Another grey day and I wasn't feeling the motivation. But I still got some stuff done.
• Loaded the van with boxes to donate
• Dropped off the majority of the boxes at Goodwill. I had towels for the animal shelter but didn't feel like making the drive. Goodwill took the towels. I still have the 2 boxes of books in my van because the library was not open. I will drop them off another day.
• Worked for an hour making paper packs for the garage sale.
Clearing out the clutter.
I used to be organized. I used to pay my bills on time and file everything right away.
I had kids and my priorities changed daily. I paid my bills but filing did not get done often. I discovered message boards and scrap booking and more of my routines fell away.
I opened an online store and just about everything non-essential got shoved aside. Things and crap and clutter accumulated.
Three years ago, I cleaned up the house and boxed a lot of crap I didn't have time to deal with.
I have time now and I want to get rid of it. But it is time consuming. And overwhelming.
I tried an online workshop to get me started. It was helpful in that it gave me small tasks to accomplish daily. This fueled my desire to do more and I did do more.
I would love to sign up for another workshop, one more in depth, but the money is just not available. Other workshops I would like to take are Organize Your Paper Clutter & Simplify Your Life With Habits & Routines
I purchased Unclutter Your Life in One Week. It had been in my wish list since it first came out. I started reading it while taking the workshop. I had decided to start doing those tasks when I finished the workshop. The workshop ends today and I have changed my mind. As much as I want to clean out my closet, I think I need to work on my office/living room. I need to have a garage sale so this takes priority over an area only I see.
This blog will be the journey as I get rid of the crap and find my house underneath it all.
I was productive today. I worked for about an hour laking paper collections. I cleaned up most of the laundry area and part of the pantry. I have 3 more boxes to give away.
The boys had colds earlier in the week. They successfully got over them by giving them to me. Thursday was a icky throat, Friday was coughing. I am still coughing today and will probably sleep in the chair tonight.
I drove the boys to school Monday through Thursday. The bus showed up Friday morning at 7:55. They even made it to school on time.
I spent my week playing with Lego for my photo of the day. I also did more uncluttering. I took a few boxes to Goodwill and have started more. I like the accountability of the online workshop but realized that I don't need to spend money I don't have and can do this on my own.
I have also been working through 2009 photos. With the larger hard drives, this isn't as urgent but it is a good habit to purge those photos I will never use.
The boys got haircuts on Wednesday. Andy picked out One Fish Two Fish. Ryan brought 2 books. I checked the prices on amazon and told him he could only get one book. He would get the other book for his birthday. He was OK with that and put one book back.
I waited for the boys and Ryan came with a third book. "I just found this!" I could see it was a Peanuts book. One that I had preordered and was sitting at home. That series is much cheaper through amazon. I told him to put it back that he could wait until his birthday. He went back muttering that he could not wait.
When he came back, I told him he could choose which book he got today. He picked the Peanuts book and was OK to wait until he got home. Then in the car, he went to pick up the book he had chosen first. He thought he could "preview" it. But I told him he had to have patience and wait.
When we got home, he had forgotten about it until I was telling poppa about it. Then he went looking for the package. He was happy and spent the rest of the evening in his room giggling.
I had lunch with Doyle yesterday at Tijuana Flats. I love Mexican food.
Andy finally started eating again. He ate 4 full bagels for breakfast this morning.
The boys are back in school and it is time to unlcutter this house. I am taking a workshop at simplify 101. It is not that I need the help, I need the accountability. If I pay for a workshop, they I will guilt if I don't participate. It is working OK. Each day, Aby gives us a daily challenge. The problem is that some of these I cannot so just yet, or some I have already completed. I still try to do something decluttering for about 15 minutes or more. I cleared off a shelf in my bedroom to house a Lego set. I threw away the letters from Jim Allen.
While waiting for the bus, I filled my van full of boxes for Goodwill.
I finally purchased Unclutter Your Life in One Week. Now I just have to do those tasks. The author says to start in the closet. My problem with the closet is some of the crap I am keeping that was Gail's. I wish I could get rid of the baseball cards. They are not worth much at all. But there are other items I can decide on like my old ski gear. I am not going skiing anytime soon.
I do not expect to get done in just week. I just need to push to tell me where to start first.
This week went by quickly. I only got done about half of what I wanted to do. I never even touched Andy's computer to upgrade the OS. He doesn't seem to mind.
I ended up driving the boys to school every morning. The bus driver was so late. On Wednesday afternoon, she asked if the boys were riding the bus. I explained that if she was later than 8 am, that I would be driving them. So she doesn't even need to come into in the village if she is that late.
Ryan had his schedule changed twice. He is now in advanced math. He says math is his favorite class.
Andy has the same classes, PE and art. No art until they work out the schedule.
I stopped at Starbuck's each day for breakfast. It was a big indulgence so I felt I should stay home for lunch. I did make it out a couple times, once to Panera, and once to Five Guys.
Savi came over and helped me move the shelves in the office. I cleared one off for her. I need to organize paper packs and such for a garage sale.
I got a haircut on Wednesday. I needed it. The boys were supposed to go tomorrow but it was change to next week. Andy is excited that I will pick him up from school.
I participated in the Big Idea Festival. Each day was another prompt for a 6x6 page. I made mine all similar. I am not sure about making it into a mini book or printing out the pages. Now I can get back to Design Your Life class.
I am also working on Quick & Simple Clutter Control. But sometimes I forget to check in for the daily challenge. I need to make this a routine but I am super lazy.
The Lego minifigures Series 5 are out. I went to Toys R Us today and found a box of them. I felt through the packages and hope I got all 16. I did place an order from Lego on Wednesday so I will have some repeats.
I started reading Street Gang. It is full of tedium about children's television programming.
Other than the POTD, I did no photography. Doyle cancelled on me twice. I should set up a photo walk for next week but the weather is still kind of hot and it is a holiday weekend.
Sunday.
The LAST day of summer break. We made it through 81 days without a major breakdown. I will miss sleeping in to 6:30 and Ryan "waking me up" with a kiss. I won't miss feeling guilty leaving the house without the boys.
Last night I put in one of the yankz in my sneakers. I am trying it out before I put in the second one.
I had hoped the backup would have completed overnight. But I forgot about the computer going to sleep at 11. It started again this morning. It should be done by lunch.
My iPad hung again during the backup. I force quit and deleted the backup. It took awhile but I got it backed up again. I have been using zinio more. I wonder if that has a connection.
Breakfast: waffles.
POTD prompt was favorite fruit. I gave only apples and bananas. Easy set up.
Lunch: panini, vanilla cone.
All backups done and scheduled. It was easy enough to redirect Lightroom to the new drive.
Ryan got his stuff ready for school. He was disappointed that I only had 5 colors of folders and he has 6 classes. I forgot that we had to go look for a purple folder last year.
I ordered another hard drive for me and one for dad. I need a larger drive for Time Machine. What I have is only 500gb and I have to restart it every few months.
Layout for Words to Live By. I skipped the journaling. I didn't want to cover up any of the photo and I think it is not needed.
Card of the day. I really like how this turned out.
I finished watching two television series recommended by Doyle, Breaking In and Mr Sunshine. Breaking In had been cancelled. I don't know about Mr Sunshine.
Dinner: salad, kiwi
I watched an episode of Dr Who. Then I watch the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I doubt I will watch Curb again. George was my least favorite character on Seinfeld and Curb is like a whole show about George.
Shaved Andy's face. I am not very good at it. I go too fast. But at least I don't nick him.
Andy thinks I should go to bed early since he has to. He is probably right. I wrote in my gratitude journal early.
Thus ends my daily posts. I will go back to posting every third day or so. When there is something to actually post about.
Saturday.
Still plugging away at the new EHD configuration. Another plus for drobo is the need for ONE outlet. There is spaghetti monster under my desk.
Breakfast. eggs, peach
POTD prompt was favorite animal. I used the Mill Raid set today.
Andy has the calendars synced on his iPod. I set it up so only the boys and family calendars would show. Andy goes in and shows all calendars. So he saw Bike Night and asked me about it. Bike Night runs from 5-9 so he assumed I would bed time. I told him I would be home in time.
Wiregrass Fresh Market. Got some cucumbers & tomatoes. The egg lady was not there. The best part was going to Starbucks for lunch; mozzarella & tomato panini, iced soy chai.
I got dad a new dictionary. He has been reading all morning. But he hasn't read any entries yet, he is just reading how to use the dictionary. I never knew anyone read that stuff.
Card of the day.
I went through some of my kits and got rid of elements I will never use.
Layout for Words To Live By.
The Snow Leopard disk came. I went to upgrade Andy's computer and it failed. I ran disk warrior. The install failed again. Ryan reminded me that this happened when I tried to upgrade to Leopard last time. I had forgotten about that. I gave up for now.
I checked online for the install issue. Others had the same problem and seem to have fixed it by replacing the original ram. I did upgrade the ram so I will try that next week when Andy is in school.
I tried the Halo Honey Graham. It was gross and will NOT try it again.
I didn't go to Bike Night but I did go out. I stopped at Starbucks for a panini and iced soy chai. Then I went to Toys R Us in hopes of finding some Series 5 minifigures. I didn't find any and decided to try Target. No minifigures there either but I got an umbrella for Ryan, some Pooh books for Andy and chocolate for me.
Friday.
I wish I had a drobo. I have several external hard drives. My photos and music are on them. I had a 2Tb drive partitioned for my photos and music. I am running out of room for my photos. My music still has plenty of space. I got two new 1Tb drives so I could move my music over to them then let the photos expand into the entire 2Tb drives. The problem comes in with having to copy everything over. It takes hours. With a drobo, I could just exchange the smaller drive for a larger drive and drobo would do the rest. Someday.
Breakfast: eggs, peach
Time Machine is cool. I had purged many of my supplies. But I had not completed the layout and needed that kit. I went into Time Machine, found the folder and restored it. Yay!
I had planned on going out to Shannon's. But I got delayed trying to finish that layout. It was 1:30 before I made lunch. I quit Photoshop because it was so slow and ate.
I was thinking about paying for an organization workshop. Then I think I spend the money on ram for my computer. It is so slow!
Lunch: grilled cheese, carrots. 
Halo Bar Nutty Marshmallow. This wasn't too bad.
Dinner: popcorn.
My sweet tooth showed up. I ate three EL Fudge cookies before I remembered my caramel nips. They are doing a better job at quelling the cravings.
Thursday.
Breakfast: eggs, peach
Last day at the pool. I won't missing sitting in the heat.
Lunch at Chick Fil A
We went to Publix to get juice. Andy drinks a lot more when he is at home.
I was dozing in the chair. Andy would talk to me and I would answer. Yes, I can talk to him in my sleep. Then dad came to me with some spreadsheets of his filing conventions for the photos. I told him to go away. "But I thought you were awake. You talked to Andy." And yet my eyes were closed. Sigh.
Layout for Words to Live By.
Jen Allyson came out with a new kit. I love the papers and had to get it. I have been pretty good about not buying everything I like.
I tried the Halo S'mores Bar. Yuck. Though they do keep me from getting hungry, they aren't really an enjoyable snack.
Dinner: tuna with roasted red pepper vinaigrette. Not bad. 
Wednesday
Breakfast: eggs, peach
POTD prompt was favorite piece of technology. This was pretty easy using my Lego pieces.
Wednesday Adventure Club: Ryan picked to go back to the Glazer Children's Museum. Today's visit was much more fun and relaxed. Ryan led the way to some of the exhibits he did not visit last time. Andy loved being on screen as a weatherman. Ryan thought it was fun to move the cameras around to view the different areas of the museum.
Ryan did spend a lot of time in the water droplet area climbing around. I think they have added some stabilizing cables as it didn't seem to sway this time.
I cracked up when Ryan came out into the theatre wearing a green robe. Who knew he would want to dress up like that?
We went to the other end of the museum to the Fire Station. There is a pole which kids can slide down but it was closed. Ryan climbed into the fire truck and watched the video for quite a while.
There were several school and camp groups so we were ready to leave.
We went to McDonalds, Starbucks and Chick Fil A for lunch then home.
Snack: chai and rocky road Halo Bar. The almond milk I got is nuttier than the last one I bought. I am not sure I like it. The Halo Bar is one step about a protein bar. But much better than a cookie in that I don't want twenty more.
I edited the photos from today and made a layout. Then I made another layout for Big Idea Festival.
Dinner: salad, melon
Card of the day.
