I Need to Quit Making Plans!

First, the progress: 

 

The guest room was about half done this morning when the bathroom dude showed up to install our new tub and shower surround.  I was feeling pretty confident that I would get it done, and I was already thinking about what other projects I could post about, since this worked so well to keep me motivated.  The salesman that I worked with when we bought this shower system told me that installation usually takes two days, but since we did the demo and plumbing ourselves he thought this installation would be completed in one day.  I guess he didn't share that theory with the installer.  The dude showed up right on time.  He was very nice and got right to work.  Ninety minutes later, he left for the day.  He said he'd finish everything tomorrow. Because I expected the work to be going on all day, I took the night off work.  It was too late to change that, as my coworkers had already adjusted their schedules to cover for me.  So I burned a vacation day.  Also, the installer left all his materials and tools here.  He has a lot of stuff, to the point that I wasn't able to get into the guest room to finish the cleaning.  I was also planning to get the bathroom cleaned up and all the finishing - towel bars, shower curtain rod, etc, installed tonight.  Sigh.  There's always next weekend. 

Outing Myself

Walker is not going to like this post. It's a good thing he's never read my blog. *grin*   A couple days ago, Donna over at Just Me posted a picture of the mess she made in her kitchen while making chicken stock. It got me thinking: you post a photo like that and you're pretty much obligated to clean up the mess.  I'm sure Donna's kitchen is back to normal.  Here's the thing: my house is a mess.Well, parts of the house are mess.

Things started piling up after I was diagnosed with cancer.  We were at the clinic several times a week for biopsies, tests, meetings.  I continued to work full time until I had surgery, but even when I was home for six weeks I was limited in what I was allowed to do.  Walker was working a full shift at his job, then going to training at the same job (they got new equipment and he had to learn how to use it) for four to eight hours after his regular shift.  He did this six to seven days a week.  If he wasn't working he was either sleeping or sitting with me at the clinic or the cancer center.

I've kept up with the laundry, dishes, groceries, the stuff that absolutely needs to be done.  Our bedroom is clean, as are both bathrooms and most of the kitchen.  But there are pockets of "clutter" around the house that have been growing since last fall.  Our guest room has taken the biggest hit.  We just open the door and toss stuff in there when we don't have time to put it away.

Now, of course, all the stuff from the bathroom - towel bars, the scale, a box full of shampoo and body wash and assorted shower paraphernalia - is piled in the hall.  It's pretty easy to ignore the situation when you can close the door and not look at it.  Unfortunately, the mess in the hallway is a constant reminder of the mess I don't see in the guest room.

So I'm outing myself, LOL.  I am off work until Tuesday night.  Sometime between now and then I'll post updates to the photos below.  Hopefully the updates will show a whole new view.  I can't believe I'm doing this, but I hope it will keep me motivated to deal with it.

 This is the desk in the kitchen.  That pile of notebooks and papers is all the cancer stuff I've gotten from the clinic and the insurance companies.  I bought a binder to store it all, but have not put anything in the binder.  Yet.

And here's my guest room.  I can't believe how long I've let this go.  Every time I went in there to clean up I felt totally overwhelmed and just turned around and left.  With the door closed, I could pretend the mess wasn't there. 

This is the desk by the front door.  Mail piles up here all week, until I clean on Sundays.  This bugs Walker more than anything else, because it's the first thing people see when they walk in our front door.  The bottle of margarita was a gift from some friends when I finished treatment.

I 'm off to start cleaning.  Wish me luck!