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??