January 2nd, 2012
2012
Twenty-twelve.
It beleaguers the imagination.
I’ve been trying to figure out why this particular new year’s has been so devastatingly depressing. I mean…for a long time now, new year’s has been one of those days I try not to think about. Just another day, new date on the checks, etc., etc. You know, the new year…is. It’s just the inexorable march of time. One more year I can’t go back and salvage. And I ain’t gettin’ any younger, either. That’s a huge part of it, I know. I’ll be 60 this year.
60
SIX-ty.
Shit.
That, in and of itself is enough to make me want to jump off a bridge (if I weren’t afraid of heights). Part of the disconnect is that I do not feel 60, hell…I don’t feel 40, mentally. Physically, my body is a disaster zone. Physically, I feel like I’m 90 most days. All this BS about 50 is the new 30 and 70 is the new 40, or whatever…those spinners never lived in my body. 60 is the new 90. Bah!
Instead of chronicling what I feel the issues are (which sounds suspiciously like making excuses), I’m going to try to take a page out of the sunshine and lollipop spin and look at ways to make 2012 a better year. I mean, you know…just not sitting around being morose would make it a better year, right?
First up, I’m decluttering the house. It’s a gargantuan undertaking, but I’m gettin’ ‘er done, by gosh. In that vein, I’ve decluttered Mdme B’s space here. My previous theme mirrored the usual state of my desk (might have even been cleaner…but I’ll never tell), but I’ve noticed most of the well-read sites are simpler, with white backgrounds.
Before you get all mushy and think this is a list of resolutions, don’t. I don’t do resolutions. They set you up for failure. These are things I’ve already been working on or need to do anyway, new year or not. It just seems like a good time to trot out the list since one of the things I’d like to get in the habit of doing is actually, you know, like…USING my web site–what a novel idea. Which reminds me of another one on the list. Setting up a time to write, every day, same time. I might actually get that novel done before I really am 90.
Dump about 80-90 pounds. Didn’t say pounds of what, now did I? (Technically, I’ve already done this: in decluttering in the last couple of days, I’ve trashed, recycled, and donated well over 100 pounds of schtuff. HA!) But yeah…part of the feeling 90 thing is this extra couple of bags of mulch I’m carrying around. Hee. In order to clearly demonstrate what carrying weight on your body is like, I use the following analogy: you know those bags of garden dirt, compost, or mulch? Each one weighs 40 pounds. I can barely tote ONE of those around. And I’m carrying at least two on a small, 5’5″ frame that wasn’t intended to carry more than about 145 pounds at the most. TWO! No wonder my knees are going and my feet hurt so much. (218 when I last weighed myself at work before the winter break, if you MUST know.)
Another thing I’m going to try for is consistency. Juliet said something about the moon’s inconstant orb…but you know, the moon is rather consistent. Each month, she does the same thing, perpetually. I’m not sure I’d want to be quite that predictable–and boring–but one could do far worse than be as consistent as Lady Luna.
Getting back on track being a vegesaur. Several times over the holidays, whether it was just because I was tempted by some yummy-meat thing or because there really wasn’t anything else to eat in the house, I’ve had things to eat which I regretted later. Regretted either because of guilt or because they upset my system something fierce. This goes along with actually planning some meals, doing shopping, and cooking! Gah…I have a teenager, for crying out loud, and I rely on my husband to cook most of the meals, but he doesn’t make veggies and green things, so no one gets the nutrition they should. *slaps own hand*
One last thought on this is time spent on the computer. It is a very useful tool, when used properly, but I spend too much time on FB and playing games, and not enough time doing creative things with it. Posting projects and the like here will be a part of a renewed effort putting what little time I have left on this earth to good use. Believe it or not, I actually go days without checking FB, I don’t twitter, or Google-group…but I still manage to waste an inordinate amount of time on teh intarwebs. I love googling ideas, items, history, pictures, etc. THAT can really eat up time, lemmetellya.
So. I’m off to clean that other catbox, start a back-to-work-and-school washing marathon, finish scanning a kajillion photos for my boss (he’s paying me), bake two more loaves of banana bread, wash dishes and continue sorting and culling 20 years of crap that grew in my house and wonder if clutter is like mold or a fungus…does it spread by spores?
Categories: Self |
Tags: about me, aging, cleaning, clutter, lists, self-pity | Comments Off
June 6th, 2010
For my main home page, I have iGoogle. You can pick all sorts of fun widgets to clutter up your iGoogle page and one of them is a daily horoscope from Tarot.com. For the most part, it’s like any other generic, one-size-fits-none daily horoscope. But lately, they’ve been hitting it eerily spot-on. Today’s is a prime example:
You may feel as if you are at a turning point in your life, but everything may seem bigger than it actually is. It will take months before your long-term goals clarify, yet the choices you make now will be instrumental in your new direction. Don’t worry if you cannot put all your ideas into one practical package. For now, let your imagination flow without restraint; you can make sense of your thoughts later on.
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been determined to turn things around in my life, to end the cycle of downward spiral, clean things up, clear things out, lose weight, finish projects, etc. But my mind can’t settle on one thing to begin with. Today I decided to take control of my kitchen. I’ve washed a ton of dishes, and am cleaning the fridge out (most of what was in there was nascent compost), wash it out and clean the floors and start the plan to paint and refurbish the kitchen. Also, I want to work my way through the laundry monster that’s taken over the laundry/cat area in my studio, and move ahead on getting my shelves back up in my bedroom.
Why the heck am I sitting here typing??
Categories: Every Now and Then Horoscope, Self |
Tags: about me, cleaning, clutter, projects, Self, Taurus | Comments Off
June 5th, 2010
We’ve lived in this house for exactly 20 years and 1 month (not counting the 4-5 months I lived in an apartment by myself, but that’s a whole other story). It was built by a less-than-reputable builder, Nash Phillips/Copus Homes or NPC. Back while this subdivision was being built but before I’d heard of it, I was dating a guy whose mom lived in a fairly nice neighborhood in the south part of the city…why am I being coy? If you know who or what NPC Homes was, you’ll know where I am, so what the hell. In South Austin, off of William Cannon. This boyfriend was the first person to tell me the other names for NPC: “Nails, Paper, and Cardboard” and “Not Properly Constructed.” The year after we moved in here, a tax adjuster for Travis County said he had been one of the original owners in the little exclusive condo neighborhood attached to the bigger development of single-family homes. They had a HOA and tons of issues with NPC…he added the epithet “Never Pays Contractors.”
After 20 years of living here, I’ve added my own: “Nothing Per Code.” The sheet rock is cheap, too thin, and barely taped; none of the plumbing was installed correctly–we’re still waiting to find the money to have the hall bathtub drain fixed (as in new stuff, properly installed), so we can replace the flooring in the greatroom–on long walls, there’s only 1 duplex, instead of the 2-3 there should be; everywhere we’ve torn up flooring, there’s been some cryptic message scrawled in black marker by an inspector “not plumb” with an arrow pointing to the wall, is my favorite. But the single biggest code whanger I’ve found was brought to my attention by the guy who bought the house next door. He’s since sold and moved, but I remember one day, not long after he moved in. He was furious. He’d bought the small footprint, 2-BR house with the intention of adding on a second story, only to find out that the studs were 22 inches on center. If you’re not the constructionly type…studs are supposed to be 16 inches on center. The builder saved about a third of the framing costs right there. My studs run 22-24 inches on center (and no rude jokes, please).
Since NPC went under, Nash Phillips came back and started Wilshire Homes here in the Austin area. As far as I know, they are very nice, well-built houses, in fact, we had looked at some up in Round Rock. Either he learned his lesson…or another thought occurred to me. Perhaps the people working for NPC were robbing the company blind, some sort of concerted effort by a superintendent, etc. to skim as much as they could. Imagine, if you will, NPC buys enough wood to properly frame out the entire subdivision. But the contractor, because he knows he’s not going to get his money anytime soon…skims 1/3 of the 2x4s. That’s a fair chunk of change, and in these cheap little houses, purchased mostly by first-time, low-income buyers, who’s going to notice? Makes you wonder.
None of this really has much to do with my dilemma, except that the house is built of cheap materials which are now falling apart. Not horribly…yet. But enough that the house really needs work. Add to it my proclivity for STUFF and we have a problem. Add to it my total lack of energy when I get home and we have an even bigger problem. Add to that my ADD and …well… Anyone who knows an ADD person knows that we tend to start a whole lot of things, but never finish them, which of course adds even more crap and inability to decide even where to start. My doctor, who’s a sleep specialist (never, ever tell a sleep specialist you snore…), says he’s not sure he believes in adult ADD. eh…doc? So I guess we grow out of it? Doc, that’s like saying someone will grow out of their eye color. Supposedly, all my symptoms can be explained by sleep deprivation. That’s fine, but I’m not sleep deprived, as long as I actually go to bed on time. I also find it hard to believe that certain behaviors specific to ADD are caused by sleep deprivation. Like starting a project or taking on a position in a group, and then losing interest, but meanwhile, you’ve gone gung-ho into it, and have all the tools, books, materials, etc. only to leave them behind…usually in a pile somewhere and start another project. Or, be working on a project and think about something else you could do with an item in your hand and go dig out all kinds of fabric, etc, to look at and then leave that out. Then later, you want to clean up, but literally do not know where or how to start. Inability to concentrate? Sure, I could give that one over to sleep deprivation…except that it’s been going on all my life, and I’ve only been snoring since I got really overweight….
Any who…back to the house. In some regards, you could say I’m a type of hoarder. But I can throw things out, I can organize them, I can give them away…having the energy to do that and enough time to think about it, that’s something else. Depression…did I mention that part, too? Crap. Well…and you can see just how easily I get distracted by reading this, yes?
This started out about my house and all that needs to be done…stayed tuned for part the second.
Categories: My House, Self |
Tags: clutter, My House, projects, remodeling | Comments Off
