'Twas the day after Christmas...

...and I was TIRED when I woke up at 8:00. Went back to sleep till around 10:00 and was still tired, but I got up cuz the cat had to be fed. I spent most of the day knitting, watching TV, and eating, but in the back of my mind was my declaration that I'd do 15 minutes each of decluttering and cleaning.

So at around 5:30, I got started on the decluttering by taking the stack of papers and books on my table and sorting them out for filing, putting away, and recycling. I managed to put away a couple of books and magazines and sort stuff into piles for each drawer of the file cabinet, then hit a snag when I started filing because there were papers missing! So I had to hunt for the missing stuff, which took some time, and then put all THAT into the proper piles. I ended up doing two 15-minute increments. I didn't finish the filing yet, but I did recycle about 10 old newspapers and some stock info that I didn't need to keep, along with several envelopes from stuff I hadn't previously opened. This stuff had been hidden away at Thanksgiving, so it's about time I dug it out to be filed/trashed. Right now the cat is enjoying lying on the various piles of paper on the floor.

I then did 15 minutes of cleaning, spending the whole time on my shower tile and the tub. My shower tile is a mess all the time, because whoever put in the shower and faucets did a terrible job of retiling. The grout is disgusting, but since it's not a life or death issue I will have to write a letter to my landlord and probably call the city for a maintenance request in order to get it fixed. So I muddle through with cleaning as best I can. The tub is in a similar situation - the porcelain is peeling off. Personally, I don't know why the tub needs a porcelain coating anyhow. It's an old cast-iron tub and it's white, so to me the porcelain seems like an unnecessary bother. I'm sure the tub would be much easier to keep clean without it. Hm. Maybe I'll try to remove it.

Anyway. I had forgotten how good it felt to get things done, and how much can be done in 15 minutes. I'll be doing this again tomorrow - probably will finish the filing and clean the rest of the bathroom. Who knows, maybe I'll even do another 15 minutes on the filing tonight. I just got done doing the dishes (they don't count as cleaning cuz you really should keep up with them every day) though, so I might just sit back with my knitting and watch Britcoms and An American in Paris for the rest of the night :) Don't want to burn out my declutter urges!