no scrubs

oh man, what a messy week.

i don't mean that literally, though i have been doing some serious tidying-up wherever i go.  i started sorting through juan's collection of things in his basement "apartment" last sunday after waking up with stronger-than-usual ambition.  i must have thrown away twenty empty bottles of vitamins and protein powder and supplements.  pink lemonade is a very, very strong smell for a powder, FYI.

coco also got her typical sunday morning bath, ear-cleaning, face-wipe, and all of her sheets/bedding washed.  i swapped out her towels - she's taken to ripping up wee pads so juan had put older dishtowels down in place of them - and disinfected her pen area. i washed blankets and sheets, threw out old pillows, and did some recycling of old papers and boxes that had been laying around, unused.  

wednesday and thursday were get-down-to business days in my room. when i'm super stressed, sometimes it helps to put the ipod on shuffle, sing along, and start chucking ish.  day one was pretty successful and i had enough energy and good will on thursday to finish out.

unfortunately, i'm allergic to dust (in addition to the millions of other things) so my face swelled up like a balloon thursday night, so i stopped cleaning and called it quits.  i'm still feeling and looking a mess today.

so, the befores....

yes, this was what it looked like.

you can't see them because of the hutch doors, but i had piled
three boxes' worth of papers and recyclables against the wall

yeah, that was pretty bad.  photos have a hard time doing the mess justice.  and now the afters!  

clothes are sorted for laundry and to be put away

no more papers from the eighth graders!

desk, without all of paperwork i need to organize.
confession: the stack is about seven inches high

closet looks... better?

note that these photos are from thursday night after the dust-provoked allergy attack.  i'd venture to say that i'm about 75% done.  shredded countless reems of paper - including a lot of student teaching information that i won't need anymore - and supplies that i'd been savings in the event that i got a teaching job - again, painful, but a good way to move on. i have to do a few baskets' worth of laundry, swap out summer clothes for "fall", but I don't have much, and organize all of the papers and trinkets in the hutch and on my desk.  all in all, it's another two days' worth of work, but i'm confident i'll get it done soon.  uncle gib said it'll take me two more weeks on wednesday night and then that it'd take a month on thursday.  i'm pretty sure i can beat that! 

this week:  finish reading three books. while cleaning, i found at least twenty books that i'd forgotten that i owned. i need to center myself in quiet reflection after a flurry of activity... and also check a few books off of my goodreads list!