Decluttering Revived

After some very low-energy days I am back at it again. I baked a cake for my husband’s birthday yesterday, made french toast for breakfast and nachos for lunch yesterday as well. Today I have picked up the decluttering baton and worked on the front hallway. It was, of course, a disaster. I only snapped on pic of said disaster though so you will have to imagine the rest.

So, you have to imagine shoes Everywhere, dirt, sand, leaves etc. It was pretty bad.

Anyway, I spent some time picking up, sweeping, vacuuming, and setting aside some stuff to toss or give away, depending on the state of the item, and the entryway is improved if not yet finished.

The bags and boxes of stuff to give away is getting a little bit much. Also half the basement is full of foam computer bags connected to my husband’s work. It would be awesome to see all of it gone. There is just SO MUCH and a lot of it needs to go. Even all those damned shoes, we don’t need all of those and I’m positive that some of them haven’t been worn in ages and don’t fit anyone. Such a mess. I also need to sort through that basket of gloves, hats and scarves and get rid of the matchless, the ruined and the unneeded.

I let the dishes slip yesterday so I need to get back on that. I cooked 2 meals and baked a cake, prepped and ran The Slithering RPG for a bit of a celebration. The Fall birthdays continue! It felt bad giving my husband one skinny little book for his birthday, I think I will score him a bottle of the scotch he likes next chance I get.

My paints are all out in the shed and need to come back in the house for the winter. Bummer. I can’t let them freeze but I hate to bring more stuff into the house. In trying to get clutter under control I’m trying to use the library instead of buying books. It’s difficult. Books are my thing, my life, my weakness, my downfall when it comes to stopping spending. I’m doing fine at the moment, but I know there are books that I can get through the library and read and will still desperately want to buy anyway. Anything featuring both Sherlock Holmes and Cthulhu is pretty much already bought. Whether it is written yet or not even conceived of at this time, it is as if those volumes are already in my hands and on my shelves. I always have a short list of books I “need.”

Everywhere I look, aside from the areas I’ve recently worked on, there is clutter. It’s depressing, draining and sometimes feels insurmountable. That’s why I need to take it one step at a time. If I do this slowly, and correctly, I might just get this all under control and have the nice, clean, fairly orderly, homey home I want to live in. I’m trying. Day by day, I am trying, and I can’t really ask much more than that of myself.

All Outta Rooves

Today is another headache day which is tragic as I was hoping to get back on track today, things continue to slide. BLEH. I am actually sort of keeping up. My cleared spaces are remaining cleared and I’m keeping up with laundry and dishes. That’s just all I can ask of myself right now. I’ll have to make dinner and go get the farmshare as well so that is plenty to do when I’m feeling this way. I want to make more progress but I have reached the city limits.

For those that might not know, I suffer from frequent (almost daily) headaches and from mostly controlled migraines, I have been on daily medication to keep my migraines away (mostly) for YEARS. Lately I have been trying to fight my headaches without resorting to acetaminophen as much as possible because my liver has some sort of issue. I drink lots of water, sleep regularly as best I can, and use heating pads and ice packs. It, my life, used to be much worse. This morning I took some meds. They haven’t worked yet. I still attended the ComCat webinar and answered a bunch of work emails so Go Me.

We all have our burdens, am I right? Yeah, it’s tough getting through some days without going on some kind of pain-related spree but I keep trying. I wanted today to be super productive. I wanted to declutter one or two more areas, get some more regular chores done and spend time reading. I’m down to: maybe I can watch an episode or 2 of Vera tonight. I hope you are all having a better day than I am. XXOO

I’m GMing all Wrong…

Ok, last week I did pretty great. The game was high energy, lots of action, lots of laughter, just exactly the kind of game you want to play or run. Last night, not so much. Last night I was not in the zone. My players were kind of all over the place, which is, you know, players gonna play. The best laid plans of GMs are all undone by random player choices. It probably didn’t help that I had to take Benadryl right before the game. Oh well. I loved some of the choices the players made but I think I tend to reward their creativity too much. There was one fight in particular that I just let them side-step because the attempt was so out-of -the-box, plus the player rolled a natural 20 for a 40 total check… I mean, how do I not let that work? I’m realizing now that I should have let it work for maybe a round or 2, let them slip through that room, and then had the bad guys shake it off and come up behind them… damn. That would have been a challenge and been really funny.

There was an amusing little sequence where everyone except the 1/2 Orc barbarian and the Elven cleric made their saves and Orc and the Elf fell under the compulsion to raise a weird alien baby as their own. They had a lot of fun with that. It’s the gift that keeps on giving too since they brought it back home to the circus. The Orc is already trying to train the limbless critter to wield an axe. ^_^ Good stuff. Next week will be better. I just need to do a little more prep work so I understand the bad guy abilities more and have a notion of what they will do if the players choose to approach things in an unexpected way.

My Husband ran us in Age of Ashes today and it Rocked! We got to go home to our castle for the first time in a long time, we added a library, trained up our guards, visited with the townspeople etc. Then we went through another gate, possibly into the underdark. We saved a young red dragon from a purple worm. It was a little nerve wracking. Mallum got eaten by the worm but he cut his way out so, Yay! That’s it for gaming news. I’m beat and wishing for rest and nothing to do at this point.

XXXOOO

The Cake is not a Lie

My middle child has her birthday today so of course making the cake was a key honor and duty I had today. Triple chocolate with purple frosting. It seems to have come out alright. There will be ice cream and, I believe, Chinese food tonight after I get home from work. Happy Birthday, my sweet girl.

Of course I have also been cleaning. Laundry and dishes are caught up, our bed is made, cat boxes are clean, extraneous sensitive papers are shredded. I’m getting somewhere. Still busily decluttering and organizing. Today I cleaned off the heater in our bedroom and made a start at the disaster by my side of the bed. I’m a nester everything I use frequently ends up in a pile, or several piles, where I can reach it.

I’m working on getting us on an even keel again. It’s finally working because I am only shopping for really specific things that we have thought about deliberately and decided we truly want or need. It’s nice. Retail therapy is not a good thing. That little boost only lasts such a short time and the money is gone forever and there we are drowning in STUFF. I am really enjoying making our house, ever so slowly, into a soothing, serene home.

But I have to get ready and go to work! It really is very odd loving my job but hating leaving home to go do it. I’d much rather stay here and work on the house. It doesn’t help that work is So Weird with no patrons in the library. I can’t wait till tomorrow when we have our trial run of outdoor browsing. I’m not sure how we’ll enforce distancing and all that but hopefully it will go well. It would be nice to see people again. Oh, and I got a late b-day present from my husband. He forgot he’d pre-ordered it so it was a surprize for both of us. I can’t wait to read it!

Late Summer Declutter: day 2

Yesterday was a good day. I got a lot done and made a nice difference in the kitchen. It honestly gave me a little lift when I went down to make the tea this morning. So, I am going to assign myself one small area a day, on days when that’s feasible ie Not Saturday as I am working all day then running a game when I get home, and I am going to put in my best effort to declutter and clean that small area. Today will be the pantry area, a part of the laundry room with cupboard up and down that is just buried in STUFF. I’ll post before and after shots because that’s what makes it vaguely fun.

The pantry area Before shot. How did I let it get like this? That is a lot of stuff…

this is a better pic of where I started today.

I forgot that yesterday I dealt with all the mounds of plastic and paper bags that were jammed behind the sewing machine. Also, this 2nd pic shows all the junk on top of the high cupboards too. It was a disaster and a lot of stuff was pure junk. The teetering stack of photo albums has no home yet, I want to see if there is a better way to store all the photos. Damn, albums are huge and awkward space-suckers! Anyway, here is the after photo…

Look! There’s a counter there it must have been there the whole time but it was completely buried.

So decluttering is going pretty well so far. I’m considering doing two small areas today because Saturday is a no-go as I will have no time to myself at all. I like Fall cleaning better than Spring cleaning. Fall cleaning I do knowing we’re going into winter where we’ll be shut inside a lot and I like getting our home ready for those long months. There will be snow and sand and salt tracked in, ash from the wood stove everywhere, and that winter feeling that can either be “feeling cozy” or “feeling closed-in.” I do my best to try to make sure it’s the former. Spring cleaning is different, for me, it feels more like coming out of hibernation and sloughing off layers. It’s nice to deep clean and get ready for the higher energy months I think I just prefer the feeling of easing into the quiet dark of my favorite months. ^_^

The kitchen counter is still clear. The cat’s dishes are back, clean and shiny, and the crock pot is turning last night’s chicken bones into broth, but otherwise it’s clear. I feel like I’m getting somewhere at last. I wish I’d started in March and not waiting till now to make a plan. Oh well, this is where I am and it’s fine.

Housework Intensifies

Yeah, so, being home 24/7 for 3 months didn’t cause me to magically whip my house into shape. 3 1/2 months of just me leaving the house for part time work didn’t help me to magically whip my house into shape either. I have finally come to the conclusion that I may need an actual plan, I may need to make a schedule for various chores and even slot in some vague times of day in order to get things done. I made a list this morning of all the things I’d like to get done today and then I scheduled them throughout the day. So far today I have:

Made tea and breakfast
fed cats
changed our sheets
run a load of washing
filled out school paperwork for our son
rescheduled a dentist appointment ….And…
Written a sympathy card for my cousin

I still have to:

Plan dinner
water plants
clean cat boxes
pick up prescriptions
make lunch… And…
Hand a load of washing

For longer term/ongoing goals I Really want to declutter in a major way. We simply have too much stuff that is here for no good reason at all. Just so, so much stuff. I mean, the house isn’t like anything you’re seen on “Hoarders” but it’s cluttered and some parts are really disorganized. It’s tough to know where to start, really, but I think I might go back to basics and start with Flylady http://flylady.net/ again. It’s such a gentle system, starting out with just cleaning one’s kitchen sink and progressing from there. It’s helped me in the past when I’ve let things get out of control though I do tend to drop it after a bit when my inner whimsy balks at the structure. I find a lot of value in a few of her ideas:

You can do anything for 15 minutes. (set a timer and do a chore for 15 minutes, stop when the timer goes off and move on to something else. You can return to the original chore later.) Set a timer on the next chore for 15 minutes… etc.
The last 15 minutes of every hour are yours. Take a break! Stop and drink some water or tea/coffee, read or call a friend. Get back to chores when 15 minutes are done.
When decluttering there are only 3 options for each item: 1. Keep it (and put it away) 2. Give it Away 3. Throw it Away. Find a box/bin/laundry basket and sort all the items into them. (1 for each: Keep/Give/Toss!) Very helpful to sort this way and then… Follow Through!
Shun Perfectionism. Doing some cleaning is a lot better than none! So run your vacuum quickly over the high traffic areas and don’t bother moving the furniture if you don’t have time. Do half the dishes! Wipe the worst of the muck out of the fridge, fold the laundry even if you don’t have time to put it away! Basically, anything you actually DO will make you feel a little better and improve things a little bit so go ahead and do what you can manage, it will help.

Those are my favorite ideas of hers, probably imperfectly interpreted, please check our her website for the real information. There’s also the idea of ‘habits’ how getting into a routine or schedule gives one the inertia to keep going, cleaning chores become automatic. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten to that point but it would be pretty cool if I did. Imagine the cleanliness. ^_^ I’m going to start today with one area and post before and after pics.

Today’s project: The kitchen counter to the right of the sink. (Before & After. Note: the cat was NOT disposed of, I cleaned her dishes and she left in a huff.)

Tuesday Update: Now w/ Books!

It was 39 degrees when I woke up this morning, so lovely. Not that I want the growing season over just that I enjoy being slightly sane and enjoy being able to stand wearing clothing. I’m hoping to enjoy wearing sweaters again someday, maybe even this winter, when my crazy hormones finally loosen their grip. We’ll see. I am pleasantly chilly this morning.

My hubby is sick but of course started work before 8am. At least he’s home and can work in his bathrobe if necessary, he could work from our bed even. Working remotely is kind of awesome, I mean it would be better if it was more of a choice, but still. He’s working ridiculous hours now, that’s just a job at a school in September, to be expected.

Apparently I’ll be writing the grant proposal for the Cultural Council next month. My boss has confidence in me and promised to check it over before we send it. Look out, I just might become competent at my job! I still have plenty of gaps but I love what I do so I keep trying to learn it all. One thing at a time, I’ll get there.

My reading for the year is ahead of schedule. I think I’ve read 42 books out of 52 I aimed for. With life being busy, stressful and so on I figured 1 book a week would be a decent goal for 2020. Then it turned out the whole world changed and got weird so I might have to raise my goal or something. I am currently reading The Library of the Unwritten; by A.J. Hackwith, Crossings; by Alex Landragin, Among the Fallen; by N.S. Dolkart, Fury of the Demon; by Diana Rowland, and This is My America; by Kim Johnson. Next up: Beowulf; by Maria Dahvana Headley and Disfigured; On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space; by Amanda LeDuc. I’m enjoying all the books I’m reading, I just can’t seem to settle down into one. I’m blaming stress.

I’ve only read one dud-book this year. Surviving the Lake House was just a dull slog. I almost never give a low rating to a book, I hate to do it, but I felt like the writer could have benefitted from serious editorial intervention. It was bad enough I looked up the publisher and, sure enough, self-published. I understand the desire to want to hold a book you’ve written in your hands. How amazing must that be? But writers need editors. They need a dispassionate someone to tell them; “This isn’t ready yet. It needs to have a consistent tense.” or; “You’re writing in the first person you need to tell your audience why you’re telling them this tale.” or: “You need more description. The reader needs to be able to visualize your characters, scenes and so on, they need to connect to the characters.” Plus all the usual grammar fixes etc.

Incoming B-Day Season!

Feeling ill today, so is my husband, neither of us is allowed at our workplace at the moment. It is highly unlikely we have picked up “the covid” as our precautions against it have bordered on the paranoid but better safe than sorry. The doc sent hubby in for a test hopefully that comes back negative! Eek.

On a happier note the spate of fall birthdays approaches rapidly and, as I have a spring birthday, I am currently preparing a stand-alone adventure to run (3-5 sessions) across the whole birthday season. My husband is currently running 3 RPG campaigns, and has one of the aforementioned fall birthdays, so I thought I would take on the task of providing this activity for everyone. Pathfinder and Roll20 really make the whole thing so much easier. I’ll be running the adventure “The Slithering” on Roll20 which will have all the maps and almost all the pawns we’ll need. The only pawns I will need to create will be those for the PCs and any animal companions or familiars they might have. I’m reading the adventure now and gathering all the monster stats referenced so when I go to run it everything will be ready. Since we own the actual, physical booklet, access to maps and everything on Roll20 is about $10. The booklet set us back about $20 or so, so $30 for entertainment for 3+ parties/sessions? Not too steep! https://paizo.com/products/btq023hg?Pathfinder-Adventure-The-Slithering

I did have to whip up my own, very brief, player’s guide since Paizo didn’t bother with making one for this short little romp. For their 6-modules-long Adventure Paths they make these awesome player’s guides that are full of suggestions as to how various ancestries and classes might fit into the campaign, suggested backgrounds and skills that might be especially relevant etc. They’re really helpful. The one I made is less than a page long and not at all fancy but I think it has the bare bones information needed so the players can construct useful, non-frustrating characters.

Now I’m tired and going to lie down and keep reading the adventure. Be well!

Allergies or Plague?

I’ve been fighting a headache for a few days and woke up this morning with a runny nose, sneezing jags, a scratchy throat and my current usual amount of coughing. Ugh. I reported my symptoms like a good citizen and my Director said not to come in tomorrow. Ah well, better safe than sorry. It might be allergies or it might be a cold or flu or covid-19, who knows? Such a lovely time to be alive, isn’t it?

At least I got to run my game last night. That went well! At one point the halfling sorceress grabbed a chalice that was clearly meant to be left alone, waking the clay golem and causing a panicked and disorganized retreat through the dungeon. Not everyone had a light source and we were using the lighting on Roll20 so the poor half-orc barbarian, who had the lowest initiative, got left alone in a room with a homicidal golem in pitch darkness. Since all players have their own screens they can each have a unique, separate view of things so after the first PC ran out of the room the second one would have no idea which way they went, which hallway they took or if they had ducked into a room to hide or something. At one point the cleric took a wrong turn and strayed into a room they hadn’t been to yet and woke up another golem-like creature, this time made of stone. The whole thing was hilarious and the halfling kept wailing; “I’m Sorry!!!!!!” as she ran through the dungeon. A good night’s gaming!

for when you’re overwhelmed

I’m overwhelmed and tired. How about you? I see a lot of my friends and acquaintances posting about their struggles. Struggles to get things done, to feel any sense of accomplishment, feelings of restlessness, trouble sleeping, etc. The extroverts are going nuts in isolation and even the introverts are starting to get sick of it. I recommend library curbside pick up to folks who tell me they’re bored and I hear odd things like: “I’ve already read some books, I’m tired of books.” … I’m sorry, I know all of those words but they don’t make any sense in that order. I do understand, even I can’t read all the time. People who are more active and sporty than me want to get out to DO THINGS. They want to play tennis, or rollerblade or something.

Let’s just agree that we all thought, or at least hoped, this shit would be over by now. It isn’t and it isn’t going to be any time soon. As schools and colleges are opening cases are spreading. Weddings and funerals are helping too, hordes of maskless partiers, beach-goers, and folks visiting bars and restaurants are helping too. Not to mention indoor, maskless political rallies. Oh, and we can’t forget all the folks who refuse to wear masks in public. I don’t know exactly what our next moves as a country should be but a nationwide mandate for masks and social distancing is probably step 1. Enforced with serious fines and possibly jail time for repeat offenders. It would have to be in conjunction with masks being freely distributed to all of course.

Over here on the homestead, we are prepared to stay hunkered down as best we can until it is actually safe again. My husband and I are both working, me in a closed library providing curbside pick-up and take-home crafts etc, my husband mostly remotely. He does go to his office a few times a week, after hours when no one is likely to be around, so he can do all the things he can’t do from home. It’s gone pretty well so far. He has been coughing kind of a lot the past few day, me too, I think it’s just allergies probably but it’s hard not to worry. In any case, we are not going out to eat, we are not attending weddings, funerals, or gatherings of any kind. Our social life continues to be exclusively online gaming and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. It’s not what we want but this is where we are. Anyway, I was talking about being overwhelmed…

Virtually everyone I know is having some problems with the enormity of everything, with overwhelm, with depression and/or anxiety. One of my friends posted something about how making massive to-do lists and not getting much or anything done is such a disheartening experience. We make the lists because we have a lot to do and we don’t want to forget to do any of it. Crossing things off gives us a little boost, it makes us feel like we’re making progress. I have a thing I do when I am having a bad time, when I am overwhelmed and super tired, out-of-spoons. I make a Done List. I write down things after I do them and cross them out. If I build up a little momentum I might write a single task down just before I begin it and cross it off when I’m done. It probably sounds silly, but it’s a way I get myself started.

Even like today, I have a headache, woke up with the damn thing, so today is a good day to do this. I do have things I really need to get done today and all I want to do is lie here with an ice pack or a heating pad on my head, maybe both, so to get myself going I will write down some little things I have already done, even if they are things I wouldn’t normally put on any to-do list.

~~feed cats~~
~~make tea~~
~~wash dishes~~
~~make breakfast~~
trash & recycling

That last one there I haven’t done yet but for me putting there at the end of a list of “accomplishments” gives me maybe 1/4 Cup of encouragement to get up and get it done. I look at all the struck through items and it makes that last one look smaller, easier, more doable. Anyway, feel free to use this little trick if you think it might help you. Another little psychological trick I use on myself is paying my bills from most expensive to least expensive. I write the big check for our mortgage first, followed usually by our stupid-high electric bill, on down through whatever bills we have for the month till I write the last one, the smallest bill. It feels slightly better that way. A bit like coasting down a hill instead of laboring up it. It helps that we can pay all our bills. That hasn’t always been the case. When we were really struggling I was agonizing over which bills to pay and which would have to wait, juggling to keep those we owed happy enough so they wouldn’t shut off the lights or whatever. I’m grateful not to be there at this time but I know we could be there again with a little bad luck. Those are my 2 tricks for now. My head is getting worse so I am going to try to get the trash run done. I’ll tell you more tricks when my head feels better and I can think straight.