Monday, December 29, 2008

3 days

Well, the holidays are over and I have three days to finish up everything to start the new year off right! I need to revisit the resolutions I made in early December and see if I want to add anything. I also really need to get everything in order since my transcripts arrived at SNHU and I was accepted and all. Cripes. One week until I start back at school.

I was talking to Dad at Barbra's and we figured out that I was 7 when he was 32. That's worse than I thought. I'm so far behind. D: Morale is still high though. I can do this. Time to refer to the list.

Friday, December 19, 2008

2 weeks to wrap up

I haven't been feeling great, so I haven't been doing as much as I planned. I have been keeping up and ahead with laundry, and I did clean the living room last night, so that was good.

Today was the last day of work before Christmas break. I have two full weeks off now, and only 4 days of that are already slated for stuff. Obviously I won't be doing much on Christmas day, and then we'll be in Johnstown Friday--Sunday. I'm still not sure if Dave is working on the Friday after Christmas; if he is, then I might be able to do a little something then.

Today I got an email from Chris Baty, who runs Nanowrimo. It was about the 2009 Big Fun Scary Adventure project, which is pretty much what it sounds like. While I won't be posting on the forum about it, I decided I did want to do it. Last year by BFSA was Japan, obviously. I was going to make "learn Japanese enough to carry on a conversation or understand the gist of a show" my thing, but idk. That's still too amorphous. So I took the plunge and did it.

I applied to an online school for my bachelors.

I'm kind of shocked myself, but I did it. If all goes well I'll start in a few weeks and see how it goes! I just hope my transcripts get in on time. I'm worried about the high school ones. :\

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Despite not actually finishing up some things as quickly as I wanted (as in not doing as many things a night as I wanted to) I am still making good progress. Yesterday I moved an endtable up the the bathroom and put a shelf in it to hold the toilet paper/cleaner stuff/paraffin bath, so that's all neat and tidy. Or will be once I get the cleaning stuff orgainzed. Yes, the drawer is still filled with computer stuff, and I should probably clear that out and put bathroom related stuffs in there, but that will be when I do the under-the-sink drawers, which is the very last thing on my list because I'm dreading it so.

I also did under Leah's dresser, earning me another shoebox worth of trash, a big locking plastic bin (yay!!). I was able to hook the old DVD player up to my 13 inch tv from DuBois, mostly because I was able to find the cables to do so since I cleaned and organized the downstairs closet. See how this is all coming together?? :DDD So that means that once I take the piles of stuff to Goodwill I will be able to have a room of my own. I can exercise there, watch movies while I sit in the rocker and knit, write letters.... I'm pretty happy.

I did inventory all the stuff I'm taking to goodwill. Almost 100 items totalling over $1000 for tax deduction purposes. I really don't want to pay taxes again this year. Oooh, but wait! I bet we lost some money we have invested, so that will be a deduction. How sad is it that I'm seeing that as a positive thing? I don't care if we lost; I'm about ready to pull that money out of the investments and put it back into savings or into CDs or something. I hate it. I'm too old-fashioned and lacksadasical for investing. I'd rather have it right there at my fingertips and know how much I have and have it secure.

ALSO. I spent a good deal of time last night cutting sodden carpet out of the basement, because it resaturated all the cat-pee areas and was stinking up the whole house. It was gross. Seriously gross. Now that's forcing my hand to declutter under the stairs because I have to get rid of carpet from that area as well. I hate to have my hand forced.

I can't decide whether it's better for me to try to plan out the two weeks I'm off as far as what I'm gong to do each day, or if I should just keep my lists and chunk away at them. The problem is, once I start failing at a planned out to-do list, I just throw in the towel. So... maybe a rough draft so can get it in my head what I want to accomplish, but not a real list. Gah. I'm just doing all this because I don't feel like doing work-work right now. It's 9:00. Let's organize the desk, see what real work I have to do, and then plan for the time off, kay?


I AM SO UNFOCUSED TODAY! SELF, GET IT TOGETHER!

Monday, December 15, 2008

Facing the DOOM

I hate my upstairs bathroom. We're going to redo it, but it's such a wreck now that I hate to even have someone come in and see it. It gets this serious fuzzy dust over everything in no time at all. What is that shit? Dust and powder and hair and dead skin. It's nasty as hell. Fortunately, I have my mother's awesome vacuum, and that sucked up the bulk of it. The swiffer took care of most of the rest of it, and then I used an old washcloth to wipe everything else down. SO GROSS.

I'm pretty psyched to get to the point where it's all maintenence. I'm down to 9 things on the decluttering list:
under my dresser
sink drawers/under sink
under leah's dresser
cubby 1 in leah's room
cubby 2 in leah's room
under stairs in basement
dressing room cubby
thing that daddy made me
top of fridge

The cubbies aren't crucial; they're mostly attic-like, so there's not much to throw out of them. I do want to round up all the bills and stuff and get them in one box with this year's stuff to destroy in ten years. Under the dressers definitely need to be done, and the sink in the bathroom fer shure. I'm going to do under the stairs one day next week when Dave's gone as a Christmas suprise for him. The thing that daddy made me and the top of the fridge will take all of 10 mintues, so I'll get them done this week.

I also want to try to paint at least the Kitchen next week, and maybe the front room. That might be a bit ambitious though.

After the house is in order, it's on to the body! I'm starting to crave yoga. :D

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Note to self

When looking at the daily thing to do, don't say to yourself It's not that bad; I don't really need to do anything with it. Because letting it slide until things build up is what got you here in the first place. It's awesome if it's only going to take 2 minutes to tidy and dust. There's no reason not to do that. It's only two minutes. You've already spent more than that staring at it and talking yourself out of doing anything.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

continuing with closets

I did the hall closet yesterday. One kitchen sized trash bag of junk, one gallon of cat hair into the vacuum, and a bunch of reorganizing, and tada! It looks lovely. I do admit that I didn't do anything with the very top shelf, even though most of that could be thrown out, maybe. But it's unreachable, and my hips have had enough of standing on chairs. Plus I didn't really need the space for anything (for now), so it can stay as is.

I'm down to 13 things on the decluttering list at my tada lists. 12 things done. One more and I tip the scales in favor of organization.

I have met the enemy, though, and it is thepurlbee.com. So many projects I want to do! So many pretty yarns and fabrics! But get things in order first, and don't forget about studying Japanese, either. You can do this, and do it right. Ganbare yo.

Friday, December 5, 2008

The 7 year closet situation

Well, I didn't get done with everything yesterday. The downstairs closet took longer than I thought it might, and I was zonky after my massage so I didn't feel like doing the things I had planned for the evening (Christmas cards and Inventorying stuff for Goodwill)

However, here are the before and afters for the closet. 7 years of stuff decluttered = 2 overstuffed trashbags, more stuff for goodwill, and a whole lotta shelf space.

Before



After






I also decided that I was jealous of Dave's train space in the basement, and I needed a spot of my own for my knitting and crafting. I hijacked a portion of Leah's room (she's hardly here anymore, and I don't remember the last time she stayed overnight. Oh, yes I do. It was the night before we left for Japan.)

My pretty spot where I can hermitize all I want <33333




The two Rilakkuma bears in sleeping bags were my birthday present to myself. ^___^

Thursday, December 4, 2008

I know it's only been a few days, but I'm doing pretty good with things. At work, I've been using Mark Forster's list making techniques, with pretty good success. Yesterday I decided to start using it at home because I was getting kinda bummed over my tada lists. It seemed like every time I checked something off I was adding two more things and my list was only getting longer and longer. So I picked off a few cleaning and non-cleaning things for last night, today, and Friday and did the line trick. I started getting a little overwhelmed trying to think ahead for Friday, so I'll need to update that one either today or at the conference tomorrow morning.

Last night I easily finished the 7 things on my list, and skipped ahead to do one of today's things. Today's list looks very doable. I wanted to make it so that I could definitely finish the things for each day, so I wouldn't get backlogged and discouraged. That makes me really think about how long it takes to do something, and hopefully will also keep me on task so that I can get the satisfaction of finishing my whole list.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Well, holey sheet

I have almost all of the Christmas shopping done. I have to order one more thing for Grayson, then go out to the stores for 2 other things. Everything else was done online. Go cyber monday (and having the day off)

I get to open my birthday presents now ^____^ Even though I know what they are, I can't wait to actually see and hold them!