Last week was the final push in Apartment Therapy‘s January Cure. For the first time, I am proud to say, I made it through. A month of cleaning and organizing myself to a better home. January is a dreary winter, post holiday, downer but the January Cure has kept me to busy to notice (much.) With a cleaning or organizing task each day and larger ones on the weekend throughout the month I have definitely been able to make big improvement in the functionality of my home.
Monday was a Catch up Day, surely that means a day off since I have worked so hard. Actually I had plenty of those never-ending tasks like laundry and dishes to fill my day with fun. Yay!
Tuesday was a Digital Clutter Cleanup. This one I took to heart with my digital photos (thousands of them.) My 32GB memory card I use for my camera is usually holding hundreds of photos from personal events and blog posts, many of which I have already gone through and pulled the best photos. I am terrible about leaving copies on the card. Same for my I Phone, I can’t imagine why it keeps telling me my storage is full? So I took several hours to go through, delete organize and move photos from both my I Phone and memory card. How refreshing to only see the photos I just took on the memory card.
Wednesday time to Blast the Bathroom. Can I tell you how much I enjoy cleaning the bathroom? It is always a toss-up between floor and bathrooms but both make the top of my NOT FUN list. Here in Germany our bathrooms have the floor to ceiling tile so cleaning them is like the joy of doing bathrooms and floors all at once. I gave it, if not my best, then at least a good effort. Toilets are clean, bathtub is scrubbed, and floors are sparkling so I will give myself a B-.
On Thursday I Emptied the Outbox. I am a pro at this one! I have emptied my out box four times since we started the January Cure. There is something very cleansing about getting things I don’t need out of my house. When a move is on the horizon I am big on purging junk so it doesn’t have to find a place in our new home. Maybe our pending move got me extra motivated during this January Cure.
For the weekend, Cook a Meal Relax and Enjoy. I wish I could say I was able to do this one but we had an extremely busy weekend which involved a lot of driving kids around. Not to worry though, today my husband has a day off work and the kids are in school so it will be a day for just the two of us to sit back and relax. No after school activities for the kids, no carpooling, so tonight will be a nice home cooked meal for the family. (If I’m really gonna relax, I should probably get my husband to cook it…)
The January cure is over but there are many of the tasks that could be repeated already, floors are always getting dirty and bathrooms always need cleaning but many of the tasks were items that I have had on my to-do list for months that are finally complete. The January Cure gave me just the boost I needed to get those going. Other tasks like the out box and the 3 minute clean are things that I can keep up with all year that will keep the house running smooth.
Am I glad I participated in the January Cure? Absolutely!
Am I glad today I get a day off? Definitely!
Until next year guys…