The January Cure: Update 2

I'm still going strong on The January Cure and I haven't missed a single assignment.  I'm super proud of that!  Here are my updates:

Assignment Seven: Get your Get Together Together

Since we're not doing a January Cure Get Together, we semi-skipped this.  We are, however, having Brooke's birthday party next month, so we worked on getting that together.  Cory and I discussed the food list and I got the invitations sent out.

Assignment Eight: Surface Sweep

Today's assignment was to take 3 minutes to speed clean an area that needed attention.  I chose the kitchen countertops and the dining table.  Unfortunately, the dining table is once again lost under piles of stuff, but the kitchen counters have stayed clean!

Assignment Nine: Work on your project

I've modified my project a little.  My task was to re-caulk the kitchen countertop where Cory had spilled red kool-aid and it had stained, re-caulk the shower in Kendall's bathroom, and clean and caulk under the cooktop.  I decided it wasn't time effective right now to worry about the kitchen countertop.  It's really well hidden, so it just didn't make sense to remove all that caulk and do it again for an area that's now pink and we can't even see.  I also decided to wait to caulk the shower since we'll be painting that room in the next few months.  I think it really needs me to scrape some chipping paint, maybe even spackle, and then paint the new color and caulk over that.

I did, however, clean and caulk under the cooktop and I'm so wicked excited about it.  When we remodeled our kitchen, I was concerned about putting the cooktop in without anything between it and the countertop.  Everyone told me not to worry about it, but all sorts of nastiness got in between the two and it looked so gross.  Cleaning it was pretty involved... I used a credit card (use an old one) and a wet Viva paper towel to get in between and really clean, then I caulked.  It looks amazing and now I don't have to worry about crumbs and liquid getting stuck in there.

Gross, right?

I thought I had caulk, but I didn't so I used painters tape to protect the edges from more crumbs!

Done!  So pretty and clean!

Assignment Ten: Declutter a Drawer

I went through my two dresser junk drawers and my night stand.  I was able to get rid of more than half of the stuff in them!

Assignment Eleven: Bedroom

I cleaned the bedroom from top to bottom.  I dusted all the furniture with coconut oil, washed the sheets and decluttered.  I wanted to wash the curtains, but Brooke won't sleep without them closed, so I wasn't able to do them.  Maybe on a weekend we can keep her up a long enough to wash and dry them.

Assignment Twelve: Make Tonight a Media Fast

Cory was really against this at first, but about 10 minutes in, he looked at me and said, "This is really nice."  We sat in the living room and read, listened to music, and just plain conversed.  It actually was really nice.

Assignment Thirteen: Cabinet Cleanout

Since I recently cleaned out the vanity in Kendall's bathroom and under the kitchen sink, the only cabinet I had left was the master bathroom.  There is this gross contact paper on the bottom, but we're planning to remodel this entire bathroom soon, so I decided to leave it for now and just washed it down and got rid of the junk.

Assignment Fourteen: Landing Strip
Assignment Fifteen: Clear a Closet
Assignment Sixteen: Living Room

These areas all kind of meshed into one project for me, so I improvised a little bit and was lax with the daily assignments and just mushed these into one large task.  I started with the landing strip, which we have and use, but needed a refresh and a good cleaning out.  The one item with the landing strip project that we were lacking was a place to hang our coats.  We have an entry closet, and a pretty large one, but it's a cluster and it's impossible to get anything in or out of the closet.  I knew that clearing a closet was one of the projects, so I saved this large task for the assignment.  I went through and cleaned off our existing landing strip area.  This also involved another project, which was to clean out my filing cabinet, but I'll post on that separately.  Then I took sections of items out of the entry closet.  I started with all the stuff on the shelves.  I got 4 bins, one for each of us and separated our items into our respective bin.  Anything I wasn't going to keep went into the donate bin.  Then I cleared everything on the floor, next I cleared out and entire column of shoes (this is a big deal for me!) to make room for Cory's bin on the top shelf.  I went to Lowes and got a new shoe shelf and installed that (and man, I did an awesome job!)  I got rid of a ton of purses and bags and put those back nicely on a shelf.  Finally, I reorganized the coats and put some away so we could actually access the coats we need and have room for guests coats.  I'm so happy that this is finally done and I hope that I can keep it up!  I also cleaned out my bedroom closet, which also meant cleaning out my PJ drawer.  Landing strip: Complete.  Closets: Complete.  Then I cleaned up the living room.  Lucky for me my living room is small and there's hardly anything in there.  I dusted the piano and credenza, cleaned off all the TV trays and got rid of some of the larger toys we don't use in here often.

Assignment Seventeen: Catch Up Day

I'm so happy there was a catch up day in here because I really needed it.  I noticed this week that I was starting projects and marking them as complete in my head, but I was leaving stuff all over the house.  I left a section of the landing strip that needed to be filed in the office, a container of "put somewhere else" stuff on the dining table.  So today I'm going around the house and really completing these tasks!