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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 1, 2016 14:28:48 GMT
It's another new month. How did you do with organizing your home, your homestead, and your life last month? What are your goals in these areas this month? It's a short month, but I bet we can pack a lot of cleaning, organizing, storing and decluttering into it! Share your tips and triumphs, even your tragedies, if you have an epic fail, lol. This is the thread to help us all keep on track.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 1, 2016 14:33:49 GMT
I tried to e-file my taxes last week, only to have the IRS reject them - I have to figure out how to make them accept that my dd's last name is one letter off from mine, and it's not an error, or I'll have to file by snail mail. That's a biggie this month. I also want to finish going through all my old receipts and toss the ones I no longer need. My freezers didn't get defrosted or inventoried last month, so that's on this month's list again, along with cleaning up the yard and garden, and starting to work on the barn. With chickens running loose, the barn is a nasty mess, and I'm not looking forward to working on it, but it MUST be done!
Other than that, I just want to keep up on the housework and take care of things as they come up. I posted a longer list on the Prep Journal, but these are the main points I need to hit.
Next?
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Post by Use Less on Feb 1, 2016 14:55:35 GMT
Major closet and dresser sort this past weekend. Still way more clothes than I need, and likely quite a few things I still won't get around to wearing. Out: 20 ss tops, 15 or so slacks & jeans, 4 dresses and a few odds n' ends. Half is already dropped off at the thrift shop. There's a large bag and box going to a friend when I drive down her way again. I want to reorganize the kitchen cupboards where I keep canned and dry goods. My parents kept a pantry in the basement, but I'm not repeating that. They started when there were 5 at home, never stopped. Dad was chief engineer for a major canning company. He could get cases of "dents" at very low cost. Mom was a prolific canner at one time, too. She did some tomatoes and froze some berries at age 80 or 81?, but the jars mostly didn't stay sealed. QC issues. She was never all that fussy about checking temps and measuring carefully, anyway, though no one was ever poisoned.
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Post by susannah on Feb 2, 2016 15:27:18 GMT
As I mentioned on another thread, we're actually supposed to get a decent amount of snow today and tomorrow. Since we're not planning to go anywhere, that should give me plenty of time to work on cleaning and organizing. Today I swear I am going to really work on getting all three bathrooms deep cleaned. The wood floors look like they need a good cleaning so that will be on the today/tomorrow agenda as well.
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Post by midtnmama on Feb 7, 2016 21:46:14 GMT
Flylady Week of 2/8/16 The kitchen
Daily Tasks
Monday: sweep and mop the floor Tues:declutter your plastic wraps and foil drawers, cabinets or shelves. Wed:Put away anything you are storing in your oven and clean your stovetop Thurs:Clear off your kitchen and/or dining room table Fri:Shine your sink.
Do a 27-Fling “Trash” Boogie. Trash is clutter. When the bag is full, take it outside, right away, to the trash bin. Clear out your mail hotspot. Get rid of the old magazines, catalogs, and advertisments. Clear the clutter off your counters one at a time. Clear the clutter off your kitchen table. Take a peek at your pantry. Don’t pull everything out and start reorganizing; just take a look, see what you need, and start a grocery list. If your kitchen is clean but still cluttered: start decluttering. Check out our daily missions. FlyLady usually sends out one during the week which concentrates on decluttering one small area of your kitchen.
If your kitchen is decluttered: (that means no more clutter — only the things you use and love) Start the detailed cleaning list. You will be amazed at how quickly the shiny sparkle from the kitchen sink spreads throughout the entire kitchen when the clutter is gone!
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Post by krisinmi on Feb 8, 2016 17:52:05 GMT
Well, ds and family didn't get totally moved out over the weekend, so I'm not able yet to do as much cleaning/rearranging as I had wanted. I did get my living room floor mopped and furniture moved around once they took their couch out on Saturday. Was planning to mop the kitchen floor today (I love it when the week's tasks line up with what I had in mind), but since things are warm and muddy outside, and ds will still be in and out getting more of their shtuff, I'm holding off on the mopping until they are totally gone. Just sweeping the floor twice in less than 24 hours because of all the dirt tracked in has me , so no way am I washing the floor until I know for sure they won't be walking back in the door!
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Post by jd4020 on Feb 8, 2016 22:07:02 GMT
Deep breaths krisinmi, deep breaths.... Out here on the farm I could sweep the floor many times & still get the same amount of dirt, manure, dirt clods, small rocks, debri, etc. Just goes with the territory. Last weekend I finally finished painting our office. I rearranged it so there are three work stations. One regular desk for the computer, menu planning, Bible study etc. One desk I have made out of two short file cabinets, set next to the taller file cabinet. I laid a piece of counter top for the work space and will do our farm management books and garden planning there. These two have wooden crates stacked for books and desk lights for better working. The small table is for taking care of bank work, photo album work, craft & project planning, paper sorting--things of that nature. (That I used to take out to the kitchen table to work on) Now I can hopefully keep the kitchen table from being a catch all and full of clutter. That's the goal anyway. There are book shelves and wooden crates that I use for my books all around the walls of the room. The built in closet (it holds totes) & cupboards hold a lot of family pictures that are too large for my photo notebooks. There's a lot of history from both sides of mine & Dh families in there. I am very pleased with how the arranging turned out. So much better than before. It was very pleasant on Sunday afternoon, Dh was using the computer at the desk & I was reconciling the check book accounts at the table. I can now take this room off my list. As far as the farm, that is never ending. I usually just clean out a few pens, houses, stalls each weekend. It rotates but it works quite well. The hen house will be the next warm(er) weekend. The goat pen and the lean to on the barn will be this weekend. Thank God for the skid loader. I did get the garden mostly cleaned up last fall so it won't be such a monumental job. I just need to add some compost to some of the raised beds. There are 20 of them. One of the things I did this past fall was turn an old camper into my milking parlor. I cleaned out the debri,(well, it wasn't too bad) dug out the mouse nests & washed it thoroughly. I don't trust the wiring so I just ran a heavy duty drop cord out to it. I have a heat lamp for light & a little heat when I'm milking. The fridge keeps things clean & tidy & rodent proof. I put a heavy trash bag in the toilet with a little pine shavings so I don't have to run to the house. I absolutely love it. It has a couple leaks that we will be fixing this spring. Just wish I had thought of this a long time ago. Working on the laundry, dishes and washing eggs today. (the hens have kicked in so I need to get some clean bedding in their nests) Never a dull moment.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 9, 2016 10:46:53 GMT
I spent Sunday doing serious deep cleaning in my bedroom and master bathroom - to the point where I was hot, sweaty, and felt like I'd just done an aerobic workout! It was amazing to me how many dust bunnies and cobwebs had collected in less than a month. I'm going to have to work on it more often than that. I'm not always on the same rooms as flylady, but do try to hit every room at least once a month. It's just not enough.
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Post by krisinmi on Feb 9, 2016 17:12:28 GMT
Deep breaths krisinmi, deep breaths.... Out here on the farm I could sweep the floor many times & still get the same amount of dirt, manure, dirt clods, small rocks, debri, etc. Just goes with the territory. Yeah, I know. . . that's why I have a mudroom that everyone who lives here uses to enter the first floor of the house . . .so the dirt never reaches the kitchen or the rest of the main floor. And, since there has been dirt clods on my kitchen floor it means that those who know better have been traipsing through the house with shoes/boots on. If it weren't for the fact that all of their stuff that needs to be moved is in the walkout basement, the dirty kitchen floor wouldn't bother me quite so much at the moment. There was no real need to walk through the main level of the house in outdoor footwear. Today is a better day; no messes made while I was at work this morning. I think this afternoon I will tackle cleaning the fridge. It has glass shelves which currently are not see-through because of spills, etc that didn't get wiped up.
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Post by susannah on Feb 11, 2016 15:17:42 GMT
We're starting to get bids on the latest portion of the remodeling that has become our retirement career. The house has stayed pretty clean, neat, tidy...as a result. We have a couple more contractors coming in over the next couple of weeks, so I have my motivation to keep on top of cleaning/organizing.
Meanwhile, I really do have to find new homes for all the stuff in the giant powder room closet. That closet will cease to exist as a giant (and will become a very small closet) when the powder room becomes a full bathroom. In order to find the extra space, serious SERIOUS decluttering must happen in other parts of the house. Starting today. I'll be posting progress here (hopefully a lot of progress) to motivate me to keep going.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 13, 2016 1:10:53 GMT
I tackled the living room today - it had started to become a "hot spot" around the front door. I fixed the vacuum cleaner (it had smelled like burning rubber when I used it - needed to have the hair removed for the beater bar), so I was able to vacuum all the area rugs. I decided I wasn't going to use all the small cardboard in the garden, so I bagged it all up in feed sacks and had Abby take it to the car so I can drop it at the recycling bins on my next town trip. I found a good use for my cordless leaf blower - it worked great to blow all the junk off the wood stove and hearth area so it could be swept up easily. Also worked well to blow the dust bunnies from under the furniture! After all that, the living room is looking presentable again. Now to keep it that way!
Doing laundry today - I wore my black pants to work at the clinic yesterday, and will need them Sunday for our bell choir performance, so I had to wash them. Now to get Abby to do her laundry.
I have a stack of receipts from past years waiting for me to go through them for any that I need to keep (looking forward to burning the rest), but I just don't really feel like doing it right now. I know I don't have to like something to do it, but if I'm going to use that rationale for something, it's going to be zig-zagging the edges of the toweling I tore into rags.
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Post by susannah on Feb 13, 2016 16:25:19 GMT
Well, first off I would like those little gremlins or whoever it is that messes up my nice tidy house when my back is turned to FESS UP, PLEASE! Good grief, how can my house go from organized to chaos in 60 seconds flat? Okay, exaggeration. But it sure seems like it does some times... We're staying home again today - the temperature outside has yet to climb above zero. So I will be working on getting the house back in shape today. I've gotten three shelves in the powder room closet completely cleared off, and I'm working on the fourth. Some of the stuff...why was I keeping this? It's worn out, we have no use for it, it's not something that can be donated - into the trash it went. Other things, well, it actually made more sense to keep them elsewhere. Surprisingly, dh is questioning why I'm doing this now - "We won't be taking the room apart for at least another month." I disagree, though. Since each shelf is 7 feet long and three feet deep - and was pretty much packed with STUFF - I wish I'd started sooner. The closet was becoming the equivalent of at least a dozen junk drawers. Oh yeah. I have my work cut out for me today.
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Post by Use Less on Feb 13, 2016 16:52:16 GMT
No need to go out in today's weather, but not making much housekeeping headway. I was able to clean and repair my bagless upright vac. I don't much like it. It is heavy to push, and the container fills up fast with cat hair. Dad bought the vac new his last spring. He wasn't ready to spend much. Sooner or later I'll swap it out, or just use it upstairs. If there was an OK movie on TV, I'd sort and file papers, but nothing I'd even like for noise for a couple hours
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 14, 2016 2:38:26 GMT
Well, it's not as cold out here as it is where you two are, but it has been pouring rain sideways most of the day, so it's been a good indoor day here, too. I'm still working on Abby to get her room cleaned up, and to finish the dishes...that is taking most of my energy today. I still haven't finished emptying and straightening the rest of the kitchen cabinets, although I did sweep the kitchen floor. I've been folding and putting away clean laundry, but other than that, I'm taking the day off! I've been watching the news - Justice Scalia died last night and I have watched some of the speculation on who might be nominated, and now I'm watching the Republican debate - missed the first 30 minutes of it, though. I've read our Maura's story (see her thread on "My Latest Tome"), and enjoyed it. I've taken a nap. I've practiced my bell piece for tomorrow morning, set out my clothes to where, and set my alarm so I don't oversleep. So, not a lot of progress on my home organization, but I've enjoyed my day! I think we need to give ourselves an occasional day off, just to recharge our batteries.
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Post by midtnmama on Feb 15, 2016 13:33:43 GMT
Mon: Declutter the bathroom. Toss empty shampoo bottles, toilet paper tubes (well, I save these for planting tomato seeds). Put the dirty laundry in the hamper....
Tues:15 min quick swish and swipe of the counter and shower, toilet and bath.
Wed:Get your spa supplies ready for later. In children's room: go through the clothes to donate, toss, etc..
Thurs:Make a list of items needed to buy for the bathroom. In childrens room: dust and clean mirrors.
Fri:Spa time in the bath for you. Also, do something special with your child today.
Detailed cleaning of bathroom and one extra room:
Bathroom detailed cleaning list
Wash area rugs Scrub/wax floor Straighten drawers/ cabinets Clean shower stall/ wax (not the floor!) Wash shower door Clean medicine cabinet Clean scale Throw away empty bottles Extra bedroom detailed cleaning list Polish furniture Straighten drawers/closet Clean cobwebs Wash mattress pad/dust rug Flip mattress Wash curtains Wash windows Clean window Clean bath tub Clean top of sewing machine Straighten bookcase Straighten computer desk Clean out the closet Put away stray items Fertilize plants
Children’s bathroom detailed cleaning list
Wash area rugs Sweep/scrub/wax floor Straighten drawers/cabinets Clean shower/tub stall Wash shower door Scrub bath toys Wash down outside of toilet Throw away empty bottles
Children’s bedrooms detailed cleaning list
Polish furniture Straighten drawers/closet Clean cobwebs Wash mattress pad/dust rug Flip mattresses Wash curtains Clean window Straighten toy shelves Clean under the bed Clean out the closet Put away stray items Sort out-grown clothes Vacuum under bed/closets Dust baseboards Clean fingerprints off door/walls Rearrange videos/games/books
Office detailed cleaning list
Clear off the surface of your desk Throw away pens that don’t work Sharpen pencils Throw out all the trash Put items to keep in a pending file for Wednesday (desk day) Do not stop to pay bills Straighten one drawer at a time Toss out old receipts from over 7 years Clean off the monitor screen Fill printer caddy with paper Establish a place for current bills Vacuum under desk and the whole room Dust furniture Clean windows Remove cobwebs Check supplies of paper and printer cartridges Stamps and envelopes
Laundry room detailed cleaning list
Wipe down the top of the washer and dryer Clean the gunk from under the washer lid Throw out empty bottles and boxes Empty the garbage can Check supplies of laundry detergent, softener, spot remover Sweep and mop the floor Remove the cobwebs Put away all clothes Look behind appliances for odd socks
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Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2016 3:50:36 GMT
Spouse took out what are best described as shoddy DIY shelves in our basement. Then cut new ones and installed based on our needs. I did what Melissa calls a "deep clean" of the room, put things back, and rearranged. Quite happy with the way it turned out.
Moving onto the next area in the basement. Pulled out the boxes for items that are now past their warranty period AND I have no plans to ever put said item back in the box. I'm working my way around "my" part of the basement. Plus I'm doing an inventory and writing down what I need to restock.
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Post by susannah on Feb 20, 2016 21:30:56 GMT
The powder room closet is in the process of being...history. Every single item that had lived there previously has been moved to a different location, donate, or thrown away. I cleaned out all the kitchen cabinets and pantry so that the surplus paper towels, dish soap, wrap, etc. is now in the kitchen. Makes more sense.
Today we took down two of the shelves from the powder room closet and relocated them in the garage. There had always been shelf brackets in the garage, but no shelves. These incredibly long, heavy duty shelves have fund a perfect new home. Tomorrow we'll take down the other shelves in the powder room. And remove the closet doors, reusing one in a hall closet.
We also moved the cabinets from the workshop (the room that will become a new bedroom) into the garage. The garage looks much neater now. We will be taking a truckload of stuff to the dump tomorrow. And we'll be making a trip to Goodwill to donate several bags of stuff too. This is partly due to finding a BIG box full of clothes that I thought had gone to Goodwill two years ago...yes, hiding out in the workshop. Lots of other things to donate also have showed up over the past few weeks.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2016 4:48:05 GMT
susannah, don't ya love things that hide in plain sight? And nothing beats reusing/re-purposing. Since it was such a nice day (those who live in the snow belt will understand), I did some yard work - as in picking up sticks and branches. We had 35-40 mph sustained winds, gusts up to 60 mph yesterday. While this doesn't qualify as "spring cleaning" of the yard, will cut down on the amount of time needed in a couple of months.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 25, 2016 20:46:02 GMT
I finally got Abby to seriously work on her nasty bedroom yesterday - she's going to be spending a good bit of time today washing dishes! I knew I was missing a lot of silverware and cereal bowls - I think she brought out about 3/4s of what we own. I used to only have 4 of everything in the kitchen - 4 bowls, 4 plates, 4 smaller plates, 4 of each kind of silverware...I think we are going to go back to that. Easier to notice what's missing and easier to make sure dirty dishes aren't being stashed in her room to avoid washing them.
I am a week behind on flylady, I think, as I was still working off the last list MTM posted. It's all good, though, as I had to wash an area rug and the bath tub is the best place for me to do that, short of hanging it on the garden fence and hitting it with the hose jet. Since I had to do that, it gave me the opportunity to scrub the tub, which we seldom actually use for a bath. It tends to get a bit dusty and grungy before I notice it - if I was taking tub baths, I'd be cleaning it with each bath. While I was at it, I shined my sink in there, filtered water to fill our jugs of stored drinking water, and got the counter top all cleared off and cleaned. That is a real hot spot in my bathroom. Seems like everything ends up ON the counter instead of stored neatly underneath.
Moved to my bedroom from there and spent some quality time with a dust cloth. Between the gravel driveway, down comforters and pillows, and a cat that is starting her Spring shed, there is just soooo much dust! I finally did a silly little job that takes all of 5 minutes, tops, but that I'd been putting off and looking at for months - I cleaned the dust off my ceiling fan! I never seem to remember it when I'm cleaning, but when I crawl into bed at night I look at it and think...I should get up and do that...and then I roll over and go to sleep. Well, now it's done! It was a pleasure to look up last night and not have to think about remembering to clean it. I also climbed up and dusted all the high spots in the room - tops of book cases, stuff like that. I washed a few smudges off the ceiling and got rid of another Daddy Long Legs spider. I don't know what those things eat - I've never seen an insect in the cobwebs they make. Swept more cobwebs and didn't see any more spiders, so I thought maybe I'd finally gotten rid of the last one....until this morning, when I found yet another one on my bedroom ceiling. GRRR.
I've been doing tons of laundry - mostly towels, as they were also hiding in Abby's room. She does laundry, too, but these I wanted to go through and make sure they got a bit of bleach in each load, and she tends to use too much bleach. I looked at her pile of clothes she brought out of her room, and she'll be doing laundry for a couple days, I think.
Lastly, I've gathered up more donations for Goodwill and have several feed sacks full of recycling to take with me when I go to town this afternoon. I really need to finish up a couple repair projects in my living room, and then it will be very neat and tidy in there. Right now, there are a couple air mattresses sitting there waiting for me to get to them, and I have a side table/lamp combo where the lamp portion won't tighten down. It wobbles and leans to one side, so I'm going to try mixing up some epoxy and gluing it into place.
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Post by midtnmama on Feb 27, 2016 19:08:06 GMT
How are we doing? manygoatsnmore, Use Less, susannah, midtnmama, krisinmi, jd4020,@selena, Awewome job, Manygoats! Sorry I'm behind in posting. I'll start again tomorrow. I'm doing a big home blessing to catch up today. Done in the kitchen, halfway through the bedroom today! 1/2 laundry done. Got a new Cabinet for the office (from a friend who was putting it out to the garbage pickup!) and hope to fill it with things I have in boxes on the floor of the office. Eyesore taken care of, hopefully. This is a really great testimonial. I like how she notes that perfectionism really works against housework (and weight loss for that matter). I think this kept me from making progress in the past. Flylady really taught me that imperfect cleaning done often really adds up! Even though I've not been able to do much the last week and a half, it's not impossible getting on task because I have built a base that is easy to get back to. www.flylady.net/d/br/2016/02/27/this-testimonial-broke-my-heart/
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Post by krisinmi on Feb 27, 2016 20:36:23 GMT
Took advantage of DH wanting to move the TV to a different wall of the living room and got him to move out all furniture, I gave the floor a good cleaning, and the furniture a good dusting before putting (most) everything back in the room in a new layout.
Then he looked at the dining room floor (the dining room and living room are adjoining) and commented out it would be nice to move the table out so I could give that floor a good scrubbing too. So . . . currently my dining room table and chairs are in the living room and I've been working on giving the dining room a good cleaning. Even took the glass pieces off the chandelier and am giving them a good soak in hot soapy water.
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Post by jd4020 on Feb 27, 2016 21:20:42 GMT
Thanks for the reminder. I haven't really done much more than the basics, keeping up with the laundry, dishes, washing eggs, outside chores 2xs a day, picking up the toys (I keep two of our grands) and swab the bathrooms. I need to run the vacuum, & dust. And deep clean the bathrooms and our bedroom. That's usually the way I clean krisinmi, I get something done & then see something else. I always had a theory that if the rooms are the way I want them to be set up, then everything else, cleaning them, working in them, relaxing in them, would be smooth sailing. Maybe everyone already knows this, I'm a bit of a slow learner. Well, it's true, there are six room in my home that are exactly what I want and cleaning them is easy. It's the other 3 and the basement that are not. When I need to work in those rooms, I usually have to clean off or re-arrange til I can get to what I need to work on. Frustrating to say the least. Well,,, I'll keep plugging away.
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Post by susannah on Feb 29, 2016 14:51:58 GMT
While the demolition continues, the rest of the house is in a holding pattern. Due to increased dust, I'm sweeping/mopping/dusting more. But I haven't had much time to deep clean a room or several. That's where following these organizing threads has helped me so much, though. Because of staying on top of clutter (as much as possible) when times like this happen and I don't have much time to deep clean, a light cleaning or once-over and the house is presentable again.
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Post by jd4020 on Feb 29, 2016 22:28:56 GMT
Yesterday I worked in my plant, seeding area in the basement. Cleaning up, stacking the packs, pots & trays. Pruning dead stuff off of plants. Started some seeds. Got a couple of the lights to work better. Sweeping down the cobwebs. Found some really old corn seeds that were moldy so threw them out. This room is also the wood room for our furnace so stacked up the wood and swept up the bark. -------------- For March, I want to clean out our bedroom of all the stuff that should not be in there, but got stashed there while cleaning the other rooms. sigh.... -------------- Also for March, I need to work in the area where I store my canning jars. Other people take the empty jars & rings in there but don't put them where they're supposed to be. Since this area is also in the basement, I noticed that one of the cardboard boxes has gotten a bit moldy, so I'll have to get that out of there.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Mar 1, 2016 9:14:35 GMT
I do love it when I can just do a quick straightening and have the house looking pretty decent, susannah. My house is not as organized as I would like, but at least I don't cringe when someone enters my house...well, at least not once they are inside. I need to work on the outside more in March. I'm off to start the March thread - see you there.
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