Huge Art Clean Out

Well! I've been a busy person today!

After yesterday's struggle with basic algebra and trying to get my 50,000 words done for NaNoWriMo, and making it with 8 words to spare, I'm pleased with my book this past month - and I got it done with a day to spare too.

Also, I was totally surprised by a male Huntsman spider taking a walk across my living room floor... he wasn't a very old spider, or smart one (as these guys are known to be smart). He waited under my kitchen table for me to get my shoes on and the bug spray and was surprised when I tried to kill him.

Well, he's dead and I didn't sleep for a good part of the night.

Today, I jumped into my art section next to my back door (no he didn't come from there, I just needed to work on the art desk in the next few days that's all). So, I pulled that desk apart and got my butt into the whole thing!

Anyway, 3 bags of crap later, and a few trips to the big recycling bin at the back of my complex, I found I filled up my rubbish bin - and collection day is next Wednesday! So, I'll have to leave decluttering another part of the house for a little while. 

But the whole section looks and feels so much cleaner. I have 2 empty boxes to use, have got 2 plastic boxes I'm using for other art gear and have enough space for a new hobby I've picked up: painting rocks. 

All of the clean up took 3 hours to do, and it was a stinking hot day! And I got into this after doing 3 loads of laundry this morning and putting out 2 big bags of rubbish into my bin... so that was something. Anyway, what did you get into this weekend which you've been putting off? I still have a few things around the house to put away and clean up before the tree and decorations go up around the house for Christmas. 

New And Old

I've been busily decluttering and recycling my items lately - and throwing out big time too!

This week has been a mammoth week. I didn't go to art group, but I did have a meltdown on Monday... which led to me having too much to do; and biting off too much for that day.

Thank goodness for my Mum. We help each other when it comes to decluttering. I phoned her and fell apart on her, saying I had half my office in my bedroom and there was no way I could sleep in my bedroom on Monday night - so she came over and helped me with culling my books.

We filled 3 boxes and 2 bags! Oh my god!

And after we dragged those to her car, I found that the next day or two, I filled another two bags with books I wasn't going to read ever! This was going good.

Thursday rolled around, and I needed to get out of the house. I dropped by a friend's house and gave her some books from my childhood that her grandson would love; and was pleased when she said he'd love them. We had coffee together; and her cat enjoyed a pat.

Then, last night, I rolled over in bed and kicked the little white bookcase and, that was it! I had to get it into the office! This morning, I was up at 8am and before breakfast, I had moved it into the office and the brown daggy, saggy one out! This forced my Dad to get himself here to help me put up a shelf so I could work to put books away and move on to the next part of my home office reno. He even helped me ditch the main bookcase up the back of the complex - as it wouldn't fit in the recycling bin. 

I then went to my folks' place and helped Mum sort through the books we had culled - to make sure there were no Bookcrossing books in the collection; as charity and second-hand book stores don't take those books. We did well and counted up 8 bags of books to take over to Browns Plains! Wow! What a great haul!

What a day! I'm so tired. But I'll give you a Weekend Challenge for this weekend.

This time, it's not for the home office or lounge room. I want you to go out into your garden and pick out any dead plants, empty pots you haven't used and mouldy potting mix sitting around doing nothing. Before you do touch anything, put on the gardening gloves and a mask and get your bin ready. Put all the plastic empty pots into the recycling. Throw out the mouldy potting mix into your general rubbish and anything dead goes into your compost. Clean up your garden area before Winter for you guys in the Northern Hemisphere and before bushfire and storm season really hits for the Southern Hemisphere. 

A New Bookcase - purchased!

Okay, I didn't purchase it.

Mum and Dad are buying me the new bookcase and a new desk for Christmas - which means I'm not expecting anything big for Christmas this year. And Mum said that she's getting people what they need this year - and not what they want.

I needed a new desk and a new bookcase; and that's what they're going to get me. 

But I still need to clean out the office and throw out a shit load of crap.  Most of it is done, and I'm going well at it.

So far, I've gotten two more big bags in the rubbish bin - and there's another few I'm going to fill today and tomorrow. And Dad and I are going to build the new bookcase from IKEA (aka: the place you get into but never leave), and it's been a harder task to find a decent desk I can have here.

Yeah the desk might take longer to find. We did find one at Tender Disposals - the one I wanted - but they wanted $540 for it. What a rip off!

Well, there's a storm coming. It's getting dark and the thunder is getting close. I better go and get into the cleaning up. About time we got some rain - to put out the bush fires around here.

Goals Reached!

Yay! I've been working hard on a few things lately and I'm so proud of myself! But I haven't written in here lately because I've been taking part in the National Novel Writing Month... a big thing for a writer like me. With that, I'm going really well. 

Over the past year, I've wanted to buy new pillows for the bed - European Pillows - and today I finally went out to Big W and did it! They look wonderful and stylish. And the best thing was that they were on sale; so were the covers!

I also got in and sorted out one of the shelves in the hallway to the kitchen and threw out three glass bottles and moved a lot of things off one of the shelves. This was to make room for my recipe books from under my sink for my baking trays and mixing bowls - which are sharing space with my Corningware.

With Christmas coming up, it's really kicked me up the butt to get in and clean my house in a huge way. I'm looking forward to doing this in a major way due to my folks helping me out next year with my house - while I help my brother and his family with their house. You see, I've been asked to house sit my brother's place on the other side of town. Of course I've jumped at the opportunity, and this means I have to finish cleaning out my house. 

The filing cabinet will be remove from my house soon, and I'll be using a good, sturdy table from my storage for the computer until I get a new desk. 

And you know, I really can't wait until this home office really takes shape - even though it began to take shape in September when I moved a bookcase and my Grandpa's Writing Desk around and put his diaries into a box to make it easier for me to get to them. There is still a lot to do in this room. 

I also have to clean out my wardrobe again - seeing I've begun buying dresses which fit me at op-shops and stopped wearing dresses which don't suit me anymore. But that will be done in the new year. 

So, how is your place going? All good I hope. I have reached some major goals, and set new ones to reach as well. I hope you've done the same as well as the year draws to a close over the next month. As December comes around, I'd love to hear from you all to hear of your achievements, and how far you've come in your decluttering story.