Pictures going up!

Like I said it's been five years since I moved and it wasn't until last month when I got a picture up. I still have about four more to go but eight of them are mounted. I also replaced a few of the frames with newer pictures. I also had to work on the living room again as it was getting messy with all the moving around.

I used to post every day, but I figured "nothing done today" was pretty pointless. Over the last several days I've been real distracted and haven't felt like doing much. Last night was the first solid working day in a while.

Reducing the memories

I know I talked about getting the spackling done yesterday but I decided to tackle another huge sideproject -- scanning all the documents of the past and tossing them to reduce the clutter. It was a tough job, especially when I came across some letters from my deceased mother. She was an avid writer and wrote me a ton of letters while in college (20 years ago). I'd say I have around 95% of them still. These are symptoms of an atypical hoarder. Once it comes into your life, it's hard to part with it. I put a dent in that project.. a small dent.. but any progress is helpful. I may try to tackle more if it tonight.

Took a break

The bathroom cleanup was enough that I thought I deserved a break. I hope to get the spackling done tonight.

The dreaded bathroom

Oh the bathroom.. I delayed you as much as possible, but it was time to do something about you last night. I first had to clean everything out of the bathroom and put everything back to where it belonged or trash it. After that was done, it was a face mask, Lysol, and a whole roll of towel paper on the offensive and I began work on the floor and commode. The floor didn't need to be perfect because... believe it or not.. the spackle I talked about weeks ago is still there. Following that was cleaning the shower curtain, large wall mirror and the sink. No easy task. After about three hours of work, it's beginning to look like a bathroom again. Still need to do some touchups that I won't worry about until after sanding the spackle. Hopefully tonight.

PS1 Distraction

A few days ago I pulled out my XBox and Dreamcast machine and yesterday I found all the components to a Sony Playstation. I already knew where my CDs were so I hooked everything up and played for a couple hours. The graphics seemed pretty outdated compared to the Dreamcast. I just have a few remnants of the first few boxes to sort through and one rather large box of miscellaneous stuff and I would finally have unpacked everything when I moved five years ago!

This evening I have no choice but to work on the bathroom. It's pretty much in the same state since I've started because I hate cleaning the bathroom... but tonight is the night to make it "niece ready".

Boxes everywhere!

Now that I have a clean room to work in, I am going into the laundry room and pulling out a box at a time to determine whether something is worth keeping, scanning then tossing, or tossing. I came across a large box of childhood stuff including a large stack of Star Wars, Close Encounters, Mork and Mindy and other 70s classics. I got sidetracked a lot by sifting through all the cards but I got a good bit done.

My tape collection is now reduced to a much more manageable size and will be reduced further once I mp3 them (yet another side project.. sigh). Also, I got my Christmas tree mostly down. It was up this long with hopes that someone would come by to see it but no one ever did. If I can get my house done, I can start inviting people over.

Tonight I'm finishing the Christmas tree and hope to get my basement done if not nearly done. That would be a first if I accomplish it.

Audio tape organizing

About six years ago I did a tape-mp3 project. I thought I got them all done but I found a large box full of tapes that didn't get converted. I spent most of the evening going through them, but winded up listening to a lot of tapes I haven't heard in nearly 20 years. I got them sorted by trash tapes to throw away, tapes to keep but not convert and tapes to convert. Not sure when I'll get around to that but I winded up trashing about half the tapes. That simple side project took around 4-5 hours to do. This evening I'm continuing with the basement and getting about six months of mail shredded and caught up (I do everything online but still get paper bills)

Football distraction

Watched football and didn't get anything done. It was a very odd day. The hours rolled by so fast. I was on youtube or playing the piano. Hope for a better report tomorrow.

Took a break yesterday

Had a 20 year reunion to go to and spent the majority of the day going to that. Good seeing old friends again. Sadly, I could not invite anyone back home to visit but I don't think it would have worked out anyway. This evening is free though so expect some good progress reports tomorrow.

Reversing the damage

Today I spent most of the day in the bedroom reversing the "fake cleaning" I had to do yesterday. When I had a visitor arriving, I had to act fast to get the place clean enough and that meant to throw everything in one room and shut the door. The bedroom was so full, I couldn't open the door. This is after 19 days of cleaning! Please do not ever let yours get this bad. If I can get the bedroom done, I need to work in the kitchen as a lot of the items got thrown in the cabinets!

Fake cleaning...

I had perfect timing in working on my laundry room. My furnace shut down and it's in the same location. I called a family member who does that kind of stuff and he said he could come over in about an hour. That was barely enough time to move things around to make it look half way presentable. Upstairs, my bedroom is packed full of stuff from other rooms and the basement had a bunch of stuff hidden behind chairs. It could have been a LOT worse but thanks to three weeks of cleaning, I was able to make the path from the door to the furnace presentable in time. Today will be a day of sorting through the mess and putting things up/throwing things away the proper way.

Not much today

Had a bad day distraction wise. I was on the Internet most of the day yesterday. Only thing I started to do was try to get my audio tapes organized. That's a big project in itself. I did manage to finish up the game cds, but that was only a five minute process. Hope to have better progress to report tomorrow.

Ok laundry room, you're next!

Ah the laundry room. You'd think that means a very small cramped space, but it's actually the biggest room in the basement. It holds the furnace and a huge three level storage shelve that is completely full. I had a good first day at tackling it. First up was to remove the remaining clothes, pick up everything on the floor that is loose, sweep up all the dirt that has built up in five years, and remove the haunted house worthy nests of cobwebs that are everywhere. No small task. I took a big bite out of it last night after a few sessions of paralysis. Paralysis again is when you stop and stare at the huge task in front of you and you are overwhelmed to the point of not moving. I again got a good picture of the area and ran upstairs to a clean room to think it over.

My game CDs were here so I first grabbed all of the CDs and brought them to a new room. We're talking PS1, PS2, Dreamcast, XBox, and Wii games along with games off the Internet burned on DVD.. about 150-200 in all. I'm just about done with that and I got some general sweeping done and moving around boxes. It looks a lot better as I can now walk all the way to the wall and back without tripping over anything. Today I'm finishing the game cds and continuing with the laundry/storage room.

Exercise room... DONE!

Yes, I can't believe it either. I'll try to get a picture of it as it's finally made out to be what it's supposed to be used for. Took over five days I guess to wade through everything. That makes two rooms out of five done with another nearly done. If I can manage to get all five rooms cleaned out down there, it'd be the first time ever since I've moved.

Trust me, it wasn't easy. With ADD, finding something that makes you say "Oh wow, I haven't seen this in years!" will happen, and may delay you for hours. I also tend to send in a chair while taking a break and think, snapping out of it sometimes a half hour later. But if you keep going, you'll only remember the victory when it's done.

As big a deal as the exercise room is, the laundry room is a monster. I've been nibbling in there too but when it's done it is also going to need floor paint. Off again to try to make some progress.

Lazy Sunday

I found out indirectly that there have been talks about my home being in the state it's in. My brother in laws friend and I talked for a bit today and he asked if the nieces ever come over to visit sometimes. That kind of struck me as a odd question and I told him not often but sometimes (last time was a very long time ago). He said something to the affect that they probably wouldn't last long in the condition anyway. Wow that was mean! I never told him about my issues but my brother in law did come over unannounced and saw the living room in a very bad state. So I'm a little miffed that I have been talked about behind my back, but you have to use the negative and make it positive. I'll continue with the cleaning project.

It wasn't until 10 pm when I finally decided to get something done, but it was only a few minutes into it when I got tired and went to bed. It's 9:55 am right now so I'm going to tackle it right now.

Still going..

I got hit with procrastination followed by paralysis of too much to tackle. This is how bad my place is.. I spent four solid hours in the basement yesterday yet when I went down to continue today, I was struck with just how many avenues that still had to be looked after. I piddled around all day on the Internet and TV sitcoms, followed by a visit to the nieces, then followed by pizza and tv football. I began to tackle it around 9:30 pm..a little too late. When I finally got around to it, I couldn't decide what to go after and I ran back up. However, I got a good mental picture of what every room was like. I went into my nearly clean living room with a pad and pen and sat down to think it over. I decided to tackle a carpet side project.

When I bought the foreclosure, the carpet was in ruins so I bought new carpet about four years ago. As usual, there were leftovers so I stored them downstairs with everything else. I grabbed a razor knife (yes, I knew where it was!) and got to work on cutting up the carpet to pieces I can use in different rooms downstairs. After carving out three useful pieces, I tossed the rest and this cleared up a lot of space. Seeing that extra space encouraged me to clean further, and I am very close to getting my exercise room cleaned out. I can't say how strange it is to look in there and see how open it is. I hope to get a lot of use out of it when I complete the task today.

Still much more to do, but I'm tackling it piece by piece.

Use anger to your advantage

Something snapped in me Friday.. probably re-reading my posts and just being angry at tripping over every d@mn thing in the house. I had the best day to date in getting my house somewhat organized, mostly working in the basement. There were two areas out of five being used simply for storage and I got sick of looking at it. Cardboard boxes everywhere along with dust, clothes, electronics and everything else under the sun. I also kept tons of empty boxes for use with future ebay sells and I realized how dumb that was. I broke down the boxes and that was a big help in itself. I could actually see the other side of the wall. I then gathered all the clothes (many many clothes) on the floor and either brought them upstairs or put them in the nearby washer. I did three loads (!) and I still have one or two left. What's the use of having clothes if you aren't going wear them right?

The DVD project is done! The hundreds and hundreds of DVDs are all snug in their boxes or binders but I still have my game CD collection to go through. There is only around 40 or 50 of those and should be much more manageable.

I also brought up my acoustic and electric guitar and banjo in my newly cleaned computer room that also had my Yamaha keyboard brought up a few days earlier. I played my electric guitar for the first time in over a year last night. They were downstairs in the "exercise room" collecting dust. I also managed to get that room close to half way done as well.

Still, much more work to do but I'd say I put in nearly 4 hours of work on the place with around 4 hours of rest and distractions yesterday. With this being Saturday, I hope for a good day again and plan to have this place niece friendly by mid February.

Finally, a good day

There comes a point where you just get angry at yourself being surrounded by messes in every room. I used that emotion in a positive manner to set out on a cleaning expedition around the house. I was making good progress until I came across my missing Xbox and Sega Dreamcast from years ago that was stored (and buried) in a cardboard box. I noticed both power cables were missing so I spent about an hour tracking those down too. I got them both hooked up to my HDTV and have enjoyed playing them again.

Along with that, I bought two blinds for my basement back in October, but never got around to putting them up. I got that done after a lot of problems mounting them to concrete as well. Finally, I worked on the living room and it's nearly cleaned once again. The kitchen is far from clean but progress was made there too.

Good progress, but if you look at the overall picture, it's crazy how much has to be done here. Hopefully I'll continue with as good a day as today.

A Paralyzing Situation

If I could break down my ADD in three issues, it's these. I get easily overwhelmed with my workload and I tend to run away from it. Watching Netflix, playing a quick game or getting on the Internet is much more interesting. I've talked about that before. I also have a problem with unfinished tasks. Remember the DVD project from days before? Wouldn't it make sense to finish it off for a small victory instead of moving on to something else? I am counting about 40 more to do which is so close to being done with that. Lastly, I get sidetracked with thoughts like "I wonder what the lyrics of this is" when I try to work and I end up getting on the Internet and staying there.

I think understanding you have a problem is half the solution. I will keep working on it (and continue cleaning slowly but surely).

Interview day

Yesterday, I had one of three interviews I was going to in the last two days. This interview was brutal both in distance and in the actual interview. I got nothing done when I got home.

Today I had not one but two interviews so a good part of the day was preparing and going to those. Afterwards, I was exhausted and went to bed. Waking up, I felt like playing the piano and did so for about two hours or more. I then got on the net for some Youtube videos, and after picking up a free pizza from Papa Johns, I began to watch, ironically, Hoarders. So here I am at 10:30 pm and I'm beginning to get tired again. The pizza was good, but it always drags me down because I usually eat too much. I am going to try to get some cleaning done downstairs when I get off here.

The basement will be mine!

Yesterday I got distracted a lot. It's pretty bad when you say to yourself you are going to the basement to clean and you get sidetracked on the way there. My basement is divided into five rooms and I decided to tackle the rooms leading to the "exercise" room, still currently a storage room. The room right by the entrance is near done and would have been done if I didn't bring something upstairs only to be sidetracked with the Internet again. Stupid Internet...

I have an interview today but I still plan to head downstairs again. There is still so much to do.. but you have to take it one room at a time.

Massage induced ADD

It's been a whole decade since I had gotten a massage and a recent Groupon deal made me give it a whirl. The poor girl had a decade of tightness to deal with, especially in my shoulder area. Today, a day later, I'm more sore than relieved. I probably need two or three sessions to really get it all out.

I didn't get a thing done afterwards. I went to an Italian restaurant and came home stuffed and sore and didn't feel like working. After a nap, I ended up playing the piano for around three to four hours and went back to bed around 3 am. Being unemployed does have it's advantages as I got up around 11:30 am today. Going to try to push through the soreness and continue work on the exercise room.

Oh, I did do ONE thing.. I got a picture up! It's been laying in the corner ever since I moved here five years ago.

Five simple words jumpstarted me

I bought a foreclosure five years ago and thankfully only minor issues have arised. I had a leaky sink in the bathroom and a plumber came out to fix it. What does one do with a messy house? Simple. Stuff everything from the living room, kitchen and bath into one room and close the rest of the doors in the house. Took about an hour to make it "fake" presentable. When he came in, he noticed my framed pictures leaning against the wall and said "Just bought the house huh?". Wow.

When he left, I sort of took that comment as motivation and set out to work on the exercise room. I spent two hours down there with minor distractions. If the Internet is not accessable (meaning I had to climb the stairs to get on it), I seem to be a lot better with staying focused.

Good intentions don't get work done

I really wanted to tackle a lot of the mess in my house yesterday, but I swear the Internet is the most distracting product ever! It takes one thought... one anything, and I lose an hour. I checked the weather, bye bye hour. I checked a blank DVD with no label, bye bye hour. Couple that with the classic "I am going to get this done when I get back from dinner" and my house is in pretty much the same shape it was two days ago. So here it is Saturday. Will I accomplish something today? I think so. I am going to tackle the "exercise" room which has become a storage area. Wish me luck!

Busy job hunt day

I'm unemployed but the first of the year is normally when the companies open up for new hires. It was a BUSY day yesterday as I was literally on the phone or emailing recruiters from 9:30-4:30 pm. At the end of the day I ended up watching tv and watching youtube videos as I was not in the mood for anything else. When all hope seemed lost to make progress, I got in the mood for a frozen pork chop around 9:30 pm so I made it with my George Foreman. About a half hour later, I felt ready to tackle something so I went after the DVDs again. Another half hour to an hour of work, and they will all finally be where they belong! How many days did DVD organizing take? Way too many, but that's ADD for you.

Sleep deprevation?

Yesterday, I got NOTHING done. I got home at 3:00 pm after babysitting my nieces (at their home of course), got this huge need to take a nap around 5:00 and woke up at 10:30 pm. I then piddled around on the computer, watched a few episodes of "Heavy" on Netflix (pretty good) and went back to bed. Wasted day. Hope to report better progress tomorrow.

You know you have ADD when...

Wow, what a day that screamed "I am an ADDer". Note in my blog yesterday that I said I was going to go to my sisters house to watch the kids. It wasn't today, it's tomorrow. She said she told me it was Wednesday not Tuesday and of course I believe her. So I go home with my laptop and go inside. I then decide to go out for lunch only to go to my car and realize my $1000 laptop is still in the car! It was in my car unlocked for over three hours. Also, I JUST now realized I have undryed clothes waiting downstairs. They've been washed and waiting to be dryed for over 12 hours. You have to laugh about yourself and not worry about these things.

My dishes are finally done! It took four hours, not because of the volume, but for the distractions. I would let the dishes soak, walk away, and come back an hour later. It's been about two months when I could say that every dish has been up and stored away. You have to celebrate the small things.

I need to get started on the unsanded spackle (tackle the spackle??) in the bathroom today. If I say spackle and paint, nothing will get done. Small baby steps is key.

Losing focus at night

Do you find yourself going gung ho over getting organized in the morning but find as the day winds down, you wind down with it? It makes sense on work days... the last thing I want to do is tackle clutter and ADD after a hard day of work... but even on weekends I've noticed I'm best about an hour after waking up. I didn't bother doing anything the last six hours before bed last night.

Yesterday (morning of course), I tackled more of the DVD clutter I have and general living room mess. I would say now that I have under 100 more to go through and organizing (finishing!) those would be a big achievement. It'd been probably be five years when I could say that every DVD is labeled and every store bought DVD is in it's own case...course I'm sure I'll find more under clutter.

My sink is still full. I've drained and added soap and water to the dishes three times yesterday but I still haven't tackled that yet. I don't have a dishwasher but that's just an excuse.

I am off today but my sister needs me to watch over the kids today for about five hours. For both of the kids grandparents, it's "can I drop the kids off?" For me it's.. "Do you mind staying at the house for a little while?". She knows better, but one day I'll be able to surprise her and say "Just drop them off on your way".

Disabling Facebook

I realize that FB is a big part of distraction too. Since it is a new year, I have decided to go on a "Facebook diet". I'm tired of wasting time on there. I have over 250 "friends" but only care about updates from family and the few friends I have. Thankfully, FB has "unsubscribe". It's a step above unfriending and completely anonymous. I spent the morning unsubscribing from updates from all but six people and setup email notification in case I (rarely) get a personal email. I still find myself going there but I know I'll get bored of the lack of updates in a hurry.

I tackled more of the unlabeled DVDs last night. Trust me, there are a TON, but it will be awesome to have them all labeled in my three DVD binders. I also plan on tackling the dirty dishes in the sink. I hate that job, and it's so difficult to continue once I start. Have a great 1/2/2012!

2012 ADD Journey

Hello all,

Just call me CH. I'm here on 1/1/2012 I am on a mission to defeat my ADD inattentive condition along with my social anxiety and being an atypical hoarder. Yes, I am a mixed bag.

First, my ADD. I am the one who forgets a present at a friends house that was just handed to him a few minutes ago. I am the one who drives to a restaurant only to pass it up and not realize it miles down the road due to being deep in thought (never had an accident in 25 years of driving though..)

I am the one with over a dozen house projects going at the same time. I am the one who is reading seven or more books at a time but never finish any of them. I am the one trying to study for a computer exam only to be distracted by another game of Ms Pacman. I am the one who goes downstairs to wash his clothes and forgets about them 24-48 hours only to have to wash them again. I am the one who starts to wash the dishes, goes away to "let them soak" and only remembers about them when he comes across the unfinished chore the following morning. I am the one who while playing Pictionary, you yell out the correct answer but I miss it.

Now, regarding my social anxiety, I do not like crowds. Meeting new people is torture for me. If you don't say, "Oh, by the way, this is CH", that new person will never know my name. My Fridays are normally spent at home in front of the computer watching Youtube videos. If you are lucky enough to become my friend, you will be for life though. I have three people that I can call friends and each of them have been friends for over 30 years.

Hoarding - I love memories. I love that each one of the objects in my home brings back a memory. Thankfully, I do not go to the stores and buy stuff as compulsive hoarders do, but normally what goes in my home stays. Actually, I wouldn't have even called myself a hoarder if it wasn't for a tv show about the condition and someone with my traits was labeled "atypical". I am a procrastinator and lack self-motivation and is easily distracted so daily chores that are done without thinking for some are very difficult for me and that adds to the problem.

I have made progress in 2011 where my living room is nearly clean, but the other rooms in the home need a lot of work. And, with this being a foreclosure I bought, there is a ton of additional work that needs to be done and is very hard doing it all by yourself. Getting paralyzed with the work load is a good way of putting it, and I tend to run away to the computer room or ignore it and watch something on Netflix. This is a tragedy though. Why? I have three growing nieces a few blocks away and I can't invite them due to the mess and condition of the home. Even above defeating the ADD and social anxiety, I want my nieces here.

So that's me. I plan on updating this frequently but with ADD you never know. Wish me luck... taking a deep breath and plan on tackling the kitchen once again.

CH