excited & nervous

With a whole 3 days under my belt, I can say that I am very excited to be sticking to my Habits of the Month. But I am nervous because each month will add new tasks to the list of things I need to do every day. Shit.
Sounds like a challenge. But at the end of the day, I am thinking, " Yes! I did it! I'm proud! This is all clean!"
So it's worth it.

all my ducks in a row

One Year to an Organized Life by Regina Leeds

Thanks so much! I was super-excited to get this present in the mail last Sunday because when you told me about it Friday I was very eager to start.

In the intro, Miss Regina says that it is best to let her words percolate for a few days, but since I was already in agreement with her, I thought it was fine to just move on to Chapter One the next day. I think the most important thing I found in the intro was that "disorganized" people are actually already organized. They've just created a system and routine that works against them rather than for them.

So I'm sure you flipped through it enough to see that the first month focuses on learning time management and making your kitchen awesome. Which I am excited for since I love to cook.

The Habits of the Month (yes, I am using caps for these) are:
- Wash your dishes right after you use them (or at least once a day)
- Dry them and put them away immediately after washing
- Wipe off the counters and table after each use
- Once a day, take out the garbage

I think it is fucking hilarious that our culture has gotten to the point where we truly appreciate a book that is basically telling us to do our chores! But I am definitely gonna follow this. The rules for the Habits are that you have to do them everyday for at least 21 days. Then it should continue naturally. I also added one more unrelated Habit because it is a big problem for me:

- At the end of the day, throw my clothes in the hamper or hang them back up

I am very good at creating piles of fabric all over the house. Clean laundry taking up a chair. A pair of jeans that doesn't deserve the hamper yet goes on the floor by the bed instead and eventually gets mixed in with dirty socks until I just say screw it and have to wash everything. Or leave the whole mess on the floor for another couple of weeks. In short, this is awful!

Taking out the garbage once a day will help with our ant problem; we just need to bring in our smaller garbage can and use smaller bags.

Lastly, Week One Assignments:

A. Get acquainted with your organizing journal (which you are supposed to use throughout the year). Take 4 days out of this week to write about the following topics. Allot yourself only 10-30 minutes so you don't waste time going on an emotional writing spree (because we are supposed to be learning time management).
1. Think back to your childhood. What specific memories do you have about time and time management? Were your parents late or punctual? Did you ever procrastinate? Looking at old photos or talking with family can bring up memories.
2. How were you affected by parental dramas regarding time? How do you feel about your parents? Did you try to emulate them or rebel against them? Is this reflected in how you manage your time today?
3. Are you usually on-time or late? If you are late or procrastinate, did you used to be on-time until some event happened to change that (changing schools, accident, etc)?
4. Does being late bother you? Does being late make you feel special because everyone is waiting for you? What emotions do you have when you think about tardiness?
You may not have any emotional baggage related to time management, procrastination, and being on-time. Fabulous.

B. Set positive time management goals and write them in the present tense, like "I no longer lose important papers," and "I don't take on more than I can handle," and "I am always on-time for my appointments." Be ambitious but realistic. Of course as time goes on you can edit your goals.

C. Where does your time go? Make a list in your journal of things you spend your time on. Then write the percentage of your time that each activity takes up. Make a revised list that has what you want to spend your time doing and what percentage of your time you want to spend doing it. Decide what you really want out of life, and schedule it in. Eliminate what you think is wasting your time.

Awww, the last tip for Week One is to communicate with someone who has your best interest at heart and wants to see you succeed. Yeah, buddy!

ps sorry about the novel, but you said to share the info with you!

oooOooooOOOOooo sparkly!

I went on a rampage yesterday cleaning the house. I did all the dishes, tidied up every part of the bedroom (that was ALOT of work--how can like 20 square feet hold so much crap? ok so its more than 20 but whatever), vacuumed up the 3.5 billion ants that have taken up residence, and some other crap.

I also discovered RuPaul's Drag Race.

("RuPaul's Drag Race! May the best woman--Best Woman--win!") You should watch at least one episode.

...also, I thought it would be good to list...

Eleven Things I Like About My Job

1. Our office is decorated like a jungle.

2. I don't have to do anything disgusting.

3. I can take lunch whenever I want.

4. We have some pretty awesome people as clients.

5. Other clients offer challenges. Challenges are good...

6. I like my coworkers.

7. Brendan brings his dog Sam who is the coolest dog!

8. Sometimes I sneak in time to read design magazines, but it's close enough to still qualify as "work."

9. We have fun Christmas parties.

10. Everyone gets presents on their birthday.

11. Everyday is another opportunity for me to practice being on-time (it doesn't come naturally to me!).

umm that's it for now...

One out of five ain't bad

In the past week, the only goal that I attempted was laundry. I did most of my laundry on Monday, but I ran out of quarters, so my reds will go another couple days unwashed. I also need to take a bunch of clothing to the dry cleaners. I've had a dedicated dry cleaning pile for about a year and a half. Yikes!

Bird is walking all over my belly right now, by the way. Is she taunting me?

fudge is good

"So are brownies," Holley says.

My sister and I were playing with my camera and her nifty blacklight pen. Using a long shutter speed, she was able to write this profound message in the air in my dark living room.

It's turned into her science project that is due this Friday. She is testing a bunch of shutter/aperture combinations to see which produce the best image.

So Holley has been over a lot to work on this, which is great because one of my goals is to make myself more available for my sister, and I love woking on school projects with her because she gets into her schoolwork--sometimes she seems bored or over it.

Next thing I want to work on with her is her penmanship, although I do like whatever font she chose for her 'fudge' picture.

List: A KK Production

Good ish, J.

You're one of the most creative people I know, so I feel that number 1 should be easy. I know it's really hard to make time out of every single week to go to your studio, but how about just two or three hours. Wake up on Saturday, get some coffee, walk (!) over to your studio and do your thing. You know, that thing that you creative types do.

No tips on the snooze button. Blame my dumpy butt-less parents, but I never knew about the snooze button until college. Since then, I've used it... once? I actually turn my alarm clock off when I want to sleep in. Lillian, a former roommate of mine, once caught me unplugging it while half asleep. I've read that you should place your alarm clock out of reach to keep yourself from hitting that beautiful little button. Try that.

"healthy + glowing + awake" I hear ya. "get a job that i love" Ditto. "continue learning" Yup.

********

My list:

- Cook more! I'm not a great cook but I like to do it. As with almost everything else, I'm not motivated to do it daily... hell, weekly.
- Continue learning. Long term: Maybe law school. Short term: I don't know. A Portuguese class? In that vein, I need to do something with my hands. I've never been very crafty nor am I musically-inclined, but I have to 1) Finish my upholstery project and 2) Buy a ukulele and... er... learn how to play it.
- Do laundry more than once every three or four weeks. (No joke.)
- Spend less cha-ching. I'm not bad at saving per se, but I could always save more.
- Do something physical. I've been so sedetary in the past six months. Yuck.

In sum: cook, learn, wash, save, move.

a list

i'm tired. but i want to get this ball rolling. so, a list.

creativity + productivity
abolish the snooze button
healthy + glowing + awake
conquer my apparent fear of housework
be reliable + available
get a job that i love
nourish my relationships + collaborate
debt-free (i'm really close on this one)
continue learning (i'm contemplating returning to school)

something much more interesting to come soon.

what an emotionless post...

Top Chef Wednesday

A few weeks ago, I decided that one way that I could lose my dumpy butt would be to cook myself a complete dinner (as in, not tomato soup from a can and some pita and hummus) every Wednesday to coincide with the airing of Top Chef.

Well, it's Top Chef Wednesday, and I'm writing my maiden post on our new blog, I Dip, You Dip, We Dip, instead of slaving over my stove. I'm not starving though; I stopped by the hot food bar at Piedmont Grocery and grabbed a tamale and some three bean salad. My lazy, dumpy butt is here to stay.

S'ppose we're in this together, J. Put your hands up on your hips, and let's dip.

a small dose of non-dumpy-butt

we had unexpected company tonight, but otherwise--we got a lamp fixed that has been unfixed for about 6 months.
how's that for a dumpy butt?