We make slow progress on the kitchen...

Progress Report

I want to recap Elaine's and my work so far -- at least as well as I remember it:

Friday, April 5 (2 hours, 2 people) -- Elaine toured my house with me, to get an overview of the magnitude of my problem. We agreed to start work on Saturday on the kitchen, which had become a real problem during the last several weeks. (I have had a minor, but exhausting, respiratory infection that has left me coughing for weeks.) I had decaying fruit and vegetables and fruit flies.

Elaine cheerfully announced that fruit flies only live three days and predicted their quick demise once we removed the decaying fruit.

She let me know from the start that her interest in helping me clean would evaporate if I didn't commit to keeping the improvements going after she left. I appreciate her honesty. She has set a good boundary.

Truthfully, I feel amazed, thankful and ashamed by Elaine's offer of help. I feel ashamed of my inability to deal with my hoarding/clutter problem on my own. Also, knowing my past problems with consistency, I fear the possibility of failure. None the less, I appreciate her willingness to give me a chance.

I like having Elaine as a helper. She is kind, upbeat, innovative, and straight forward. She makes her difficult points about areas for improvement in a matter of fact, nonjudgmental way. She has creative ideas about how we can make the cleanup fun and effective.

We are hoping to exchange labour. Elaine says that she may call on me to give her daughter flute lessons in exchange for her assistance with my cleanup.

Saturday, April 6 (2 people, 2.5 hours) -- My friend Elaine and I took "before" photos of the kitchen and began trying to sort items and clear working space. We filled a number of recycling, compost and landfill bags, which we emptied into city bins in my garage.

We ran a load of dishes in the dishwasher and washed some dishes by hand. By the time Elaine left, the sink area of my kitchen was clear.

Afterward -- I soon refilled the sink with dishes. Guelph has hard water, and my dishwasher, in conjunction with my water softener, doesn't remove soap scum well, so I had to rinse a number of clean dishes that that came out of the dishwasher and leave them out to dry in the dish rack.

I also washed and hung two loads of clothes. This included some comforters I plan to donate to charity.

Later in the afternoon, I attended an open house at the Muslim Society of Guelph, which last year opened a mosque near my house. There I met a young non-Muslim ESL teacher who was THRILLED to take several hundred dollars worth of new, unused ESL books from me. She is planning to share the ESL booty with other teachers at St. George's ESL School.

Afterward, I delivered another four boxes of books and four bags of clothes to a local charity.

Sunday, April 7 (2 people, 3.5 hours) -- We sorted food and other items into a number of plastic bins and temporarily stored the nonfood items on my balcony. After finally clearing my kitchen table, I was able to wash it with soap and water before we moved the bins of food items back in for the night. We emptied several more bags of compost, landfill and recycling material into the city bins in my garage, and I was able to fill another couple of boxes with kitchen items for charity.

Bins of nonfood items stored on balcony

Observations -- Food hoarding is probably one of my worst issues -- I'm not really sure why. Living alone, I don't often cook -- not only because of the lack of space but also because of my reluctance to make the effort for just me. I am semi-vegetarian, so I keep lots of nuts, dried fruit and grains around. I also keep lots of fruit and milk boxes around. Crackers and dried breads seem more practical to me than fresh bread, since fresh bread often goes stale before I can finish a loaf. I would freeze it, but my two freezers are stuffed full right now.

My fridge is stuffed full of decaying food. I continually buy too much, and it decays before I get around to eating it. Sometimes I make the effort to cook but then have no enthusiasm for my home-cooked "masterpiece." (When my friends ask me for computer help, I often suggest that they "pay" me with a home-cooked meal. I savour home-cooked meals, but I have no enthusiasm for cooking one.)

That is all for tonight. Elaine will be back at 8:30 a.m. I don't know where she finds all her energy. After she left this afternoon, I was exhausted. Lying down for a quick nap, I fell into a deep snooze that lasted about four hours.