Staying on task??

It becomes increasingly challenging to stay on task with the AT January cure as life intervenes and other priorities assert themselves, but the idea is still a good one, so onward with the progress report...

Last weekend's task:  Deep clean the kitchen, buy flowers, plan and cook a meal

Since I'm a big list-maker, I'd mapped out the entire weekend's to-do items, including all of the above.  I somehow neglected to include the getting sick part that kicked in Saturday afternoon and killed most of Sunday, but welcome to life.

On Friday night I moved a loose Ikea cabinet out of the craft room and into the kitchen.  I was still convinced it could be useful, but it never found its home upstairs.  I cleaned off the stool the cabinet displaced, and mopped under and around all of the shelves and appliances and the radiator in that half of the kitchen.

The cabinet is narrow and shallow and just fits next to the radiator.  It now holds plastic wrap and foil in the cubbies meant for wine, and cookie cutters in the two drawers, now freeing up more pantry shelf space.  And best of all there's this empty space in the middle to hold cookbooks, and telephone books (I know, I am the only person in the world to still keep, and even sometimes use telephone books).  I did some other cleaning in and around the kitchen, but as Sunday was destined to be the big day, and I spent most of it in bed, it's still on the list.  But I did buy flowers on our grocery trip, and I cooked quinoa for the first time for a warm quinoa-arugula-pear-sausage-roasted Brussels sprouts salad.  Yum!

Here are this week's tasks and my progress so far...

Day 9:  Create a Landing Strip

The idea here is to have a place immediately as you enter your home to hang up your coat, put down your purse, keys, work bag, etc., and spaces in which to sort and deal with your mail.  I have long used my front table for all of the mail.  This past weekend, I changed the recycling bin so that it fits under the table, but is still easy to use for immediate junk mail recycling (AKA, most of my mail).  I took old mail I need to save upstairs to be filed (true confessions:  it's not filed yet; office = nightmare), went through the recent catalogs, and generally neatened things up.  I still don't have great solutions for coats, purse, and other bags without using the window seat and newel post, but I'll keep thinking about it.

Day 10:  Work on Your Goal Project

So, I did take a full set of "before" pictures of the craft room, but those are worthy of their own post.  Since then I have put all of the stamps that have a place away, created baskets for the uncatalogued, and catalogued, but needing a home stamps, and generally put some stuff away.  I got back to creating my stamp drawer maps (I've done 16 out of 64 or 1/4 of them), which are also worthy of a separate post, but all in all, there is still too much in there, and not nearly enough days left in the month to tackle it.

Day 11:  Try a Media Fast this Evening

This is by far the easiest task since the vast majority of my evenings are like this.  Because my computer is powered by very old hamsters, I rarely use it at home.  I don't watch TV, only the occasional movie, but since the room with the TV also has the broken radiator and a hole in the ceiling, it's really easy to avoid going in there in the winter.  And after work, my cell phone generally stays in my work bag or my purse.  Last night, I definitely media-fasted.  I went to the dance instead.

Day 12:  Declutter Books and Media

I feel pretty up on this task, because it's ongoing for me.  I love books, but I have been doing myself the favor of getting my reading material almost exclusively from the library for some years now.  And because I'm still out of shelf space for the books I do have, I'm constantly looking for books I can bear to part with.   So the instant a book I own seems less vital to my life, it goes in the outbox.  (And coincidentally, if you have or know a pre-teen or young adult who needs something to read, let me know and I may be able to do something about that...)

But here's the rub:  old cassette tapes.  Realistically, I'm never going to listen to these again.  I keep meaning to make a list of the albums and songs I should buy on CD or download, and then get rid of the tapes, but I haven't done it yet.  Maybe that will be a February project...

Oh, and....

I finally decided what to frame:

Where should I hang it??

What's in a name...

For completely unknown reasons today, I started to think about our old set of dairy silverware.  I grew up in a house with a kosher kitchen where we had separate dishes, silverware, pots, and pans for meat and dairy.  We also had “good” dishes for each, and silver for holiday meals, which were meat meals.

I always liked our dairy silverware, which had an asymmetrical swirl pattern.  And in fact, I have the dairy silverware, packed up, in a box, in the corner cabinet in my dining room.  When Mom was selling the house I grew up in about fifteen years ago, and saving as little as possible, she gave me the silverware, which I knew I wanted to use someday.  It’s still in the box.

But, I do have a few pieces of the silverware among my mismatched pieces in the silverware drawer (which include an assortment of my grandmother's meat AND dairy sets!).  But admittedly, these two teaspoons and a tablespoon are not from my mother’s set.  When I first started going to Pinewoods in the mid-90s, the dining hall silverware was this fantastic, motley collection, much of which had “Bd of Ed., City of New York” engraved on the back.  Hidden in among these were three random pieces in that pattern I was so familiar with!  Let’s just say that they didn’t remain at camp, and leave it at that…

Using one of those teaspoons for my morning yogurt, I flipped it over, curious to know the name of the pattern.  And wouldn’t you know it doesn’t say, only the name of the manufacturer:  Simeon L & George H Rogers & Co Stainless.  But in these days of the internet, that’s plenty.  Google Images and Ebay found it for me in no time:  Paramount.

Time to open that box...

2013 House Projects...

So far, I'm still keen on the Apartment Therapy January cure.  It's been fun reading people's Cure diaries after the first week and their lists of projects.  It really does make the month-long project sound possible as long as I stay grounded in the reality of my busy schedule and not even try to take on too much.

Keeping up with the home cure task list, I think I've decided what piece of art to frame.  Besides, Michael's is having a huge framing sale...

Here's the Cure task update and report:

Yesterday's task - plan a party for the end of the month
For this weekend - deep clean the kitchen, plan and cook a meal, buy flowers

Report:

I started thinking about my annual valentine-making party yesterday.  I think I skipped having one last year due to my outrageous travel schedule.  This year it will likely be a small evening event, so all two of you who are reading this, let me know if you want to come.

A deep kitchen cleaning is long overdue.  The oven has had a can of oven cleaner sitting next to it for a couple of weeks now.  I am frightened of the space between the refrigerator and the wall.

Here's the big list of house projects for the year:

Front Porch

Hang original front door

Add window boxes or shelves for summer plants

Move empty pots and soil to the backyard

Replace non-functional doorbell

Living Room/Entry

Organize landing strip; file or recycle all papers

Finish tacking up sofa skirts

Alter window seat cushion covers so that they fit properly

Make a designated space for purse and work bag

Dining Room

Paint small patch of wall under the thermostat

Inventory the corner cabinet

Label all china cases with permanent marker

Kitchen

Repair water damaged ceiling

Re-think spice shelf solution so that there is room for all of the spices

Organize the loose recipes into a box, book, or electronic resource

Organize party planning recipes and ideas

Re-pot the Christmas cacti

Paint kitchen cabinets

Clean oven

Laundry Room

Re-hang clothes drying rack

Corral the endless supply of plastic grocery bags

Repair washer hot water supply

Garden

Stabilize wisteria trellises

Prune roses and hydrangeas

Create a garden care list

Create outdoor storage for mower, potting soil, pots and tools

2nd Floor Parlour

Repair radiator

Repair bay window roof

Repair ceiling

Freecycle telephone table

Office

File or shred all of the papers!

Create a full inventory and index of dance books

De-clutter the doorway shelves

Repair water-damaged walls

Craft Room

Streamline craft room storage

Paint and hang wood shelves

Continue to make stamp drawer maps to enable quick clean-up of stamps

Create zones for different items

Move outbox to another area of the house

Put everything away

Bathroom

Wash shower curtain and liner

Wash mold from ceiling

Repair water-damaged ceiling

Re-paint peeling areas

De-clutter the cabinets

Repair the sink drain/stopper

Bedroom

Keep dresser and trunk clutter free

Repair damaged ceiling

Review scarves and only keep the few I wear; create new scarf storage

Third Floor

Repair hallway roof

Replace damaged hallway ceiling

Keep guest beds made and covered with king size sheets to keep clean

And this month's special focus project:  the Craft Room!!!!

In a future post, I will share the scary "before" pictures with you...

Five minutes a day...

Every January the design blogs I read are full of hope and resolutions and solutions to help you freshen and reclaim your living space.  They take advantage of the new year as a time of beginnings to help motivate people to do what they should be doing all of the time.  This is not new.  And, I pretty much buy into this philosophy, at least in intention.

The creator of ApartmentTherapy wrote a book around the idea of a home cure, saying that you could take control of your living space and transform it into what you want it to be, or at least begin the process, over the course of a month.  They've created steps, and daily tasks toward this goal to make it be manageable, and possible, and encourage folks to join the Cure through their website to create a support network for participants, and induce some accountability.

Although I think the Cure is a great idea, I haven't been ready to commit to the online deal.  Still, I'm following with interest, and even trying to play along a bit.  I forget exactly what day they're on, but the major steps so far seem to have been:

1. Go through your living space and make a list of all of the projects that need doing.  It needn't be exhaustive.  Stick to 3-5 projects per room.
2. Create an Outbox, or a place for the things you're considering donating or trashing to live.  Consider your outbox as a waiting room.  You are not committing to get rid of anything in there, but simply creating an area where things will live while you're considering their fate.
3. Buy flowers for yourself and your house.  Do this every Friday so you can enjoy them all weekend.  You and your house deserve it.
4. Sweep and mop your floors.  Do a thorough job.  Move the furniture.  Vacuum the rugs.  You will feel better.
5. From your list, pick ONE project you will work on this month.  
6. Frame a piece of artwork you've been wanting to hang for a while.  You could do this yourself, or have it professionally done.  Don't put it off any more.

My progress...

1. List made.  Man, it's long.  And not do-able in one year, most likely.  Long.
2. I love my outbox!!!  I've had one for a while.  It's not in the right place in my house, but the instant I get the notion that something can go, I try and put it in that area right away.  Chances are, I will never miss whatever that item is.
3. I didn't buy flowers last Friday because I knew I was going away for the weekend.  This weekend I will for sure.  Flowers are something I love, but a treat I rarely afford myself because it seems far too extravagant.  But Produce Junction will sell me something lovely for less than $5.
4. Okay, I haven't done this step at all.  But I agree that it's a good idea.
5. I picked my one item!  Ack!
6. This one just appeared today.  I did trim and frame my January calendar page, but I don't think that counts.  This is a good idea though.  I will have to consider...

In my next post I'll share with you my LONG house project list along with my project of choice and the scary "before" pictures.

Let me know if you want to play too.  I'd be delighted be a part of a not-necessarily-published-on-the-internet support system!

Ring in the new...

I am generally not a believer in new year’s resolutions.  While January does feel like a time of new beginnings, if the desired change is real, you can start at any time.  What I am a believer in is lists, calendars, and schedules.  I use these devices to get me where I need to go, and more importantly, help me take care of the things I need to.

About a year ago, I divided my to-do list into long-term projects and short-term projects.  I typed up the long-term list, printed it, put it in a pocket in my notebook, and avoided looking at it.  Looking back at it now is difficult because most of the items remain:  I still need to repair the roof and fix the water damaged ceilings, organize my office, de-clutter the craft room, compile a garden plant and care list, and on and on and on…

More successful is my short-term list, which is edited and added to almost daily.  Some items should stay on there for life:  do laundry, fold laundry, go to the library, write x dance program, but they don’t.  The act of writing, crossing off, and re-writing is to me a sign of progress, of life humming along, and things, if slowly, getting done

Making an annual resolution makes no sense to me, and the notion that I will get through everything on my short-term to-do list is not in any way based in the reality of my life.  Instead I would love to be able to point to something meaty that I accomplished once a month, something that’s been lingering on one of these interminable lists for far too long.  I hope to use this space to report on my results at the end of each month.  I actually didn’t wait for New Year’s, but started in December…

December 2012:  Eat gluten-free

It feels odd to say this out loud because eating gluten-free, while a health necessity for many seems to be trendy for the rest, and the last thing I am is trendy.  But I was curious to find out if cutting out wheat, i.e., bread, cookies, cake, and anything made with wheat flour or wheat-based anything, made a difference to my weight, skin, outlook, and general well-being. 

After a month, the jury is still out.  I’ve avoided wheat (except for those latkes at Chanukah, which have some flour in them), but not all products made in factories and on machinery where wheat is handled.  Yes, I have lost some of the weight I had lost and then regained.  I think I feel better, but it’s unclear if avoiding wheat is the cause of either of these results. 

Eating gluten-free is annoying and hard.  I miss not thinking about my food.  But that’s part of the point.  I like knowing that I can do this.  I can be mindful of what I eat, and make conscious choices and small changes, and more importantly stick to it.  It’s a(nother) start down a road I want to travel, and only a start.  I’ll keep this up for several months to truly evaluate whether it makes a difference to my overall well-being, or not, and what, if anything needs to change next.  Wish me luck.  And don’t mock me if I end up shopping at the Co-op sometimes.

What are your new year’s projects?