Parrot Nation

I’ve been doing more than just editing my words these last ten days. I’ve been editing stuff out of my life. Stuff I don’t need. Stuff I didn’t even remember I had. Stuff I no longer wanted to be responsible for and stuff I don’t want. I no longer want a lot of “Stuff.” I want the space it used to take up.

Space for my thoughts and my elbows. I no longer want to have to move stuff so I can move other stuff to get to the actual stuff I need.

This is my spice cabinet. Looks nice doesn’t it?

It took me about an hour to pull everything out, wash and rinse the interior of the cabinet, wipe down all of the bottles and put them back in an orderly fashion. I also combined the duplicates where it was possible and got rid of the stuff that was either out of date or simply “questionable looking.” Was it horrible?

Probably not, but I couldn’t find anything and it simply looked messy.

For some strange reason, this little cabinet was intimidating to me. It looked complicated. Tedious. I found it to be a little boring to do, but for the most part it went well.

I probably didn’t want to do it because it involved getting on a ladder and yanking all that stuff down. On a ladder again! Up and down. Up and down. I just didn’t want to face this:

 Fatigue is beginning to set in. I’m beginning to get tired. I’ve been at this well over a week and I’m not 26 anymore, so I’m sure that’s a factor in all of this.

And even though the first task of the day looked worse than it was, it went far faster. I cleaned underneath my sink. Actually, my dishwasher is under my sink and this is a corner cabinet, but for intents and purposes, it contains the same things most people keep under their sink:

Yup. I real eyesore. Just messy and disorganized. But this only took about 20 minutes to clean and straighten up. I found stuff under there that didn’t belong in that spot and I found I could combine a lot of things that I had 2 partials of.

I guess I didn’t mind this as much because sitting down is becoming far more appealing as I go along. My legs are beginning to throb. I couldn’t believe how well this area came together.

 I also detailed my Kitchen Aid Mixer.

It was under the sink and I probably should have kept a bag or a cover on it because it got pretty grungy stored under there. I intend to find another place for it.

One thing to keep in mind when you’re cleaning. Don’t simply”spray and wipe.” You have to give your cleaner or soap a chance to work. Give it time. Let it sit there and do its magic for a few minutes. And with my mixer, I did just that. It had dried crap on it and grunge in the seams which I managed to remove by letting the cleaner sit on the seams and then using the dull side of a knife wrapped in a cloth to make it grunge-free and shiny. But this was what it looked like in a spot with cleaner doing its thing before I wiped it down and detailed it:

I have more to do and miles to go to get more done before I go back to flying the skies. But so far, so good. Good luck with your cleaning projects and I’ll keep you posted on what I’m going to gussy up next. Oh, and one last tip: If you can sit down and do something, for God’s sake, sit down. Your leg muscles will thank you.