Ta-daaaaa!

I am pretty ding-dang-dong proud of myself and I'm gonna pat my own back! I am DONE with decluttering my office and, in fact, am sitting at my desk typing this!

Ya see this trash can? It's about 4 feet high and was almost empty before this morning! And now? It's almost full!!

I wanted to spend my morning vegging out in the bed but I gave in to the good angel's argument and got up and started working on the office shelves. I was on a roll, a ROLL I tell ya, when I had to stop to take the Chew-meister to doggy training class but NOTHIN' was gonna stop me from jumping right in when I got home. Ha. I took a 2 hr lazy "moment" but I did get up and went right back to work. And now? I'm able to enjoy my little office again.

Just in case you forgot where I started, this is what I was looking at last Saturday (Sorry I can't find the blasted original photos so I'm linking you to my other posts)...
http://stokes-mania.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-office-of-doooooooom.html

I got the desk area and floor cleared off by Tuesday but the shelves were icky...
http://stokes-mania.blogspot.com/2014/01/update-on-my-office.html

And now? Drum roll, if you puh-leeeeeeease!

I KNOW! One of the baskets on the shelf is actually EMPTY! And one has all my old paperwork from when I sold Premier Designs Jewelry. I want to get a business box to put that stuff in and store it some place else but since I don't need that basket for anything else, it's okay there.

I also got a couple boxes of stuff to take to my office at church and a whole box of Christmas stuff that got overlooked.


Now, the whole top shelf is full of pictures and stuff that I still need to go through, but I need other stuff to be able to sort them properly. It's not hurting anything to stay up there.

Man alive, once we get the laminate flooring put down in here, it's gonna be AWESOMELY awesome. (The doggies tinkled all over the carpets in the house so we finally just yanked them up. We got the new flooring on the living room and have to wait for finances to recover following the flooring, some medical stuff from my mess in October and Christmas before we do the bedroom. But that gives me a chance to declutter the bedroom a bit. Having to move everything out in order to remove the carpeting was pretty traumatic because it put into full view for the entire family just how bad of a clutterbug I was. I'm still traumatized a bit. NOT gonna relive that again!

So, now I got the kitchen and my office decluttered. I'm going to move on to something a little less major before I hit my closet (ugh), the laundry room (quadruple ugh) and the storage area over the garage (music signifying impending doom).

http://www.aslobcomesclean.com/2014/01/gone-the-3rd-decluttering-party-report/

It's....going

Today was our first official check-in for our weight with my sisters on our SparkPeople Team. I’m up. I should be up. I don’t exercise and I’ve only managed to keep my calories within SP parameters once over this past weekend and couple of days. But I’m not beating myself up about it. I’m tracking my food and thinking about my food, doing something about what I’m putting in my mouth will come next. I lost over 20 lbs between January and April-ish in 2012. I know I can do it again. In the meantime, I’m working on my sleep issues (I don’t sleep well at night) by joining a 4-week better sleep challenge on SP. This week’s assignment was to track things for a sleep diary and I’ve done so every day so far!

But my weight isn’t the only thing I’m working on! I’m also taking college classes, I’m the official (no more interim) Children’s Director at church, and I’m trying to get my house organized.

The new semester started Monday. I’m taking three classes this semester. I’ve downloaded the syllabi for my classes, finished the assignment for one, emailed my professor about a question about her assignment and scheduled in my calendar when I’m working on the other courses assignment.

At church, I’ve studied the lesson I’ve got to teach tonight, found someone to mail the lessons to the little kids’ classes each month, have a Nursery Renovation Committee meeting scheduled for Sunday (and have started working on that agenda), contacted the youth minister about a group I want to start for my 4^th and 5^th graders that involved him and have contacted the leadership about an accountability program for me.

With the house I’ve made progress as I’ve decluttered the kitchen cabinets and drawers and made good headway on my office. I actually sat in my office and worked in there last night! I decluttered two of the bins in the office.

With tonight being a church night, my focus needs to be on my lesson tonight. I don’t want to lose my organizing/decluttering mojo though so I hope to declutter another bin before I sit down to study my lesson again.

So while things aren’t all peachy keen, they are…going. And that’s better than being stuck in a rut any day!

Update on my office

Well, I worked most of the evening on my office. Now my bedroom is all out of sorts, but I digress. I got the stuff off the floor. The black and red box is my school stuff. That way I just roll it into the kitchen to use the table there when I need a little more room to spread out and then roll it back. I also cleaned up the top of the desk so I can sit and work on it. The shelves? Are actually worse then when I started. I'll work on them a little at a time.

Kenny had to update my computer so I had to spend some time consolidating and cleaning up stuff on my hard drive. I've still got some work to do on that, but I can at least find stuff without looking too hard.

Kinda proud of myself. But I'm not one to rest on my laurels. I have to start on my homework tonight and study for the lesson I'll teach tomorrow night at church, but I will try to spend at least 30 minutes each night this week on my office.

Still a long way to go, but definite improvement, I must say!

 

 

The office of DOOOOOOOOM!

My plan for the Christmas Break was to organize the laundry room because it is AWFUL! But I changed that plan and decluttered the kitchen because the laundry room, although really bad, was functional. The kitchen was getting more and more dysfunctional. So...kitchen it was. I still need to do some cleaning in there, but need to move my decluttering focus somewhere else. You would think I'd do the laundry room, right? Makes sense! But no, I'm going to, gulp, tackle my office. Pictures tell a thousand words but my feeling toward my office can be summed up with one: embarrassment.

  See what I mean? This is not a large room! It's maybe 6x6
 It just gets everything dumped. Plus, usually there is a baby gate in the doorway to keep the dogs out. Obviously I'm not doing any work in this office. It's a storage spot. And not a particularly organized one. I just realized that I see two Christmas presents that never got wrapped. And a big bag of trash. Why didn't I just take that out the front door? Why is it stored in my office? Sweet freaking mercies!                                                                              

It's staring at me accusingly...

...Or it would be if it actually had eyes. That cabinet. That one kitchen cabinet that keeps me from saying, "Yes! I've decluttered my kitchen cabinets and drawers!" I don't know why I'm not taking care of it. It's not a particularly messy cabinet. It's under the sink and won't take me but a couple minutes to actually do. But I don't want to do it. Hmph!

I know I'm being silly and immature about it. Cuh-rap...

I'm back. Betcha didn't even notice I was gone. I felt like such a doo-doo head typing that first paragraph that I got up and cleaned out that last cabinet. I threw away a box of Carpet Fresh for pets since we don't have carpets where the pets are anymore, an empty spray bottle of Urine gone as it was EMPTY, and moved some cleaners back to the laundry room where they are supposed to be stored. (Oh, wow, is it going to be a major BOOGER to clean out that laundry room!) So that means, drum roll, if you puh-lease, that my kitchen cabinets and drawers are decluttered! Woo-hoo! Big Girl Booty Dance!!!

Now, don't get me wrong, my kitchen is not clean. I desperately need to wash/scrub/whatever down the fronts of the cabinets and drawers, my appliances are kind of gag-worthy and if you walk barefoot in the kitchen...your feet stick a little. Luckily for me it's winter and freaking cold so no one is walking barefoot so that gives me a little breathing room.

Wow. I can't believe I'm done! Feels good. Gotta remember that next time I get to a plateau with my cleaning...it feels good to get something done!

Weighing in Jan 2014

Oh crap! I'm really not wanting to do this. But I do know that what you put down on paper (or on a blog) provides the accountability that is necessary to push ya over the edge. At least I hope so!

So...the numbers from this morning:
Weight: 182.6 lbs
Chest: 34 in
Bust: 38 in
Waist: 35.5 in
Hip: 45 in (ouch!)
Butt: 47 in (double ouch!

And here are the pictures from yesterday...triple ouch!

I'm thinking that I need to get the girls to take the photos since I'm a little fuzzy. I also need to work on better jeans. Yikes! And last, these don't make me look as big as I actually think I am but I am not about to take pictures of myself in my bathing suit, or some such, and post it.

So for breakfast I had a thing of yogurt to combat the antibiotic I'm taking for my sinus infection. I also had two pieces of toasted white bread with margarine. Sorry, gotta eat what I got, people.

For lunch I made roast beef "sandwiches" where I took roast beef deli meat and swiss cheese and wrapped it in a croissant and baked it. I used some French onion soup as the au jus. I warmed up some leftover corn and had some chips. Don't judge. I'm going to eat normally (for me) until the kids go back to college because 1) I need to have normal food in the house for them and if it's in the house I'll eat it and 2) I have a buttload of food that I bought with them being home and I'm not about to throw it away.

I have been pretty active (for me) this morning. I took the dogs on their walk and have done 2 loads of laundry plus I decluttered all the drawers in the kitchen and half the cabinets (okay, so two drawers and two cabinets were already done. What's the point of lying on my own blog?)

I really want to finish the cabinets in the kitchen and desperately need to scrub the cabinet fronts because, frankly, they are really disgusting. I also need to work on my office because I've put our new insurance cards and the new Medflex card in a "safe place" i.e. my office, and I need to use them to get my birth control pills from Walgreens. Plus, the office is really disgusting!

I also thought I would go and get the girls Christmas checks cashed but it's raining outside, so...no.

Okay, so I don't forget it, here's what the character Amy said on The Big Bang Theory episode I'm watching, "Whenever I'm around Sheldon I feel like my loins are on fire. In the good way, not the urinary tract infection way." Bahahaha!

12 Days of Christmas

I don't really get it. And I think that's okay. I hope it's okay with others. But from the comments I read on someone's organizing FB page, I'm thinking, probably not. So, we have the 12 days of Christmas, which, to me, is a song that I get mixed up all the time. For others, it's how they celebrate (and from the tone of their comments, it's how ALL should celebrate).

So, backstory. While I've been sick I've looked around and found some different organizing sites that appealed to me. Today while scooting around www.organizingmadefun.com I wandered on to her FB page and there was a picture of neatly stacked totes with the caption. "Done. Are you?" Now a good chunk of people either said, no, or mentioned that they don't take down their decorations until after New Year's or Epiphany but there were a couple who were outright nasty! One said something really snotty that implied that THEY were more family oriented because they left their Christmas crap up until Jan 6th and that the FB author was a show-off and not as "good" as they were because she'd gotten her Christmas decorations pulled down. I was shocked! Seriously! I know that there are people who forget the old adage "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" (which, if you've read any of my posts is kinda ME to a T, but I'd never get snotty on someone else's FB page or blog, geez!)  or the fact that they don't HAVE to say something if they don't agree with her. It's not like her salvation is in jeopardy because she *gasp* took her Christmas decorations down on Dec 27th! Aren't there other things to get hyped up about?

By the way, it's December 30th and my Christmas decorations are down, toted up (thanks to Meg) AND (thanks to Kenny3) stored in the garage attic! My house feels so open and, well, homey! I'm kinda in the mood to clean out a couple cabinets! Wait, what?! Did I say that?!

Oh, what a day!

I'm still sick, but I think I'm on the other side of the mountain. I gathered up the energy to go to the movies with the girls so I didn't disappoint. I  hate the number of times I've screwed up something because I was sick. We went to see, "Frozen." Cute movie and so sweet that the love part of the movie was the bond between sisters. Aw! Lorie took us out to Don Tellos which was strange since I'm not very hungry and I can't taste much. :)

We came home and I stayed out in the living room with the girls instead of holing up in my room. I tried to make Forgotten Chicken but put it in the crockpot on low like a moron since I only had 4 hours before dinner. Guess what? The chicken wasn't done so I had to put it in the oven which dried it out. Ah well, the rest of them liked it.

I bought "The Daniel Plan" and oh, my, Kenny is never going to go for that! I'm not sure I'm up for it, to be honest. I know in my mind that eating clean is better for me but is a whole lot of thinking to do in order to eat stuff I don't like and don't wanna learn to like. Maybe I can do it for 40 days like the book touts. If I do, I'll wait until Kenny and Lorie go back to school. In the meantime, I can at least pay attention more to what I'm eating. Guess I should not push Meg to finish making those cookies and desserts I bought the stuff for!

I also found www.aslobcomesclean.com . I wish I could remember where but I don't. Maybe via Bloggy Moms? That sounds about right. I posted a comment on her Facebook page which Anne saw and the next thing ya know, she's joined and posted a comment, too! I love my sisters. I did manage to declutter a couple things: one of the junk drawers in the kitchen (the small one), my drawers and cabinet under the sink in the bathroom and my nightstand drawer. Yeah me!

So here's my goals for this next week: 1) get healthy already! 2) add 15 minutes of exercise (even just walking in place in front of the tube) every day, 3) wash face and brush teeth each night (I know, I should already do that but I'm a slob, okay?!), 4) take vitamins every day. So, #1 is kind of up to You Know Who but I'm drinking my water and laying low as much as possible. House-wise I'd like to get the cabinets and appliances in the kitchen wiped down, get the Christmas stuff put up, and get the girls hallway painted.

Maybe putting it in print will help keep me accountable. Not betting on it, though. I know me too well.