What a Life!

When I was a kid and my mom was driving the car and someone in another car did something she didn’t like, she’d say, “Dumb Bunny!” Well, we have a dumb bunny at our house, though a little different kind. It’s this stuffed animal that has something inside it that makes it say “Peek-a-boo! I see you!” when you press its tummy. It’s a very dumb bunny.

Of course, Ben loves the dumb bunny. He takes it with him everywhere. He takes it all over the house. He takes it to town. He takes it to bed. And at 4 a.m. in the morning when he rolls over in his sleep, I hear “Peek-a-boo! I see you!”

My husband has asked me if I could perform surgery on the bunny. You know, take that silly thing out that makes it talk. I mean, it doesn’t seem that Ben likes the bunny because it talks. He likes it because of it’s size and how it feels – it fits perfectly in his arm as he carries it around the house. Previously the sock monkey was the toy of choice. Raggedy Andy is also a favorite, but not so noticable (perhaps because he doesn’t talk). I am sure I could do surgery on the bunny, but I hate for him to have stitches.

I could make another sock monkey – I saw one at Cracker Barrell that was machine sewn instead of hand-sewn, and I can see myself making on like that. Hand-sewing just isn’t as secure, in my humble opinion. Yes, I could add this to my list of projects. Make sock monkey. Perform surgery on dumb bunny. Fix old sock monkey. Maybe Ben’s grandma would repair the old sock monkey. She’s good at things like that.

We were in Florida last week visiting my parents. Since my dad is the one who gave Ben the dumb bunny, I was hoping to “forget” the bunny and leave it in Florida. But my dear little boy is simply too attached to it for me to actually do such a thing.

Dumb bunny! Whatever should we do with you?

Yes, I have been getting up early as I said I would be. This morning I woke before the alarm clock, if you can imagine that! My plan when I wake is to do a daily review (aka think through my day and make sure all my ducks are in order), blog, and then do Pilates. The first item has been happening consistently; as for the other two, well… As for the early bird getting the worm, I have been the early bird, and I would say I have also been getting the worm if the worm is defined as having a peaceful moment to myself.

We were in Florida last week visiting my parents. I had a cold while we were there, but I still managed to get up at 6:00 their time (which translates to 5:00 my time) while we were there. I hate to say it, but we really didn’t do much while we were there. I just found it incredibly relaxing to sit around in someone else’s house where I didn’t have to cook, clean or work on projects – I could just relax. I didn’t even knit a single stitch while we were there (though I did have my knitting along).

On our way to the airport, Mom and I made a quick visit to Joann etc. (the Joann Fabric’s superstore). For some reason I’ve gotten it in my head that I want to try my hand at quilting. Now mind you, I don’t sew much anymore because it isn’t very fun when you have to worry about a toddler pushing the machine pedal when you don’t want it pushed. I have yet to figure out the logic behind this desire, but it won’t leave me alone.

While at Joann’s, Mom found a book called Quilting for People Who Still Don’t have Time to Quilt by Marti Michell. Basically, it’s about quilting efficiently – you sew strips together and then cut them apart into blocks rather than cutting and sewing all of the blocks individually. I like designs that are interesting to look at – optical illusions really appeal to me. Not all of the quilts in this book have optical illusions, but they are along those lines in that the squares end up making designs that are greater than the sum of the parts.

I’ve been reading about the “equipment” you need in order to quilt. A rotary cutter, they say, is mandatory. I’ve always wanted one but never splurged. I found one online at Joann’s online store for $35 including shipping (using the half price coupon that popped up on my screen when I went to their site). Some of those mats cost that much alone, and what I am getting is the mat (18 x 24), a 45 mm cutter, and a 6 x 24 ruler, which is what everyone recommends as the basic pieces you need. It was one that had very good reviews – the ones all of the stores carry around here, it seems, all had very bad reviews.

I also went to our local sew & vac store where they sell machines like my sewing machine and where I bought my serger. The gal who works there (owns the store with her husband) knows her stuff. So I asked her what sewing machine accessories I might need if I was to quilt with my machine. There’s a $30 foot you can use to sew freestyle, but she said what she uses almost all the time is a walking foot. They cost $90, but they keep the stitches even (that’s up to you to move the fabric the correct amount with the freestyle foot) and you can sew thicker things (think machine quilting with the batting in there). I so wished I had a walking foot when I was making diapers for Ben – it would have made things so much easier. Now I think I’ll finally get one.

My first quilt is going to be a lap quilt for my grandmother for her 90th birthday which we will be celebrating with her at Thanksgiving. It’s something I know she’ll enjoy, it gives me a deadline, and if I’m not perfectly happy at my first attempt at quilting, I won’t have to look at it myself. So I have two months to get this done. My goal is to have the top and bottom ready to be quilted together by the end of October. While I’m waiting for the rotary cutter to come, I’ll shop for fabric and check out all the quilting stores in town.

Well, the two books I reviewed on my previous post have been taking a considerable amount of my time as I have been reorganizing my life. I must say, I feel like I have much more room in my head to think now.

I also recently came across a blog where the guy talked about how he had established the habit of getting up at 5:00 every morning (something I have always aspired to do). He said rather than setting the alarm for 5:00 a.m. and getting up and wondering what to do with yourself, you have to do it gradually. You take what time you’re getting up now (6:35 for me) and move it back 10 minutes every day until you reach your goal time. I did that last week, and each morning as I got up, I added to the list of things I am going to do when I have my quiet time to myself (oh the luxury!).

The first thing I will be doing is a daily review where I go through my planner and review my lists of things to do, who I need to talk to, and make sure all my loose ends are caught. Then I will think about my day and which things I’d like to get done (and more importantly, when I will do them). Once I get that done, it’s time for quiet pleasurable pursuits, such as blogging. I love writing in my blog – I just don’t have a quiet moment to think very often and so I haven’t been updating my blog regularly. That is about to change. Not only will I have a regularly scheduled time for blogging, I will also have the quiet environment that makes it ever so much more fun to do.

And yes, this morning I was up at 5:00 a.m. I know it sounds crazy, but those were the best moments of my day. I’m already well on my way to having a happy, productive day. Isn’t that exciting?

There are three books I have read (and re-read) recently that have had a significant impact on how I live my life. One is Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern and the other two are Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity and Ready for Anything: 52 Productivity Principles for Work and Life, both by David Allen.

I bought Organizing from the Inside Out about the same time that I rearranged the living room. I will tell you the people always think that I am very organized. I went to an organization workshop at the beginning of June and my friends laughed at me for going. But I learned a lot at that workshop, namely, that it’s okay to be organized.

I bought this particular book when I was reading books about how to decorate my house. It’s one thing to decorate, it’s another to actually have the things you need for the things you want to do and have them arranged so that they are convenient to use. For instance, if you like to read in bed, you probably want to use the shelf on your nightstand to hold books rather than some vase, however atractive it may be. If you spend your time reading in your recliner instead, then by all means, put the vase on the shelf by the bed. They do those fancy redecoration shows on tv, and I always thing, “Yeah, that looks neat, but what does it feel like to live there?” So I bought this book in hopes to achieve “functional decoration,” if you might call it that.

Like I said, I seem to be identified as a person who is very organized. To a large degree, I am. I mean, if you open my drawers, things are usually pretty neat and tidy and seem to be arranged perfectly. However, there is one key thing that I learned from this book: things need to be organized not according to where they fit but rather according to how you use them. Perhaps that is obvious, but to me it was a revolutionary thought. The book is full of ideas as to how to actually accomplish that.

Now granted, my glasses in the kitchen are next to the sink, and the silverware is in the drawer closest to the table. But in the office, I had a drawer full of notepads in the desk but I had to walk across the room to get my paper cutter. So in my drawers across the room, I put all my “additional supply” items and kept only the notepads I actually use regularly in that drawer. The other drawer now has all of my tools, including my trusty papercutter and three-hole punch.

With Mary Kay, just packing my cases for the next appointment was a nightmare. Now, I have all of the items I need to repack my cases in one cabinet. I have another cabinet with all of my samples and they are sorted according to how I use them, not according to how they fit. I have all my training and education books and CDs on one shelf, rather than next to the sales tickets underneath the lipstick samples.

It’s like the water was muddy, and now it is clear. I can think and actually see the things I need at the moment. Which leads me to the other two books…

I actually bought both of these books back in July. Again, people think that I manage my time well, but I always felt frustrated with it. Schedules just drive me crazy, and yet if I just do what I feel like doing, many times the things that need to get done are overlooked and forgotten.

David Allen’s approach is the opposite of Stephen Covey’s – rather than starting out by defining your purpose in life (which I have yet to figure out…and it’s not like I haven’t tried), you do a braindump and write down all of the things you need to do. You take that list and sort it into projects (things that require more than one step) and simple next actions which would be the single step to do an item or the next single step to take in completing a project.

That in itself is revolutionary, but the next step gets even better: you sort those next steps according to context. So when you’re driving around town, you have a list of all the errands you need to run and things that you’re shopping for. When you’re at the computer, you have a list of all the things you need to do that involve use of the computer.

Let me tell you, I have had lists for forever, but I have never sorted them in such a user-friendly way. I mean, just dividing projects from next steps is a big deal. Think of something you’ve had on your to-do list but has been there for a while, say, get new tires on the car. It’s not just a matter of getting new tires. You have to call around and find a good price. Then you have to find a day to get the car to the place with the good price. The selection of that day depends on the mechanic’s schedule as well as your own. Then at that point, you actually go get new tires put on the car. If you break it down into the simple next actions, the task is much easier to manage. If you’re tired, making calls to find a good place to get the tires is a managable task, where “getting new tires” only reminds you that you’ll have to do without the car for a day (or at least a few hours) and thus overwhelms you so you don’t get the item done.

Basically, having the next step on any given task or project written down means that you can change gears quickly without having to think too much. I am amazed at the number of things I have gotten done that have been sitting on my list forever because just the thought of them overwhelmed me. It’s one thing to say “organize the office” – it’s another thing to say “gather all the training books and cds to see how many you have and how much space you need to store them.” Do you see how revolutionary this idea is?

I’ve been a goal-setter for many years. But I will tell you that 95% of the goals I have set – even when I have written them down using the correct wording and set a deadline and all that – 95% of the goals I have set I have not achieved. But in the past month of doing David Allens method for time management, I can confidently say that 95% of the next actions I have had on my lists have gotten done. That is a major switch!

The first David Allen book, Getting Things Done, is a step-by-step outline of how to apply the principles to your life. The other book, Ready for Anything, is simply a collection of essays about how the system works and affects your day-to-day life. I would recommend getting both. Learn the system with the first book and expand the possibilities with the second.

And back to the muddy water analogy, with Stephen Covey and other goal-setting methods, you are supposed to look at your goal. But you can’t swim and look for the island at the same time, especially when the water is muddied by all the things running through your mind. With David Allen’s method, you get rid of all the clutter in your mind. When you walk by the cabinet you need to clean out, you don’t beat yourself up for not doing it – you just remind yourself that it is on your list so it will get done and you can continue to think about whatever it was you were doing as you walked by. With David Allen’s method, you know the next simple step you need to take in order to reach that goal, regardless of whether or not you can see the final destination yet. And if you keep doing the next step, step after step after step, eventually you will reach the goal that you could see but had no idea how to reach with Stephen Covey. I don’t know if that makes sense or not – maybe I’ll think of a better way to see it later. I just know that now I’m making progress and actually getting things done rather than just thinking about things I want to do and then their getting lost in the daily ins and outs of life. I know what I need to do, and when I think about my goals, I can celebrate my progress toward them rather than beating myself up because I haven’t gotten anywhere closer to them.

Okay, I’ll shut up now. Read the books! I’m telling you, they’re good!

Well, I got everything on the list done with only two exceptions. I decided to buy the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to clean off the crayon and paint marks. Then I cleaned out my closet instead of Ben’s. I am not sure what to do with the things in Ben’s closet so it might not get done right away.

My closet, on the other hand, was fairly straightforward. I got rid of a couple outfits and some old shoes. I decided to move my flute and music stand to the basement where all my music is kept. Since I was vacuuming the blinds, I also vacuumed the floor of my closet and under the bed. Very, very dusty. None of the other ceiling fans really needed to be dusted, but the one in our bedroom was awful. That room has minimal curtains, a wood floor, and our bed. The only thing I can think of that would generate more dust than the entire rest of the house would be the down comforter I have on our bed along with my feather pillow (Steve has the other kind). I never realized such things were such sources of dust. But for now the room is clean and my closet is very trim and tidy.

The pantry thing turned into a major project. We have this standalone pantry that I cannot really use anymore because a certain person can open the door and take items out and carry them around the house. So really, only the top two shelves were in partial use. I decided to empty it out, move it downstairs to the utility room, and store backup items in it there. So the bags of flour, the new bottle of ketchup we don’t quite need yet, and other such things all traveled downstairs. That freed up room in the cabinets for not only the cereal boxes (formerly stored on top of the refrigerator) but my cookbooks as well.

I straightened all the spices, and lined up all the bottles of stuff (cider vinegar, cooking wine, vanilla, oil, etc.). The grater now has one home – it was the worst for floating from place to place. I even made a place for my measuring cups and glass measure.

I really wish I’d taken a before picture of the kitchen, but I didn’t and I can’t seem to find any of the side where I removed the pantry in my archives. So you will just have to imagine with me that the room seems much bigger and more spacious. That pantry is only about 15x15x60, but it was dark and tall and seemed to make things a lot more crowded than you would think.

Our kitchen doesn’t really have much counter space. But with how I have things now, all of my mixing bowls, dishes, food, spices and cookbooks can be reached when standing in one place. And yes, it’s a very small kitchen.

When I finish cleaning it up (washing the dishes and scrubbing the potatoes I dug up from the garden), I will add pictures to this post.

So Domestic Diva Day was a great success and will probably be repeated soon.

Today has been declared Domestic Diva Day. That’s right. I’m going to work on all of the home-blessing items on my list that I have ignored all week. I did my errands yesterday so I will be staying home all day.

Here are some highlights of what I plan to accomplish:

• Vacuum the blinds – they’re getting pretty dusty for some reason
• Clean my shower – I try to do this once a month. There’s a mildew issue in my shower as well – on the walls and ceiling above the shower tile. I need to take another look and consider what might be done about it. For now, it will get a dose of very diluted chlorox water.
• Dig potatoes – I have a few more that are ready to go and I need to finish digging them up. This task had gotten pushed aside for a while until I decided to make a menu that included potatoes which I wouldn’t have unless I went out to the garden and dug them up. So far – mission successful.
• Clean out the refrigerator. I’m pretty sure there aren’t any surprise science experiments. However, it would be nice if the shelves were wiped down and the onion skins got swept out of the vegetable drawer.
• Dust return vents – we cleaned our air conditioner and changed the filter six weeks after we’d changed it when our July electric bill was twice as high as our June electric bill, which at the time was our highest ever. Steve had me go online and get the Cooling Degree Days off the National Weather Service Site and compare that information with the number of kilowatts we used, and the air conditioner doesn’t seem to be taking any more energy per cooling degree than it did last year. Just the same, the vents need to be cleaned and perhaps they would help with efficiency.
• Dust ceiling fans – how do these get dusty? You would think all the dust would blow off as the fan blades spin around, but apparently not. As soon as the weather gets nice and we turn off the fans, all that dust will annoy me so I will go after it now in hopes that it won’t be quite so bad when the weather finally cools.
• Take a broom and go after the cobwebs. I could swear this was done a couple weeks ago, but they’re already back. A lady at the Saunders County Fair tried to sell me one of those triangle shaped brooms, but I could never figure out how to use the one my mom has and hers was never used much so I didn’t buy one. I think my broom is working just fine.
• Reorganize the pantry. Okay, it’s 80% organized, but there are a few things that seem to always be “floating” – they don’t really have a place, they just go wherever they fit. That is annoying me and today I shall try to fix it.
• We bought a table and chairs for Ben at a garage sale that has some marks on it. He has also taken a crayon to the desk we bought. I need to take care of those marks somehow. Any suggestions?
• There is a door on one of my bookcases that seems to be falling off. I have the screws – I simply need to figure out how it works and put it back together. The hinge is a rather odd looking creature so it will require a bit of thought.
• The breezeway needs to be cleaned. It seems to be one of our “hot spots” and I need to take care of the items that have taken up residence there but don’t belong. The windows could be cleaned and the windowsills wiped down and all that as well. Perhaps even the floor will get mopped.
• Detail car interior. I got the oil changed at Jiffy Lube yesterday – I go there before 10:00 a.m. for the $19.99 early bird special. I love Jiffy Lube because they always vacuum my car, which I hate doing. Now I just need to windex the interior windows and take a damp cloth to the dash and arm rests and my car will be clean.
• Ben’s closet is a mess right now. When we were at Jon and Stacy’s last weekend, Ben seemed to always have a teddy bear under his arm as he played. So once we got home, I tried to find one for him, which was buried at the bottom of his closet. Well, I didn’t find any that weren’t on the verge of falling apart, and I decided the whole closet needed some serious attention in general as I was digging for the teddy bear. My goal today is to put his closet back in order and perhaps remove some of the items in there.

I’m thinking a half day will be sufficient to get all that done. I’m sure my husband would tell me that I’m dreaming. But a half day is actually twelve hours if you just look at the clock so I have plenty of time.

Tomorrow morning before we go to play group I will do the regular house cleaning. After play group we’ll go to the grocery store. I also plan to list some items on ebay tomorrow. I decided that Friday is when people get paid so they’ll be itching to spend their money on auctions I have ending late Friday afternoon (you know, those people who surf the web at work). We’ll see how it goes.

Tomorrow I shall report back and we’ll see if I actually got much of this list done. Cheers!