Other than meeting with my primary tutoring student and going to a doctor's visit, NOPE!
I could beat myself up about failing to achieve my plans for the week, but that's not productive. Instead, I'm recognizing that I'm a human being with a lot going on in my life and I'm giving myself some grace to try again this week. I've been dealing with some health issues that include pretty extreme fatigue and sometimes I just can't do what I set out for myself. I also had a health-related treatment this past Friday that has some unpleasant side effects, so I'm not doing as much today and am being gentle with myself.
I'm totally ok with that.
So, if like me, you need another attempt at a reset and getting back on track, follow along as I tidy, declutter, and clean today.
1. Trash and recycling
Like last week, I'm going to start with a trash and recycling sweep of my bedroom. I'll be setting out a trash bag, recycling bag, and a box for any items that should be donated. So, set up your own bags and/or boxes, and join me.
2. Laundry, part one
I do need to do some laundry this week. I also want to work on pre-planning my outfits for the week and to have them all set and ready on a shelf so that I can just grab the day's outfit in the morning without thinking about it.
I'm calling this "Laundry, part one" because I don't have the energy today to do it all at once. I'll be breaking my laundry up into chunks.
Right now, I've just gathered all of the dirty laundry in my bedroom into one pile and all the clean but unfolded laundry into another. The dirty will be washed later today. The clean laundry I will fold and put away right now while I watch something on YouTube.
3. Dishes that are astray
I'm tired after those two chores and want to take a break, but first, I'm going to go through my bedroom and bathroom and pick up any dishes and take them to the kitchen to be washed later.
BREAK TIME
Doing just those few chores was so surprisingly tiring! Mentally, I'm feeling more alert than I have for the past few weeks, but physically, I'm still drained. I am going to take a break and will be back at my reset shortly.
BACK AT IT
Wow! What I had planned as a one hour break, at most, turned into a THREE HOUR nap! I must have really needed it though as I was so tired that I slept with my socks on which I NEVER do unless I'm sick or exhausted. I'm up now though, so let's get back to it.
4. Dishwasher and Dishes
After I was up and going from my nap, I decided to tackle the dishes in the kitchen. I unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, and turned it on.
I started out gamifying doing the dishes (as I did last week), but ultimately, I really wanted to see the sink completely empty. I ended up completely emptying the sink and loaded the dishwasher fully, so I turned that on while I assessed the remainder of the dirty dishes. By this point, I was starting to feel fatigued again, so I tidied up what's left to wash, made myself some coffee and came back to post this update.
5. Gather dirty laundry or laundry, part two
Earlier, I picked up the dirty laundry in my bedroom. I usually change my clothes in the bathroom and have my laundry basket in there. Well, all week, my laundry basket has been in my bedroom with clean laundry in it. After folding and putting away all of my clean clothes earlier today, I loaded up the dirty laundry from my bedroom.
Let's grab the rest of my dirty laundry and any kitchen linens and put them all in the basket and set that by the door before we take another break. As I mentioned last week, I typically sort my laundry into heavy items and lightweight items. This week, I also have to wash my winter coat and is it feel onto the floor at work into a mystery puddle in the bathroom....ewwwwww!
6. Fridge clean-out
Our fridge has been a mess and we're wasting a lot of money on rotting food as a result. Some of it is due to laziness and some due to all of us being ill.
Because I'm quite fatigued from my current health issues and treatments, I opted to focus only on the condiments in the fridge door. I did the following:
- Put everything from all of the door shelves onto the stove and counter
- Grabbed a small stool to sit on and cleaned all of the shelves in the door
- Sorted everything by similar groupings
- As I sorted, checked expiration dates and freshness
- Tossed the things that were bad
- Combined like items (why did we have two half full jars of jalapeno slices?)
- Put everything back in like groupings (Asian sauces, Hispanic and Mexican sauces, mayo and mustard, etc.)
By the time everything was put away, I was ready for another break. Sigh...
7. More fridge clean out
After a short break, I went back to the kitchen and worked on cleaning out more of my fridge. I tackled the top and middle shelves, and my drawer.
Over the years, we've found that if we use the produce drawers for produce, we forget what we have and a lot rots. So, instead, we keep things on the shelves -- not the best way to keep things fresh, but it helps us to see what we have so we waste less. Then, the dairy drawer is mine, one produce drawer is for my kiddo, and the other produce drawer is for my kiddo's partner. The irony here is that I'm severely allergic to dairy! Hahaha! We use our drawers to keep things specific to our dietary restricts or that we've bought specifically for ourselves rather than for household use.
When it comes to the shelves and the door compartments, most of that space is for everyone, but the bottom shelf typically ends up with more of what my kiddo and their partner eat, the middle shelf is usually produce, and the top shelf typically is mostly mine.
I am saddened by how much had gone bad over the last several weeks, but this is a fresh week to start again, right? We still have plenty of food and, now that I've cleaned out and organized the fridge, we can see what we have. My goal this week is to not grocery shop at all. We have plenty of food to keep us going for more than a week -- we could probably stretch the entire month, if we really had to, without grocery shopping!
After cleaning out the fridge, I made myself a fruit smoothie with bananas, frozen cherries, frozen raspberries, frozen pineapple, pomegranate juice, water, and ground flax. It's delicious! I had a bunch of bananas that were getting soft, so I unpeeled them, broke each in half, and put them into a container in the fridge to use in future smoothies.
At this point, I'm quite tired and probably won't do any further cleaning or tidying. The medical treatment I had on Friday really took me out this weekend! I do plan to set out an outfit for work tomorrow though. As for the rest of my laundry, I'll try to do that after work on Monday.
What did you get accomplished today? Drop a comment and let me know!
