holds some of Cin-Ru's toys that require a table to be used. We intentionally chose not to purchase a desk or table for her bedroom. This way, she'll be encouraged to spend time upstairs with the rest of the family instead of hiding out in her room. I thought it would be a good idea to move these types of toys upstairs so that she can pull something out and play at the dining room table with us instead of in her room without us. I still need to sort through the toys downstairs as I am sure there are more that I can bring upstairs. I'll leave the dolls and some of the books downstairs.

I'm happy with my progress today! Now off to study Chinese so that I can actually talk to my daughter once we meet her in Taiwan.

Gimbap and oyster mushrooms

I've been having some motivation issues lately. A lack of motivation to blog, clean, study, etc. I'm not exactly sure what's causing it but I'm pulling myself up by my bootstraps and forcing myself to move forward. My wonderful husband cleaned the bathrooms for me today, which was so very much appreciated!

I started overhauling my menu planning and recipe book. Both have gotten very sloppy. Last week we added a new recipe to our rotation: gimbap!

We did "veganify" the recipe, leaving out the meat and the egg but adding in tofu. The rest we kept the same. This was our first time trying pickled radish (also known in Korean as danmuji). It was really good!

My mother-in-law bought me a mushroom farm for Christmas so today I got it started. I'll be taking pictures every day to record the progress. It's supposed to be ready for harvest on day 10. This particular farm will grow oyster mushrooms so I need to start looking for a recipe that highlights oyster mushrooms. I can't wait!

Here's to a productive week!

December Goals - Wrap up

The last week and a half of December were a complete wash as far as decluttering went. Our house is cleaner than it was but I still have plenty of work to do. I'm on the hold list at the library to borrow The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up but it will definitely be awhile before it is available. I am hold number 125 on 73 copies of the book. Hopefully soon. A friend of mine said it's a wonderful book and that her house is now cleaner than it's been in years!

My Chinese studies have made some progress but slowed down over the holidays. I fell behind on my flashcards half way through my MIL's visit, which was expected. No grammar progress this week but I'm still thrilled with my overall progress in December.

Totals for the month:

Grammar lessons - 9 completed
Time spent studying - 25.8 hours

I hope to make lots of progress in 2015 because I'm hoping our daughter will be home by this fall! The more I learn, the easier it will be to communicate with her. That is great motivation to keep pressing forward.

December Goals - Week Three

I don't have any pictures of my decluttering work this week but hope to have some next week. I was able to finish the bookshelf upstairs in our dining room, as well as some other small things upstairs. I cleaned the bathroom downstairs but that doesn't count toward my goal. My mother-in-law will be here in about five hours so I don't expect I will get much more work done this week. I want to relax and enjoy my time with her. I am pleased with the progress I've made, though I still have a long way to go.

I did make huge progress with my Chinese study goal, though. I studied over 8.5 hours this week and completed three grammar lessons. I only have three more grammar lessons to complete before the end of the month in order to make my goal.

Totals for the month:

Grammar lessons - 9 out of 12
Study hours - 20.25

I don't expect to keep up this pace all week, but hope to stay on top of my flashcards and at least make some forward progress. But if, just IF, I can be diligent about studying over the holidays, I will shatter my record of how many hours I've studied in one month (27 hours in September). Reachable goal or unattainable due to the holidays? We shall see!

December's Goals - Week Two

I made progress last week on both of my December goals. First up was lots of cleaning and decluttering.

Here's the wet bar, though we don't use it for that. We actually turned the water off to this faucet. I'm so confused about why this was installed right next to the fireplace, but what do I know? I think the neighbors have a book case in this location, which I would love to have!

Before

After
I forgot to take a picture of our entertainment center before I started cleaning it. The top was covered with several stacks of paper, remotes, and five pumpkins! This picture gives an idea of how cluttered it was:

Before

During

After
And, for fun, we put the Advent calendar there for the remainder of the holiday season, along with Cin-Ru's framed photo.

Here is my next project, to be tackled tomorrow.

Books, books, and more books
I also made some solid progress toward my Chinese goal (12 lessons completed before the end of the month). Last week I finished 2.5 lessons, which put me at 5.5/12 complete (I finished up the .5 lesson today). I studied 5.75 hours last week, which isn't too shabby. I just hope I can stay on top of everything when my Mother-in-law arrives on Sunday!

December's goals - week one

I have two goals this month - to clean my house from top to bottom and to make significant progress in my Chinese class.

Cleaning - I'm not doing too bad but I need to pick up the pace. There have been several days of adoption excitement and that took precedence over my cleaning. I did declutter several areas last week but there is lots more to do. Tomorrow I'll be tackling my upstairs bathroom.

Chinese - This is where all of my progress lies. Last week I completed just under six solid hours of studying, plus about two hours of listening practice by watching Taiwanese television shows. I finished three lessons from YoyoChinese, which meets my goal requirements. I've already studied an hour today and might squeeze in a bit more before bed. With the adoption process moving forward, I need to keep studying. I don't want to be in Taiwan wishing that I had learned more!

In adoption news, our photo album was mailed off today. We sent a photo album, a stuffed animal, and a small interlocking hearts necklace. Hopefully she likes everything! I can't wait to hear back the report from the social worker's visit with her later this month.

December goals

This month I have two goals.

First - I want to clean my house from top to bottom. My mother-in-law is coming to stay with us for a week at Christmas. I don't want to leave the cleaning to the last minute and be scrambling to complete everything right before she arrives. I've done that before with other guests and it's not fun! This is the first time MIL is coming to see us in Seattle so I want to make sure we all enjoy her visit! Having the house clean will take a lot of the pressure off.

Second - I need to make some serious progress with my Chinese studies. At the beginning of October, with all of the bad news we received, my studies fell by the wayside. November was much better with 16.5 solid hours of study. However, I'm not making as much progress as I would like. I had stated earlier that my goal was to finish the Intermediate Level of YoyoChinese by the end of the year. That is not going to happen. I just finished lesson 13 of 50. The class schedule is to complete two lessons per week; I am aiming to finish three per week. This is completely doable if I stay on top of my studying. At that rate, I will finish the year with 25 of the 50 lessons complete. I will be happy with that amount of progress.

I have a couple incentives for finishing the Intermediate Course. I promised myself that I would buy myself several graded readers once I complete the course. Amazon has several fun ones like a Sherlock Holmes book and The Secret Garden in Chinese. I also told myself that as soon as I finish the Intermediate Course, I will start writing on the Lang-8 website. I may rethink this goal, as I may already have enough Chinese knowledge to start writing short blog posts. Maybe I will set aside one day this month to see if it's possible for me to write a paragraph in Chinese.

I'm sure it will be a busy month but I'm looking forward to it! I love the Christmas season and look forward to sharing it this year with my husband and his mom.

Z's room - almost empty!

One of my huge projects last week was to prepare for Z's bed delivery. We had been using her room as storage, unpacking boxes and leaving the contents all over the floor to be used as needed. Obviously that wasn't going to work on a long term basis!

It's rather embarrassing, but I decided to share pictures of what the bedroom looked like before I started cleaning.

a mess

another mess

yet another mess
I got rid of a lot of the stuff, thinking if we haven't used it in over a year, we probably don't need it. A friend is moving tomorrow and needed some packing boxes so I gave her the extra boxes we had stored in the closet. We purchased a bookshelf at Target, set it up in our bedroom, and filled all three shelves. The remainder of the stuff was stacked into our closet.

shiny floors!

empty closet!

open space!
On Friday, Z's bed was delivered. We ordered a beautiful bunk bed and I'm hoping to set it up tomorrow.

I can't wait to decorate my daughter's room! I can't wait for her to come home!!

A bit of late spring cleaning

Prepping for our adoption process has given me the urge to clean. That's always a good thing, right? I spent some time on Sunday sorting through everything in our hall closet, scrubbing the shelves, and rearranging what was left. I was quite pleased to take a stack of empty boxes (from the iron, coffee press, etc) out to the recycle bin that evening.

Hall closet - before

Hall closet - after
Once I reorganized everything, I started moving some of our board games onto the shelves. Prior to this, they were stacked up on the floor of our dining room. It didn't make for a very pretty dining room! This looks so much better.

Adding the games!
This morning I made a veganized version of an old favorite recipe.

Cream cheese wraps
I only made one to test out the idea and it was really good. I spread a thin layer of vegan cream cheese on a tortilla and then sprinkled it with diced olives, tomatoes, and cucumber. My non-vegan recipe was cream cheese, olives, and roasted green chilies. I didn't have any green chilies on hand but I hope to try it again soon. My husband, who didn't like the non-vegan version, ate half of the wrap. I guess that means they were a success!

This week's goals

I've been spring cleaning the past week and have made a lot of progress. I still have a lot to clean, though! It's amazing how quickly the house gets messy if I don't stay on top of it. Eventually we'll obtain bookcases and that will eliminate a lot of the clutter. But for now, I'm trying to find ways to organize without letting things pile up all over the house.

Last week I cleaned up the wet bar next to the fireplace. We don't use the sink there but we do use all of the counter space. Previously, the counter was covered with various books and quilting supplies. It wasn't organized in the slightest. I moved all of the books downstairs into our spare bedroom (future study) and put all of my quilting supplies with the other fabric in our closet. I moved all of the DVDs and the Wii games to the newly emptied shelf instead of letting them stack up on the floor underneath the tv. We don't have an entertainment center yet so the Blu-ray player, Wii, and internet box are sitting on the floor. The games and movies used to sit next to them but now they are nicely lined up on the counter. It looks a lot better!

Here are my goals for this week, loosely held, of course...

• De-clutter the top of the fridge

• Hang the Welcome sign on the stairs just inside the front door

• Put up a nail in our pantry to hang my apron on (maybe then I would be able to find it when I want to use it!)

• Reorganize our bedroom clothes closet as the shelves have gotten very messy

• Catch up on my e-mail

• Take care of The Pile

The Pile
These goals are in addition to my normal cleaning schedule and should keep me busy! I look forward to making our house ever more homey.

Good news!

I didn't post yesterday because it was my husband's birthday and our seventh wedding anniversary. Yes, on the same day. It was not intentional! We eloped and happened to have that day off work. But my husband likes to tease me and say that it's "all Cassandra, all the time." He says our anniversasry overrode his birthday. Plus, my birthday is only six days after his. We have all of our fun at the same time!

The vet called today with the results of Bruno's urinalysis. Everything was normal! So far, Bruno has been an angel, no marking. I know it's still too early to tell if it will be permanent, but I am cleaning like crazy to avoid him marking places he used to mark. Hopefully that will help. Our house is slowly starting to look less scary under the blacklight.

Not much else is going on. Since Bruno doesn't have to go back to the vet anytime soon, maybe we'll be able to afford an ironing board out of our next paycheck. Then I can start quilting again! Oh how I miss it.

Hub's is working so I'm going to reply to a few emails. Ta-ta!

Thursday's Homemaking

Today I had some additional incentive to finish with my house cleaning early: the library! I thought I had some books due back today and knew that hubby wouldn't be able to go with me after work. Today there is no "after work" as it's after seven and he's still working...

Thursday Cleaning - Stairs and Downstairs Sinks

Sweep and mop stairs

Sweep and mop downstairs hallway

Sweep bedroom floors

Scrub both bathroom sinks (one in master bedroom, one across from washer/dryer in hallway)

Wipe off top of washer and dryer

Tomorrow's cleaning - the shower and toilet in the downstairs bath.

I am so happy that I have a checklist now. I love lists. Next week I will have a printed list for each day and that will provide its own incentive, getting to check things off the list.

As it turns out, I had nothing due back at the library but I was dying to go regardless. So, come 2:30 this afternoon, I finished my cleaning, took a shower, and then hopped in the car. Library, here I come!

When I left for the library, I had 66 items checked out and took a bag of books with me to return. Now that I'm home again, I have 76 items checked out. Oops. That number is supposed to be going down, not up! I spent an hour browsing the shelves, mostly in the quilting section. I am looking for inspiration for my brother's new baby (due in December).

Of course, Bruno demanded that he be included in the photo. I tried to explain to him that they were just books about quilts, not actual quilts, but he insisted.

And two of the books I checked out just for me. My husband was shocked that I dared suggest that I desecrate his precious French press with YARN but finally acquiesed and I said I could knit him a coffee cozy. ;) Ah, true love.

Wednesday's Homemaking

Today was much quieter as far as my husband's phone was concerned. That made it easier for me to work as needed.

Wednesday Cleaning - Upstairs Bathroom

Wipe down counter

Scrub toilet

Sweep under cat boxes

Mop floor

Scrub sink

Clean mirror

In addition to this, I kept the kitchen clean, ran a load of laundry, and swept the entire upstairs floor. It's looking better in here every day!

I still need to deal with the piles of papers, though... those piles are the only thing keeping our upstairs from looking tidy.

Tuesday's Homemaking

I did not accomplish exactly what I had planned on accomplishing. My husband was just handed a huge project for work and spent most of the day on the phone. I did manage to keep the kitchen clean, tidy the living room, wash some laundry, and reorganize a bit.

Until this morning, this counter was covered in piles of library books, mail, and my knitting projects. It was a mess! I took all of the library books downstairs and moved the printer off the floor. However, I still had several piles that I couldn't figure out what to do with.

This is what was underneath that counter. Some adaptor for the cable television we have no possible way to actually watch (but is free with our internet service). The Wii, plus all the accessories that go along with it. All stuff that we won't be able to use until we buy a television.

I moved all of that downstairs into our spare bedroom. Here is the result - a couple library books, my knitting, and printer paper. All things that are actually being used in our day to day life.

And here is our current living room. Sparse, isn't it? Our bed is propped up against the wall so that the cats don't jump on it while the sheets are in the wash. Over the fireplace, I taped a print of one of my favorite paintings. It brightens the room a bit, I think.

The only thing I wasn't able to do today was to clean the floors. I am supposed to sweep every day because the cats track their litter, fluff hair all over the place, and normal dust accumulates. It's disgusting what I sweep up every day but I guess that would normally be hidden in the carpet. Then on Tuesdays, I want to dry mop the upstairs floors. I will have to add that on to tomorrow's list!

On the schedule for Wednesday - clean the upstairs bathroom and our pantry (the closet in the hallway).

Monday's Homemaking

After yesterday's rather honest confession, I decided that it would be best to try to remedy some of my procrastination/laziness/lack of motivation. It was hard. But I pushed myself and was able to complete all of my housework.

Monday Cleaning - Kitchen

Tidy kitchen

Wipe down front of cupboards

Serious counter scrubbing

Sweep floor

Mop floor

Eliminate junk mail/library book/random pile that accumulates on my counter

Next week I want to add scrubbing the fridge drawers and shelves to my Monday Cleaning.

In addition to this, I swept the entire upstairs and cleaned out the cat boxes. I even washed, dried, and put away all the dishes after dinner! For me, that is a huge accomplishment.

My cleaning is usually finished by lunch. In the afternoon, I study Japanese, read books, read blogs, and knit. Here is today's knitting progress.

I finished the second skein of yarn on my dad's scarf. He wants all three included! The scarf is already almost as tall as I am, about 63 inches so far. Tomorrow I'll be starting the third skein. I hope to have the scarf completed by the end of the month so that I can start working on Christmas presents.

And tomorrow I tackle the living room!

Moving preparations

Every day I'm trying to do something to prepare for our move. We plan on eliminating enough of our belongings that we can pack everything in the car, plus ship a couple of boxes of books, and make the drive. We don't own any nice furniture and it would be more expensive to rent a U-haul than it would be to replace the things we own.

Today I sold half of our board game collection. We may whittle down our collection further, but I'm not sure we can without getting rid of games we love and play! Also, we threw out our extra mattress. When my dad bought us our futon, we took the one remaining mattress from our old bed and stored it in our spare bedroom. Whenever we had overnight guests, mostly my brother and his wife, they would sleep on the extra mattress. It's not a full bed, but it's the best we had. Now that my brother lives across the country, we don't expect any overnight guests before moving. With the mattress gone, the spare bedroom looks a lot bigger!

Tomorrow I think I will start scanning some of my files. I've been wanting to convert to a paperless system for several years but haven't made the effort to scan old tax files and other important records. My file box won't fit in the car so it's a great time to become paperless!

Fast week!

I've been feeling contemplative all this week but haven't yet felt like I could share online. I'm slowly figuring out what is most important to me and reorganize my time around those priorities.

One change I've made this week involves my weekly room assignments. I designate one weekday to each room in our house. That's where I will concentrate my housekeeping efforts on that day, though the entire apartment will get a quick pick up/vacuum almost every day. Fridays are always busy because I'm prepping for the Sabbath, making sure we have church clothes, a meal for Sabbath afternoon, a tidy house, and that all has to be complete by sundown. Come sundown, my work week is over and I'm ready for the Sabbath.

Prior to this week, I would clean the bathroom on Friday. While it's not labor intensive, it does take time to thoroughly clean the mirrors, sink, toilet, floor, and shower. Cleaning the bathroom, on top of my normal Friday activities, always seemed so hectic. This week, I decided to clean the bathroom on Thursday. Wow! That made a huge difference on how rushed I felt today. I was able to take my time with each chore, cook, clean out the fridge, wash and put away the laundry, and tidy the apartment. It was such a nice change, one that I will definitely be making permanent.

I hope everyone has a fantastic weekend! I'm off to tend to our supper and relax.

Today's productivity

Hubby informed me last night that he'd be out all day today. Normally, he's home working all or part of the day so this was unusual. I decided to embrace the quiet house and get a ton of stuff done. I promised hubby that he'd be impressed by my productivity when he got home. I think I succeeded, though he's not home yet to confirm.

Today, I...

vacuumed,
swept the kitchen and the kitty box room,
washed dishes,
cleaned out the fridge,
tidied up the entire apartment,
finished a memoir I was reading,
studied Japanese for over an hour,
made a more fancy lunch than normal,
made huge progress on my quilt,
returned some emails,
updated the budget,
completed two loads of laundry,
and a few other small things.

Whew. And since hubby is still not home, I'm writing a blog post. I love productive days! Once I'm done with this post, I'll either spend some more time with my Japanese studies or keep working on my quilt. Hubby is working way up north today so when he calls to tell me he's on the way, I'll still have enough time to prepare dinner.

Bruno under the ironing board

4 blocks complete!
8 more D9P blocks to sew together. There will be 12" solid blocks of the dark pink fabric between each of these D9P blocks. I haven't cut those out yet, so I can't show what it will look like. This is a new pattern for me and I think I like it. I'm not sure about all the fabric choices, but the pattern is fun.

Here's to a day of great productivity!