#naclyohomo

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

My NaClYoHoMo goal is to unpack ten boxes from the move. As of yesterday I am 3/10.

[greens-your-color]

NaClYoHo Preparation Begins

It being October 31st, it’s time to make plans for NaClYoHoMo—national (?) clean your home month—a challenge à la @copperbadge.

My house has suffffferrrrrreddddd during the past month+ on account of oral exam preparation and affiliated burnout. (And weird executive dysfunction rules like “you’re not allowed to do the dishes until after the exam because that would be time wasted”—frankly what the hell, brain.)

Also, I have a quarterly inspection this Monday. It behooves me to do a LOT of cleaning before that time. Hence hitting the NaClYoHo ground running.

This weekend will likely be the most work per day of NaClYoHo, as the challenge is designed for only 20-40 minutes of cleaning/organizing/housework per day, in order to lower the energy cost of entry.

Here’s what I’d like to accomplish this weekend in order of priority:

Wash all dirty dishes and put away

Gather and take out all trash

Gather and take out all recycling

Put away clean laundry piles

Wash dirty laundry, fold, and put away

Clean up entryway so that it’s not such a notable ~egress hazard~

Make a list of NaClYoHo challenges for the month (maybe slips in a jar for random picking?)

[higgsboshark]

Commence Salty Piracy

So I decided to do NaClYoHoMo this month, which I like because 1) it’s a low stress but beneficial challenge and b) it has “homo” right in the name.

I’m dealing with some pretty nasty fatigue right now, so I’m setting this up to accommodate for that. I separated physical tasks into categories:

Light, aka can be done with any amount of energy greater than minimal autonomic function. 5 minutes of activity or less, zero thought.

Heavy, aka requires more than minimal investment of time, physical effort or thought.

“Do with a Buddy,” aka “Bitch you are not putting up shelves by yourself, get real.”

I also have a list of things that I need to buy. That’s for the days when physical activity is off the table. If I can’t stand up long enough to make a cup of tea without a rest, I can still pick something to order online and call the day a win.

The first lesson of Salty Piracy, for me, is “Success is when things work for you, not vice versa.”

ps. Today was a good day, so I was able to do 3 things off the light list! I did dishes, took the trash out, and ran the vacuum. It’s a robot, so I can do that sitting down.

pps. The vacuum’s name is Eufy, and she is my idiot son.

ppps. She hates the cat. The cat is neutral about her.

[exapno]

Salty Pirating days 16-23

Whoops (again!). So apparently we're doing another catch-up post. Remember the ’bad about logging’ thing? *sigh* But hey, maybe somewhat more accurate this time? And less of a gap? :D  

Day 16 - more basement work, plus laundry things. Minor shelf tweaks, actually cleared the table, brought the last three boxes upstairs for easier sorting, and got through 2.25 of them.  Did some regular laundry, and started a soak for the still-too-perfumed jacket (mostly baking soda/water).

Day 17 - R. came by to help 'finish' the basement.  Picked up the scattered bits around the floor, & helped me go through the final (icky, fell into damp spot) bag in the basement. We put down the spare pallet brought in (last year *sigh*) and I did the last of the 'big stuff rearrangement'. Seems functional, yay!  Final loads out to garbage/recycling, a chair to porch for airing out. Later some general housemaintenance too.

Day 18 - Minimal day, Pirate-time spent doing 'regular chores' (dishes, litterboxes, vacuum/sweeping, toilet cleaning, bins to road, etc).

Day 19 - I have no idea. Pretty sure things got done Thursday, but....?

Day 20 - Slipped on stairs while heading down to do some laundry & see about 'sweeping' the floor (which is half disintegrating concrete I swear, but try?) and strained something in my 'good' knee which pretty well killed productivity :(  Most of afternoon spent elevating as much as possible & following ice protocols. Did still manage grocery run in evening, which pushed back to limits. More RICE & anti-inflammatories & not much else :(

Day 21 - A lot of file-organizing (electronic) for volunteer organization & medical stuffs (plus attended vol.org board meeting). And knee-care.

Day 22 - Most of time spent doing some (overdue) research for myself (and for someone else). Yay good chunk of that project finally tackled?

Day 23 - Finally able to manage basement stairs again, caught up on laundry & related things in that area.

[exapno]

Salty Pirate Day 15

Listened to a few episodes of Magnus Archives (I’ve just started, for Reasons, so still early season 1) while tackling the misc con-ops tote I brought up from the basement yesterday. Orig plan was to review contents, and see if it could be downsized to one of the new totes that actually fit on the shelves. Figured likely, as I knew it’d been raided several times & many components already rehomed/etc, but never know what useful bits are also odd-sized and potentially problematic. 

Several bits would be more useful in the ‘office supplies’ storage upstairs, but almost didn’t want to integrate because that had turned into a mess a while ago too. But it’s NaClYoHoMo right? Dealing with messes is sort of the point....so let’s just start another ep and dive in. 

Overall spent more time than I’d planned (just....not much ambition today, everything hard), but as often happens with these things I’m def much happier now that it’s done :)  Think the cabinet shelves where I keep the misc stuffs are much more user-friendly now, lots of random crap weeded out and taken care of, and another piece of a couple projects checked off. Yay?

[exapno]

Salty Pirates days 1-14(!)

Mega-post ahoy!

SOOOO bad at logging, even when I know that having it to look back at helps me in several ways. BUT not nearly as bad at the actual cleaning/etc part, so I guess that's what matters most?  The first bit I didn't even record things just for myself because Me, but I have tried to remember/recreate. And then add as I decided on 'catch-up post' (which still took days to put together).

Being honest, I didn't actually do some of the scrubbing things myself, due to physical issues. Had one of my extra kids come over and help for a couple hours (thanks I!)*. Also, phase one of the Basement Project (this season's main NaClYoHoMo project) was aidded by my partner R.

Home-cleaning things so far this month (including daily/reg things, so some of these have happened multiple times): Kitchen & Bath cabinets scrubbed down* Micro & stove _scrubbed_* Burner covers _scrubbed_ Vacuumed second floor Vacuumed first floor Vacuumed stairs Vacuumed entry rug Litterboxes Cleared clutter piles growing on back half of dining table Baking sheets/racks/skillets rearranged (most other kitchen cabinets redone over the summer, but these were...not ideal. Hopefully better now?) Verified freezer inventories & organization Kitchen floors/main (still need to get the under-bits/gaps/etc) Dining room floors Bathroom floor SCRUB & de-stain shower* Laundry (regular) Load/run/empty dishwasher Hand-wash dishes Organized/rearranged desk-adjacent area Created (& used) winter storage for garden/yard decorations Brought in hose for winter Pulled & stored first floor window AC Added section to Storage log for hidden things in first-floor closet Winterized first LR window Emptied & sorted all cleaners/etc under kitchen sink. Likewise sorted 'extra' cleaners found buried in basement. Consolidated as appropriate, reset cabinet, created useable (& rememberable!) storage for remainder.

BASEMENT WORK: Consolidated landlord's paint/hardware bits/etc to small set of corner shelves Pulled EVERYTHING (except holiday totes) from main shelves Swept/de-gritted basement shelves Went through all bags/bins/boxes/piles formerly on basement shelves Categorized all non-recycling/non-junk & made(making?) actual storage plans Measured shelves so can get appropriate storage bins that FIT Started through bags found on/near shelves (mainly things taken down to be laundered and then misplaced/forgotten). Created & ran loads as appropriate (also found a bag of old pillows/etc that got pushed onto floor in corner where foundation had re-cracked, so sadly all destroyed by the perpetual wet and such :(  Thankfully this was night before garbage, so all gone quickly) Bagged up things that need to go to the laundromat instead Acquired (first round of?) bins, created & loaded 'hardware' tote Started actual useful arrangement of basement shelves

[exapno]

Salty Pirate day 24

Today’s project was the second-to-last (planned) storage bin. I measured the intended tote & created cardboard dividers to turn it into safe (& basement-appropriate) storage for my pint canning jars. Bonus is having enough space at the end for rings/lids.  Then I _loaded_ the tote with the cleaned jars, labeled the bin, and put it on the shelf that’ll be it’s new 'home'. Also brought the last couple things that need washing up for proper cleaning, after which I’ll find new homes for those as well.

[norvicensiandoran]

Last day of the Salty Pirate Challenge ("National" Clean Your Home Month - NaClYoHoMo , no affiliation to the bad organization, just someone riffing on them with the challenge name) and.... nope. Home isn't clean. A lot of that is scrambling to do digital cleaning in the wake of earlier events here in the US, but a lot of that is also depression after that too. Still, I *have* managed to get started and get some good patterns in place if I can encourage those to grow. So that's something.