Tag: tidying

Homemaking

Yup, I must really be a homemaker. Why, you wonder? Because, instead of going to bed early slash at a normal hour for me tonight, I stayed up late sorting and tidying and cleaning at his house… and I not only stayed up late, but really late. And I had to force myself to stop and walk away, to go home and go to bed. Even though I’ll be back at it after breakfast with my dad in the morning and I have to be up early for the gym and that, it was a major struggle to stop for the night.

God, help me, please, to make this house a true, loving, inspiring, and god-filled home, and help him and me to work together as we do that with and through you. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Opera

I have done a decent job lately of pursuing my goal of having opera music playing in the evenings at home. I started it with packing the other week, as I found that the constancy of the music helped me feel supported and keep me calm and focused as I went through all the packing and emotional releasing involved with moving. Only one day, for a couple hours or so, did I have one single separate song on loop, a song an acquaintance wrote and played and recorded. It was about goodbyes and ending a long-time relationship, and it felt quite appropriate… until it was not anymore. Then, I moved on to opera and church chant music and the likes.

Anyway, now that I have a temporary home, as i have been doing various tasks yesterday and today, I went ahead and set up the computer and external hard drive, and turned on the music. I have a playlist of it all that is roughly four and a half days long. Currently, I am just playing everything in order, and starting each time wherever I left off the previous time (using play counts as the guide). I have very much enjoyed it. And I have gotten much done today and yesterday. (Thank you, God and Universe, for the support with all of that!) Speaking of which, I’ll go mark them off on my checklist. I somehow only two days ago committed to having my daily task list as its own Note in my phone, using the checkmark feature. It has gone really well so far, and I intend to continue with it. It is extremely helpful for me to have things written down, and I believe it affects my productivity and encouragement immensely. Thus my having accomplished so much yesterday and today, including things I tend to avoid(!). Anyway, I’m off to do that, to read, and to get to sleep. I’m tired and sleepy this evening, and it’s already just after 8:30pm. I have the morning workout tomorrow at 7:30, then work until 3pm. So, I want to be very well rested and up early to prepare what all food I’ll need to bring with me. (That reminds me: I need to ask about the freezer, so I can see about having the Magic Bullet here for smoothies. They work wonders after a morning workout. And for slimming down… which would be helpful right about now… Hmm… Anyway, adding it to the list for tomorrow!)

Goodnight!

Post-a-day 2022

(Barely got it…. haha)

Mirror Time*

You’re being messy and getting all pity-party. A bit, anyway. You aren’t earning much money right now. That’s okay. But stop having it be an excuse to have a pity party for everything else in your life and not to get stuff done. The money has nothing to do with keeping your room clean and beautiful, with preparing beautiful, healthy, nourishing meals for yourself, nor with getting all the other stuff done. Especially because you aren’t working much for money right now, this is exactly the time to be getting all that other stuff done. You had a good start, but a good start isn’t enough. Keep up the pace, keep it going, and get it all done. Now. Good work today. Step it up even more tomorrow, while you’ll have the time. You can do this. I know you can.

Stay hard, babe.

*David Goggins’s mirror time, as recommended in his book Can’t Hurt Me.

Post-a-day 2022

(Barely got it right again…)

Future

Yeah, okay… I’m terrified. I guess I got back into my head with everything, and pulled myself off track.

And that’s okay.

I acknowledge it for what it is, and allow myself the space to move forward from it, now.

Being stuck sucks, and I think that fact alone is helping to push my over the edge and get me moving forward effectively again, terror and all still present, of course. I am afraid of being fully my best self. Perhaps that fear is because I might feel that I have been letting myself down for so long by not being my best self. Perhaps I will feel that way. But, as David Goggins says in his book, just because I have all the reasons in the world not to do something, it doesn’t mean that I have to take those reasons and follow that path – I can still choose to have things go differently, despite all the excuses and reasons available to me for not doing what I deep down want to do.

And I deep down want to do this.

Hannah, I’m coming for you. Sleep well tonight, do the storm is brewing and lighting is preparing to explode all around with pure power and light.

Post-a-day 2021

Because I love it

Yesterday, I danced around to and sang along with a few of my favorite songs from the past several years, I made muffins, and I played music out on the front porch. Today, I sat and read from a book, and I am about to sit a read from another for a bit.

After a conversation on Monday, I am opening myself up, once again, to the possibility of doing things I love, simply because I love them. I must not do things only with the aim of something grander, or of gaining more money somehow… I somehow had forgotten that I could and that it actually is good for me to do things simply because I love doing them. I had disregarded the idea, for it was not practical enough, I suppose. But I had, in that, disregarded part of who I am, part of my self-expression. And so, when I recognized that on Monday, I saw what I wanted to do going forward.

The past two days have been like baby steps, I suppose, but I want to be sure I am incorporating these things into my daily life, not having them be a small stint that takes over everything for a short while, and then disappears completely. So, I also did some big deal cleaning up and unpacking that I had been somewhat avoiding, both yesterday and today, and that also felt really great. I was so focused on getting through the KonMari method as fast as possible, I had pushed aside most of the reasons I was even bothering to go through and tidy everything. A huge part of why I want my home tidy, is because I want to have time and space to enjoy the things I love. Therefore, I think it is important that I continue to do the things I love, rather than put all the good stuff on hold for two months while I sort out this other stuff. I don’t need this turning into another full-time teaching scenario, where it feels like my whole life is on hold, waiting for me on the other side somewhere, and then I often end up too tired to do anything by the time I get there.

Life is now. I can enjoy things now while still working towards the improvements I want for everything and for myself. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Post-a-day 2021

^Almost put 2022, again ::facepalm

Today

I have hit a wall with my daily life. With the freeze and its nonsense, I only made it through the sorting part of the KonMari method. That was my true requirement goal by my birthday, so I did achieve that goal. However, I had intended and planned to finish tidying completely by March 12, and that did not happen.

Various factors contributed to that, and that is okay. I have allowed myself to be stopped by those factors, and that is the scariest part of it all. It calls into question whether I truly am ready for this, and ready for what comes out of this. And I think today helped me to see that all clearly for myself. The biggest thing is that I am scared. Just like how not exercising Saturday and Sunday makes it somehow extremely difficult to get myself back into the gym on Monday, having those days off leading up to my birthday made it extremely difficult for me to get back into all the work that awaited me back home. Add onto that that I also had to unpack everything from the week-long stay, and I had an overwhelming amount of work to do at home. And I let myself be overwhelmed by and stopped by it.

I am now back home after the March 12 weekend trip, and I am truly feeling the strain that could be my daily life going forward. I lost sight of my goals with the tidying. And I saw that today. I also saw how losing sight of the tidying goals had affected me in other areas of my life. I had been free and easy and interested in the online dating platform, but now it has been intensely stressful, and so I have mostly avoided it. I was comfortable on my own in a day before, and would take myself outside to walk or run, just so I could be outdoors for a while each day; now I am not doing any of that, and I feel a strain underneath everything every day. I mean, come on, I got myself a minor virus and a resulting butt rash – how can one possibly argue that I am not stressed?

And I haven’t even had a busy schedule lately. I even watched two whole series online. I don’t do that unless I’m miserable, by the way. One show, if it’s short, and I can do it in a single day or day and a half of exhaustion, sure. More than that, and you can bet that I am avoiding life somehow, either consciously or unconsciously. I spent an extra four days of time devoted to watching these shows – I was borderline depressive here, and definitely avoiding things.

Now, I’ve gone through another couple vacuums of the baking soda that is soaking up the petroleum-based oil from the oil heater that exploded by my bed (and all over a shelf). (Unfortunately, the dry-wet-vac started spewing baking soda all over part of my room on the last set, so I have a bit more of that still to clean up, and then I need to empty the vacuum tomorrow before using it again.) I will aim to get at least one more round done tomorrow, if not two. Hopefully, that will allow me to clean up the shelf tomorrow or the next day, and start using it soon. I need to wash the sheets and stuffed animals that got the oil all over them, and I would like to do that in the next couple days, or four at most.

I also cleaned out and put away today my large suitcase from the recent trip. I want to finish unpacking the remaining items, and to put away the smaller suitcase tomorrow. I have photos I am going to do tomorrow, probably for a few hours, but I want at least to get that done, because it is doable. The main thing I can’t do is finish sorting where to put what of my clothes and such right now, because an entire storage shelf is out of order, due to the oil spill. So, while I’m sill sorting out the oil spill stuff this week, I want to handle the smaller things that I can handle right now. And unpacking is one of those things. So is washing those sheets.

I pulled up the dreamboard I had made for my tidying process today, and it almost made me cry. It is so lovely and so much of what I want in my life. And I had gotten scared and stepped away from it. But I made myself look at it today, and that was a very good idea. It reminded me not only of exactly what I want, but how much I truly do want it.

So, giddy up, partner. You can do this, my love.

Post-a-day 2021

^Barely a pause, but a pause nonetheless

Sleepover

I’m staying the night at the house of of a family whose child I have been tutoring/teaching privately for the past nine-ish months. With the weather so cold and the complete lack of water at my place, I was tired of the stress of the strain it all involved. Plus, because of the power outages, we hadn’t been able to do our regular tutoring this week, and so were getting behind on some work for an online course that has a deadline. So, I accepted the offer to spend the night here and have food cooked for me a few times, in exchange for tutoring in person for several hours (broken up over the time I am here, of course).

It really is magical being able to flush toilets. I might shiver with delight when I take an actual shower, and with hot water nonetheless, in just a few minutes. I can hardly wait.

Plus, the company has been quite nice… I have really missed just having people around, let alone interacting with them.

However, I was sure to get a lot done at home tidying before coming over late this afternoon. We figured it would be easier for me to stay the night here than at my house, anyway, so we could maximize on my time by my working at home on the tidying – no excuses! 😉 – for most of the day, and then coming later here. Then we could work again in the morning before I go back to my place – fingers crossed – to meet the plumber and see if the water can be fixed. But I am extremely grateful that I was able to accomplish all I did tidying today, especially with circumstances considered. I have reading to do before the next section of tidying, so I will do that tomorrow morning, when I am up likely long before my young squire, so I can be ready for the next set of tidying when I get home tomorrow, and can get right to work(!).

Let’s see how these next 24 hours go, shall we?

(Indeed, we shall.)

Post-a-day 2021

^Easy Peasy!

Accountability, even when freezing

Today took a lot in the tidying work. For one thing, it was ridiculously cold out – seriously, it was -2°C most of the day today, and we even had snow on the ground, and some of it never melted!!! – and that meant it was also cold in the house. So, my body was struggling to find balance in warmth almost all day. That took effort. For another, a creature broke into the walls somehow last night, and CHOMPed away from around 2:00am to just after 7:00am. Vibrating wood reverberations and teeth scratching on wood and all that jazz. And yes, it was right near my bed (a wall or two away, of course, but close enough). It woke me up at about 2:00; kept me up as I looked for a solution for maybe twenty minutes; kept me up another half hour because it was so loud and stress-inducing (because imagine having a wild, potentially-rabid animal break through a wall in the inside of your house – do you really want to wake up to that in the morning?); and then left me in a stress-y half-sleep for the same reasons. I woke up just after 6:00am, totally not rested. But I went outside and played for a bit, and that was fun.

Photos here:

I particularly enjoyed the idea of wearing the unicorn onesie while playing out on the snow. Because that is pure magic right there: a rainbow unicorn playing in the snow in Houston. Nothing about that idea is less than spectacularly magical. And no, I think nobody even saw me, because the world was closed up for the day, and so no one was up yet, let alone going outside yet.

After that, I ate some yummy food – leftovers from my valentine onigiri that I turned into a warm, absurdly satisfying salad – and then went upstairs to get to work. Just after seven, the chomping finally stopped, and I could focus. I got a bit done, but was so sleepy, I ended up getting on my bed for a nap around nine, and slept for just over two hours. Hard. And gratefully so.

Then I tutored and ate, and then got back to work with tidying.

I temporarily put away the DVDs I am keeping, which was super satisfying, and then I made it through all my hair accessories, all my money- and identification-related documents/cards, all my electronics (and cables and all that even-remotely-electrical stuff), and all my cameras and camera-related stuff. I was rather surprised at how much foreign currency I had sitting with my money-related stuff. I kept the individual ones I wanted to keep – because I’ve always loved having actual currency from other nations on hand – and added the rest of the excess to the pile of US money that was ridiculous for me to be keeping sitting around, and the cottage cheese container (previously cleaned out, obviously) filled with about $50 or so of coins, in preparation of a trip to the bank (when the world opens up here again) and a direct deposit into my savings account that I’m not allowed to touch.

I was surprised at how long the first parts of those took me today. I got really weighed down after the important money stuff one. I was standing with my head against the angled ceiling, warming my hands over the oil heater, having an imaginary conversation with… actually, no… I was having a real conversation with an imaginary person, about how I didn’t want to do it anymore – I wanted to curl up with a movie, and maybe even fall asleep for a while and have to watch it again, whenever I woke up. That’s what I felt like doing. That and crying. But I wanted to keep myself accountable to my higher goals and wishes – and so I made myself reach out to my accountability partner.

‘I just want to call someone, and say how much I want to watch a movie and sleep; take a rest from all of this, instead of trekking through any more today,’ I thought to myself, imagining how easy it would be to have the other person agree with me that I deserved a break.

Pause.

‘Well, you do have an accountability partner. Tell her that, and see what she says,’ I thought.

“Ha!”

And so, I had the conversation with myself, taking turns being the one working and the accountability partner, as I had to do so much at the start of all of this. And it was spectacular. She – meaning I – reminded me of why I care about all of this in the first place; of how it’s okay to be scared and terrified; and of how I want to keep my word to myself, especially on this birthday gift to myself. And I still felt heard. She agreed with everything I presented, and understood them and got them completely – like, seriously more than anyone has ever gotten me on something, right? It was very cool. And she also was present to my true intentions, and helped me stick with them. And it took only a few minutes for the whole thing… we just are that much in sync with one another! 😂

Anyway, that bit was the whole point of this today. I went really tangential today. Oh, well… that’s kind of how this whole weekend has felt. Even Monday has been a tangent of the weekend, instead of the start of its own week. 😛

P.S. Did I share this lovely photo of my valentine onigiri skills? They are even pink from beet powder, and 100% Paleo.

Post-a-day 2021

^Only slightly had to think about it

Happy Winter Day!

Do you ever have those days where, after having had a wonderful time doing something, instead of basking in the joyful bliss that typically follows such an event, you find yourself somewhat depressed, as though it ended up being more a reminder of somewhere you are failing at something, instead of a victory in and of itself?

Those really are the odd days, are they not?

Perhaps it would be best to drink more water (than I did today, that is), get more sleep (same as previous), and keep intending and getting the work done.  Life often feels like it is falling to pieces, just before the pieces fall into place.  🙂

P.S. It is truly winter in Houston today and tonight.  We had a high of 2º Celsius – for real – and it is currently -2º Celsius, with sleet and snow and intense wind gusts off and on.  We have a 70-100% chance of snow in the morning before sunrise, with a high of -3º and a low of -8º (also the low tonight), and the entire town closed down earlier this evening, and will remain so at least until Tuesday, when the forecasted high is back up to 3º.  I’m not sure I have ever experienced temperatures in Houston so far below freezing in my whole life.  Elsewhere, sure, of course, but not in Houston.  I do hope it snows a lot tomorrow, and that I get to enjoy it a lot.  🙂

P.P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day, folks!  I made themed paleo onigiri today, and had a paleo matcha latte.  Both were delicious and satisfying. Photo of the first shown here:

Post-a-day 2021

^Bam!

Wow

Well, I made it through the rest of the magazines and notebooks and journals tonight, but that was after doing the papers. Somehow, I just had been thinking about and stressing about the papers all day long, I felt I needed to do them first, I guess. I kind of forgot about the magazines and notebooks until I had started piling the papers. At that point, my mind was super-charged in paper-piling mode, and it seemed harder to stop than to put magazines and journals after the papers. I was pretty sure that I was keeping all the magazines and journals, anyway.

Nonetheless, I did them all. Woohoo! I’m still stressed, because I have a lot happening in the next 48 hours. However, I’m doing loads better. I’m getting to bed a solid hour after I had intended, and that’s okay. I wanted to get this stuff done today, and I did it(!). Plus, the gym owner said for me to rest from working out tomorrow, and just do a 1-mile easy walk instead, in preparation for the 5k Saturday morning. I want to see how fast I can do the fun-run. I’m not-so-secretly hoping that I can win a medal for my age group. However, I’m not a super-runner these days, and there are lots of people who by almost default are super into running at their age, and those ages might be included in my age category – I don’t know how large the categories are, or where they are; just that they exist.

But anyway, I am feeling better about it all, now. I’m going to go stretch and ready quickly, and get myself to sleep asap, now. We’ll see what time I awaken in the morning – if I wake naturally around 4:30, as usual, or if I snooze hard core until my alarm that is set for 6:15 (enough time to get to school before traffic, and then to walk the big parking lot there before school starts).

Anyway, goodnight folks! And happy lunar new year eve!!! 😀

Post-a-day 2021

Last post in the year of the rat ;D