Ginger Monsters

So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.

Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.

Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.

Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.

Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.

Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.

Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.

Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.

Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.

Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!

Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.

Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.

Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.

Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.

Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.

If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.

Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.

It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.

Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.

You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.

Wanna find a post?

Write out what you remember into a Google search.

After you write that out, end with site:tumblr.com

Google will search for your text on just tumblr

In my experience, it’s way more effective than searching through Tumblr

and then write a direct quote (could be a fraction of a sentence) into the quotations, I’ve been doing this for years, and it’s so useful, it works like 99% of the time 

I’m very specifically talking about THIS SORT OF THING

poor people are more likely to be plus size because of lack of access to healthy food, which is the target demographic of a damn thrift store in the first place. thrift shopping is trendy now, which is fine, except when you buy clothes for projects like this that are in high demand but low supply: maternity clothes, plus size clothes, pajamas, etc. if you need clothing, buy it. but you can make any of these projects from clothes without poaching from low supply areas and taking comical pictures that mock fat bodies.

now here’s why there’s a ridiculously low supply of plus size clothes: fat people don’t have as many places to buy clothes and all of them have poor selection so we don’t buy a lot of them to begin with. the shopping pattern of a plus size person is very different from that of a straight size person as well. i know this from working in plus size retail. overwhelmingly, we shop when we desperately need clothes. and i mean desperately like hole the size of a basketball in the thigh of your jeans desperately. wearing a bra from 1998 desperately. work blazer held together with scotch tape and safety pins desperately. we can’t donate our clothes because we wear them until the point where we physically cannot anymore.

we also don’t cycle through trends as much as smaller sizes because a) shopping is a huge ordeal for a plus size person and b) our clothes cost WAY MORE so we can’t afford to wear an article of clothing once and then give it to goodwill. then on top of that none of the places that give you money for clothes EVER want your fatass clothes. skinny people can pop over to any secondhand clothing store that pays for donations and get some of that investment back. we can’t do that EVEN THOUGH our clothes cost way more than straight sizes. oh, and we get paid less than thinner women btw :) that’s always great.

so if we can’t regain any of our investment, we’re just gonna put up with clothes we don’t like until we can’t wear them anymore or we give them away in the case of weight loss (when ur fat you know a lot of other fatties, and if ur a queer/trans fatty someone is always having a clothing swap you can give to).

all of this adds up to make it so that thrift stores are in low supply of plus size clothes that more and more people need because us fatties? if we don’t look good we don’t get jobs. you cannot look even the slightest bit unkempt or you come off as lazy or bitchy, and if you have a family to support you can’t spend weeks looking for a job where they won’t judge your competence based upon whether your clothes are trendy or not. when you’re not plus size and you take away these clothes from needy women you are in small part enabling their suffering.