Tag: bedtime

Whew

Well, today definitely had a lot of stress in it for me. I had a wonderful morning that included a workout, an awesome coffee smoothie, great breakfast and a wonderful walk with my dad, and misty weather. But a lot of my tidying work today weighed on me. I kept having to re-center myself and have myself stay present to the task at hand, and not get overwhelmed by how much more there still is to do. I had to do that over and over and over again today, I was getting so nervous and stressed. I think it was a bit of a shock, when I realized that today is already the ninth of the month. I want to have all of this done by my birthday at the end of the month. However, I intend to stay at a beach house not here beginning on the Tuesday before my birthday, the 23rd. So, that means that today’s having been the ninth of the month is significantly more significant than it would have been if I were going to be home that whole week. So, that kept getting to me today.

However, I got everything folded and put in temporary location storage, except for my few jackets that need to be folded. I put my shoes away, and they look amazing. I have some reading from the secondary book to do tomorrow morning, as I move into the book category of tidying. (I know, that seems an odd sentence, but it is accurate! Haha)

I am a little nervous about the book category, because of my Japanese books… I haven’t gone through them since moving back from Japan, and I’m nervous to let any of them go…, But, after having read from the main book for the tidying tonight, I feel much more confident about it, and I believe I will be comfortable letting some of them go.

Only tomorrow shall tell, though! Fingers crossed!

Post-a-day 2021

^Phew! Just barely!

Sunday, Fun?day

Today was very long. I tutored twice, which was great, but, other than that, all I did was work on the tidying. I put a few things online for sale, and gave myself a time limit for when they needed to be sold (otherwise I will be giving them away). Beyond that, it was just the tidying. I have another three or four or five bags that were added to the donation gathering on the second floor landing. And those are standard kitchen trash bags, filled with folded clothing and shoes.

The categories today were harder for me Dash I couldn’t just look at them and be clear on what spark joy and what didn’t. But, by following the initial guidelines she gave, and picking my top three within three minutes first, figuring out what sparks joy within the category suddenly became very easy. I got rid of a lot of stuff I didn’t expect I would get rid of. I also kept more than I expected to keep, especially in shoes and scarves. When I think about it, it seems that I actually do wear a lot of different shoes. I know I wear a lot of different scarves. So, those two categories makes sense that I would have kept a lot. I have already put a lot of love and effort into them, if I am using them so often.

***Note: I might be somewhat babbling right now… I am very tired mentally, and also somewhat sleepy, so my thinking is coming slowly right now… i’m not even typing this… I’m using the dictation feature on my phone, I’m so tired, and, also, my eyes are not focusing well enough.***

I’m so tired, I’m not even able to keep myself sitting fully upright, and even the idea of going to the gym at all tomorrow sounds exhausting. And I’m not even thinking about the fact that I’m very likely to go to the early workout… Yikes. Haha

Anyway, I had an idea earlier in the evening that I wanted to play my drum tonight, so I’m going to go do that. Sweet dreams, everyone.

Post-a-day 2021

^!!!

Yikes, it’s cold

Whatever it is cold out, I find that the day always feels harder and longer by the end of it. I guess, since the sun never fully comes out, it feels like it has been the same part of the day all day long, giving it the sense of some thing that is typically only a few hours lasting the entire day. Or something like that.

I did not accomplish everything today that I had said I would accomplish or what I had wanted to accomplish regarding tidying.

I did have a private French lesson; go work out, even though I didn’t feel like it; hang out with my mom; give her two dessert crêpes from Sweet Paris (only $5.25 total, including tip) for World Nutella Day; set up successfully and use the new printer – yay!; tutor French; and have three different smoothies today.

A lot came up, both in tidying and outside of it, today. It was a very good day, but there was a lot of emotion, leaving me extra tired right now. It is late, and I have to get up very early for work tomorrow, and be on the road by 6:30 AM. I know that it would be very bad for me to aim to make decisions about things that bring me joy right now, in my current exhausted state. So, I’m going to bed. I have an updated list of what I will do tomorrow for the tidying. I am cautiously and reasonably optimistic for it.

Also, one portion of it totally frightens me, and I think that factored in today. So, perhaps that is something I need to have be high on my list tomorrow, so it cannot take up any more of my time, concerning me.

Post-a-day 2021

^Yay!

Clothes tidying

Wow! So much happened today with tidying up. I’ve finished going through all of my tops – shirts, sweaters, jackets, sweatshirts, etc. – and bottoms – pants, shorts, leggings, skirts; and all of my dresses and skirts. It turns out that I really like wearing light blue… and I mean really like wearing it. Probably because of my eyes, I feel amazing every time I see myself in a mirror with medium and light blue clothing. It also turns out that a massive portion of my clothing is athleticwear… maybe about a quarter of it. And that is in terms of physical space. If we counted actual items, I probably have almost as many pieces in athleticwear as I have in shirts, bottoms, sweaters, and jackets combined.

To be fair, though, I do exercise a lot, and go do athletic-y things a lot.

Anyway, there are a handful of trash bags with clothes to be donated downstairs now. Perhaps there were five of them? And that’s folded clothing, not just heaped in in a messy pile…

I still have my Indian outfits and all the small things – belts, scarves, socks, etc. – to do tomorrow. If I can get through all of them, though, I’ll be finished with sorting the clothing category. And that would be super exciting. 😀

I would like to make hat happen tomorrow. However, I also have two tutoring sessions, maybe three, and one needs a bit of extra prep before I go into it. I also want to make a quick trip to Ikea to check out a particular bedspread. I have my regular and my warm sheets now, so I want to be ready with the comforter/bedspread as soon as I get rid of the old sheets and move to the new ones I love. (Not sure yet where linens lie on the list of tidying.)

Anyway, I’m wiped – if that all weren’t already enough, my body is also menstruating, which always seems to take so much effort, even an easy day seems like I worked hard the whole time. I’ve a touch of a headache, so Imma drink some more water and get to sleep ASAP.

Goodnight, folks. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^I didn’t mess it up this time 🙂

Another one checked

I am adjusting better each day to scheduling out and committing myself to getting this work done. I even was able to go spend half the day with my mom today, then tutor over two and a half hours, and am still completing my tasks for the day before bed tonight. I brought my reading with me, and I sat down while at my mom’s and worked on that for a while, when she got busy with other things. Then, I did some extra cleaning up at home, even vacuuming part of my room (despite the fact that most of it has piles of clothes now, I vacuumed the most-used part of the floor), which made a beautiful difference. And getting myself to vacuum is usually rough. This was easy, somehow…. this method is rubbing off in more ways than one already.

I know it sounds so simple, why think anything of it? But this is big for me, and in a very good way. So, I am delighted and excited for my accomplishments there. 🙂

Anyway, got to finish that reading and do my joy check practice and order round! (Getting that stretch in, too!!)

Post-a-day 2021

^Totally got it wrong at first…

Wow

Today went much more efficiently than yesterday on the tidying process front. I actually accomplished everything I’d planned for the day. I didn’t do the stretch, and that’s okay. I did accomplish some other tasks that have been avoided for a long time, though. That was awesome. Part of those was going to Target to get a few specific things. In doing my vision board the other day, I discovered that I truly do not want to keep my bed comforters. They are lovely and they have been sources of support and comfort for me for many years. And they do not fill me with joy. Not at all, actually. They make me feel safe like a child. But they make me feel like a child, and not like myself.

So, I looked around intentionally and carefully at some comforters and bedspreads today while at Target, and I got a very good feel for what I am wanting for my own bed now. While looking, I discovered a set of sheets that were just a Wow. moment for me. I thought about it, and I realized that I actually don’t want to keep most of my current sheets (also childhood ones).

— You see, I had a full-sized bed that I had purchased, and lovely sheets and a mattress and all several years ago, when I had been teaching in Houston. But, when I moved to work in Japan, I gave that all up. Because I had bought a set of sheets for winter in Japan, on my visit back to Houston for my step-brother’s wedding, those sheets still belong to me. However, when I returned from Japan to Houston, I was living at my mom’s house for the first while, in a tiny room, surrounded by the boxes of everything that belonged to me (with a handful of exceptions due to my boxes being in the attic or garage). My mom had kept the two twin mattresses when she had gotten rid of the bunk beds a long time ago. So, she had stacked these two mattresses on top of one another, and that was my bed for months. Fun fact: They were about as old as I was. (And so were some of the sheets. The ones I used most, though, were one that I had gotten only fourteen years beforehand.) So, that wasn’t super comfy. I came across this twin bed set at Ikea with a friend one day that could be placed side-by-side as a queen(?) or stacked as a single twin bed with a hidden extra mattress underneath (not bunk beds, but one normal twin bed height). My mom was going to get that set, but then told me to go ahead and pick out a mattress that I wanted to use, too. So, she donated the two old mattresses, and I upgraded to an awesome twin mattress with a bed frame. When I moved out, my mom told me to take the bed with me. Thus the reason I have a twin bed with sheets from my childhood.—

So, I went ahead and purchased the sheets. They met all of my criteria, and they absolutely delighted me. I even did a little jiggle about them. When I got home, I went and washed and dried them almost right away. That’s huge for me, by the way.

Now, they are folded lovingly, awaiting my future bedspread/comforter. Hopefully that all will happen in the next week or so!

For tomorrow, though, I must do some more reading, and then, hopefully, go through the thigh-high mound of stacked shirts and tops. It was difficult today not to go ahead and pull out so many things that I know I don’t want to keep. But I will follow this process properly now, and all the way through.

At that, I bid you a lovely night! 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^Only slightly had to think about it this time 😉

Cold, cold, cold

Brrrr!!!

It is cold tonight. I have been chilled to my bones for most of today, actually. My fingers are still super sore from the cold water from brushing my teeth several minutes ago. (They are separate taps/faucets for cold and hot waters, so I can pick “seasonal cold” or “scalding hot”.) And my toes will need socks in order for me to fall asleep, despite my flannel sheets.

And did I mention that I am exhausted?

I woke at 4:20am, exercised at 5:15, went to school to sub, worked on some things there, taught some lessons, worked on some photos, went home and ate, napped for ten minutes, went to the store job to start at 3:00pm, got home just before 9:00pm, sorted through a few things, showered, and am now, finally, almost ready for bed at 22:07… That’s almost 18 hours of going today. And I didn’t go to bed early last night either. I suspect tomorrow morning will be a bit tough for me to convince myself to get out of bed – cold and exhausted are not a promising combination. 😛

Nonetheless, I would like to exercise in the morning, so that my day works out as planned, and I get to nap and do all my work for the tidying schedule! Yippee!

Goodnight, folks! 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^Thought somewhat ahead this time

And so, it begins

So, today started it all for real! I did my first day of work on tidying up my physical space life, and thereby my entire life, today. I read the life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo a few years ago, and it did me so well, I cannot properly describe it all. However, I did not do her program – the one presented in the book – fully at the time. I was not ready for that. But I was ready to begin working with her method.

I grew up, as my dad mentioned yesterday, in a very different world at home than a tidy and concise and non-excess and non-cluttered home. On both sides of my family, my parents had grown up in a world where one may waste nothing. By default, that turned into the idea that getting rid of something, if it is even able to be repaired and possibly be used again, is wasteful. And so, even when things were no longer being used or of use to us in any way, those things would get stuck somewhere in the sidelines of our homes, taking up space without benefit. We rarely even donated things. I was the youngest girl cousin, so I got all the hand-me-downs from everyone. And, whether I liked them or not, and whether they ever fit me or not, I was them stuck with them. I had no sister or cousin to whom I could hand down anything, so I had to keep everything.

Waste not. Right?

But through reading and working with Marie Kondo’s book, I discovered an entirely new and empowered outlook on items. It aligned beautifully with how I had often felt, especially in recent years, and it expanded even further than I ever had delved or dared to consider. And it gave empirical data on many of those ideas and practices. And so, my life began to alter as I did the work with her book.

But I did not complete the work, and I knew that I was not completing it at the time. And I was okay with that. I just wasn’t ready yet. If you haven’t experienced it yourself, I tell you: there is a lot of emotion and psychological dénouement that happens through following her method. And it is in an amazing and transformational way.

Now, as I have been working so much on my participation in life (mind), as well as my physical presence in life (body) and my self-expression, I realized that it would be not only unfair but untrue of me to leave out my living space from this work. Especially considering my efforts to be somewhere specific with my physical fitness by my birthday this year, it only made sense that I put a completion date on cleaning up fully my living space, such that it, too, will reflect who I truly am and want to be in this life right now.

So, I reached out for an accountability partner. No one replied. I took that as a sign that I was meant to be my own accountability partner. I created a Google Doc that I shared with myself. I have homework each night for the following day’s tasks. I share at the end of each day how it went, what I did and didn’t do, and what my plans and intentions are for the following day. I, as the partner, give feedback and congratulations as I see fit and/or necessary. So far, through all 24 hours of it, it has been awesome. I now have four weeks to go, max.

I am quite excited about tomorrow, and I am still entirely nervous and terrified. 🙂

Post-a-day 2021

^Phew! Almost missed it again…

Yikes

When did I turn into such an old person? When the schedule was Finally released for the week ending with February 13, I was utterly annoyed and frustrated that, not only was I scheduled to work until 9pm one night and 9:45pm another night, but I was schedule to work those two back-to-back.

And I’m still annoyed about it, but that was almost half an hour ago, now. Who gets so upset about having to be out of the house so late? And on a Friday and Saturday, nonetheless?

In case there was doubt before, I believe this shows with significant support that I am like an old person with my sleep schedule and evening habits. Getting home after 7pm bothers me already. I wake up around 4:30am every day, and that’s without an alarm. When I get home after 7pm, I don’t manage to get everything done to get to bed until at least 9:00. And that’s if I hurry. So, working until 9pm means that I won’t be getting to bed until close to midnight. My mom wanted to do a fun run that next morning on Bolivar peninsula, by Galveston Island. Harms an hour and a half away from me. Do you think I want to do that run now?

What’s most frustrating, though, is that I was available to work the whole rest of the week, all day, any day. Yet, I was scheduled for the one time that truly mattered – late the night before the run.

So, now I can’t do the run. It just would be far too stressful for me. We already were considering strongly staying the night down there, simply because all public bathrooms are still closed up. If we did that, I wouldn’t get to bed until probably close to 1:30am, only to be up to run at 8:00am (meaning out of bed around 6:30, most likely).

Ugh.

Let me sit with this and see how I feel.

Ugh!

(Obviously, I know how I feel right now. I mean to see how I feel after the initial anger and surprise have subsided.)

Post-a-day 2021

^Well, I did get that right tonight, so that’s fun

The full moon is my sister

Anyone else have a night filled with interrupted, unrestful sleep every time there is a full moon?

I often don’t even know that there is a full moon. I just find out the next day, when someone tells me, often in response to my comments on how surprisingly terribly I had slept that night. Last night was no exception.

Basically, in some way, I feel like the full moon is my sister – it makes its presence known just by being nearby, we are so connected.

Perhaps that doesn’t make enough sense for you, but I don’t have the words for it right now. We just are family, it feels.

…

In a separate note, in the middle of writing that all, my actual physical sister called me. She wanted me to meet the husband of her coworker, and to talk to him briefly. Why, you ask? So that I could speak to him in French. He is from Belgium, you see.

And so, basically, I was my sister’s party trick for the night. 😛 Never you worry, though, because it was all in genuinely good humor, and it was quite a delightful chat and brief FaceTime with all three of them.

At one point, the coworker told me that they will try to hook me up with Belgian men here in Houston. They are great, she said, because they have great beer, chocolate, and waffles. I pointed out to her that I do not drink, really, in the first place, but I also don’t do gluten and usually don’t do grains at all, so I don’t drink beer. I don’t actually like chocolate. And, again, I don’t eat wheat and grains, so no waffles either… Her pause of intense contemplation was quite comical.

“I don’t think we would get along, then,” she declared, certainly tipsy. My sister and I both pointed out that, with me along, she never would have to share the beer, chocolate, or waffles. She was baffled yet again, and then conceded that we probably would get along very well, in that case, however, why would I want a Belgian, then? 😛

So, all-in-all, it was hilarious and delightful and great experience. Thanks, sister, for this ridiculous anecdote. 😉

Post-a-day 2021

^Actually got it wrong at first, this time…