Camera Ready!
FINALLY! My camera is being friendly again. I replaced the rechargeable alkaline batteries the manual swears I can use with a set of lithium batteries, and all appears to be well now. (Must be the lithium—good for moody machinery.)
And so I bring you—
knitblogger goodness! Look what
Stick surprised me with! YES! My very own set of Bad Word Stitch Markers! I couldn't believe it. How cool is that? I feel special. Thank you, Stick! :-) There are a couple of close-ups on Flickr.
I'm happy to report that more progress has been made on the org front. Oooh, is that a new couch? Why, no—it's a slip cover! Who knew a slip cover could make such a difference?
AFTER
BEFORE
The lone set of curtains from my old living room got tossed in the dryer (no heat) with a dryer sheet to remove the cat hair (it worked!) and are rehung. I swapped the white wicker table for the rolling cart, putting the serger that was on the cart elsewhere and putting the little TV and DVD burner on the cart. Easier to roll out of the way, takes up less room. I'm not fond of the wicker thing anyway. Maybe it can go in the deck room when it is restored to being a useable room again.
Now this room, the Den, is all cozy and warm with rich reds and dark browns. Happy. Still stuff to sort through, but it's moving along.
Oh, I think my pot pie is done...
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, friends, gratefulness
Aligning with Constructivism
OMG this is a long post.
So I've figured out a couple of things I can do
right now in my current life to be more aligned with the life of my vision.
- I can change my attitude
- I can change my thoughts
- I can shuffle my schedule and get out of this rut
First,
the attitude. More happy. Years ago, life felt magical. In my head, I was already a rock star. I was physically in this world, but mentally, I had my rock star life overlaid like a sheet of vellum. I felt like anything was possible. (I'm still wondering what happened to change that, and if it was sudden as in one event or just a gradual dissipation.) The key here is the "magical" feeling. Making dinner to suit me, for example, used to bring great pleasure, because I'd create offbeat dishes or stirfries or curries—stuff my Mother would never cook (let alone eat)—and I would be puttering around in my kitchen humming to myself before sitting down and enjoying my meal with great satisfaction.
Last night, out of hunger and food boredom, I fell back onto one of my rut foods—nachos. Except I make them with blue chips, and I add soy "burger" crumbles and a green & red pepper and onion veggie blend on top. It's pretty good. It's nothing special, but it's a good fall-back meal. I had a moment. It was like a time-shift. I completely forgot the events of the past couple of years and was focused on sprinkling the cheese and I
almost smiled to myself thinking about my nachos,
almost hummed merrily—
—and I stopped myself from feeling good.
In the next heartbeat, I froze, because I
realized that I'd just semi-subconsciously stopped myself from allowing a POSITIVE feeling to rise to the surface.
I prevented myself from feeling good.Isn't that awful?
That lead to spending a good bit of time analyzing the reasons why I didn't think I
should allow myself to feel good over something as mundane as making nachos. Sparing the details. Let's just say I realized I need an attitude adjustment, and that I have to consciously focus on allowing those happy feelings that WANT to come up to do so unrestrained.
Next,
the thoughts. Most of us automatically think negatively without really trying—we're conditioned that way. Everywhere you turn, on TV, in the news, there are sensationalized stories of war, economic crisis, rising gas prices, accidents, diseases, and so on, and we are constantly barraged with a message of how difficult life is. There are good messages to be found, but because they seem to originate from the religious channels and include words such as "God" and "faith", a lot of people opt not to listen to them, which is fine. I'm just trying to point out the irony.
I'm just as challenged as the rest of us when it comes to what I allow to pass through my grey matter. I am every bit as susceptible to the barrage. What I'm doing is being more conscious of what's trying to get in, as well as what's trying to get out. I'm choosing the positive thoughts. It takes practice and I slip up sometimes, but I'm trying. It's a habitual thought process, and habits take time to change.
Lastly,
the schedule. When I was a kid, my parents handled everything, giving me ample free time to play and pursue my own interests. Then one day they decided I needed more responsibility (which is fine). But suddenly, the things I
wanted to do became tainted. They became
unnecessary. They were things that you do
later, after the "important" things are finished.I would sit down to get engrossed in a really interesting book, and my Mother would say, "why don't you do something constructive for awhile rather than sit around reading all day?" Practicing guitar for a half hour to be prepared for my weekly lesson was acceptable and encouraged, but sitting there noodling for hours on end was non-productive and I should really be doing "something else". The dichotomy here is that my Mother railed on about doing the important things first, but sent a mixed message that you need to stop and have a little fun, too.
OK, which is it?
Well, I learned. I learned to do the important things first, and once they are finished, THEN I can sit down and design that sock, play with music software, dye some yarn, play with my horses... once everything else is done.
Twenty years later and I am STILL waiting for the day when the Important Things are Done and I can be free to focus on MY stuff. Someday, I'll learn to program Flash. Someday, I'll finish my album. Someday... when all the other stuff is done. When the house is clean. Or I get my masters (which I'm not sure I want). Or I move to a different house. Or...
The bottom line is, I get to the end of the day and there is still stuff. So I don't feel like I'm "allowed" to turn my attention to something that isn't "constructive" or "productive" or "important". I have a tendency towards obsessive workaholism balanced with a rebellion of doing nothing (with all the accompanying resentment) and have been known to work well past the reasonable endpoint (say 12 hours to touch up paint) even though I know I'm pushing it and I'm just going to wake up angry with myself the next day.
Mother told me part one: "Finish the important things first". But she forgot to tell me part two:
Exactly when, pray tell, will I know that all the important things are finished?At what point can I honestly and rightfully say, NOW it's OK to do my thing?Maybe she didn't know, either. Reflecting back on her life, I think she needed the answer, too.
So here's what I've decided. My time, my LIFE, is like my job. I have so many hours in which to do stuff. I'm accountable to myself for how I use this time. I've allotted 7 hours for sleep/rest (which is about what I need), and 2 hours for eating/personal care (or extra sleep), leaving 15 hours that are up to me to fill.
I've decided to break up that 15 hours into 3-hour spans. I've decided that I am absolutely prohibited from focusing on the Mass Organization Project (ie "the Important Thing") for more than six hours in one day, and that if the tasks for the day are of a more physically-demanding nature, then I am limited to three hours total. I'm starting out on an 18-hour-per-week ration at first (3 hours per day).
I establish a list of tasks to be completed within that time span (realistically), set a start and end time, and then I go. When the time is up, I must stop working and go on to do MY stuff. If the task I'm on at the end will only take 15 minutes or less to complete and be done, I can allow it, but I must make up for it by shortening the work time the following day. So if I worked 3 hours and 15 minutes today, I work 2 hours and 45 minutes tomorrow (physical labor).
I can also move hours around if I know I'm going to be doing something that requires more time such as painting a room, or if I want to take a day off from it completely I just add time to another day. Basically, I have 18 total hours per week in which I am "allowed" to do Important Things and I can shift them around as desired as long as I stay within the 18-hour limit. The 18-hour limit will increase to 36 hours once I've been successful for three weeks (21 days to a new habit).
In addition, it's a six-day week. Sundays are verboten. NO WORK ON SUNDAY. On Sunday, I focus purely on FUN. It's not a religious thing, it's a throwback to how I lived in LA when I was going to VIT: five days of focus on music studies. Friday nights out on the town. Saturday, run errands, do laundry, grocery, etc. Saturday night, out on the town. Sunday: go to the 3 for 3 movie theatre and sit through three movies in a row for three bucks (complete downtime). Later on, I replaced this with spending Sunday afternoon at
the Bodhi Tree bookstore or at Venice Beach or something equally fun. I was much more balanced then.
True, it doesn't seem like I'll be devoting a large portion of my day to this enormous task when I
should be working like mad to get it done. It might seem like I'm taking an awful lot of free time, but
that's precisely the point. I
need to do something drastic like this in order to break my unhealthy workaholic tendency and rebuild it to a normal level of Important Things Work balanced against Fun/Me-time. I have to swing the pendulum the opposite way.
By prohibiting myself from going past six hours on easy stuff (sorting papers, yarn, clothes, basic light household chores) or three hours on heavy stuff (loading up all those tubs, OMG, from the living room and taking them to the storage unit, installing toilets, etc), I'm using reverse psychology to motivate me to work. I'm not ALLOWED to work. Hmm. Suddenly, it's more appealing. Plus, there's a time limit. Having that stopping point relieves me of the guilt I feel that it's not all done yet.
How is it going so far? Today was the first day. I'm amazed. I got my entire list done. It would have been three hours, but I made a couple of mistakes. But that's OK, because it made me aware of some of my pitfalls—things I wasn't conscious of doing that have made it take longer for me to do stuff in the past. (It took 4.5 hours and yes, I'm shortening tomorrow's time.)
For example, I had some kitchen cleanup duties in there. All I had to do was take out the recycling and trash, put the dishes in the dishwasher, wash the dirty pots and pans (by hand because they stay nicer that way), wipe off the counters and stove, and put away a couple of pizza pans. Well, I got all that done in about 15 minutes (faster than I anticipated). Then I made a mistake. Instead of stopping when I completed the tasks on my list,
I added/created a new duty that wasn't necessary at the time but "while I was there"... I saw greasy grimy gunk on the range hood that was attracting fuzz, so I decided to clean IT, too, as well as the backsplash. That cost me a full half hour!
While doing a quick-sort of the tubs in the living room to make sure it was all stuff to be stored, I came across an issue of Time from 1978. OK, why? Why did Mom save it? Nothing was marked. I should have just laughed and pitched it, right? Wrong. I sat down and paged through it. It was fascinating. There were cigarette ads, booze ads, and a beautiful full-color four-page ad for the 1979 Pinto. Yep. You guessed it. Not only did I save it for its historic magnificence, but I lost a good 20 minutes of work time poring over that thing.
I got thoroughly distracted by something that I didn't need to be focusing on at the time.
I also got hungry and stopped to eat a cookie. And I forgot to factor in catbox duty.
However... I made SERIOUS progress in the living room, and I am now down about six bins' worth of crap. All because rather than looking at it as "*sigh* yuck, I have to spend all day sorting this crap in the living room it's so overwhelming I can't take it", I set a time limit and by golly—I did it! The best thing is that rather than feeling like I'd failed to "finish" yet again, I felt immensely accomplished. I felt like it was absolutely OK to stop when I did. It's liberating, I'll tell ya, liberating!
I'm almost—dare I say it—
excited about tomorrow's work period. It's like a game: how much can I accomplish in three hours? The reward being that once the three hours is up, I'm free to do ANYTHING I want to.
That's the next challenge. Teaching myself that it's OK to do something for me. I'll probably have to set up a time-limit/time-frame for that as well. Such as, I have three hours for work, then three hours for music, or three hours to spin, or sew, or read, or play games—but it HAS to be something
other than being on the computer (unless it's to compose music), Second Life, watching TV—other than what I usually fall into by default. I have to make a conscious choice to do something completely "non-constructive". (Mother's definition of "constructive" meant that it had a purpose toward the important things; she got mad once when I suggested that since I was sewing, I was constructing a garment, therefore I
was doing something constructive. I love you, Mom. In spite of it all.)
Now I'm going to get off this computer (after I finish catching up on blogs) and hit the hay.
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, musings, positive thinking
FO, FO, ORG, THUMPERS
Are you sitting down?
Knitting content!
Not only that, but actual living, breathing, FOs!!!
And, please, say a few prayers for my Pentax camera's batteries. They have taken ill and despite being defibrillated several times, they are lying near death in the charger but it's not looking good (hence I did not get to photograph the MOST IMPORTANT THING!!! but I will get batteries when I'm out tomorrow and rectify that right away... note to self, photograph most important things first, just in case).
First up—
Waving Lace Socks (from
Favorite Socks) in Lorna's Laces
Gold Hill colorway. They grew a bit in the soaking. I hope they still fit. I have small feet and nary the courage to try them on just yet. For now, I'm admiring their beauty.
Next, we have
Embossed Leaves (also from
Favorite Socks—I LOVE THIS BOOK!) in Araucania Ranco (yarn details on
Ravelry, apologies to those who aren't yet Ravelers). This yarn... amazing. Gorgeous. Easy to knit with. I don't know what it does when washed yet—hopefully they stay true to size. If not, I have another cake of a brown colorway. I consider them done. The toe needs kitchnered (not the method on the pattern but my preference) and the ends woven, but they are done enough to show here. More pix on my Flicker
Socks page.
This is the one submission I managed to get for the Biggest Bunny Thumpers Contest over at KitKatKnits' blog. This is Tyler's foot. Zander (not pictured) is the Biggest of All Possible Cats around here but the danged battery on my camera keeps throwing a hissy fit and pretending like it's depleted of all energy when it was clearly just reloaded with fresh powerful batteries five minutes earlier. Zander's BT is a good 5.25 inches long.
Tyler, who is the second largest of my herd of five, measured in at a measly 4.5 inches or so. Hard to tell, he moved and he is very grumbly about having his feet touched.
As evident by the look he's giving me in this photo. And that's not even his evil look. You should see the Kill The Vacuum Cleaner Look.
Translation: either "I CAN HAZ UR FACE FOR MAH DINNER?" or "U TOUCHA DA FOOT I EATA UR FACE". Take your pick.
And finally, there has been earnest progress on the organization front. You'll find (if interested) a new set of updated photos on my Flickr account (just click the pix, it'll take you there).
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, cats, FOs, sockaholism
Update on the Org
I don't yet have any "finished" rooms, but I do have areas that are beginning to show real hope. I can see my dining room table now. I'm clearing spots. I'm generating a large pile of empty boxes. I can walk through the living room again. I can actually get to my yarn closet. Books are back on shelves. Stuff is finding a home.
My method is a bit unorthodox compared to Mr. Walsh's because he would have me sort and trash first, organize/put away later. Instead, I've decided what my "zones" are (as he suggests) then moving all associated stuff into the zones (this is the unorthodox part). Then, as I figure out where everything associated with that area needs to go, I'm sorting. It makes sense to me. If I have X amount of space for this stuff, and Y amount of stuff, I know I either am blessed because I have more space than stuff (which has happened, surprisingly) or I know I need to examine my stuff and analyze if there is anything that really can just go.
I think it's working for me because now I have all of my stuff in one place/one house (storage unit not withstanding, but that's stuff that doesn't get factored in at this point). I can group the bulk of related things together and really see WHAT I have. I think that's better (for me). Rather than trying to decide what to keep or toss in one category when this portion is in one room and that portion is in another, I just categorize, relocate, THEN sort. Plus it's easier for me to deal with one category at a time, rather than trying to sort a ROOM containing many categories.
I kind of need to have it all in front of me in one big pile so I know what I have. That way, I can deal with it all at once. Better for my focus (I really do think I'm ADD). In order to organize all the kitchen utensils, for example, I need to have every utensil visible so I can group according to type then see how many of each I have and isolate the ones I really want and/or would seriously need.
Example: Today I opened a box and found two more can openers (one manual, one electric), bringing the total to five. Five seems to be my magic number. Five cats. Five TVs. Five computer monitors—two are in use. I know there's another "five" in there that I just mentioned in another post, but you get the idea. The point is, I seem to not realize I already have something (on some occasions) or I wind up with extras via inheritance, and I need to see ALL of them at once to choose what to keep.
It's working.
I do a little bit every day. Some days I do more. Some days I do less. But I still do something. There were a couple of days this past week where it occupied the majority of my day. Today, however, I lightened up. It's Sunday! Day of rest, right? I emptied the box of kitchen stuff that had been sitting on the dining table in this photo (white box with "Relay" in blue):
The majority of that stuff on the table is GONE. Relocated to its associated area, thrown out, and put away.
I also cleared off the coffee table in the living room in this next photo. The lamp stayed. The blankets were put in the clear plastic zippered sheet storage thingie (sitting next to them on the table) and moved to the hall closet (they are "car blankets", they go in the car in case I get stranded in a blizzard), the ratty ripped slippers (black and green) were thrown out (derrr), the plastic garment bags were moved, and Dad's shirt was added to the Parental Storage Tubs (it still smells like him).
Small efforts, but efforts nonetheless. I'll take more photos this week to show the progress.
It seems that I look at this as sort of like my "day job" right now. I report to it daily and spend several hours at it. I never thought it would get done, but... it's getting done. The more I do, the easier it gets to continue doing it.
Also coming up this week, I got a surprise in the mail this week (a good one) from a fellow knitblogger that deserves some attention! I couldn't believe it. It's so fun! More on that in an upcoming post (need light for good photos).
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, breaking news, friends, gratefulness
Let the Organizing Games Begin
*** EDITED: Updated photo link 01.11.08 ***
All right. You remember this, right?
Grab yourself a snack and a bev and head on over to my Flicker photo show. Over 60 photos of the horror that has been my domain for a year and a half. Barf bags and fainting couches to be provided by the viewee.
I'll post updates as the cleanup mission continues. I've been making headway. Bookshelves have been relocated, and books are being replaced. It's a process. It's also horrifying to look at objectively and see just how chaotic it's been. How on earth have I stood this for so long? I feel like I've been wearing blinders.
One thing in my favor: at least I have visible pathways. It's just too much stuff in one place. But it's certainly fixable. (I've seen far worse.)
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap
Momentary Pause
OK, just a quick'un because I'm off to Insanknitty tonight (high winds be darned).
The Organizing ProjectThere will be photos soon. I charged the batteries, fired up the Pentax, and took Honesty Shots of the whole house (except the cat room). I've batch-resized them and will upload to Flickr later. (The internet connection has been spotty today because of the wind.) Then I'll post a couple of teasers and a link to the Album of Shame.
However, they are "old" photos now. More stuff has been moved. Things are falling into place (rather than falling on me as I pass by). There is progress.
Happy.
Visualizations, Etc.In Joe Vitale's book "
The Key: The Missing Secret to Attracting Anything You Want", there is an exercise where you have a conversation with your body, or rather, you sit down and listen to what it has to tell you. Details in the book, but I wanted to jot down my experience. I did a test with that last night. My assumption was that I'd hear first from my knees or ankles or maybe my hands.
Wrong.
First to speak was my breathing area. I noticed how tight it felt. I realized it felt normal for it to feel this way. I let it speak. It told me that it was tight and breathing shallowly like it had been doing for two years because it was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Basically, I realized I've been holding my breath for two years straight. I inquired further. My body said that the other shoe
always drops, something bad always happens, and especially after a string of days where it's nothing but good, it's like it's time.
Interesting.
I realized the source of this was because in 2006, I laid there every night afraid to sleep for fear I wouldn't hear the phone ring. I laid there afraid I'd miss that horrible 6 AM call that was bound to come (and did on several occasions). I started holding my breath out of fearful anticipation.
Well, I set my body straight on this. I reassured it that the worst was over—my parents were gone, there would be no more 6 AM phone calls and besides, the phone hardly rings anymore anyway, so relax. The other shoe doesn't have to drop. There IS no other shoe. Even if there is, we are perfectly capable of handling whatever comes our way. We (meaning me and my body) endured what IMHO is the worst possible experience one can have (loss of a spouse/child/parent) and gee, look how well we are doing on the other side—therefore we must have survived it, right? So relax—breathe deep, and expect GOOD things to happen.
You know, I feel much less tense today, and my breathing is deeper. Sometimes it tenses up, but I just keep reminding it, "good things, relax, good things".
That's all... time to be off.
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, Law of Attraction, musings
Follow Up
The painting is finished, the blue tape removed and for once, it came off PERFECTLY (no bungled paint). I think there must've been something wrong with the paint at the old house because things chipped and flaked off too easily there. Oh well. Done with that house. Working on this one now. It's awesome. I LOVE IT!
It seems that for some reason my parents chose a very pale blue for the walls. It's noticeable now from the bathroom (which is light pink) looking out the door past the hall wall into the very pale yellowcream room. No wonder it looked like a cave! But now it's warm and cozy.
Danielle suggested I do the Clean Sweep while I have the chance. The only challenge is that I live in NW Ohio and it is January. While it was a balmy 63 today, it's damp, and it will be raining then snowing soon. Today is a fluke (a welcome one). Clean Sweeping will have to wait until spring... or even summer. I am garageless, basement-less, and otherwise space-challenged. So I'm doing the best I can with the puzzle moving.
I do plan to Clean Sweep the attic, two sheds, and the deck room come spring, though. Tools. It'll be nothing but tools.
Well, I must return to furniture moving...
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap
Yay Paint
I did it, I started painting. No pictures, though. The battery on my camera has decided for some reason that it doesn't want to play anymore. Must remedy that. There must be a recharger around here somewhere, right?
Today's mission: do the "cut-in" part. I think that's what it's called—where you paint along the ceiling line, around the baseboards, wall outlets, doors, windows.
I did it. I fired up
Alter Bridge "
Blackbird" on the CD player, moved all the stuff to the middle of the room, vacuumed, taped, and painted the above-mentioned areas. Then it was time to shower and take in a movie with B and dinner out for a change, so I cleaned up and off we went.
We saw
Enchanted. It's really cute. Of course McSteamy is one of the leads (he's awesome). There are a couple of too cute moments but there is a tone of self-deprecation that more than makes up for it. I love how Disney pokes fun at themselves with twisted send-ups of classic Disney moments. A few times the audience laughed uproariously. And Susan Sarandon's evil Queen Nerissa is not to be missed.
So the walls... I know it's just the outlining, but they look better already. I'm using Sherwin-Williams Harmony Interior Latex paint in Eggwhite, left over from the living room of my old house. Heck, I had nearly a full gallon—why waste it? Plus it has barely any odor—it's "
GreenSure", aka environmentally friendly. Safe for baby's rooms. It covers beautifully and cleans up well, too. I love it. The Eggwhite color is a very pale creamy yellow—I picked it because it conjured up the image of a late afternoon sunbeam bouncing off of a creamy white wall. It's warm. Happy.
If I can get the battery working, I'll take a before and after so you can see the difference between the Eggwhite Semi-Gloss and the old bluish-white Flat paint. The blue-white is so depressing!!! Blech! Cold. Like ice in winter. I don't know how that color came to be on nearly every wall in this place when my Mother was an artist who loved color—all my sister and I can determine is that she could no longer see color well when her cataracts got that bad. She once mistook a lovely lilac scarf for brown. Hmm. Maybe it looked tan, the white?
Anyway, it's not going to be Ice White for long. It's already warming up the room because it reflects light. I'm looking forward to painting every room in the house. It needs life.
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap
Yeah.
I know. I'm probably doing it backwards, not the way Peter Walsh suggests. I'm thinking that deciding that
now would be a good time to paint the Library/Guest Room isn't in keeping with his method.
If Pete had his way, I'd be doing the Trash Bag Tango™ (his concept) and eliminating uselessness first. If he had his way, painting would come last, I'm betting (stopped reading mid-book to formulate floor plans in FreeHand—less strain on the back than to move actual furniture).
Trouble is, I'm having a hard time doing it Pete's way, because I can't GET to the stuff I need to throw out. It's behind the stuff that needs to be relocated. So... since the Library is virtually void of furniture, and soon it will contain several bookcases loaded with published treasures... it makes sense to me to paint it NOW.
THEN move the furniture and presently homeless books into the room.
Right? Then I'll be able to get to some of the trash and "useless" clutter.
I wonder how many times Ol' Pete has encountered someone with layers like this?
Probably all the time.
Only, they have trucks and friends and nice weather and basements, garages and lawns to drag stuff out onto. (Have you seen "
Clean Sweep"?)
Are these excuses?
Perhaps.
Maybe for me it feels better to have ONE room "done", even if it's the least cluttered of all. Maybe that gives me the motivation to keep going.
I'm feeling a tad frustrated tonight. I shouldn't. But I just wish I could wave a magic wand and have it ALL done. Have the things that know they aren't needed by me whisk themselves away to where they are needed (if done for, then please, have the decency to trash yourself). Have the furniture figure out how to play nice and share space in a way that makes sense to the way I live and have it move itself. Have the walls change color in the blink of an eye. Have the stuff that I have no idea what to do with (because it doesn't fall into a category other than Misc) figure out where it should live and then go live there.
Looking down the barrel of an enormous project like this takes it out of me.
Sorcerer's Apprentice, where are you when I need you?
Then again... I felt the same way when faced with clearing out and fixing up the other house for sale. Somehow that got done. I took a trip up there today to grab my leftover paint, read the water meter, and make sure the house was OK (it is) and I was surprised by how clean and nice it looks (after two weeks away from it).
So I know I can do it.
I just don't want to.
I mean, I want to, I just... don't want to.
*sigh*
Labels: 30-Day Org
Pile Puzzles
Three days down, 363 to go. So far, so good. :-)
It's happening. The organization has commenced. FINALLY. Peter Walsh's book "
It's All Too Much" is an eye-opener. Not just advising you to get tubs and pretty labels, it delves into the psychological reasons for holding onto items that turn into clutter. He can be a tad brutal with the honesty sometimes—but for serious hoarders and clutteraholics (like me), it's the antidote to staying stuck.
I've learned so much already. Now that I have a better understanding of WHY I haven't been able to part with stuff, it's easier to let go of a lot of it. I've also learned better ways of thinking about my ideal vision for my life and what the function of each room means to me.
For example: today it occurred to me that where I hang my coat and leave my tennis shoes doesn't work for me. Right now, Grandma's old coat tree sits in the dining room collecting coats, hats and my messenger bag. It's cluttery. For 46 years, coats, hats and scarves were put away in the coat closet in the living room. But I don't use the front door. I come and go via the back door. There is a huge closet in the utility room (where the back door is)—it's a clutter zone. Why has noone ever thought to put the coats THERE? It makes sense. EVERYONE uses the back door. Even my sister and nieces when they visit. Front door people are not as familiar to us. My bad solution was to position the coat tree halfway between the back and front doors.
By the end of the week, my frequent use coats, hats, etc will be stored in the UTILITY closet. (I already put up a mail and key rack out there. (Out of reach of burglars)
I never before thought about the logic of where coats live, I just followed the standard set by my parents.
Today, I consolidated my music gear. It suddenly made no sense, if I was interested in recording with Cubase on the computer AND on the VS2480 unit, to have them in separate rooms and have to move guitars back and forth. Why not have them all in one room? OK, I hadn't wanted to move the desk the VS2480 sits on from the room Rocker Boy had occupied (because it requires dismantling it somewhat then remantling it in the next room). Laziness.
Well, today, that's what I did. I moved the desk, moved the guitars, moved the equipment. Now everything is in this room. File transfer should be easier, too. Oh, you ask, but what about the fibery goodness?
The yarn stays in the closet in the Music Offie (it's the only one big enough to store it all until I destash). The loom, which can fold up even when warped, will live in what was Rocker Boy's room—aka the third bedroom off the dining room, now known as the Guest Room/Library/Sewing Room. Yup. All the bookcases except one will go in there. All the books except the computer software and music books will go in there. The sewing machine and serger go in there which makes sense since I use the buffet counter in the kitchen (you'd have to see it to understand) as a cutting/layout table and the walk is shorter.
It's starting to come together. Granted, it's not according to Peter's F.A.S.T. plan which I'm supposed to do first (basically clear out the lazy clutter aka trash THEN hit the hard stuff), but it makes too much sense not to do. Then I can better deal with the other stuff.
Only trouble is, it's like that puzzle. The one where there is one space and eight squares and you have to move all the squares around to get them in order. I don't know the name of it. I move one pile out to make room for the incoming pile, then that pile moves into a space left vacant by the pile I shifted to make room for it... so there are new jumblings about, which stress me slightly. However, I understand that it'll look worse before it looks better, and I'm focused on the end result.
I think painting the rooms is out of the question for now—can't get to the walls...
Labels: 30-Day Org
Neon Blue, Of Course
| Your Brain is Blue |
Of all the brain types, yours is the most mellow.
You tend to be in a meditative state most of the time. You don't try to think away your troubles.
Your thoughts are realistic, fresh, and honest. You truly see things as how they are.
You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about your friends, your surroundings, and your life. |
It's true. I have Blue Brain.
I think since it's Cyber Monday, this calls for bullet points.
- The adorable horselet? Not buying her. She is too big to fit into my budget right now and despite what the LoA dictates, I'm not foolish enough to risk bankruptcy in three months over a baby horse. She's cute... but I think she was there to remind me of my PNH goals and spark my flagging interest. (It worked.)
- RIP Kevin DuBrow. The Riot will be extremely Quiet from now on, since the singer has died. Only 52. Shame.
- RIP Casey Calvert, guitarist/"screamer" from the band Hawthorne Heights (a band I'd never heard of until today). Only 25. That makes two well-known musicians to die today. Who will be the third?
- Toledo voted third most livable city IN THE WORLD. Please prepare to report for the Rapture. It has to be the end of the world because this is impossible for me to believe, having lived in Toledo. (Yes, Toledoans, I don't like it. Aren't you glad I moved?) ;-)
- Organizing Challenge: the living room cleanup has failed. Because I'm selling my house in Toledo (3rd most livable city in the world, hurry and buy now because I'm tellin' ya she won't last long), and it goes on the market 11/30, I have been focusing on cleaning IT.
- Being the musical genius *cough cough* that I am, I figured out a way to import several of my favorite affirmation MP3s from podcasts into separate tracks in Cubase™, then line them up so they were in an order that had a nice flow, then export as one big MP3. Then I uploaded that to my cell phone's memory card.
- As an experiment, last night, I laid in bed listening to it—yep, earbuds, cell phone, affirmation MP3—before falling asleep. I listened twice. I fell asleep in the middle of round two. I slept soundly. I woke up feeling more centered. I've behaved slightly differently today. I feel better.
- Therefore, my plan for the week (in between revving up the Toledo house) is to design my own personalized affirmation MP3 (since I have the technology). I want something about a half hour-45 minutes long, with a very simple quiet sound loop (I can so do that), and affirmations that address specific issues I've been challenged by. I want to see if I can totally retrain my brain subconsciously before sleeping... and see if it actually does change my life.
For example. I realized with a shock what my most basic, core belief is, and it scared me to death. While thinking about beliefs I have and how to change them, I heard my Mother scoffing at me.
Do you really think that all those affirmations and statements are gonna have any effect on your life? It might change what you believe to be true, but it's not going to just magically change the way it REALLY is.
Now, how am I supposed to work with
that? I'm studying a philosophy that teaches that by changing your core beliefs, you affect change in your life—but my core belief is that it WON'T work. If I don't even believe that changing beliefs has an effect... um... kind of a problem, dontcha think?
So I'm sitting here telling myself
I choose statements, reaffirming my intent, doing my best to shift my beliefs from limiting ones to the kind that will manifest my dreams, but my core belief tells me "yeah, cute how she does that, but she'll be so disappointed when she's changed all of her beliefs but all hell came crashing down on her
anyway, because the way it is now is how it IS, and the logical natural progression of things from how it stands now is down—there simply IS no other way for it to go unless, ha ha, a miracle occurs or magic really exists, and all the mystical affirmations in the world aren't going to change that, so she's just kidding herself. Tsk tsk. So sad."
Well, I'm stumped. NOW what do I do?
No wonder my brain is blue!
Labels: 30-Day Org, bullet points, Law of Attraction, positive thinking
Nightmare on My Street (30-Day Org Challenge)
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU HAVE A WEAK STOMACH.
This is what happens when you move a 3BR house into another 3BR house while trying to clear out the one 3BR house because it's now an Estate (meaning sorting through and distributing two dead people's stuff but not being allowed to touch it until the lawyer says it's OK) then you have a roommate move in with his own 2BR house.
There is a sofa in there somewhere. And a floor.
True, said roommate has since relocated, but... he left behind some of his stuff because the trailer he rented wasn't big enough. He'll be back for it "later", or, as he said "we can load it on the big moving truck when we move
you down to Nashville" (meaning me, meaning when we both move there and meet in the middle).
But I cannot live like this. It's the front room. The holidays are coming. I cannot open the front door. It is time. Thus, I have risen to
the Organizing Junkie's 30-Day Challenge.
I dare you to join me. What a productive month this is promising to be.
Labels: 30-Day Org, boring household crap, estate nonsense
