The newest goal

This goal blindsided me out of nowhere. Bam! Tonight it hit me though.

I will start by saying that I am not a people person. A friend recently told me that he built a cabin and (since he is single) spent 4 days there by himself. This friend is a social person, so it kind of made sense that he said he started to lose it four days disconnected. I admitted to him that I crave that. And AB and I fully plan to have a cabin in the woods to disappear to in the future. I look forward to experiencing that alone-ness. Of course, I have AB, so it would probably be easier than complete solo. Anyways, the fact that I find myself sitting there rolling my eyes half the time about people, doesn't surprise me. It's more the frequency with which I am feeling it lately. My lack of patience with people. And I am tired of feeling this.

I want to think it isn't just me. I had some level of validation last week that it wasn't just me. A high school friend posted about her frustration with social media. The feeling of never measuring up. And I nodded and thought about my life. The toddler who hits and pinches all.the.freaking.time. The dog who drives me insane. My kids ate Top Ramen for dinner. Not getting my daughter to her tutor on time (and yes, my daughter sees a tutor for her reading). The tween boy who is, well, behaving like a tween boy. The house that is never picked up. Feeling dead tired after a day of work. Not getting the exercise I want to get.

And everyone else is perfect. My friend challenged us to keep it real and post what it is really like under her hashtag. And I did. And it was fun and nice to see that someone else burnt the bacon. I like to think that I keep it real and that not all my posts are of perfection. But I am probably as annoying to others as many people on my Friends list are annoying me right now. But it isn't just people who are "friends". It is articles I see that challenge whether I am a good mom. It is the people shaming for dumb ass stuff like parking poorly, or disciplining a child in a store, or not disciplining a child in a store. The list goes on. I believe I am a good mom. But being inundated by it all is just taking a toll.

I thought about deactivating my Facebook account, but I am not quite there yet. I get a lot of information through there like what fruit French's has for picking, my kid's schools PTO, my school district. And even coworkers. I use Facebook messenger at work because I can't have my cell phone at my desk. So I can't cut the cord.

But I can cut my fingers off.

Ok. Seriously. I can't cut my fingers off. I can't even do that thing where you take a needle and put it through your first layer of skin and make it look like you have needles in your fingers. Eww. Can't do it.

But I can quit posting. Instagram I like. I follow a few organizations there (Smithsonian... you must do it) and I enjoy it. My close family members who care if I post the obligatory first day of school pictures are on there and they will get to see those pictures. I will post to Instagram. But I tend to be way more selective with what I post there and everything has to be associated with a picture. I like that.

I also have this page. My blog. The nice thing about a blog is that a person has to actively decide they want to see what you write and go there. Instead of passively showing up on everyone's feeds and annoying people.

I am not going to be absent on Facebook. You may see a Like from me or a stray response. But I need to silence myself before I go in to full on back up behavior on Facebook. I am an Amiable, I can feel my back up Driver emerging. And who all really likes a Driver on Facebook? Yeah, no.

I have Blogger on my phone and I will post here when I feel the need to share. I have been meaning to post more here because I have so much history recorded here. This new goal should serve to get me back here and maybe break that Facebook addiction.

Progress - but it's slow!

So January was carpet for the living room. I thought we were progressing hugely when I spontaneously painted the living room.

Carpet though, has stalled. It is crawling forward at a snails pace and it isn't really my fault! Nope, I can't take the blame on the January goal.

First off Home Depot took forever to get here for our quote. Then AB signed us up for a Costco quote - and then they showed up at the wrong time and begrudgingly rescheduled us. Unfairly begrudgingly so, IMO, because I would have not scheduled the appointment during one of my recurring weekly meetings at 11am. In fact, I specifically recall talking to the scheduler and saying "oh how nice it will be to be home at 2pm, a full hour and a half before my kids get home!"

So then Home Depot gave us our quote and AB balked. Ok, so I balked too. Way higher than we thought - and when you look at the quote we kind of wonder exactly how much waste they were planning on having? Our room is 18.5 x 19.5. And they wanted to order 49 linear feet of 12' wide carpet. WTF? Why do they need 13 feet extra? To make up for the free install deal? Shadey much?

So yesterday AB decided to sign us up for quote #3 that came in about $800 cheaper than the Home Depot for the highest end "can't possibly ever stain this carpet". So anyways, getting the last two measures and final quotes this coming week and then the carpet is special order. We will be lucky to have it done by the end of February, early March more likely. I guess that's ok. Gives us a few more weeks to trash the current carpet.

My current February goal is my sewing "nook". Shelves just need to be cut (AB...) and installed (AB...) and then I can put all my sewing stuff in. Looking at a ribbon rod (where did I get all that ribbon?) and a thread rack. AND AB is talking about adding onto one of the shelves a custom flip up sewing table. Really!!

Unless I want my February goals to suffer a similar delay fate as January I need to figure out how to dangle the carrot. I was thinking if I moved all the fabric into our bedroom - and put it on AB's side of the bed... I keep telling him it's no big deal, just show me how to use the multitude of saws in our garage. I can do it!

So I am already thinking about March. And I have a March must do that came to me today as I plugged my phone in and tried to back it up to the computer.

I succeeded about 5 hrs later after deleting random programs and crap my son has put on the computer. But truly, the vast majority of the space on the computer is from photos. My photos file is out of control.

I am not sure how to tackle it, but I need to sit down and organize the computer. Remove photos that suck. Create a file to save my favorites. (For eventual insertion into a photo book... when the kids are grown, I expect.)

So there, March goal is on deck. Organize and reduce the memory of the computer that I really, really do not want to replace right now.

Mid-Month Progress

So my January goal was to deal with the flooring in the living room. Hideous. Awful. Bad. Nasty. Icky. We have carpet, it is just old and falling apart. You can hardly vacuum in there without pulling out long threads of loops. That conveniently wind themselves around the roller of the vacuum and then require you to sit and pick them out. So much fun.

We have honed in on carpet. Low hanging fruit. Truly "we" (AB) would probably (really) rather have hardwood. But we lack time, money and the desire to install it. And honestly I favor, for that room, carpet. It's the room where we roll around with the kids.

We have decided on style and composition and now just need to make a decision between the Home Depot "free install" (but carpet costs more) and the Cost Less Carpet, less expensive carpet but pay per square foot to a third party installer. I am leaning towards the Home Depot install only because when we were selling our other house and replaced the linoleum we went with one of Cost Less Carpet's recommended installers and he did a crap job, then refused to come back and fix it. Just not something I want to deal with.

So now we are doing the waiting and measuring and scheduling.

One of the Home Depot guys asked about paint on the wall. Yes, there is paint on the wall. No, he asked, fresh paint? Because it needs to cure a week before we install.

No, the paint isn't fresh, we told him and went about our business.

Then it dawned on me. HALF the room was painted a year ago or so. HALF the room hasn't been painted since we moved in.

And it doesn't look bad half painted. And in fact, I had only kind of given thought to someday it would be nice to paint that other half of the room and even knew what color it would be - the same neutral we used throughout the rest of the first floor.

Then I had a revelation! (AB loves my revelations.)

WE HAVE TO PAINT THE REST OF THE LIVING ROOM BEFORE THEY INSTALL THE CARPET!

We are going to spend a small fortune on super high end carpet, I am NOT going to want to paint that room for the next several years and risk (even with drop clothes - I am messy) a drop of paint on our beautiful carpet!

So January has become carpet and really quick finish painting the living room.

Today (and yesterday) I am hope with the kids as they have days off from school. Today, I tape and prep. Friday, we buy the paint. Saturday, I paint while AB takes Leif to his chess tournament. And hopefully the toddler naps better that day then he is today.

I really did get a lot of stuff done around the house today though. I picked up the play room. A small feat in itself. Days is how long I expect it to stay picked up. But while I was doing that I had another REVELATION!

My February goal. It's a revelation because AB is involved.

They always tell you at work that your goals shouldn't involve other people because that is out of your control. Yeah, yeah. I get it.

So here it is. My sewing stuff is in a bunch of bins and plastic drawers and stuff like that. I need a place to put it all and I have identified the perfect place! I just need a bunch of shelves installed. See that little inset area? It is a perfect nook for some "built ins". And I could even have a shelf dedicated to my sewing machine. And oh oh oh - imagine a table that folds down to CREATE a sewing table!

Ok, I know. Crazy talk. I just need the shelves. Then I can use that folding table over yonder...

Happy New Year!

So I kind of laugh when I look at my Goals list for December. Then I hang my head when I remember it was carryover from November.

1. Get rid of the purged stuff.

2. Master Closet

3. Leif’s closet

4. Skadi’s bedroom, closet and bathroom

5. Trailer.

In the past few years I have done a lot over breaks. But this break I have this toddler who is into everything, wants attention and can't really be left alone while I get my tasks done. Oh and he has NO interest whatsoever in cleaning my closet with me. Skadi likes to help. Leif is a tween now and would rather sit on the computer.

I spent the evenings that first week of break (that AB and the older kids were in the Living Nativity) wrapping presents - and wrapping presents - and boxing stuff up to ship - and baking. All that Christmas prep. During the day when the kids were home with me we would sleep in, get up slowly and go swimming or do a few errands. Then we would go home and put the toddler down for nap. Then I couldn't bring myself to start on my chores. Nope. We pulled out a few games and had games afternoons while Silas slept. One day we did Family Pictionary (Skadi rocks at this game), another the new Family Trivial Pursuit, and another day we played Wii together. And I kept reminding myself that the chores in the back of my head would get done when my kids aren't home or don't want to hang with me anymore.

Point by point -

1. About 30% success here. I dumped a bunch of baby stuff with friends and acquaintances in December. Sold a little. Gave some away. Didn't do bad. Where I didn't succeed was in putting the bags and bags of stuff to go to Goodwill IN the car and dropping them at the station that is a whole 4 blocks from my house. As of Saturday though, I am not terribly concerned about that since I just got the notice from our other donation company they will be in our area next week. And they will be picking it all up (plus more I accumulated this last weekend)! This also makes AB happy because he isn't a big fan of Goodwill as a corporation. But I keep going back to the "it's easy and I need easy, but you are welcome to do otherwise" excuse. (He doesn't do otherwise.)

2. Master Closet - well all the Christmas presents are out! (I hope. Hope not to find some hidden.) And actually yesterday, yes, Jan 4th, I went in and sorted my shoes and got everything off the traffic portion of my side. It actually did a ton for the closet and may let me put off the actual complete disassembly and reassembly for a few more months. Because at this point it just isn't happening.

3. Nope.

4. Yay! Closet and bathroom done. Bedroom floor is still covered in Legos. And because she is so obsessed about her Legos and spent a huge portion of the break doing Legos, I left it.

5. Trailer. Yes, it got vacuumed and cleaned. And when it is back from being repaired from our most difficult trip yet, it will need to be done all over. Yay me.

We did get back from our trip to Canada with a weekend left of break and I tackled a good portion of my list of things I wanted to do over the 2 weeks off. Because in the first 14 days, not much had gotten done. The closet (see above), the boys' linen closet (conveniently while Silas bathed yesterday), Christmas down and packed up. Leif made jerky. I swapped around some blinds (housecleaners had broken one that I used regularly) and I didn't want to buy a new (non-matchy-matchy) one, so I swapped it out with another from a similar window I nearly never open.

(Which brings me to a burning question of late - how to deal with housecleaners breaking items... I have had 3-4 items broken recently. I have spoken with the owner about a few of them mostly when I called to question if someone was actually INJURED, but haven't made claims to have them replaced. Maybe I should? What irritates me most isn't the breakage, it is not knowing it happened until later - and no, they aren't things my kids have broken. Ok, off my aside.)

We were going to do lefse, but AB and I decided that focusing on losing weight and getting healthier was of higher priority than potato, sugar, butter, gooeyness. Still working on accepting this...

Then I got to thinking about my January goals. I asked AB the burning question on my mind. What should I do for January??

I was thinking about prepping the Master Bedroom for painting and deciding on a color. He sighed.

Then he said the magic words, "how about the living room floor".

You see we have this hideous and seen-far-better-days carpet in the living room. For a few years we have debated on going with hardwood that we put in our office and dining room to unify a few rooms downstairs. But it is expensive (the room is huge) and back breaking work for AB. But it would look the best and be the best for resale. But we just couldn't trip that trigger on the actual purchase.

So then we thought about replacing the carpet with carpet. But where do we stop with carpet? Do we just do that room or do we replace the carpet on both staircases and in the hallway upstairs? (My dream.) And when? Kind of hated for awhile to get new carpet when we have a toddler. But then it is getting to the point where we kind of hate not getting new carpet while we have a toddler. And then there is the whole "it is embarrassing to have people over this carpet is so hideous".

We are biting the bullet this month. Carpet for the living room. And probably just there and not the stairs and hallway upstairs. But it will be an easy neutral, always in stock pattern that we can do the staircases and hall at another point.