Winter Cleaning, Part 4

I haven't really made that much progress in cleaning, but I want to celebrate the little that I've accomplished.

• I conquered my hall closet! It used to be an inefficient and disorganized hodge-podge of boxes and random things that I just threw in there when I first moved into the apartment. Now, it holds some well-organized plastic bins of long-term storage, as well as all the large items that I stock in bulk and use all the time (diapers, paper towels, etc.) and my games (readily available to be enjoyed by any guests that we might have in the future).
• I found my random magazines and put them all together on a shelf, ready to be gone through and then disposed of.
• I got rid of two magazines already! The break area at work is always full of old magazines, and it turns out that people just bring them in and leave them there once they are done with them, and others can read them there on break or even take them home if desired. I can put some of my magazines there, but I doubt Vogue and wedding magazines will be very popular at a large technical company populated primarily by middle-aged male rednecks.
• I made chicken-rice stew from scratch! It made me happy just to be cooking (with my crock pot, no less) but it also helped reduce clutter in my kitchen because it called for some items that were about to expire and needed to be used. This was a new recipe, and while it is reasonably tasty, I found it kind of bland and so I will tweak things and adjust it before recommending it to anyone. Note: This is often the case with new recipes.

It does get depressing and overwhelming at times, but I remind myself that I really am doing what I need to do, and it's better to do a thorough job and really go through all those boxes, rather than just keep moving them from place to place and then avoiding them by shoving them out of sight in the bowels of a closet.