I set myself a short-term challenge and thought I’d see if anyone wants to join me. Between now and November 1, I’m trying to do things in my house and in life admin that will set me up to finish the year in a peaceful way. November and December are months I struggle with because it’s so dark and it starts to get cold and I just want to hunker down and spend hours on the internet. So, I have a week to try to set me up for a better winter.
What I did today:
I tackled a bin of stuff that I’ve been putting off going through and which blocks the bottom of my basement stairs a bit. I’m not finished with it yet, but I know what’s in there and half is now gone.
I picked my ACA healthcare plan and figured out how it will affect my 2022 budget. In happy news, it’s not the impact I was fearing!
I journaled about some habits I need to re-set that used to serve me well, but are not now. How to change my reaction/process when the cue is present. I’m hoping this will help me be more active and less of a couch-bug losing time to screens.
I really like this challenge. I feel the same way about trying to wrap up the year that way. (Also feeling the drag that darker days present.)
Financially speaking, I want to finish what I said I wanted to do for Budgetober, which is to:
-download my YTD spending and see what I actually spend on categories vs how I budget my my checks.
-After I do that, I need to find things to downsize or cut. I am having trouble with this because one of my biggest spends is a storage unit and I need to donate big furniture in order to move into a smaller unit and hopefully cut the cost in half.
Make a more realistic budget and goals for next year. I am thinking of consolodating my credit debt into a line of credit to have just one payment and knock down one amount.
Non-money wise:
-Wrap up my two freelance assignments so I can focus on my creative project
-Make progress in said creative project
-Clean and organizing my creative corner
I would like to restart my night time routine that helped me get in a decent mindset for the night and the next day.
I’m finally hiring a house cleaner! She just did the walkthrough/quote process and I practically swooned when she said the first deep clean is going to include scrubbing down the kitchen cabinets.
My life is (hopefully) going to feel so clean and stress free!
Today I tackled making my living/dining areas more functional for winter activities (and also giving them a good cleaning because it was desperately needed). So, I lugged the recliner upstairs (by myself!!) and now have a larger space on the floor for stretching/yoga/foam roller work/MELT work, etc. I am working on a storage system for the equipment that goes with that work, but think I can empty a shelf on the built-ins for it.
I scrubbed the wood floor, dusted baseboards and lights, vacuumed furniture and rugs, and generally de-catted the room. So much cat hair and I clean fairly regularly…
I set up my SAD lamp so I can start using it every morning while I start my day.
I emptied a small ottoman (recycling magazines I had forgotten I had) and placed my winter activities/projects in it (puzzles, cards, coloring books and markers, etc).
So that room is about 80% finished and looks so much better!! I need to dust and organize the built-ins still and clean off the table (which has two unfinished projects on it). That is tomorrow’s work, I think.
I dusted and organized the built-ins. Was able to move things around so my yoga equipment can go a shelf instead of just being on the floor by the wall. I also noticed that I need some way to store cat toys attached to wands (like a tall vase-type container?).
I didn’t do much else today as far as making winter better, but I did use my SAD lamp. I also voted early for my county election. Am going to try and get back on track more tomorrow.
Today I tackled one of the neglected projects on the dining room table. This was mending shorts and pants that I wore through on the inner thigh when walking. Since I use them for exercise and at home, I realized I didn’t really care if they were patched. Plus it’s a great way to extend their life and avoid trashing them. I bought the material to patch them with in December 2019!!! My procrastination knows no bounds. Granted, I was pretty ill for the next year, but that still leaves 10 months more. In the end, it will have taken me about 2 hours all in. So 22 months of thinking about it and having it hang over me vs. 2 hours to just do it. There is a lesson there somewhere…
Tomorrow I will go through my other shorts and pants to see if any of the ones I’ve worn for the last 22 months need mending now and basically trade them out for these. Then I’m determined to mend them right away and get the sewing machine put away and off the table so I can do important things like puzzles and solitaire.
Yes, it will save us around $125 a month, which can be put against the debt.
Re the laundry? I don’t know, but I sure wish someone would invent a pneumatic tube system or something which you could pull things out of the dryer, sort them by room and have them show up there. My issue is getting the clothes up the stairs and put away. It isn’t washing/drying them, it’s hauling, folding, and getting them in drawers or the closet.
The rags/house cloth stuff (dish rags, other rags, kitchen towels, placemats, & napkins, I deal with, regularly. It’s clothes I put off.
I hear you on hauling the laundry upstairs. I let it languish in the dryer far too often. For some reason, folding sheets is my absolute least favorite thing about laundry.
My problem with sheets is 2 fold, no pun intended.
My husband is tall, so we have king sized sheets. I’m short, so it’s just a lot of back and forth to fold anything that’s that much bigger than I am.
I HATE fitted sheets. The hassle of folding fitted sheets is part of why when our summer-weight bottom sheet died, I bought yardage to make one instead. (See my bingo.)
This is still pending: my office being cleaned up, my large counter being available in my office, and getting to where I can actually thread and use my sewing machine. Hopefully, I"ll get the sheet made before we need it next spring!
If it works? I won’t be buying sheets anymore, but yardage. I will be making flat sheets. They’re much easier for this tiny person to deal with, although they’re a lot of fabric. The elastic corners/edges are just an invitation to have a Charlie Chaplin type of encounter, far too often.
By the time I paid for the fabric and postage, it wasn’t, unfortunately, any cheaper than buying a flat sheet, about $50. But if I get something which takes less wrestling and is less of a PITA to store? Since it doesn’t cost MORE? I’ll count it as a win.
Ok I though just hiring her was all the reset I needed to do, but we need to go through all the rooms and get things off the floor/surfaces so they can actually do a deep clean. They’re coming Tuesday so we have until Monday evening.
I did the mending yesterday and I suddenly have all these clothes for winter. It’s like magic. It is not the most professional mending job that could be done, but I figure if people are staring critically at the patch job on the inner thigh of my shorts/pants, they’re just a little too nosey.
The sewing machine is put away and I repotted two plants that needed it (and were waiting on the dining room table). So, now my table is pretty much clear. I’m going to finish clearing it today and clean it. Then it’ll be ready for fun projects as it gets colder. My other job for today is to finish with the bin of stuff on the basement stairs. I started going through it earlier this week, got rid of half, and then wanted to think a bit about the rest. I need to make a few returns so I may look at storage options for some of it (sentimental stuff).
I haven’t made as much progress on the “undoing of bad habits” this week, but I am so happy with the progress on the house that I’m okay with it. I really feel like my living spaces are set up for being more engaged during cold weather. I’ll work on the “undoing of bad habits” in November.
Been working on this, even though I haven’t been updating here. The paperwork I went through was part of this. I need to get a mostly empty book box upstairs as I have books sitting atop the box stacks. If i want to add more boxes, the books have to move. Most of them are culls, so an out box.
I do some cleaning (mostly tidying the living room and kitchen.) since I am up before my partner (and he is the messier one) it makes my morning stressful if I wake up to a mess so I found that if I tidy up it helps me wind down. Then I prepare anything I need for the morning (mostly coffee lol, also my outfit, my bag, etc.) I will then make a hot honey lemon water and do some journaling and maybe some light crafting (the paint by number gem art is amazing for this) while watching some light tv, hydrating and then going to sleep at a not unreasonable hour. Hope this helps.
I actually put this in place during the pandemic so that I had definite things to help me distinguish the different things between day and night.
