Sunday, September 28, 2008

Sunday 9/28

First of all, let me get this out of the way:
1 bag of sweaters, 3 pairs of shoes, 2 bags of disgusting frozen vegetables, 5 evil nutrisystem items. That's 11, bringing my total to 65/2008. I've decided to scrap the idea of counting things against me that I bring in, b/c it's just not realistic to keep track of. So there.

We just got back from a lovely weekend away in beautiful CT. We gambled and I played black jack for the first time. It was fun - much better than slots. I wish I had played it sooner. And we actually came home slightly ahead, which was nice. Normally we're down, I don't think we even usually broke even.

Now I'm sick, so is Kris. Nathan is just getting over his cold. He is going to school tomorrow though. After being out last week, I'm sure it won't be pretty. But he must go and I must work.

And now I must get some things done. I knew I'd be paying for my few days off and I was right.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

I have discarded more things.

I cleaned out the pantry and fridge today. I know, this is so terribly exciting. Why am I even blogging this? Who gives a shit? Anyway, I'm adding another 25 items between the cleaning I did, a large pile of expired coupons and 1 pile of old receipts. Yay, I am now at 54/2008 items.

And for the record, this only took me about 5 minutes to blog. 4 minutes were spent trying to figure out what 25 plus 29 was.

Friday, September 19, 2008

Gotta get the crap out of my house

Last year I spent many months doing decluttering challenges. I basically would set an arbitrary number of things that needed to be removed from the house by a certain deadline. It worked well, I cleaned up, organized things, used up stuff that has been hanging out too long. Using up pantry food counted, donating, selling, throwing things away, they all counted. I didn't count stupid things - like I used 1 tea bag - but I will count the frozen chicken that's been there for 6 months waiting to be eaten. I haven't done one since around December of last year, so I thought it would be good motivation to start again. There have been some positive happenings that look like our move could possibly happen some time in the next year or so, and I must get this house in order. Not only does it need to be neat to sell, but everything in it has to be moved. Thus, I'd like a lot less things in it.

So I've set the (arbitrary) goal of 2008 things out by the end of 2008. But I'm going to step it up. Everything I bring in that is not a necessity will count against me. For example, a container of milk won't count against me, but a new pair of shoes will. Buying a new box of Cheerios won't count against me, but buying 10 on a good sale (yes, I almost did that the other day) will have 9 counts against me, assuming I needed that first box. No more stocking up the pantry and freezer as though we will never go shopping again.

The other rule is not hard and fast, but I'll try to stick to it. Today I've gotten rid of baby clothes. Instead of saying 50 items, I'll say one bag. I won't say 200 sheets of paper, I'll say one pile of paper clutter. I'm not going to waste time counting every little thing. That's silly.

The goal is to get the garbage out, the excess out, the clutter decluttered and the stuff set aside to be sold actually sold.

Here is the tally so far:

1 large bag of baby clothes
15 pieces of outdated make up
5 pairs of eyeglasses
6 eyeglass cases
2 mutilated highlighters

29 items out.

Enough procrastinating now, I have to get back to work.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Today's thoughts

Today I'm thinking that it would be really nice if for once things worked out in my favor. If just once people gave me the kind of attention that I would give to them. If I could be someone's priority. I feel like I am never anyone's number one priority. More often than not, I am not my own priority. Is it possible that some people just aren't priorities to anyone? I call or email people, they don't get back to me. If I do this to someone, I feel enormously guilty. Somehow I doubt that somewhere someone is thinking, "Oh shit, I forgot to call Michelle back". Even though I can count several people off the top of my head that owe me a phone call, my phone is not ringing. Emails are not piling up in response to ones that I have sent out.

And it seems like all I do, day in and day out, is something for someone else. I realize that it's hard to lump in my job with that. They pay me to do stuff for them. But the fact remains that my NEEDS in that position are rarely considered, despite any reminders that are given out. I have people that expect things of me and even try to guilt me into doing more for them.

I can't blame my son, he's just a baby after all. His neediness should be the ONLY acceptable neediness. He is the only one who should be making demands on me without a care as to what I've already got going on, simply because he is too young. But I fear that he will get older and realize that I've got plenty of other things to do and still not care.

I'm off now to do a pile of stuff that I have no desire to do. Yay me!