Category: Home

2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 2 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things

I started this challenge on Saturday, September 1st with the goal of getting rid of 1,000 things, mostly papers.

My work for weeks one and two resulted in getting rid of a total of 725 things. That means I only have 275 things to go!

I was able to get one of the four drawers in the filing cabinet to open and close easily. Sort of. This drawer contains:

  • My stationery sorted into categories.
  • Vacation planning.
  • Medical information for each family member.
  • The last seven years of income tax information.

There are many things I have discovered and determined while going through the papers:

  • I made a pact with myself not to buy any more stationery until I use up what I have.
  • We had a great vacation in 2007 to the Smokey Mountains, but I don’t need the brochures anymore.
  • My son had a lot of teeth pulled when he was younger!
  • This year will be so much easier to handle the taxes with the new laws stating that our standard deduction will be $24,000 for married filers. No need for itemizing.

I have changed my preferences to receive statements in electronic form instead of receiving physical statements. I have also determined that I will schedule a time to download documents and purge things in the office once a week. I have dedicated a binder for my schedules and procedures to keep better organized.

Hopefully, by next week I will have gotten rid of the total 1,000 things.

2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 1 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things

I started this challenge on Saturday, September 1st and disposed of 271 things.

My work for the week resulted in getting rid of a total of 569 things. Yay, yippee, only 431 items to go!

Actually, I’m a little bummed because I thought that with the momentum of the first day I was going to accomplish this goal in one week. But I have a lot of papers and it takes time to sort through them. I have 4 file drawers that are heavy, so I won’t stop until I can easily open and close them. Also, I have no picture to post because the office appearance hasn’t changed for the better. Sometimes when you are in the middle of a fight with clutter it gets uglier before it gets better.

I am slowly changing my procedures. The expression “Only Handle It Once” is the acronym OHIO. Who knew? Well, that is what I am transforming myself into. At least I hope I am.

Being the “Queen of Using Scratch Paper” or the acronym QUSP, okay, I made that up, I kept about a ream size amount of papers to be used again.

I have learned a number of things by going through my papers:

  • Our dogs have RABIES VACCINATION papers. I kept them in paper form just in case I need to produce these for animal control or anyone who asks for them.
  • Our 14-year old Golden Retriever, Lucy has her rabies shot due this December. Our city requires that adult dogs get a rabies shot every 3 years. Our puppy, Kumo, an Akita, has to get another shot in March, as his shot is only good for 1 year.
  • My husband’s last tetanus shot was in April 2007. Time for a shot!

This challenge is not just about getting rid of the 1,000 things:

  • It’s about changing patterns of behavior. OHIO!
  • It’s about creating a peaceful environment. When I have too many things around me I become paralyzed.
  • It’s about keeping the most important things and knowing where they are.

Let’s hear from you. Can you get rid of some things?

Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge

It’s September 1, 2018, and I invite you to join me in a Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge. There are many cleaning checklists on the Internet, so feel free to use any of them.

Some who know me think that I am a fairly organized person. The reality is that I just give the appearance of being organized. I have a serious clutter problem, mostly paper clutter.

I plan to get all my papers in order. I will scan and get rid of as many papers as possible. I plan to get rid of 1,000 things. That’s right! You read it: 1,000 things!

Today, I got rid of a total of 271 things. There was nothing very interesting or shocking about what I disposed of, but maybe later I will find something.

  • 253 papers
  • 1 scarf from a PetSmart puppy play date
  • 1 bag of tie stays
  • 15 old bottles of vitamins and herbs (some from 2014, yikes!)
  • 1 school calendar binder from 2009.

So, you see, it will be very easy for me to get rid of 1,000 things.

My office is in my closet. I have an Elfa closet, but it doesn’t look like one of those beautiful catalogs from The Container Store. My goal is to get everything organized so that it looks like one of those catalogs.

Here is a photo of my cluttered office. I will post again when it is cleared up.

My cluttered office

In the photo, notice the guts hanging out of the heavy-duty shredder. It’s broken. I’m shattered!

Let’s hear from you. Will you join me in the Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge? Let me know.

Struggles with Lawn Care Part 3

It’s been two months since I got the front lawn fertilized. While July was wretchedly hot, historically, the month of August is the driest month in North Texas. Despite some surprising rain downpours, slightly cooler temperatures, and even some mushrooms growing in the lawn, the rain was not a drought-buster.

For those academics out there, there are drought intensities from none, abnormally dry, moderate drought, severe drought, extreme drought, and exceptional drought. North Texas is suffering from severe drought conditions.

I wasn’t able to get the two pallets of sod installed due to lack of funds, so I had to be content to watch the runners spread. All in all, I was satisfied with the progress.

I’m still daydreaming about planting something other than grass in the front yard. There’s a six foot swath of soil near the walkway to the front door because the house causes a shadow and grass doesn’t seem to grow well there. I’m thinking of planting some annuals, like pansies.

True story: one time I asked the nursery gal where I could find the asylum instead of the alyssum. We both had a big laugh over that.

August 19th front lawn

Hopefully, in September I will show you more filled in grass and some colorful flowers.

Struggles with Lawn Care Part 2

It’s been one month since I got the front lawn enriched with soil. You can read about it here. This post shows the progress of the lawn. I’m pleased with it and I have learned the following about how to care for a St. Augustine grass lawn:

First, St. Augustine grass is never grown from seed. It comes in either sod or plugs. So, the $18/lb. seed that Jose spread was useless. My helpful neighbor planted a few runners in part of the lawn, but they didn’t take because they were too exposed.

Second, the crabgrass (probably lying dormant) took advantage of the fertilizer and proceeded to sprout everywhere. Every day I weeded out the crabgrass. Crabgrass is easy to distinguish from St. Augustine, and it comes out easily. Crabgrass is a grayish green and configures in a star-shaped pattern, whereas St. Augustine configures as a runner.

Third, St. Augustine grass does best when watered between 1:00-3:00 am. Hooray for automatic sprinkler systems!

The weather was HOT! I’m talking days upon days of from 100 to 109-degree heat that broke 90-year old records. I watered every day. Antonio, a landscaper who regularly mows some of my neighbors’ lawns said that in this kind of weather, he waters his lawn every day for 20 minutes. His water bill last month was $275. Yikes! Antonio recommended that I have 2 pallets of sod installed to cover the exposed areas.

June 19th fertilizing of the front lawn

July 19th front lawn

So, there you have it. The lawn is filling in nicely, I got my daily dosage of sunshine, vitamin D, and I got to mingle with my neighbors.

Struggles with Lawn Care Part 1

My struggles with homeownership continue. Fast-forward to my third house, I am currently living in a 1960’s house with 3-bedrooms, and 2-baths. I recently posted about my first-time homeowner lawn care experience. You can read about it here.

Lately I’ve been watering my front yard in hopes of getting a lush carpet-like lawn, like my neighbor Debbie’s, and of course, the Beautification
Award. The problem is we haven’t fertilized in a while. Or ever. The soil is light brown and there are mostly weeds, with small patches of St. Augustine grass.

I pointed out the depleted soil to my husband, and he said, “Oh yeah, I’ll fertilize it.” Um, news flash, the lawn needed more than fertilizer, it needed amendments, topsoil, stuff like that. I couldn’t imagine when he would have the time or energy to do it.

The next day, my doorbell rang. It was Jose and Francisco. They had a truckload of topsoil and wanted to fertilize my front yard. It seemed like a gift from heaven.

I thought it was a good deal. If we were to have a sod lawn, we’d first have to remove the existing weedy lawn, till the soil, add topsoil and starter fertilizer, and then lay the sod. The sod alone for a plot 60′ x 28′ would have cost more than $1,400.

Fist pump, “YESS!” and from my front porch, I watched them spread the rich, black soil and seed. It took an hour and a half. It was hard work.

“This seed costs $18 a pound, Mama,” said Jose, as he swung the seeds into the ground.

My friend Jerry came by, held his nose and said, “Whew, something smells bad!”

I didn’t notice. What I smelled was the sweet odor of receiving a Beautification
Award.

“Make sure you water it, Mama,” said Jose.

I promised I would. A half an hour later, it rained. Another gift.

Later that evening, I told my friend, Tavo, “I just got a truckload of topsoil and fertilizer spread on my front yard. I’m going for the Beautification
Award, you know.”

Tavo’s eyes widened. “I’ve been trying to get that award for years!”

My husband shook his head. “There are other people going for that award besides Nanci?”

You remember when you were in elementary school, and you vied for the shiny gold trophy that came with the Good Citizen Award? Yeah. It’s like that.

Getting back to my lawn, it rained again that night, and again the next day. I’ll keep you posted on the progress. Below is a picture of the current state of my front lawn. Wish me success!

My First-Time Homeowner Lawn Care Experience

The first house my husband and I bought was in February 2001 in Euless, TX. It was a 1960’s 3-bedroom, 1.5-bath house with a huge front and backyard. Unfortunately, because we bought the house during wintertime, we discovered the yard lacked an automatic sprinkler system.

By the time summer came around, I knew I was in trouble. Outside in the blistering heat, with a newborn son in one arm, and a garden hose in the other, I could only nod to drivers as they slowly passed by. They must have thought I was crazy.

Our neighbor, Jeff, although a renter, was a grass whisperer. He would carefully lay out his homemade water sprinkler system, made from PVC pipe, and water his thick, luscious, emerald green St. Augustine grass. I had a full-blown case of green grass envy.

Then I discovered that the City of Euless has an award they give out to residents and businesses to highlight the efforts of keeping Euless beautiful. Called the Beautification Award, these monthly awards are presented between May through October.

The winners get a plaque in their front yard for a month. Their name and picture of their house are displayed at the library and on the city’s website. I determined that I was going to get that award. Now I just needed to live up to it.

I planted pansies, irises, liriope, alyssum, dusty miller, lambs ear, rosemary, lavender, and lantana. I dutifully followed Jeff’s advice, even watering close to his lawn to get the runners from his yard to come over to mine.

Sometimes I’d see Jeff spread his leftover fertilizer on my front lawn, and even water it for me!

But to no avail. I had crabgrass, dandelions, dogfennel, ground ivy, henbit, you name, it, I got it. Oh yeah, and fire ants. And don’t get me started on the bamboo patch the size of Rhode Island, with briar and poison ivy along the chain link fence.

By 2010, we moved on to another house, and the yard looked like this:

Sorry.

I don’t have an excuse, except my name isn’t Jeff.

But just because I couldn’t get the award with this yard, I still plan on getting it.

So, here’s the takeaway:

  • If you aren’t experienced with lawn care, buy a house with a smaller yard.
  • Get an automatic sprinkler system installed.
  • Hire Jeff.