Because I order things online if I find i'm without something I need I could be screwed for the week. So if I ran out of boxers or socks or bread or peanut butter or something then it's going to be a difficult week.
Are you ordering from any place that has overnight/same-day/2-day delivery? If so, no catastrophe if you run out unexpectedly.
And on the boxers/socks, maybe setting a specific day for laundry could make it less hit & miss.
I could also put a t shirt around my nose to stop the dust I guess.
OK
I don't know what country you're in, I read through so am editing and see it sounds like Australia, so obvs the US links aren't applicable. Consider them just examples. I used Amazon links mostly, but even if that's not a good source for you, I'm certain that someway, somehow, some of these kinds of things are procurable.
And sure you can use a tshirt, but I was not kidding about basic dust masks.
Here's one:
Or here's 50 for $14.29 or 5 for $5.85:
I'll try to start vacuuming and scrubbing dust off of things.
Yay! Remember if dust is thick use a damp (fully wet, but wrung out) rag, and rinse a bunch. And change the bag before it's totally full. The vac will lose suction if it's too full.
The problem is I live in a very small house with no shelves as there isn't really space for any so it's hard to find homes for anything.
Again, I'm mindful of budgets, but
Those are just some completely random things. There are bigger and smaller options, stacking options, etc.
If you group your stuff you can conceptualize the kinds of things that might be helpful to neaten things up.
I eat standing at the kitchen counter so I get food on the carpet sometimes.
Why? Sit down.
Is there room for another small table you can pick up for cheap? Even a folding table?
Or do you have a sofa with a table? That works - but you've got to get the table cleared off. Then buy a placemat and sit yourself down with a plate, mat, utensils and a napkin. Eat sitting. It feels better.
I can say that I struggle to think of any woman I've ever spoken to online or that I know in real life (family members) that have anything they are passionate about
Now you have.
If I let my mum clean then she will do things like use my towels to wipe down the shower and then leave dirty chemical covered sodding wet towels in a pile in the garage.
Even better: shop rags:
100 for $22 or 12 for $6:
And you can rewash these or, if fully disgusting, then they belong in the garbage & your mum is right to bin them. Take out the garbage and they're gone. Let them go and be glad of it.
I can understand that they have seen it all but I still feel a lot of stress about it, I at least need to get rid of all the excess food boxes and empty stuff that I need to wash out and recycle.
Ever heard the phrase, "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"?
I recommend committing it to memory and repeating it every time you think, "well, I can't do that until/because x."
Grab a bag and toss empty food boxes. Won't take forever and if you don't get them all on the first pass, the good news is you get as many passes as you want.
But say, set a goal of 10 minutes this weekend. Get a garbage bag (or 2 or 3, whatever) and toss any food box that is empty, near- empty, stale, gross, whatever. Make it 5 minutes, even. If you get 3 boxes tossed, you're 3 ahead of today. And feel good about that. And do it again the next day/week.
Because I get groceries delivered they sometimes fuck it up and miss things so I tend to get double ups so that I can get by, especially since things go out of stock all the time in this era.
This is where stacking storage boxes can help corral things, esp. overstock. And labels or just a permanent ink pen to label the bins will mean you can always locate what you need. But again, perfection is not the goal. A nice feeling when something has a place that makes sense and isn't being clutter is the goal.
the hardest thing of all to make look new (other than the shower perhaps)
Again: don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Do any of these things, then keep doing them, and they will look and be better. If you have something that is beat up beyond basic cleaning help, deal with that later, once things are semi-regularly cleaned.
The small pantry is not great because it's next to the fridge and the heat from the fridge warms up the pantry so I don't like putting things in there.
Do you have other cupboards/cabinets? Maybe plates and such could go in the warm pantry and food is better in other places? Might be weird, but if it works and removes an irritation, that's useful.
Actually the hardest thing to clean will probably be the sink, I don't think cloth will provide enough rubbing power.
Whats the material? Metal or porcelain/ something else? A scrubber of some kind is good but the best choice may depend on material. And what's the issue - food bits, mold, grime...? If there's built-up grunge in seams and edges, a toothbrush is useful along with a rag/sponge and scrubber. Spray/sprinkle on cleaner, let sit, then use the brush in the nooks and crannies if you want those cleaned out.
Not necessary to get that detailed at first, but if you want to, you can. And if it's not all clean the first time, it will get better each time you give it a minute. Which, btw you can do anytime. You don't have to set aside a special "cleaning hour" - you could just take 15 seconds to get at something you notice, then come back to it next time you're there.
I've never heard of the term shining the sink, you are trying to make it sparkle? I'd like to be greeting by a clean sink, there was a time when it was all like that and I tried to keep it clean.
If you rinse it most of the time and give it a quick clean often, it will be good and look better and better. And for a shine, after rinsing/ cleaning, dry it with a clean dry cloth and rub it a bit to get a bit of shine. And same with the faucets. Water spots are somehow really depressing. For extra shine, some windex (window/mirror cleaner) sprayed on after a wash/dry and then wiped well can give a little extra sparkle.
The swish and shine paste didn't seem to work, it's cut off during the first paragraph.
Tap on it and it should open up. Or I can repaste it - lmk. It basically means a quick swipe of the toilet & sink. It's not a deep clean, just a way to keep a bathroom in decent shape once you've given it a good clean. So you don't have grime and dust invading. The lady I quoted says it takes one minute, but I'd say 2, maybe 5 you're not used to it. And the point is you do it while you're already there and doing other things, so it doesn't add real time, but you get a decent and non-gross space to come back to the next time.
ere is some humanity behind some if it still.
You value humanity, so you should do things that give you more of that.
Also the rare time I go for a walk
Go more.
I never look at my phone, I like the break from the screen and to enjoy the scenery. But yes, ever since I was little kid I've been on the net and playing games and all that and it has perhaps warped the way my brain works and processes things.
I 100% think this is true & applies to all of us spending any time online. So it's important to know that and do things that pull you away from it.
as if I have low blood pressure or something. It could be depression, could be anxiety, could be my bad diet or lack of vitamin d or something,
Could be any of those. Do you drink a lot of water? Eat natural/healthy food? Both of those will help. Not immediately but shortly. Maybe start with a water goal.
To be honest, unless and aside from larger medical issues, the things people always say are really and truly beneficial are in fact actually beneficial, even more than you might think:
- water
- adequate nutrients
- natural food
- moving regularly
- enough and quality sleep*
I'd add quiet time and interests. And regular medical and dental checkups, and getting any meds or following any advice given.
* saw you said you're at 5 hours/night. Why is that?
Small recomndation: practice thinking about what you are physically doing as much as you can. Literally, "I am putting down my house keys. I am hanging up my coat. I am walking into the kitchen and looking in the refrigerator. I think I'll have x. I'm getting out a pan and putting it on the stove, etc.".
Sounds dopey, but if your body and your mind are in different places, you miss a lot. When you are thinking deliberately about what you are doing, oddly something like, "ok, I'm going to use a placemat and set the table for myself" while x is cooking becomes easier and not "something that I can't be bothered with."
And you
may start to see that things it usually feels like you don't have time for or the energy or focus for actually fit kind of neatly into what you were already doing. And the whole experience may make an evening feel a little more grounded, better, soothing. (Which may also help your sleep, btw.)
If you can keep your thoughts centered on what you are actually doing, even if it feels stupid or unimportant at first, then a racing mind or feeling there isn't time enough for everything gets reined in somewhat. It takes practice and training and can be a little anxiety-producing, but when you make yourself do it enough, you likely start to see that it's actually a relief. No guilt, no "I should be...," just, "here I am and I am doing normal life things."
And you don't have to do it for a long amount of time, esp at first, but if you do it everyday for even for half a minute or more, it can improve both boredom and absent-mindedness.
If I make any changes to my routine then it may cause everything to come crashing down and I could lose it all. Really what I need is to stop working for a year, then I can get some energy back and have a chance to make changes. Other than a redundancy period where I was looking for another job (the irony that 6 months after the clot shot mandate my department was made redundant anyway, I get what I deserve for making a deal with the devil really) I've worked full time for 15 years at this point.
That's understandable. Maybe just picking
one thing two things to start - maybe
1) clean the kitchen sink, or just commit to clearing the sink and drying it after dinner for a few days - and
2) trying to remember to put things down when you get home and donate one minute of actively thinking about your physical actions as you do them. Same actions, just deciding to pay attention to yourself as you do some of them. You could even put up a note to yourself to remind you that you were going to try that.
(I used to literally leave notes for myself all the time about stuff I didn't want to do, in places I couldn't avoid, to remind me that at least yesterday I cared about this so just do it and don't question it. I don't need to do this much anymore, but it was helpful - once I stopped rebelling against my own reminders, ignoring my own notes, and burying myself in distraction, which I often did if there was something about it that brought me some vague anxiety or fear. It's a push to develop discipline, but usually it takes less time and less effort, and feels better, than expected. Kinda miserable when gearing up/avoiding, but once started it has momentum. And afterward there's the payoff: I've advanced my life, it wasn't so bad, nothing crashed...and now I know that I can. And seeing yourself do things encourages more of the same.)
I do see my mum quite often, my parents sometimes invite me over for dinner and my mum cooks me dinners that I go and pick up fairly regularily so that I'm not always eating microwave pies.
Maybe at some point you could go over while she's doing the cooking and see about helping or learning what she does, and then you have more skills to do the same for yourself now and then.
