Clean the basement

I finished the shelves. I’m left with the sink area, the middle area, and the workbench. All three are easily manageable. Then I have to sweep. This job is shrinking.

The TV area is all put together. I cleaned, really cleaned the storage area. I still have to straighten up the arts and crafts area, but even that’s better since I put away the flower boxes and hauled up the garbage, and Christmas is over, it’s not that huge of a job. I could do this this week if I make time for it.

The TV area is good. But the hutch is almost empty. The desk is bare. Wasted spaces. It needs to be made more homey. Without spending money. Perhaps a warm color on the walls and something insulating on the window. A throw rug from Walmart. Stuff on the walls, maybe jigsaw puzzles and posters backed with styrofoam. Black or offwhite paint sprayed on the ceiling. Something, anything, to cover the French drain. I have to learn to frequent clearance sales.

The craft area isn’t too bad. I have to go through the shelves and throw things out. I still like my recycled containers and labels, but I have to start from scratch. In the spring I should start hitting the garage sales again.

Storage area! Ay yi yi! First, I should get rid of all the extra clothes. Nobody is growing into anything anymore. Put it out for the girls and give away the rejects. Especially the shoes. Gone.
Organize the suitcases. Organize the Christmas decoration. No, just throw away whatever we don’t use next weekend. We have too much STUFF. Go through that laundry basket of stuff. Sell the dolls on ebay or through them out, but that’s for Laura and Tara to decide. The blankets are questionable. Perhaps the big cardboard box should be gotten rid of. The file cabinet should be actually used.
The drawers should be fixed and utilized. Or the draws could be removed to make a different kind of storage area.
The basement really is a good space. With Tara getting a new guitar for Guitar Hero, it will be fun for everyone to play. I also have no excuse for not using the Wii. It is fun.

The workshop can be organized. Again. We should take out the paint and do some touching up. The old paint might be used for the laundry room or the TV area. Or thrown away.

It’s a lot of writing, but I don’t think there’s all that much work to do. It’s many small jobs to organize. There’s plenty of room.

This is the first goal I’ve clicked off as “done”. P. and I spent three hours together cleaning it, and so, because of the wording, I’ve actually done this thing. And the basement is cleaner. It has been raised from festering pit to within striking distance of clean.

One thing that this site has taught me, with my casual use of language in naming my original goals, is to embrace goal: (clean the basement) while the basement itself remains in no way actually inviting, nor entirely empty of clutter I don’t know what to do with yet, nor pristine and organized. It is far from perfect. And yet I love my basement the way it is right now because it is so much better than it was on Tuesday.

These are physical manifestations of this goal. Let’s move to the psycho-emotional: my psychic body’s mapped out on my house,so guess what, now that my basement is not a clogged and festering trap, my own unconscious flows more freely and that makes me cheerful and competent in my everyday life. No more slow-draining inexplicable grief and anger!

I can’t concentrate enough on the details of feng shui to do anything more than sciolistically reference it, but I freely adapt the understanding that physical surroundings reflect and affect the energy present in the space to my idiosyncratic experience of the benefits of de-cluttering and cleaning.

Having suddenly granted myself an “I’ve done this,” I can imagine the temptation to put really achievable day-to-day goals on here just to get them into this magic folder. But I have the blackboard for short-term daily requirements and the whiteboard for work-related what-do-next and when I banged out my original list of goals in what was it (early July?) I was just blopping out stuff that I hoped and wished for.

The first thing this site taught me was I could only come up with 11 things! I thought my to-do list was way longer than that, so my very first excursion here made life feel very manageable. Since then things have just gotten better. Some things I’ve attended to, I added some (happy now to have been forbearing in that department) and I’ve already learned a ton about myself. I’m psyched to keep working on my things.

We got rid of the old furniture and brought newish furniture in. The kids really like it. We have to stay on them to keep it clean.

we are getting new furniture, so we need to step it up. we are even goign to steam clean the carpet. :)

Moved the old TV downstairs to replace the one that was starting to go. Which meant we had to get a new TV for upstairs, and it was far harder to rewire both than it should have been. But all done now and both are working great. And think it only took … holy cr@$... seven hours. I sure am glad I am on vacation.

just for good measure.

Oh what a difference a day makes!

all day on this. Avert your eyes. Oh the horror. Its really hard to capture the magnitude of the problem in just one picture, but you get the idea.