Semi-productive

I am still struggling to get myself into some kind of routine that isn’t staying up way too late and sleeping in. I need to start being productive. I have a list of things to do that I have been ignoring. I keep adding to it and not crossing anything off.

This past Thursday was bright and sunny and all I could focus on was the dirt and dust in my home. Fridays are long work days so I knew Saturday would be the day for chores. Last year, August or September, I bought new doorknobs for all the doors inside my apartment. When the handle on Diva’s door came off in my hand late last year, I changed it and also the one on Princess’s room to keep things even. Especially since it was Princess’s idea to change the door handles. And then I rested…

So yesterday I changed 3 of the six remaining doors. I then dusted like it was my job. It was gross. Then I vacuumed the living room and hallway. We threw out some crap and put some other stuff in a bag for donation. Unfortunately no one is open to take these treasures so I will be adding them to my sister’s pile in my mother’s garage as I do not have any space for junk.

My place looks better but there is still so much more to do. I have yet to tackle my bedroom and it needs assistance. It is overdue. So I am going to try to get up at a reasonable hour this week and work on it bit by bit. I only recently emptied the suitcase I used in November … 😒😳🙄😲

I did my taxes today. I was procrastinating as I knew I owed and since Trudeau gave me that extension I figured I had time… but since my taxes are done with my daughters I didn’t want to delay them too much as they are eligible for all kinds of rebates I am not. They are both getting back money so I’ll be hitting them up for meals out. LOL

Even though I owe a small fortune and am now working way too much for very little, I still feel privileged. Life is still good. We are still healthy. There is lots of food in the fridge and freezers. Ironically I have more money in my accounts and a smaller than normal credit card bill this month. It has got me thinking about how much of my spending was just on crap and unnecessary. I know most of it went in my belly and it was how I socialized. It is bringing to front that I should change my ways. I think our “new normal” will help with that, whenever we are allowed out again.

Hope all is well in your world and you are healthy.

Less is more

One of the joys of being home all the time is realizing just how lazy my kids are. The little one is more helpful that the older one. Unfortunately the big one is the one that is home the most. Since I was working 60+ hours away from home I noticed the mess but I was tired and had other priorities. Now that I’m only working 45+ hours at home all day, the mess was driving me to the brink of madness.

So last Friday I had the day off and with the kids in and out of the house. I washed EVERY dirty dish and utensil, then dried them and hid all but 3 plates, 3 bowls and 3 small bowls, 4 little spoons, 4 big spoons, 4 forks and 3 knives. The reduction was not mentioned by either child for some time.  The mess is still there but it is more manageable to me. I am realizing that visual clutter is not my favourite thing and this helps. Having said that I am eating crackers and cheese out of a small bowl as all the plates are dirty or missing. Time to crack down on these two.

Now to get the rest of the house under control.

 

A quick update

Oh gosh time is flying. The past 2 weeks have gone by in a blur. I have gotten into a reasonably good routine of working and exercise. I could do with a bit more socializing but one thing at a time.

Last Sunday, I had intended to write a post, but my cousins’ Grandmother died and her funeral was on Saturday and Sunday was spent hanging out with some of my cousins. We had brunch and wandered the city, going into many unique furniture stores. I need to stay out of these places, as I feel in love with a $2300 couch …

I have been battling a head cold for the past week or more. I need more rest but I just can’t seem to slow down long enough to get well. I tried going to bed earlier most of last week and it seemed to help. Now if I could only lose the cough, life would be ideal.

Last night I went to see Trevor Noah live and he did not disappoint. I took transit downtown which is a change for me. But I figured that would be the better financial decision and it gave me time to read. It was an easy ride down and back.

Today I surprised myself with how productive I was. I cooked, cleaned and did laundry. If it could stay this way all the time … I would be dancing in the streets. I still need to dust but I am slowly going to get to it.

I have been trying my best to declutter. It is a work in progress. I started small with my spice cupboard. I threw out quite a few spices that expired in 2014. My plan moving forward is to reassess my spices every January. This was I can get rid of the ones that are not in use.

My intention is to finally do my kitchen renovations, late summer. To get ready I want to reduce the amount of things I own so there will be less to store, plus I could certainly own less.

My closet is my next target. I turned all my hangers the wrong way last year and I need to go through which ones I can let go and give away the ones I haven’t worn in a year. It helps that I am no longer that size and my style has changed a bit.

Enough talk about cleaning, time to motivate myself to workout.

 

 

I’m back!!

I miss this space and am going to make an honest attempt to get back to here more often.

I have been out enjoying the summer and it is now winding down so I should have some time to write again. There has also been some reading. 🙂 I’m on track to reach my Goodreads goal of 25 books this year. Go me!!

Over the summer I have had the opportunity to visit/meet up with various friends and family. Great for my spirit, not so good for my wallet.

A couple of years (dang way too long), back I started an impromptu book club and I let it fall by the wayside. I will be reviving some sort of monthly or bi-monthly get together with my friends and family.

This will also get me to deep clean my place a lot more often. 😉 I just need to settle on my living room arrangement. A reorganization of my furniture is long overdue. I would like to change my TV stand and have been going back and forth with myself as there is nothing wrong with my  current one. However, I would like something with drawers to store my DVDs in to reduce the visual clutter.

I am slowly getting rid of things that are just taking up space. I am having honest conversations with myself regarding the likeliness that I really need all these things. It is a work in progress.

I have put off my kitchen renovation until spring. I would like to have less before I start as I will have to store everything in my kitchen throughout the rest of my place and that is a bit overwhelming right now.

Next year will be an expensive year as not only do I want to do these renos, I also want to travel. I have a cousin in Portland who teases me with the most gorgeous scenery pics. A visit is long overdue. To assist with this I am looking for a part time job. Not sure how successful this will be as I only want to work 1 or 2 nights in the week and on the weekends. I have applied to a few places and fingers crossed I can find a company that works with my lifestyle.

I was inspired by one of my cousin’s who managed to work a full time and a near full time part time job in order to come up with the down payment for her house. She has young-ish children and made it work for the year. My kids are pretty much grown. Diva will be 18 next month, so I have a lot of  some extra time which could be best used to make extra cash.

This is my short term plan; declutter, work more, exercise, repeat. Short term pain for long term gain.

Small advances

For the first time in at least 5 years I did a morning work out and you know what? It didn’t kill me. And this was with my late bed time and early morning wake up, a total of about 4 hours sleep.

I’m beat but I am glad I knocked it out this morning as I was beyond tired when I got home. Although habit had me putting on my workout clothes when I came home from work. lol

From the weekend’s list of things to do, I managed to empty out both bathroom cabinets, donate 2 bags of stuff and take the 2 boxes of CDs that have been sitting in a corner to the used CD store to sell. They pretty much gave me back 2 boxes as they only took 45 CDs. Which netted me $80! Not bad for crap that was collecting dust in my dining room.

The next thing to figure out if I am going to try to take the rest to another store or just donate them. Any thoughts?

July plans/goals

HAPPY CANADA DAY!!

It’s been way too long since I set out some monthly goals. I have been flying by the seat of my pants. And while it’s not too detrimental to the budget, I definitely could be doing better. There was WAY too much spent eating out last month. It doesn’t help that the new job has a cafeteria and I can get good, fresh, healthy food for $6. Or that since I changed jobs, I am in a much better place mentally and want to see my friends. 🙂

1. I am going to stick to the budget this month. Really, I am!! LOL

2. I am also going to work out in the morning before work. Every morning. No really I am!! 🤣

3. Blog with some kind of regularity.

This long weekend I am going to start decluttering my place. I have a ton of items that will never be used again; lotions and potions and what not. Last weekend I was looking for sunblock and found 3 bottles all expired. I don’t think they are the only ones.

I will empty the cupboards under both bathroom sinks and only put back what I am sure we will use. I think we have a lot of stuff and I want to inventory it properly so I know for sure. I ran out of body lotion and have been putting off buying more as I think we have more somewhere.

I will attempt to be ruthless and really get rid of things we are not using. I already have a few things set aside to donate. I will be adding to it AND taking it out of my place.

I would also like to rearrange my living room furniture. I do not love the current layout. Having a L-shaped living room/dining room is a small challenge. Plus I might have too much. There may or may not be a couple of dead plants in my home. 😳

Now to execute! 🙂

 

Long weekend!!

We were sent home 3 hours early yesterday. Gotta love that long weekend policy of leaving early the day before a holiday. 😀

I have a full weekend planned of cleaning and tidying up. I know you are jealous. I can feel it.

My Aunt & her friend are coming to visit for 5 days, so I need to get my place in tip top shape. They will be staying in Diva’s room, so I am grateful for the long weekend to tackle that jungle. Even though Diva was away most of August her room is still a hot mess. 🙈

I hope we can get this done over the next 2 days and then relax on Monday.

While I was out I realized that my entire next week might be thrown for a loop and I really need to figure out when I am going to put exercising in my day. Somehow I doubt my Aunt wants to see me sweating and jumping around in my living room. So I should go to the pawn shop today and get another DVD player.

Maybe putting a DVD player in my room will inspire me to get up and work out in the morning.😜

 

Baby it’s cold outside

 

 

a shivering winter toon guy with icicles hanging from his nose, hugging himself to keep warm

Holy moly it is cold outside. I took Diva to work and decided to run a couple of errands while I was out. It is bright and sunny and so very deceiving. I just dropped off some things at Value Village, went to the library and to pick up my mail from my mother’s house. OMG, I nearly froze my little tushy off.

I spent some time trying to get my room under control. Bright sunny days tend to inspire me. I pretended to “KonMari” my closet but there are a few lot of items that need to be tried on. Even though I took a full black garbage bag of mostly clothes out, my closet still seems full to me. I will be conducting a second round in the spring, when hopefully I will be in better shape so the fashion show will go off a little better.

I have a filing cabinet in my room which I just realized I haven’t opened in at least 3 years. So there will be some shredding in my future. I am sure there are a few pieces of paper I will need to keep like taxes, warranties etc. I will have to come up with a new way of storing them. Any suggestions are appreciated.

There are some boxes that are behind my door that have been there since I moved in almost 10 years ago. They are also on the list to be addressed.

I am toying with the idea of moving my bed around and will revisit that once I get rid of all the extra furniture.

On the list for this weekend

So far I have managed to:

• get my eyebrows threaded, which was long overdue
• take my old vacuum & toaster oven along with 2 bags of clothes to Goodwill
• Return my library books that were due and pick up the movies that were on hold

Now I’m waiting for my BFF as we are going out.  Place unknown as she is in charge of this night.  My old instruction was not to wear jeans.  Whoops thought I pressed publish on this already.

Still left to do is:

• update my resume, I am going to job search hard soon
• clean my house … WHY does this seem to always need to be done
• menu plan for next week
• put away my laundry
• wash sheets and towels
• build a bookshelf/cubby unit for Princess
• research car insurance

Sunday musings

It’s 3:45 pm and all I have eaten is a yogurt and a cup of coffee. 😦  I need to get it together better on the weekends.  As this is the norm.

So far though I have been very productive.  All the laundry is done. Yeah!! 🙂 I’ve pulled out pork chops for dinner.  The kitchen is on its way to being tidy.  The apartment has been dusted and vacuumed.  I’d like to say it’s all me but well we all know how I love to “delegate”.

I am back to tackling the box of CDs again. LOL  I really need to get this done.

Procrastination really should be my middle name.

The elevator is still out of service and expected to be so until next Friday.  Granted they said that it was to be available last Friday so I am not holding out hope right now.  It is okay as I still haven’t really looked at furniture.

I want to trim my hair today.  Random I know, but it’s overdue.

The weather has really turning chilly which means time to pick up my crocheting again.  I have an afghan on the go that I stopped because I got to a part that was not coming together easily.  Time to knock that out of the park and move on.

I went to the eye doctor yesterday and my prescription is the same as it was 2 years ago. 🙂  I am always concerned about going blind.  My kids’ eyes are worst. 😦  My Aunt says it is due to the frequent looking at computers and their iTouches.

I still have to meal plan for the week and finish up the kitchen.  And then it will be time to sit on the couch and take up space.