This is the “unfuck our house” list I made ages ago and stuck to our pantry. It takes us back from however bad everything is, to functioning. I highly recommend having such a list for whatever tasks take YOUR household from “disgusting and inhabitable” to “it’s safe for us to keep living here and no longer a health hazard”.
I’ve done 1, 3 and am partway through 2.
I didn’t listen to this episode, but I did listen to part of one and I quite enjoyed it so I’ll listen to 324 sometime this week!
Edit: oh, it actually is 324 that I’m partway through! Will keep listening.
I did it!!! Before we put our new groceries away, I composted all the gross old food and cleaned the vegetable drawers.
I also did laundry and hand-washed my bras. For maybe the first time ever. Wheeee!
I unfucked our bedroom a bit more. It’s a work in progress. Today I took down the curtains that came with the house to wash them and wondered why we had left them up for so long at all. I love the room without them so much more and we do have gross old blinds for privacy and room darkening still. I have replacement blinds in mind but first need to work out how to remove one way screws on the bolts someone attached to our 100 year old timber window frames…
We also vacuumed the walls and ceilings. They are both VJ boards (I guess shiplap is maybe close in the US?) and they were extremely dusty and they aren’t anymore 
We moved a shelf from the spare room to where it didn’t fit previously due to curtains and plonked a plant on it.
It is well on the way from place we sleep and wade through washing to find clothing to an actually nice and relaxing spot.
Wow that sounds like a big change.
Also reminds me I should add “wash curtains” to my cleaning list …
I got 1 load of washing on: school uniforms. I might put on another small load after bedtime.
Top 3 best decisions I’ve ever made:
More gross befores, although they really don’t do it justice.
And, after!
I still want to clean the freezer, organize both sides, clean the outside, and clean underneath. One day at a time!
These are SOOOOO satisfying, thank you. Those befores are…. 
Just wait until I get around to the oven 
Please tell us the story of #2 of it is allowed
House is clean. Thanks cleaners.
I am happy with myself for doing just enough yesterday. We were having a little b-day celebration for me last night with my son and family. Instead of digging in and doing an all-day cleaning session, I just went through and did a quick vac and dry mop on all floors, wiped off kitchen counters and cleaned bathroom mirrors. Everything looked just fine and I was able to enjoy the day without being either stressed out or tired out. That’s a big win for me.
It is! This happened when we’d been dating for about a month. Her version would be, she bought me a sandwich and I tried to break up with her, and then I ate the sandwich. (Not inaccurate)
My version is: I had just got out of a fine but dramatic and bad relationship where I didn’t feel listened to. I was helping my now-wife with an errand that involved going to a sandwich shop. She asked if I wanted a sandwich and I said no, but she ordered me one anyways. I was worried that this was the kind of early yellow flag I’d missed in my last relationship.
Now that I know her, I know that this is exactly the kind of thing she and her family are pushy about. Oh well!! Now I have to have sandwiches I didn’t ask for forever. Worst fates out there I guess.
Things have gotten very f*cked around here, mostly due to a kitchen renovation disrupting our routines and getting dust everywhere. Now that the dust has settled we’re working on unfucking the entire house room by room. We were due for a good spring cleaning anyway.
We started with the main bedroom and bathroom. So far the most satisfying part has been removing the tumbleweeds of cat hair from the corners. There’s no door to the bedroom closet, just an opening, and the cats like to sleep on the floor under the clothes that are hung up, so cat hair accumulates at an alarming rate.
We’re reorganizing things as we go, and I’m going to try not to store anything on the floor of this closet. That way we’ll be able to sweep up the cat hair more easily.
So this was a huge change for me. One big thing- when I DID have to use the space (like after a Costco stock up), I only put very large things like 25lb bags of rice, and sealed paper goods like the bulk paper towels and TP. That way it’s easy to move as a unit and there’s no way the dust will contaminate things. This can also help if you’re a “nature abhors a vaccum” sort- it ends up being like planned clutter sort of, haha. Harm reduction, home fuckery edition.
Ooh, I think boxes of off season clothes would solve the nature abhors a vacuum issue and the cats wouldn’t try to eat them. I was keeping off season shoes at the bottom of the closet but it was hard to clean around them and then the shoes kept getting full of cat hair. I’ll make space for off season shoes in a closet that has a door.
If you do opt for something like shoes, a closed bin with a lid is a good way to achieve the same thing! Any way you can reduce the number of “units” to be moved and cleaned can really help. Way easier to drag out two bins and sweep than to have 40 individual shoes to move 
(And no judgement on nature abhors a vacuum- im purposely keeping yogurt I don’t like in the back of my fridge because otherwise the back of the top shelf is where useful things go to die. As much as I would love to not be this person, I’ve learned to try to just work with myself, because ultimately my basic nature will win out 
I’ve been meaning to set up something like this in our fridge, with an empty container. So many lost items!
On our bottom shelf we use stuff like fire tonic, so it can live there indefinitely while being useful, and middle shelf it’s olives and pickles- useful, long lasting, rarely used. Worked out organically over time for us. 
Eventually I stopped fighting it haha.
Haha I love this! It seems like her reassurance and great communication brought you two closer! <3 (Sorry I am so nosey)
