Dust as far as the eye can see

Housekeeping has been a very sore spot for a long time now. I was delighted to find The Organised Mum Method and app and I have used it more consistently that just about any other plan I ever came up with. However, after a good burst of starting to get back to it earlier this year, my back was so sore that I did nothing for a couple of months. Looking back through my app history I can see that I actually started on 14 November 2020 and kept going up to 31 March 2021. Then I picked it up again from 24 April to 25 May. That is more than I thought I had done. And on some days I even finished everything on the list. So, the background clutter wasn't really getting touched, but the day-to-day was getting done and no new clutter being added. 

Bits and bobs from shelves/window sill etc. in the bedroom

 At any rate, in mid-June I contacted the concierge service offered by work and asked them to find me a cleaning lady to come and do a deep clean. Unfortunately, I kept expecting it to be "any day now" and it ended up taking them a couple of months. Since my back was still pretty bad and I was generally feeling overwhelmed and not able to anything, I've just been letting the dust gather and doing just enough to maintain some basic hygiene in the bathroom and kitchen at least. 

Finally, on Sunday, after having the date moved twice, someone came and spent about four and a half hours cleaning. She was supposed to be there for five but after three hours I was already feeling very uncomfortable having someone I didn't know in MY SPACE, so I chopped a few things off the planned list and she left after four and a half hours. She seemed to think by the time she left that we were great friends, whereas I had landed more on the side of hope-to-never-see-you-again. A kind of strange person, not the best cleaner, but she did manage to deal with an awful lot of dust and I am managing to calm down a bit two days later and just appreciate the fact that she dusted things that I haven't even looked at for months or years.

The space in front of the dresser was full with boxes and bags of stuff - literally up to the drawers and about as far out as that black stool. You can see the marks in the dust!

It also forced me to deal with some of that background clutter. Now, I didn't manage to actually declutter and sort everything, but I did move most of it over to my other apartment/office. I will try to finish painting that this weekend and then start tackling the piles of bags and boxes one at a time. After already renting it for more than a year, it's time I had more than just one lonely table and chair in there! While the cleaner was here on Sunday, I mostly tried tackling my writing desk, which has become yet another incarnation of the Table of Doom. 

Bits and bobs from sitting room

I did loads of sorting, gathered a big bag of paper to recyle, almost filled six plastic boxes, and it still looks very much like a Table of Doom. So the plan is to first finish painting the office, but also to spend any spare TOMM time working on clearing my writing desk. I'll be most likely reverting to my old scheme of 3 Little Things to get it done. I started with the boxes of stuff that were lying around on shelves or window sills or the tops of cupboards and am making some good progress so far.

When it is all done, I can move the writing desk, and a small set of shelves and drawers over to the office, which will give me loads of space in my sitting room. I'd like to move the table down towards the window but can't quite decide where to move the couch to in order to get that done. We'll see.

Of decluttering and weed tea

I've been making some good progress on the decluttering front. I started on Saturday morning by bringing all of the folders, files, boxes and piles of paper strewn throughout my room downstairs to the sitting room. I went back up to my room and was sitting on the bed admiring the fact that there were now surfaces to be seen when I could feel myself nearly dozing off again. Fortunately my housemate (who I thought was away for the weekend but had just been away for Friday night) came in just about that time and it was just the impetus I needed. She came upstairs and, as it turned out was also about to begin a big clean up of her room so we spent a very pleasant half-hour working away and shouting back and forth between the two rooms. She has been reading a book called The Secret and says that it has really reminded her of the way she wants her life to be. It's great to be around such a positive outlook at the moment. I think that just as negativity can feed off itself and create more negativity so too can positivity and so I'm trying hard to stay on track and contribute a bit of positivity to the house as well.

While doing all of this I also finally remembered to dig out the gardening diary I started to keep early in the summer. I must say I'm impressed with how well I did with it. Well, better than most attempts at diary-keeping so far in my life. 22 April was the first day I wrote in it and I wrote regularly up to 2 July. Mostly I wrote things like "nothing is growing" or "bloody snails/slugs/aphids" or "it's raining again" but still, it's the thought that counts.

So I can see that on 17 June I started a weed tea and I have to admit I have ignored it for so long I'd completely forgotten about it. So here's a question for anyone out there with weed tea experience - do you reckon it'll be okay to just dump the whole lot onto the compost now? Bearing in mind that it hasn't rained here (apart from a short drizzle yesterday) for about a month or so so my compost is very dry anyway at the moment. Or should I siphon off the liquid (would it still be useful?) and just put the black gunk (which I assume is in there - haven't actually braved the smell to have a peek yet) onto the compost? These are the things no gardening book really mentions. They all assume that you'll go back to things as soon as you are "supposed" to!

My decluttering continues and I hope to finish sorting all the papers etc. tonight which will leave me free on Thursday and Friday evenings to file things properly. I unearthed my bag of bits and bobs as well and will recommence my 3 little things a day next week to get rid of or find a proper home for all those little annoying bits. I've done well so far in gathering photos into one place, cards and letters I've received into a box together, cards and postcards I've bought but never written into another and so on. Once the major decluttering is done then I can go back to each of these things and sort them out properly as well. For now, it's a huge step to have things all together.

This weekend then the Great Bbook Clearout (planned for, oh, last January or so) begins. At the moment I'm planning on moving the furniture around a little bit in my room which means I'll have to take the books off the shelves anyway. I'm aiming for three lots: have read more than once and will read again; have read before and thought I would read again but can't remember what it's even about (I suspect I will re-read many of this pile before finally getting rid of them); and, bought because I thought I would read it but never had (will have to try and be realistic about chances of actually ever reading any of this lot). Of those latter two groups I aim to get rid of at least 80%. I suspect it'll take me a while to get through this task though because I'll keep getting sidetracked into actually reading. We'll see how it goes.

Various

I'm struggling a lot again to just do things. I feel like I'm just skimming along on the surface of life and don't have any energy for more than that. In a way I feel like there's something going on beneath the surface that I'm just not able for at the moment but really, there's nothing in particular wrong. I think I really need a break and am looking forward to my holiday at easter. I'll be spending a few days staying with different friends and then four full days with my sister in France. Spending time with her and her family is always fun and relaxing and enjoyable.

I want to try and get some things done and we have a bank holiday weekend coming up so I feel like a list is in order. I have a lot to do but at least if I write it all down I can try and get a handle on what's achievable and what's just going to have to wait a bit longer.

To-do

1. Clear out bedroom - involves filing papers from last few months (started on this a few weeks ago so reckon an hour should see it done), setting up PC so I can use it, making list of old videos and getting rid of them on freecycle, shredding old paperwork, fix runner for drawer so it's useable again, dusting, the Big Book Clearout (supposed to happen in January and still hasn't), put away last week's washing, clear out old t-shirts and decide which ones to use to knit a rug with, find box for sunrise clock and put it away till next winter (it's finally getting bright in the mornings again!).
2. Finalise and submit 2005 tax relief for medical expenses claim - nearly finished this a year ago then put it to one side and never did.
3. Make sure I have all receipts for 2006 tax relief for medical expenses claim.
4. Check to see if I can claim anything from Bupa for physio and acupuncture last year.
5. Buy new laces for hiking boots. Buy two pairs.
6. Find CFL bulb small enough to fit main light in bedroom - if not possible, find different lampshade.
7. Clear out garden shed.
8. Plant first seeds.
9. Buy compost.
10. Weed garden (shouldn't involve much, one flowerbed and underneath the gorse bush).
11. Make yohgurt.
12. Go to market, buy chicken. Cook, use leftovers for pie/bake, stock.
13. Clear out freezer - try to use up what's in it and defrost soon.
14. Go for walk up mountains.
15. Write letter to friend.
16. Turn compost heap. Put chicken wire on new pallet which is now the front of it. Find/buy something for a "lid".
17. Check compost cone and see if compost ready for use yet.
18. Clean containers used last year and put in nice clean shed ready for use when seedlings grown.
19. Start spreadsheet tracking expenses.
20. Write out German text from Mahler's Symphony No. 8 and check translation (I more or less understand them but it's biblical German so if asked, I can't always explain exactly - am going to be going through this with choir soon probably so better to be prepared).
21. Gather photos in one place.
22. Finally go through all those places I have bits and pieces of documents shoved and maybe collect enough receipts to be able to start tax relief claims for 2004 and 2003 (can only go back four years so really need to start doing this before I miss out on any more relief!).
23. Cook and eat good food all weekend. Am hoping for sunny weather and will do barbeque if so.
24. Make it down the town at lunch today or tomorrow to buy small wedding present for a colleague.
25. Re-start on my 3 Little Things project and get rid of all those naggy little bits and pieces that build up.

I have a mountain of work work to get through before the weekend as well so that I'll be able to relax and not be thinking about what I've left on my desk. Three of my bosses (I work for three other management as well as my main boss and several staff) are away today and so far haven't rung in with any work so hopefully the afternoon will be productive. We're allowed leave at three on the Friday of a bank holiday weekend and I really want to do that so want to have all the filing on my desk cleared.

Ecological footprint

Am very, very, very busy (along with lots of other people I suppose). What little time I've found to get online over the last week or so I've spent reading other blogs and discussion forums. Two more choir performances this week, a birthday party on Saturday night and gift wrapping for charity on Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening next week are the only things left on my hectic list of appointments for December. Otherwise I just need to pack for Florida - yay!

I did my ecological footprint score before but don't think I wrote down the score I got. Have done it again today and my total footprint is 3.7 hectares. That's 1.2 for food, 0.3 for mobility (this seems low to me, maybe I got the litres petrol/100 km wrong - it was my best guess, will keep a diary for the next few months to check it), 1.1 for shelter and 1.1 for goods/services. The average in Ireland is apparently 5.3 per person so I'm doing pretty well. This makes me think I need to check my answers rather than feel like giving myself a slap on the back though! So, if everyone lived like me we would need 2.1 planets - and that's if everything I answered is definitely correct! I've set a reminder in my diary to retake this quiz in three months and will concentrate on having the correct date to hand then.

In other news my 3 little things and 5-a-day have fallen compeltely by the wayside over the last week but I hope by this Sunday I'll feel a bit more like time is my own and to catch up then. I've admittedly not been eating well at all so I also need a couple of hours in the kitchen to stock the freezer again. However I think I'll leave this until I return from Florida. I still have quite a lot of cereal left over from summer so I think I'll just eat lots of that over the next week to get rid of it as well. I got my sister those lovely GAA bowls from Kellogg's Cornflakes as a small wedding pressie (one for Dublin where she's from, one for Cork where he's from and one for Galway where they got married and plan to live - well I thought it was a cute idea) but since I was only able to get a couple of tokens from other people I ended up buying a gianourmous box of cornflakes which I'm still not even halfway through. To make up for all that processed food I'm going to make sure to buy some organic milk at the weekend!

Down the country

Have had a lovely couple of days out of Dublin although it's just like me to choose to go west during some of the worst storms for years. At least I now know what it's like to have to drive through a flood so it was a learning experience which is always good. Isn't it?

Unfortunately the storms also meant that the internet access in the hotel I was in got knocked out so all of the catching up on blogs I intended to do didn't happen. I have been keeping up with the 3 little things although I need to do enough this evening to make up for the last few days. 5-a-day hasn't gone so well although I did bring a bag of apples away with me to make sure that I had at least some fruit.

I brought some knitting with me and got the hat for my brother done. I have loads of wool left and am planning on doing hats for my nieces and nephew in France for Christmas. I also brought my music and choir rehearsal tape and did loads of practice so am feeling much more confident for the concert on Sunday.

From a money point of view I didn't do too badly. I had the money for the hotel and feeding myself while I was away put aside and overtime money from last month to pay for my massage and facial. Which were lovely. I bought a small milk jug as my souvenir but I only have one small jug so it is something I will use. I also took the opportunity, since I was down that way to stop into Fabrics Direct in Rooskey. Lovely shop and now that I've seen it I think I'd be more inclined to order stuff online from them. Ann, the owner, took ages to talk to me when I explained that I was only starting out and I decided to get a pattern and bought the material to make it as well. She went through loads of stuff on the pattern giving me hints and tips so I feel much more confident that I'll be able to do it now. And on the way home I stopped at Liffey Valley, a big shopping centre not too far away, and bought a top for my work Christmas party this Friday (am wearing the same skirt I wore last year) and one new shirt for work which was on sale. That's it though, will be on strict budget for the rest of the month as I want to have some money to bring to the States with me. I asked my sister how much I should bring and she said about $400 would probably be enough. Her husband said I'd need $800. I was hoping to only need about $200! At least the exchange rate is good at the moment and after talking to her I think I've convinced her that I really don't want to spend the day in Disneyland or any of those kind of places (I hate rollercoasters and rides like that anyway) and just want to chill out and hang around doing more or less nothing. I'm going over to visit her more than to visit Florida really.

3 little things and 5-a-day

My 5-a-day was saved yesterday by me remembering that I had some frozen peas so a good handful of them went into the scrambled eggs I was having for dinner and then I mixed the whole lot with some rice I had leftover from Sunday. One of the nicest dinners I've had for a while, possibly because it took about five minutes to make and that makes the difference when you're rushing to something after work.

Not doing so well today, only a banana so far but I have some stewed apple with me for an afternoon snack and with either have pasta with a tomato and onion based sauce for dinner or a big stirfry. Might make it to 5 yet.

My three little things yesterday nearly didn't happen as I slouched in front of the telly for forty minutes when I got home from choir and so it was nearly midnight when I went upstairs. Still, it counts as yesterday!

1. Christmas Yearbook - I bought this last year, a lovely idea (although a homemade version rather than the expensive one I bought in a shop would be even nicer!) where there are four pages for each Christmas, one for a photo of your Christmas day, one for writing what you ate, who cooked, what games you played, songs you sang, who's there etc. and the final two pages for each person present on Christmas day to write in about what they've done this year and what they plan for next. There are enough pages for ten years worth of Christmas and the idea is that you put it away with the rest of the decorations on 6 January and then don't take it out until next Christmas. Of course, I didn't get any photos of Christmas until February and then took it out during the summer to take out one of those photos for an album I made up for my sister's wedding. Still, even though I'll have the Christmas decorations out next week to put up, it has gone back into the box with them until then.

2. Hat and scarf - summer sun hat and a bandana have gone back into my scarf drawer.

3. A small plastic pouch I use for storing sanitary towels and cotton buds in when travelling. This has been well-used and is starting to crack but has gone back into my travel toiletries bag as it's not quite dead yet.

3 little things and 5-a-day

My three things from yesterday were a battery charger plus three packets of batteries (counting this as one item) - I bought these at the end of July 2005 and still have never used them. They were a special offer from Lidl and I thought they'd probably come in useful some time. I'm charging the batteries and have a space in my tools drawer for it afterwards. I also want to find a small container to keep the batteries in - the Tupperware I used to keep my make-up in is a good size for this I think.

2 cloth shopping bags - now placed with all the other bags I've found again, beside the door and convenient to grab on the way out.

1 length of gold ribbon - I think I swiped this from a friend who got a present with this wrapped around it and was going to just throw it out. It has now gone into the small bag of ribbons I use when wrapping pressies.

As for my 5-a-day - despite my efforts to eat well I do sometimes find it difficult to eat my minimum recommended 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. There are various reasons for this but I'm going to try and make sure over the next while that I do this properly. I have found the most successful way to lose weight is to do it in stages. For the last couple of months I've been cooking most of my own food. I've also made sure I fill a jug of water when I get into work so that I do drink plenty during the day. So now that those things are habit again I need to focus on making sure that of what I do make to eat, there are at least five portions of fruit and veg in it and building up to more.

So, yesterday's 5-a-day didn't go too well as I wasn't really prepared for it. I had a big apple (1) as a snack during work as well as two squares of Fruit n Nut (but am pretty sure the one almond and two raisins in that don't count as a portion!). I had a baked potato for lunch but two small sausage rolls for breakfast - all in all it wasn't a huge amount of food and by the time I got off the bus on the way home I was really hungry. I had struggled to convince myself not to stop and get a takeaway but compromised with myself and bought a Mars and a packet of Hula Hoops, which I practically inhaled on the walk from the bus stop home. Once there I got stuck in to some more tidying and recorded my choir rehearsal CD onto a tape so I can listen to it in the car. As my hunger had been abated somewhat I was able to get this done and then cook a dinner at my leisure. I made spaghetti (organic, Irish-made from Noodle House), a white sauce from a simple roux with a white wine ice cube thrown in for good measure and added a gently fried: half a big onion, one leek, four cloves of garlic, four tiny scallions I'd forgotten I had (all organic and Irish, exept for the garlic, which may be French) and a handful of fresh parsley (2). I'm giving myself 2 portions for that lot. So that means that I had 3 portions yesterday. Not great. I'm pretty sure the glass of wine I also had doesn't count as fruit either! Will try harder today. Have homemade vegetable soup with me for lunch so that'll help.

3 little things

I spent yesterday evening holepunching masses of paper to file. Most of the completely useless stuff has gone into the recycle bin but once I have everything filed it'll be time for a major cull. I'm a terrible hoarder and convinced I need to keep every little receipt I ever got. While I've worked on my hoard of "stuff", I need to pay some attention next year to papers. It's easy to convince myself that papers are important and need to be kept just in case. I've almost filed everything now. Just have one big pile of things like magazines and cards and notes people have sent me. Most of the magazines are from the AA and the Mountaineering Council of Ireland. Regular newsletters which I often don't even take out of the plastic cover. I'll flick through them and then see if a local doctor wants them for their waiting room. I joined the MCI about a month before I injured my foot and had to stop hillwalking. Typical. Still, I have five more months before renewal and my foot is almost better. If I'm not walking at least every second weekend by the time I need to renew I won't bother.

I finally dragged myself to bed at half-twelve last night (am feeling it this morning) but had to get three things out of my bits and bobs bag to deal with before I allowed myself to get into bed. I took three simple things which were near the top:

Book called Croch Suas E - from my one stint in the Gaeltacht when I was 14, it's a book full of lyrics for Irish songs and also full of signatures of people who were there that summer (none of whom I've ever kept in touch with). Space found on my shelves for it as it's not something I want to part with.

Book called something like the little text book of magic - amusing little book which is about a couple of inches big. It has gone on my shelves with other similar small books. It may still get passed on but that can wait for the Big Book Clear Out in January.

Tupperware oyster - this is a container I used to use for makeup but haven't for a while. It has gone into the dishwasher and will go onto my Tupperware shelf waiting to be used again.

I also gave two of the books from the weekend to my housemate and have brought the four still left into work. I will be meeting a freecycler to get my new alarm clock at lunchtime today (it turns out she works five minutes away from me) so can't make it to the second hand book shop but they are now on my desk in work and away from home. If I don't make it to the second hand book shop some lunchtime this week I will bring them to Blackrock Market on Saturday. I'm meeting my older sister, who for one reason and another I haven't seen for about a year, there for brunch - she wants to treat me for my birthday.