We had a 4 day weekend at our house and I took full decluttering advantage. Since June I’ve been behind in my monthly targets to hit 4028 things by the end of the year - various life things like vacation and tidying the house got in the way. But I am back in the swing of getting rid of things, thanks mostly to a scheduled charity pick-up this week.
With this pick-up deadline in place, I sorted through my old clothes. I ransacked the downstairs closet for things to donate (you know, things that haven’t left the hanger since I hung them - those things can go). I targeted a few toys to go. Cleared out some cosmetics.
Then, gathering momentum, I drifted over to our basement shelving. Oh boy! Gift bags - 55 of them, put in the donation pile. Got rid of a pile of paper (oh hey! Found The Husband’s university diploma! Why it was where it was, I don’t know.). Box of cords and cables - extension cords from 30 years ago, phone cables, random other stuff - out! Box of old dishes. Buh bye. Hauled out my creations from pottery class - chucked! And hey, are there really wedding magazines in that box? Yup - wasn’t ready to part with them when I boxed them up but now they can go - 22 frigging magazines!!! Funny enough, the recycling cart was pretty full but after I tossed the magazines in, they squished everything down so now there’s room for more stuff. Yay. Will need a forklift to move the cart, but hey, that’s the price of progress.
Wow, a lot more space on the shelves in the basement!
Having so much success in the basement, moved on to the kitchen. Taking a quick look around, I focused on stuff that I have held on to that I have never used in the 9 years we’ve lived here. That stuff needs to go. Ugly serving platters. Glasses. Poky fancy toothpick things. Etc, etc, etc…
Oh right, I also boxed up all the hazardous waste products in the house that I wanted to get rid of. Most of it was stuff left over from the previous owners of the house. The Husband took everything to the disposal site last week.
I dropped off one bag of baby stuff to one person and have a stack of stuff for another (opposite season babies mean I get to get rid of ALL seasons of baby stuff - whoo!).
I set 4 bags and 8 boxes of giveaways on my front step this morning for the charity pick-up. I love charity pick-ups!!!!!!!!
311 things gone from my house in 4 days. WHOO! This means I’ve broken the 2000 mark. Go me!
Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Ebola Panic
Sooooooo… ebola. Eeeeeeeebola. Been in the news lately. Such a lovely topic, what with all the blood, diarrhea, and, you know, death. Bit of a worldwide panic going on. Reminds me that I read a book on ebola. The Hot Zone is an absolutely terrifying read. T-E-R-R-I-F-Y-I-N-G. The description of what the Ebola virus does to your body will make your skin crawl. Don't say I didn't warn you. This book reads like a Tom Clancy novel but it's a true story.
Highly recommended. It was so good I made The Husband read it.
Highly recommended. It was so good I made The Husband read it.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Trying to reduce my slothful ways
Last summer, I got lots of compliments about how great I looked. I gave away all my super gigantic falling off pants and shorts. I had fun shopping for new skinny summer clothes.
None of those clothes fit anymore.
Sigh.
I was suffering from pretty bad anxiety last year, and I found it very difficult to eat. I even had a rough time eating at my parents' house - my childhood home! - because of anxiety. The happy side effect was that I lost weight. The bad side effect of the anxiety was that I found it really hard to go anywhere.
Then in the fall, I sucked it up and went to the doctor to discuss my anxiety. It's easier for me to eat now. But I've been eating junk. I love baking, so I've been eating sweets like crazy. I found peanut-free chocolate almonds at Bulk Barn and oh my, I've eaten a lot of those.
In addition, I feel like I don't move very much in a day. Mostly I feel like a sloth. I needed something to haul me off the couch.
Enter the Garmin vivofit, my newest excuse to plunk down some cash. I did a lot of research and pondering and hemming and hawing before I settled on this fitness tracker. I especially liked two things: 1) I could wear it all the time and 2) I don't have to charge it. I know me - I despise charging things. Totally suck at it. And having to take off a tracker to charge it felt like it defeated the purpose of having something I could wear all the time. I'd forget to put it back on.
I also liked that it had a visible display.
Plus it came in blue.
The verdict: I like it! I wear it all the time. I wore it to my kids' swimming lessons and washed their hair with it on - no problem. I also like the wireless syncing. I have a little USB connection plugged into my laptop and with a 3 second button press on the vivofit it syncs and voila! The info is available on my laptop, with graphs and charts and everything! And I don't have to charge it. Yay! It's always available, I don't have to think about it.
Is it motivating? I say yes. As it turns out, it is not difficult for me to hit 10 000 steps in a day (my neighbour was right, I DO walk more than I thought. I blame the kids). But I WANT to hit that goal every day and by golly, knowing how many steps I've got left keeps me moving until I get those 10 000.
Now that I've established a baseline of my activity level, I hope to increase it. The vivofit sets a new goal for you every day based on your previous number of steps - you reach the goal it sets, you get a higher goal the next day. Personally I could live without this feature. I don't need daily adaptive goals set for me. I can be happy with 10 000 steps as a baseline and setting my own higher goal by myself. It's not annoying, though, so it's fine.
Oh, right, it also tracks sleep, but I already know I sleep like crap so I'm not all that interested in that info.
All in all - recommended.
PS: Garmin has no idea who I am. My money, my opinions.
None of those clothes fit anymore.
Sigh.
I was suffering from pretty bad anxiety last year, and I found it very difficult to eat. I even had a rough time eating at my parents' house - my childhood home! - because of anxiety. The happy side effect was that I lost weight. The bad side effect of the anxiety was that I found it really hard to go anywhere.
Then in the fall, I sucked it up and went to the doctor to discuss my anxiety. It's easier for me to eat now. But I've been eating junk. I love baking, so I've been eating sweets like crazy. I found peanut-free chocolate almonds at Bulk Barn and oh my, I've eaten a lot of those.
In addition, I feel like I don't move very much in a day. Mostly I feel like a sloth. I needed something to haul me off the couch.
Enter the Garmin vivofit, my newest excuse to plunk down some cash. I did a lot of research and pondering and hemming and hawing before I settled on this fitness tracker. I especially liked two things: 1) I could wear it all the time and 2) I don't have to charge it. I know me - I despise charging things. Totally suck at it. And having to take off a tracker to charge it felt like it defeated the purpose of having something I could wear all the time. I'd forget to put it back on.
I also liked that it had a visible display.
Plus it came in blue.
The verdict: I like it! I wear it all the time. I wore it to my kids' swimming lessons and washed their hair with it on - no problem. I also like the wireless syncing. I have a little USB connection plugged into my laptop and with a 3 second button press on the vivofit it syncs and voila! The info is available on my laptop, with graphs and charts and everything! And I don't have to charge it. Yay! It's always available, I don't have to think about it.
Is it motivating? I say yes. As it turns out, it is not difficult for me to hit 10 000 steps in a day (my neighbour was right, I DO walk more than I thought. I blame the kids). But I WANT to hit that goal every day and by golly, knowing how many steps I've got left keeps me moving until I get those 10 000.
Now that I've established a baseline of my activity level, I hope to increase it. The vivofit sets a new goal for you every day based on your previous number of steps - you reach the goal it sets, you get a higher goal the next day. Personally I could live without this feature. I don't need daily adaptive goals set for me. I can be happy with 10 000 steps as a baseline and setting my own higher goal by myself. It's not annoying, though, so it's fine.
Oh, right, it also tracks sleep, but I already know I sleep like crap so I'm not all that interested in that info.
All in all - recommended.
PS: Garmin has no idea who I am. My money, my opinions.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good
That's a quote from Voltaire, I came across it today. Think about it.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Don't let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of accomplishing something.
Such wise words. I think I'm going to make this my new mantra - I am a Type A+++ perfectionist and perfectionism is one of the major contributors to my procrastination problem.
Although I used to be worse, I swear! I tell ya, among the other things grad skool taught me, I learned that a dissertation is never perfect. My motto in the last year of my program was "The best thesis is a finished thesis." My dissertation was not a perfect masterpiece, but it was good enough that you have to call me doc.
Ha.
So I have some experience in letting go of perfectionism but I have more work to do. I can't be perfect all the time. It makes much more sense to choose a few things that truly matter to me and spend my energy on them. For the rest, the goal is "good enough."
Of course, this blog falls into the far from perfect category. The new me will probably publish more blog posts. But owing to my lower standards, they might suck. Oh well - you can't have everything.
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Don't let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of accomplishing something.
Such wise words. I think I'm going to make this my new mantra - I am a Type A+++ perfectionist and perfectionism is one of the major contributors to my procrastination problem.
Although I used to be worse, I swear! I tell ya, among the other things grad skool taught me, I learned that a dissertation is never perfect. My motto in the last year of my program was "The best thesis is a finished thesis." My dissertation was not a perfect masterpiece, but it was good enough that you have to call me doc.
Ha.
So I have some experience in letting go of perfectionism but I have more work to do. I can't be perfect all the time. It makes much more sense to choose a few things that truly matter to me and spend my energy on them. For the rest, the goal is "good enough."
Of course, this blog falls into the far from perfect category. The new me will probably publish more blog posts. But owing to my lower standards, they might suck. Oh well - you can't have everything.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
My favourite time to do things? Later
It's no secret that I'm a huge procrastinator. Which is weird, because it's not like I don't know how to get stuff done. I just... don't. And I think that what happened is somewhere along the way, I got into the habit of putting things off. Other people, they get an idea in their head, they do something about it. Me? I say I'll do it later.
And then of course it doesn't get done.
I started paying attention to my attitude towards getting things done and I realized wow, that little voice in my head says "I'll do it later" a LOT. Like, a LOT a lot.
I came across this article on Houzz the other day. Anyone who knows me would immediately ID me as a Naturally Not Organized person. What struck me was how that was related to my "later" problem and how THAT related to my complete disaster of a house. I was glad to read that there are others who have that same "later" voice in their heads, because sometimes I feel very alone as a disorganized person.
And like the author of the article, I've been trying to combat the "later." I like the "How about now?" words, I'm going to use them. Better than "Oh shut up and just pick it up already."
Which comes off as a bit rude.
So far, I seem to be able to stick with this behaviour in spurts, but when I slack off, everything just piles up again. I hate to blame my kids, but oh man, I'm fairly sure my house would be cleaner if they weren't around. I have a little 21 month old undo-er, after all. It's hard to keep up.
As for my crazy decluttering plan of 2014, we're more than half way through the year and I'm stuck around 1700 things. Vacationing in June didn't help, but mostly I've been slacking. I do have piles to give to people but have to move on it. Also - does anyone out there need a high chair?
And then of course it doesn't get done.
I started paying attention to my attitude towards getting things done and I realized wow, that little voice in my head says "I'll do it later" a LOT. Like, a LOT a lot.
I came across this article on Houzz the other day. Anyone who knows me would immediately ID me as a Naturally Not Organized person. What struck me was how that was related to my "later" problem and how THAT related to my complete disaster of a house. I was glad to read that there are others who have that same "later" voice in their heads, because sometimes I feel very alone as a disorganized person.
And like the author of the article, I've been trying to combat the "later." I like the "How about now?" words, I'm going to use them. Better than "Oh shut up and just pick it up already."
Which comes off as a bit rude.
So far, I seem to be able to stick with this behaviour in spurts, but when I slack off, everything just piles up again. I hate to blame my kids, but oh man, I'm fairly sure my house would be cleaner if they weren't around. I have a little 21 month old undo-er, after all. It's hard to keep up.
As for my crazy decluttering plan of 2014, we're more than half way through the year and I'm stuck around 1700 things. Vacationing in June didn't help, but mostly I've been slacking. I do have piles to give to people but have to move on it. Also - does anyone out there need a high chair?
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