Minimilist Monday

I've decided that I am going to try to journal regularly on certain days.  After all I changed this blog title to Household Diary a long time ago.  So maybe I should use it that way.  My plan is on Mondays I will post about housekeeping, decluttering, etc efforts - Minimalist Monday.  On Fridays I will go back to something I used to do a long time - Weekly Recap.  That will focus more on educational endeavors of the week.  Then on Sundays I'll try to do my usual book review for Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.  Of course maybe I'll post other stuff as I feel inspired, but the bare bones blogging will be Minimalist Monday and Weekly Recap, Book reviews.

So this week for Minimalist Monday:

Major, major breakthrough!!!  Ding, Ding, Ding!  Rick and I cleaned up our Master bedroom!  He cleaned up all the stuff that had accumulated on and around his desk which was horrific!  And I got rid of all the miscellaneous linens and old clothes that were supposed to have been sorted through and given away eons ago.  I even cleaned out under our bathroom sink which was quite a job.  I dejunked my dresser so that you can actually see wood!  I still have some annoying baskets of STUFF that I don't know what to do with.  By that time I was suffering from dejunking fatigue, BUT we got a huge amount of stuff cleaned out.  Last night we put it all out for Amvets to pick up today.  Please God let them come and pick it all up!  Sometimes they don't seem to show up when you think they will.

We are also trying to give an older printer away to our parish or perhaps to some charity that might need it.

The two areas we didn't get to:  our bedside tables which are full of dozens of books that have no other home.  We need to sort those into give away and keep - and then figure out where to keep them.  Also Rick did not get to the top of his dresser which is simply a big pile of junk.  But hopefully next weekend.

My goals for this week are to keep chipping away at the kids' rooms.  They went through their clothes and put the ones they don't wear anymore out with the Amvets donation.  I also want to spend time tidying the dining, which will involve cleaning out old school books and getting things ready for the upcoming academic year.

But the big thing I want to do is really get started with my basement.  Hannah said she'd help.  I need to make it guest ready again.  And that means finding a new home for our poor, wretched cat.  Oh dear.  That is a big, thorny issue.  When will that actually happen?

And one more thing I am going to ask Josh to do this coming Thursday or Friday - take all the accumulated cardboard boxes to the recycling center.

So to break things out in my head:

Monday - 20 to 30 minutes on kids' bedrooms; 1 hour on dining room (that should be enough to get it into order).

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday - significant time spent on basement on at least some of these days.

Thursday/Friday - big recycling haul.

In addition to this of course there is Latin and math, driving Sean back and forth to art class, and driving Becky back and forth to musical rehearsal.

Today I am going to make a chicken and rice salad (using left over chicken) and also cook up the fresh beets I got from the CSA yesterday.  I need to do that this afternoon because I've got to get Sean to a doctor's appt right at dinner time.