Cleaning tip

If you feel your hoover isn't sooking as well as it should, it's worth checking that the hose is not blocked by such things as odd bits of plastic, straws, or the handle of a violin case.

At least I think that's what this is.

Faces

The problem with things with faces is that it seems so sad to throw them out 😟

This was once a very happy bin. It still looks very happy - but isn't really a bin any more...

Bad tidying advice

Often articles about tidying say things like ' if you haven't opened a box in a year, just chuck it - you obviously don't need it."

These articles are obviously written by naturally tidy people.

I've just come across a basket - from before lockdown - filled with varying things: old receipts and Sunday school pictures, which could easily be chucked; coloured paper, leftover craft materials and various folders, which were worth keeping but I wouldn't have missed...

...and my employment contract. 

Glad I didn't just chuck the whole lot!

Fictional cleaning

From Front Runner by Felix Francis

How on earth does one do all of that in 3 hours?

Btw, if you ever do want to remove fingerprint powder, Barkeeper's Friend will do it where nothing else will.

Wish I'd thought of this sooner

I've had a bit of a tidying bug recently (about time) and I've been greatly helped by this file. I got it years ago and never used it, but I eventually found it hiding in the loft.

So much tidying involves going through heaps of paper. A lot can be recycled, but I never know what to do with the stuff I really do want to keep, so it accumulates in piles, that then need to be sorted through again...

But now it has a home!

Many books*

These were all piled up beside my bed. Maybe I should put them back on their shelves

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*Also a few DVDs

Desk

I wonder if this will help my work? :-D

Before

After

More tidying :-)

Actually did the bookcase a few weeks ago, but didn't post it.

Before (couldn't open the door any further)
There is a sort of categorisation underneath this...

After
Was interested to discover I have a shelf & a half of Christian fiction!

The main problem with this is that it's full - and of course I will add more. But I do have other shelf space. And there are a few books I put back that I may well not keep

You know your room needed tidied when you couldn't find a bag this size for 6 months...

Before

Now!
Still needs more, but getting there...

Waste

There's something wrong with a society in which all these perfectly good containers are just rubbish, to be thrown away - or at best, recycled.

Optical illusion

Was tidying my bookshelf. Space is a bit tight, so I wondered if stacking books vertically might help.

I looked at my RJ Anderson books. A row of 7 books.

(ignore the shelf labels. They are left over from a youthful attempt to label all my books like they were in a library.)

Since the row is longer than the books are tall, I could save space by rotating them and stacking them vertically.

So I did.

It's shorter.

This is a scientific fact, proven by experimentation.

I still don't believe it.

Tidying

Before:

I really need to remove my childhood sticker collection from my chest of drawers. Other things are a bit more of a priority, though.

After:

If only I can keep it this way...

Took almost 3 albums worth of time.

Unfortunately, this was one of the easier bits...

Never tidy up

It's our nativity on Sunday, and the children will be singing. I'm looking for the cardboard sheets I use to mount the words of the song (in case they need a prompt). For several years, they​ were propped up against my bookcase. Obviously that was a really silly place to leave them, so, at some point, in a fit of tidiness, I evidently put them somewhere sensible. Before, I could have laid my hand on them in an instant. Now I have no idea where they are.

The moral: Never, ever tidy.

Arwen

Sorting out heaps of paper :-(

Found this sketch I did based on my mum mishearing me referring to Arwen* as half-elven :-)

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*From the Lord of the Rings, in case you have no idea what I'm on about.

Google helps you clear out

These are all books I was able to clear out because of Google. Before, I would always pick up cheap books with pictures of children or animals, in case I needed to draw them.

Now there's no point in having books about these things - you just Google it.

Guddle, guddle

Toil and trouble.
:-(

A little organic shape in a sea of rectangles.

My mum said she didn't think my dad had ever been described like that before.
But that's what I immediately thought when I saw him sorting out boxes.

Me too

From xkcd

This may be the way ahead...

I didn't draw this - it's from xkcd

More tidying

I have found an empty drawer in my room. I don't mean I have emptied it - it was empty (apart from two old advent calendars), and I didn't even realise it, because there were boxes in front of it.

I have now filled the second paper recycling bag to the brim. Mostly old magazines, which I was keeping for the Sunday School kids to cut pictures out of. But you don't really need several boxes of magazines to cut pictures out of once every few years.

And I found a list of New Years' resolutions from, I think, the year I was 7:

An important piece of social history

Found in my room:

I remember Shiny Buttons coming to playgroup. The policeman asked him to sing his song, and he sang, "I'm the king of the castle; you're the dirty wee rascal," because he was being naughty. But then he sang his proper song, which was, "Stop, look and listen, before you cross the street. Use your eyes, and use your ears, before you use your feet."

In other news: Did you know that if you leave boiled sweets in a tin long enough, they will not only seep out of their wrappings, but through the join at the bottom of the tin? Fortunately, it soaks off easily.