Testing 123, couldn't post yesterday; fortunately was able to copy and save what I wrote so I can post it if this shows the site is back up...

CM, I'm sorry about the mouse. They can be very worrisome.

I am waiting for the coffee to kick in this morning. It is a struggle. My school days have been a lot this week. Yesterday I had a class that was emotionally exhausting for everybody. Part of the fallout from that is that I need to meet with my administrator this morning (my own need for some support and direction) and with a student at lunch. I was hoping today would coast now that I have the bread process worked out.

Two students I am fond of will be out today and miss the bread!

It was good to see Bean last night. It was hard because I only had three hours, and when I hugged him before I left he put his arm around me and looked into my face and said "I want you to stay a little while."

My lunch yesterday was a meeting- productive and worthwhile for a change, but it resulted in action items. And Dd2 called last night right after I got home. We had a good, but long conversation. I simply have not had anything left for extras the last few days. Or in some cases basics- the laundry is piling up.

I have a feeling I will sleep very late tomorrow.

Worrying about road and family and missing Tatoulia.

This may be my only time to post till after the weekend, just depends.

And it's kind of a rant; I'll try to be brief.

A few days ago in the wee morning hours I was hearing this intermittent and irregular clicking, snapping, tapping noise. It sounded like the snick-snick made on the window by sleet. But it was dry out. So I go to Googling, and read various things about noises in houses from things like expansion and contracting of the ductwork and other components.

But then along with that was the mention of critters. And in subsequent mornings, I hear the sounds again, and they're sounding more and more like chewing. So it seems there is a mouse in the wall between my bedroom and the bathroom. This hypothesis is bolstered by the fact that outdoors right by where that wall is, there is a place where the handyman guy had replaced some rotted wood but the piece he put in has slipped out of place, leaving a gap plenty big for a whole army of mice to enter. Which I pray fervently has not happened, and that we can catch the (hopefully) single one I am hearing.

Besides all the bad about having a mouse at all, of course, is the thing about having clutter that isn't out of the way near that wall and is too much to do in a short time. But hopefully we can lure it back up whence it came and trap it and block the opening until it can be fixed properly. That handyman, I'm not gonna go into that whole sad tale yet again, let's just say for now he is not in the picture so roommate will have to find somebody else and that's probably for the best.

And here I am with the quilt bingo this weekend and had hoped finally it would be a calm, open time to bake stuff and not be stressed. But now we have this mouse crisis and roommate wants to DO stuff - which of course I understand, but I don't WANT more things to think about and do. Dammit!

And then, the rabbit club lady calls right in the middle of my trying to wrap my head around all of the above plus a few other tasks I need to do today, and I ended up all stressed and whiney and impatient yet apologetic because by that time I was practically hysterical... that has happened too often with them, because they are so devoted to the rabbit rescue stuff and I don't mean to imply they expect me to drop everything, but they don't realize how much I'm juggling and how limited my brain's bandwidth can be at times.

Yuck.

I've gotten a couple of the tasks done, though, so going to try and regroup and regain my calm. Maybe things can get back on track and still go okay.

#*$&%*#@! MICE

There were a few glitches with the bread, but not enough to cancel the lesson plan for Friday. Going to do it again tomorrow with a few adjustments to see if it is better.

Put my plans for tomorrow on the board. Shopped for supplies for Friday. My boss gave me my schedule for next year and it is fine. I'm working the hours I wanted and teaching the classes I requested. The order isn't ideal, but it is fine. And my maximum student load will be 88.

I cooked dinner tonight for the first time in a long time. And I threw a small thing in the trash. Ran the dishwasher.

Tomorrow after school I get to go visit Bean.

The ferns I ordered arrived. Dsil says he will plant them.

Pretty much status quo today. Thinking about a progress. Contemplating counting the bread because I learned a new skill and gained a lesson plan...

Good morning!

White rabbits and happy March.

Yesterday I signed myself up to work ten volunteer hours at the clay studio for the national conference. Two three hour evenings moving stuff and prepping for the conference and a four hour gallery shift during the event. I'm a little nervous about this, but I want to do it. The conference is during my spring break.

Yesterday I dropped two bags of recycling, cleaned a thing off my desk, and got an unfinished project closer to completion. I also repotted some of my tomatoes and fed the sour dough starter, ran a load of laundry, and glazed four out of 21 things that I made in class.

I have my lesson plans on the board and my demo prepped and set out for this morning.

Today I am going to try baking sourdough rolls in the kiln (while also managing my normal, full, wednesday schedule. If it goes ok, it will be my lesson plan for Friday. (Along with making butter). This week is shaping up to be crazy.

SubC, yes, now that roommate has been retired for a few months, and we are currently not having work done on the house, I have been able to observe her routine and formulate my morning one around it. The evening one also - though it's harder for me to do my own thing at nights. Well, and we've been watching a TV series so that's been fun; it ends this week and I might take a short break from TV to catch up on a few things.

Today I gave the quilt to the other lady to finish; felt good handing it off. And there's no rush for her, as we have a rack full of quilt tops already that'll keep us going for two or three years. So I can relax. I guess you could say I've learned a bit of a lesson about my tendency to get overambitious with such things. But it was not all bad - I had some good success with things like making sure some of the small motifs in the fabric that I had to fussy cut and wasn't sure I'd end up with enough seam allowance - they turned out just right. And framing others with a 1" border and having those come out straight and crisp. So good skill practice for me.

Focusing my attention this week towards Friday when I hope to bake for the Bingo event, and decorate my baked goods just a bit - I think I have ideas that will be cute but not frustrating to execute. And on Saturday hopefully will have time to help them get ready - if they need me to I can help cut up the cakes and pies and box them in individual containers for sale on Sunday. I like being a part of things - I just need tasks that don't require a lot of decision making, social poise, or multitasking. So we'll see. If they have enough volunteers and don't need me, I'll just go on my merry way. Bingo day should be fun as long as the weather is good. Right now it looks like a little snow thing will pass through on Friday but hopefully not amount to much.

My afternoon got very stressful because my mom did not call to update me about my dads heart procedure when I expected her to. I distracted myself with a movie. She finally sent an update that he was fine, but the procedure did not work, so he will have to meet with his doctor to discuss the next (surgical) step soon.

Dh and I cleaned up the kitchen and he made dinner.

CM, working around another person can be hard. Does your roomate have a predictable routine?

Great idea to get rid of the physical papers!

Remember my local magazine pile? It is down to 9. I have three March issues - including the current one, but NO January or February!

I slept in this morning since Bean was not coming. The weather said overcast and cloudy all day with rain from 9-10 and 11 to evening. I got my chores done before 9. Then when it stopped raining I cut brambles from 10-11.

Worked in my basement and found two plastic grocery bags of recycling and then put away a load of clean laundry.

Had lunch with Dh, and the sun came out at 12:30. I just came back in from cutting down four little trees that were growing in my garden space because I had neglected it for so long. - they were trash trees, not good ones worth moving. I also checked on my chickens, and a fourth of their coop was flooded. I'm so sick of this! I got the shovel and the wagon and dug a three foot ditch down the slope behind the barn. There is still a big puddle in the end of the coop, but it is much better. I'm worried about overdoing it when I have not been working all winter. I dumped the dirt in a low area in my field - 2 for one!

P.S. Lila, a staging area if you have it is an absolute godsend! That's been one of the major things holding me back here, because this house is like a Chinese puzzle, no place to sort things. And as we know, mess tends to "fluff" before it can get more dwindled down again and compact. Good luck!

A new week begins...

We had quite the springlike thunderstorm last night, and I'm sure the nice amount of rain will be helpful. My roommate's little bulb plants are already poking up, as well as the big iris.

I'm a little annoyed right now with my executive functioning again, but I'll get over it. Last week on Ash Wednesday I did so well getting to the 8:00 a.m. Mass that I thought "I want to try and do this as many days as possible!" during Lent and maybe beyond. You see, I won't bore you with too many details, but trying to get up and get ready in this small house with weird layout and shared bath and me hating to have to squeeze around another person, makes me tend to not try to go places in the mornings. (And seriously concerns me if I were to attempt to work outside the home, but that's a worry for another day.)

If, however, I am going to try the morning Mass routine, I also will need to have some things ready the night before, like my tote bag that goes with me, my hair washed if needed, clothes planned, and just setting the intention in my mind to wake early and not forget. (Alarms are problematic because they disturb roommate, plus I tend to do battle with them - for some reason here lately my body clock by itself has actually become more reliable, which is surprising given how unreliable my brain is in other ways - but it works, if I engage that power.)

And then if I'm going, I would want to have a breakfast item to take along, to eat after Mass because we are required to not eat 1 hour before receiving Communion. So it's just easier to me to wait - I can drink plain water, that's permitted, and my stomach will not be too pesky and the morning Masses are short. Then I can eat. But the food item should also be packed the night before.

Plus in the early morning I go back and feed the rabbits, which is also easier to do then before roommate gets up, again that dodging around each other irritates my personal space issues, perhaps that's silly of me but there it is. To me it is just better to avoid trouble when I can, takes up much less mental bandwidth and has less risk of interpersonal aggravations and hurt feelings.

Okay. So. I just totally spaced it off this morning (the days after Ash Wednesday were when roommate was sick so I let it go then, thought today would be a good day to begin). But, as I say, I totally forgot last night to plan for it in my mind and on a practical level, so this morning it hit me, too late to do anything about it. I may go to a daily Mass at noon or 5:30 at a different parish; must see how the day goes as I badly need to do tiring things in the afternoon (rabbit pen deep clean).

However, I did do one small thing that I have been thinking of each morning when I take my pills in my bedroom then forget to follow through on - I finally remembered to come into the living room and get on my computer here and order 2 refills. Woo hoo.

It's going to be okay, I know - poco a poco. Lent is not meant to be a time to drive oneself crazy - it's just that I'd really looked forward to the spiritual uplift of going to Mass. I must not give up hope - it'll happen, I'll get a new rhythm going.

Yesterday afternoon we had the meeting for the rabbit club - a few things I'll be doing graphic wise and press releases for our end of March event. Nothing too taxing - just the remembering; the actual doing is not that hard.

Quilt Bingo is this coming weekend and I really do hope finally this year, with roommate not working from home, I can spend Friday baking, Saturday morning taking the baked goods to the church, and other prep for the Bingo. I don't do a lot of "church lady stuff" other than my quilting, and sometimes that's because I am not into the socializing aspect, but making things and baking are fun if I just can make it happen, which always seems to get thwarted in recent years by one thing and another. I must try to keep my expectations reasonable, and if something prevents it not be heartbroken, but I'm gonna try.

My payday is Friday - another thing to juggle which I wish wasn't so, but hopefully not too bad. Still, if I ever win the lottery I am SOOOO hiring a secretary / personal assistant. Well, heck, if I did win it, I'd also be able to afford a roomy, efficient HOUSE which would spare me tons of aggravation, and I'd hire Cory's bunch to come help me wrap up the decluttering in record time!

IRL*, though, for now I deal with what is.

After Bingo, aside from doing the rabbit club stuff, perhaps I can resume my decluttering more diligently. I will have solved the problem of that one quilt when I take it to the other gal tomorrow, and although I'm not ready to plunge into a lot of quilt piecing just yet (because that would be another distraction right now), it still feels lighter with that resolved. I have some targets in mind - like diocesan newspapers that have piled up. Those come biweekly, on Fridays, and I tend not to sit down right away and read through them which if I did would 9 times out of 10 allow me to get the paper out of here. Instead, I flip through, see something to come back to later - y'all probably know how it is with stuff like that. Well, I have found the online archive, so I know anything I would really want to keep** I can download, therefore the paper ones are going to be pulled out of their various stash places and gotten rid of.

Anyway, this has probably been a bit of a ramble, but felt like I should touch base. Hoping to feel like this week will be the time since the first of the year that I start to feel like the year is really beginning to take shape - only 2 months in, lol!

*In Real Life

**I promise not to keep that much, but once in awhile comes along something like the obituary of the nun who taught me 8th grade catechism and was so sweet to me and my dad - I need that for remembrance. Special stuff like that, that's all. The electronic version suffices - a reason to love living in this age.

Lila, you did great! Awesome about the dresser. Are you gonna clean out the dresser?

I broke the cool pot. It's ok, it was a learning experience.

I went to the school talent show. Some of it was terrific. Some of it was..not. But all of the kids did their best and were brave to even get up there.

One little one played hot cross buns on the violin. Literally 17 notes. So cute.

My ears are tired.

Bean is not coming tomorrow.

accountability post:

- vacuumed the guest room
- sprayed the floor with powerwash and let it soak. The teen who was in there was messy.
- mopped the floor and got it clean
- moved one box and one bin from my bedroom into that room
- folded a quilt from my room and put it in that closet
-hung up a couple things from my room in that closet, and more items in my own closet
- put 3 things I was saving, but are just taking up space, in the trash
- put 2 items, including an old sweatshirt, in the donate bin
- moved a few things around in my bedroom and vacuumed up the resulting dust bunnies
- moved things around in the guest room so that the friend can more easily mop up the sticky mess

I am beat. That was a lot. But I feel good about it because for the first time in many months, I can now get to the dresser in my room and open the drawers! This is a win, for sure.

Thanks SubC! I will try it!

I went into the room the teenager guest was in to start making it ready to move bins from my bedroom into, for now. The other room, which I would like to be my sorting room, is not available yet. The guest spilled some kind of sticky liquid in there - not just a little, but looks like several cups - and did not notice until they moved out. It dried in a very thick layer on the floor. So thick the bed was stuck to the floor and several boxes stuck to the floor. She felt bad and insisted on coming back tomorrow to clean it for me. I said yes because it is not a simple mop job. It is a scrape-up first, then scrub job and I have bad knees so it would be very hard for me. So for now I am going to put the bins into the other room. Then after she cleans it I will move them again. I know it seems like it would be easier to wait, but I want to work on this today as I will be very busy for over a week. And, the rooms are beside each other and the boxes are not heavy.

I went into the room the teenager was in and it is filthy. I started by picking up all the trash. I also got a few items she left, and put them in the other room for them to pick up. I took a while bag of trash out of there, donated a few items that were not hers, and emptied the stick vacuum. My next step is to vacuum it and then it has to be mopped, it has spills and is gross. Then if I have the energy I will move some bins in there and work on my bedroom.

I also made an online grocery order for pickup today, so I don't have to waste an hour wandering around the store finding things. I have to go pick it up in a couple hours.

Now I think I will eat an orange.

Thoughts - YES!

If I had an extra room I think I could clean out every room in my house. You can just go through the bedroom and all you have to decide right now is belongs here/does not belong here/do not know. If you can trash or donate along the way, great, but if not you can just literally remove everything that isn't belongs here (I hate not having quotation marks) arrange the room, and then sort the storage room and add back whatever else needs to be in your room.

You must sort out the extra room once your room is done though, and guard your room!

I have tried stuff like that, but I am always using a space that has to do something else, and something happens and everything gets stuffed and jumbled again.

Made a cool pot today. It's fragile, so I hope it makes it to firing.

Have parties!! (looking aghast)
Well it is a skill I want to get more comfortable at. I am such an introvert but it would be nice to at least have a few friends over for dinner. I used to do that. Before covid.

I skipped church to stay home and rest.

Here is a thought. I now have a little more space in the two very small bedrooms that my company was in. One of those rooms is going back to being a playroom/guest room for my grandkids. The other room, perhaps I could use it as an intermediate sorting space. This is one way I could get my own bedroom in order. I have boxes and tubs in my bedroom taking up a lot of room. If I moved them into that small bedroom, I could make more progress on my bedroom, I think. And could go in that little room and sort a box at a time. With the boxes and bins out of my bedroom, I could have space to go through dressers and set things up like a nice bedroom.

There is a lot to sort, but maybe this would help me not feel like I live in a trash heap.

Thoughts?

Oh, and I forgot - Lila, you can't replace people with stuff (you know that) you have to replace them with people. I don't know how many rooms you have, but Bean fills my house all by himself!

Make a room for your littles to stay over

Make a playroom

Make a gym where you can hang a boxing bag for teen

Make yourself a hobby room or an office

Have parties

There are so many possibilities once you open up the space.

Oh Lila! Please get out your soft cozy blanket and put it on your nice clean bed! This is the point of all this! To have a space that is safe and comforting and healthy and relaxing.

I am envisioning the cozy blanket on your bed radiating a warm glow of peace out into your room and slowly transforming everything that is dirty, broken, tattered or out of place like a Disney magic spell.

Road, how are you? How is your boy?

I am finally rested. I woke up naturally before 7. I'm still worrying about my dad tomorrow a bit, but I know he is in good hands. The director of the hospital is planning on him fixing her dinner on Wednesday.. (Everyone is pretending that it is not because she wants a good look at him to be sure he is recovering ok - procedure on Monday, 24 hours bed rest, dinner on Wednesday.) my dad loves to cook for people.

My dishwasher soap arrived yesterday. It had been out of stock and I had to buy a box of powder. I decided to sign up for the discount subscription - it will probably be too much, but like my laundry sheets, I will let it build up until I have an extra box and then cancel and resubscribe later. Both of them arrive in only small amounts of corrugated cardboard packaging. And the dish soap used paper tape!

Not sure what the day holds, but I will report back.

Good points SubC. And yes, the nice soft cozy blankets must have been a comfot to the teenager who suddenly was torn from her home amidst trauma. I am glad they got some comfort out of them instead of them sitting unused in the closet another ten years.

In fact, as I was putting them away, one was SO soft and comforting that I wanted it! But put it away. Kind of silly right?? I have them, I may as well enjoy them! I think I will get that one back out and start using it!

I ate some granola and now I feel better.

I went into the big freezer and looked to see what was left after they took their stuff. I think I mentioned how the breaker got tripped and a lot of stuff got warm and thrown out. The things that might be good were left in. I went in there today and looked through the bottom drawer and tossed all the meat that had been purchased on its "too old to sell" date a couple years ago, and tossed it, plus some other things old and frostbitten. See, I was hoarding food too, but not eating it. Now it is wasted. I am probably going to sell that giant freezer and maybe get a small chest freezer. I only need a little extra room, not a whole huge upright freezer.

I will use what's left in there, then sell it. That will make space in that room as well.

I had a thought also. Getting rid of things makes me feel more alone, too. I feel the aloneness, the emptiness, and maybe I am sort of filling the space where my children and husbands used to be, with stuff.

Lila- hoard money. Instead of buying extra things, if you have extra money, put it in the bank! A blanket is no good when you need a toaster, but money is flexible.

Meanwhile, use some of your nice things! Those nice new blankets the teenager unpacked - put them out. If you cannot bear to donate the older blankets (pet shelters often take blankets too worn for thrift stores) at least pack those away for an emergency instead of never using your nice stuff. Also, maybe cut the teen some slack. It probably did not occur to them that those blankets were not for use and maybe they liked them better and having them made a stressful transition better. You can still use them.

Are the things from teens childhood special to you or to teen? If you, maybe those things should move to your room. If teen - maybe they should move to teens room. I know teen breaks things, but those are their things. It needs to be their job to care for them eventually or they need to accept not having them.

Yay for putting all of ex things in his room!

My chickens have a cleaner coop with their second perch reinstalled so they do not have to be so crowded and their computer casing egg hut returned.

More of the feral part of the garden is under heavy mulch.

And I showered and washed my hair. It is weird, because I love to swim, but getting into water is really hard for me - especially when it is cool or cold.

I am going to drop my patties to be fired at the studio tomorrow (patties are free)and go to the school talent show. I will probably also pick up some seed starting mix and potting soil.

SubC, thank you for the encouragement and suggestions. I feel like this whole thing is as much mental/emotional work as anything else. I'm glad you found your rhubarb! Strawberry rhubarb pie is so yummy.

My friend who lived here is back to get the rest of her things, right now. I am feeling anxious in the pit of my stomach about all of this. I will miss her, we had fun together. Yet glad to reclaim my spaces. And nervous about the people she is about to bring inside to help her.

...

And like that, it's all gone, and a lot of clear space is back. I can see the floor in the family room, and the hallway is clear. The 2 bedrooms are back to being available for me to use. Although the room that was for my grandchildren and was Teen's before that, is in complete disarray. The teenager who I said could 'sleep' in there went through my closet, took brand new blankets (3) out of their packaging and used them even though I gave them 2 warm blankets to use plus they brought their own. And they dug through the closet. And they took everything I had arranged on the shelves and put them into boxes and baskets and put them on shelves. Yet did not use the shelf they cleared. I am hoping none of those special childhood items of Teen's were broken or ruined by them doing this. I am NEVER letting anyone come to live with me again. I will have guests who come to visit stay in a guest room, but this is the final live-in person. I have done this a few times when friends were in crisis and it always ends up being much longer than anticipated and I have to put everything back together in the end. But at least now I can do it.

Now I will take anything that is anywhere else in the house that belongs to my ex and put it in his rented room. I only want my own things in the rest of the house from now on.

I am so stressed that I can't even think.

A processing post. Feel free to skip unless you too are sorting out the whys and hows of hoarding behaviors and fixing them.

I look around my bedroom at all the piles, boxes, and plastic tubs and I wonder what happened to me. I KNOW it wasn't like this when I was a kid. I had a normal home and bedroom. I know it wasn't like this in my dorm in college. When I got married at 20, I know it wasn't anything like this even though we lived in the same house for about 7 years and had several kids. It never occurred to me it could get like this, back then.

As a young wife and mother, I kept the house clean and "lived in" but organized. The only disorganized space was the end tables in the living room, which had doors on them and I would toss magazines and papers in there when company was coming. But they never got full and I always sorted and got rid of that stuff. I don't remember having any extra junk or stuff. We had some boxes in the storage shed but nothing unusual, not a lot of stuff.

Then we moved to the house I am in now. It was fine. It was clean and organized. Then I got divorced. That's when I started hoarding. I knew we were going to get divorced so I started buying extra things: paper towels, toilet paper, maxi pads, toiletries, food. I hid it in closets. I shuck it in boxes in the garage. When we did split up I was so poor I had nothing. But I had the stuff I had hidden. It let us get by.

Finances have been tight most of the time since then. Ten plus years ago my new husband who made plenty of money told me he didn't love me anymore and was divorcing me. I was in a panic. I started saving everything, buying extras of everything. But then he never divorced me. So for a decade I kept saving and hoarding because I knew he would someday.

That's part of it. Another part is just not having money. So when I get rid of anything, even a soccer ball that's been in the garage for 15 years, there is a fear. "I will want a soccer ball to play with my grandkids in a few years and I won't be able to afford one." That is actually realistic. But it turned into sooo many things.

I have brand new sets of dishes, glasses, pots and pans and knives in my garage for when I need new ones, because I won't be able to afford them then.

I have so many blankets. Lots of new ones, old ones, thick and thin ones, because I know someday I will need blankets and won't have the money for them.

I have so much stuff but nothing really nice is out.

My home looks like I am broke. My dining room table looks awful, with unstable, mismatched chairs. All my furniture is second hand. I have no art on the walls, no photos on the walls, but plenty in frames in boxes. If I hang them Teen will throw them.

I have clothing in every size from 10 to 3x because I know as I lose weight I will need clothes and not be able to afford them.

I wonder if I had plenty of money, if my hoarding would disappear. I kind of think it would. But who knows.

Hi Lila!

Progress is good!

It doesn't have to be sparse, it just has to be orderly and cleanable and only have things you want in there.

Keep moving out from the bed and clearing the floor. If the area around your bed starts to feel too empty, think about what you could put there - a chair? A rack to hang clothes on that you are going to wear again, or maybe a robe? A screen of some kind to make a smaller defined space around your bed?

I am cleaning out the chicken coop. In the process of moving the bedding out to the garden - I found the rhubarb! I have not harvested any rhubarb for three years, because the whole area around it was overgrown. But now, I can see where it is, and if I keep it weeded and feed it, maybe I will get a pie this year!

Ideally I would move at least one clump to a new fresh spot with lots of good compost this fall. But one thing at a time - first I will try to weed it.

But for now, my water break is over, so back to the coop!

Happy Saturday, SubC. Good you are being productive while caring for yourself.

I went into my room and sat on the bed and tried to picture how I want it to be, without the clutter. I can't imagine it. I don't compute how it would look or feel. Sigh.

But I just decided to work from the bed out, and try to get the piles of papers off the floors. I went through most of the piles, threw out anything I don't need, put one document into the safe, and stacked the rest on the other side of the room with other papers that should be filed eventually.

Plus I threw out an old medication and donated 3 items. So it's progress.

I do wish I had a picture in my head of how I want it. But sparseness makes me anxious.

Lila, good job giving your body the nutrients it needs!

I got the feed. I unloaded three of the bags directly into the feed bins, saving myself more work later with some work now.

I made a dozen clay patties- laymanexplanation - emergency drip catchers for the kiln. They are semi-consumable and I was out - they are another thing that saves you more work later.

I labelled some more things in the studio to avoid hassle later.

I fed the sourdough starter.

And now I am going to go do some barn work because it is still sunny and is the warmest part of the day.

accountability post.

- sorted the vitamin/supplement cabinet in the kitchen, and found 3 old items to dispose of. Added them to the Daily Tally.

- cleaned my dog's ears and trimmed his nails.

- took probiotics and vitamins.

Wow, the inertia is real. I don't want to do anything. I will let myself sit here and relax with coffee and then will work on my room and the terrible, piled-up, layered-in-dust bar/counter.

Thank you SubC for that. Caring for yourself is a worthy task. Let that stress go so it doesn't make you sick. I have found that being stressed does literally cause physical degradation in some form - whether illness, disease, headache, tiredness... so I will heed your wisdom and also care for myself today. Too stressed.

I had a barking neighbor dog who was also howling, keep me up most of the night. I did message the owner who was gone for the weekend. The poor dog is so sad and lonely he goes outside in the 15 degree freezing cold and barks and howls, hoping to call his family home. He has a dog door but kept going outside to bark and howl in his misery. I felt bad for him and Son is going over to visit him this morning, and we will ask neighbor how we might help next time they are gone for days.

I had decaf coffee and egg salad on bread. I feel like nibbling more. I am lagging, so will make myself some real coffee and take my vitamins to perk me up.

I do need to get some work done around the house, and have not significantly added to my Daily Tally in some time, so will try to do that as well.

Dd and dsil are both negative, but on Wednesday dsil was at the zoo with one of the people who tested positive. So he won't be sure until Monday.

I feel like I lifted a car. I have been storing so much stress in my muscles, I ache from the base of my skull down my back and ribs and the sides of my rear. Also across my shoulders and into my upper arms. I slept until 9 and still haven't done chores.

I took my vitamins. My biggest goal today is to be kind to myself. Healthy food choices, shower, maybe a bath no specific goals. Right now I am sitting in the sun.

I ran across a quote once that said You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. I need to remember that my body is a biological creature, and like every other creature on this farm, it will react positively to care and compassion and negatively to abuse and neglect.

Chickens don't decide to lay eggs. If you take good care of them and they get enough light, they lay eggs. And if you stress them out or starve them, they stop laying eggs.

I just remembered I need to pick up feed before noon!

Carry on!

We did go and I am glad. It was a good trip. I had a nice time with Teen. Five and a half hours later we are home and I am tired. But while we were out, our live-in company got most of their things moved to their new apartment! Not all, but maybe 75%. There is more space now, but their rooms still have some things in them and so does my family room. I am glad that is done, and it will be nice when they have completed their move and I can really reclaim the spaces.

Now I am just resting, and thinking about having some nice hot tea. I bought 5 kinds of citrus fruits at the store on the way home, which makes me happy. I love to try different varieties of citrus in winter.

Lila, I am glad your son is helping you. I hope things worked out with teen.

CM, I think it is lovely that you are able to pass part of the quilts on! Anything that looks like quick success sounds like a good thing.

My school is weird at the best of times, but usually it is a good weird. Since covid it just feels like things have shifted so much. Some of it is that I have just come to see how the sausage is made more. Some of it is my recent increase in understanding in how my own brain works, some of it is just change. I do not know that the uncertainty and chaos have increased, but my experience of them has. Relationships are very hard for me to begin with. If you are anything but honest with me, even if you are trying to be kind, it makes it harder.

Dd, dsil, and Bean are on their way home. They got almost halfway to my parents and started getting texts that many of the people they were at a party with on Sunday night now have Covid (first symptoms as early as Tuesday)

I don't know what my weekend looks like.

But they know about my dad now. So I told Dh. He is still at work. He has another work meeting at 8 a.m. tomorrow. He is also exhausted.

I want spring too. It is very cold here. But, sunny, so that's something. Too cold to go out though, low teens.

I am slow going today. Still not sure if we are doing the road trip appointment or not, but need to decide in the next 20 minutes or so.

I made some French toast and had a leisurely breakfast. On my task list, I sorted the meds/pill bottles, threw out some empty ones, consolidated and locked them back up. I have a bag with some old/unused pills to put in the prescription disposal bin.

Working on the kitchen a little bit. Made calls.

I sure wish this coffee would give me energy!

Miscellaneous...

SubC, sounds like the vibe at your school has been a bit weird lately? I hope it gets better. As you may have guessed, I struggled a lot on jobs, hence I am on disability now. Jobs are hard - the work not so much, but all the people and other things (sensory, time pressures, memory tasks, etc.) that go with being in a workplace. Wondering if at some point when I really will need to be making more money I can find a remote job. If I can avoid the scams.

My roommate got sick with a minor tummy thing today. We were supposed to go this afternoon to the senior center to do crafts. I'm thinking I may skip it too; this will be the second time, unfortunately. This has been disappointing - I'd hoped more for a place where it was set up for people to do crafts on more of a casual, drop-in basis than have to schedule it, and that being only once a month. Well, I'll have to investigate - perhaps the larger center would be more able to do something open ended. This thing today is at the one that's closer by but has little space.

Wondering if my time would be better spent really working hard at decluttering the home workspace after all... I was just thinking that going someplace else to do stuff would kickstart the stash busting. But may need to rethink that. In any case, there are certainly some decluttering things I can spot around here that would be quick successes, so maybe I'll just start there.

Still feeling really good about having made the decision to have the other lady help finish that one quilt top so I can move forward.

It's still cold and dreary here. Bleah. I want SPRING!

Good morning, day off, supposed to be going on road trip appointment with Teen but they texted me at 6am saying they did not sleep and can't go. I hate not knowing what my day entails (especially if it is a matter of being home for 4-5 hours of being gone for 4-5 hours) but I am letting them sleep until closer to time we would need to leave, and then will gently encourage.

SubC it is hard to cope sometimes. I too eat my emotions and watch too much online stuff. Hopefully today will be better and you can u-turn it.

I am relaxing and having coffee. I just watched the trash truck come. I must be pretty odd, as one of the things I don't want to miss is watching the trash truck. I hear it coming and jump up and stand at the window with my coffee, watching it dump my bins, and it makes me happy. I really love feeling like "all that stuff I put in there is gone!" Seeing it go is part of my decluttering reward.

I have so many things to attend to today, but can do it quietly and in my own time. I need to sort meds, clip the dog's nails, clean up the kitchen etc. My dear Son washed all the dishes and ran the dishwasher AND cleaned the dirty stovetop the other day for me while I was asleep, without being asked. What a wonderful young man he is. So I am motivated to keep it clean for him, so he feels like what he did mattered.

Will post later and hope to hear from others on what you are doing today.

Good morning.

I cleaned out a crate at school yesterday and threw some things out. I also took my barn trash to the dumpster and my kiln over fired slightly and I threw out the mug I had put in. It was a disaster. I have to deal with the rest of the kiln today.

I was stressed out and tired yesterday and I made a long series of bad choices - beginning with food and moving through the internet and staying up so late I got lass than 6 hours of sleep.

Not surprisingly - I don't feel good today. AND the only lesson plans I have ready center around ducks...

Dd and dsil leave to take Bean to visit my parents today. My dad has a heart procedure on Monday. My mom will not let me tell Dd because she and dad don't want them to change their plans and not come. Which means I can't tell Dh because he might decided Dd should be told. Which means I have to be stressed about it all by myself. Which apparently means pizza, sugary baked goods, crappy movies, and no sleep.

One of my coworkers made a decision to have students engage in what was clearly risky behavior that had no educational value other than perhaps a lesson about thinking for yourself, making intelligent choices, and not blindly trusting authority figures.
One of our kids is now in a cervical collar for at least three weeks with fractured vertebrae. I looked up the law - the parents have two years to sue for negligence. The kid has two years after turning 18 or being diagnosed with a health issue or disability stemming from the injury. (The kid graduates in may) Students videoed the whole thing and were sharing the video yesterday. I am the killjoy saying: guys, none of this is funny.

Coffee kicking in gotta do chores.

Road!! How terrible! I am so sorry for your loss, and also for your son being so sick. I am so sad for you.

All updates were read and I am glad people are posting. SubC I am glad your ducks did not ship and get stuck somewhere. What a relief.

I worked and worked and finally have my day off tomorrow and although I have to take a road trip for an appointment with Teen, I still am glad to have the day off to sleep in and recover a bit. I honestly have too much work, too much on my plate. Lesson learned and if I can just get through the next 2 weeks of so much work, it should calm down a little and I can be less stressed out.

Oh, Road, I'm so very sorry about your brother, and everything else besides.

And Lila, yes, stress such as you went through causes all sorts of hormones like cortisol and adrenaline to rush through one's body, kicking it into overdrive as a survival mechanism, using lots of energy and resources then when the crisis is past you crash.

Both of you going through so much: Try to eat and drink good things and take any vitamins that help if you have them, and nothing wrong with resting. You need it to rebuild at the cellular level and to replenish.

SubC, I'm glad you finally found out about the ducks.

I had a busy day yesterday with Ash Wednesday Mass at 8:00 a.m. (discovered I could make it there without too much craziness, something I wasn't sure of because I haven't gotten out and about much earlier than 9:00-10:00 for ages except for my uncle's funeral). I quilted and then had my 1:00-2:00 holy hour. Back home I kind of lost my momentum a bit. There was a cold front that rolled in.

Today I pulled out my unfinished quilt, tried measuring it for a border. It was slightly off, even though I had tried so hard to keep my seams consistent. Not bad, but I wasn't sure how to compensate for the discrepancy, and without a good working space for large projects, I decided to call one of our experienced and efficient quilters who has a sewing room. She was happy to help, I will give her the quilt and the border fabric on Tuesday. Since the quilt goes into the lineup at church, it won't be coming back here so that counts as half a cubic foot of stuff gone.

And it also frees me up to do quilts a new way, just making sets of blocks and passing them along to those who, like her, have the facilities, time, and know how to assemble them. I don't know if this change in my quiltmaking MO will be temporary or permanent. I don't have to decide that right now. All I know is, I was so stressed I had ground to a halt and wasn't even sure I liked quiltmaking anymore. Now I can take off the pressure and perfectionism and just see how it goes.

Take care, everyone. Poco a Poco. Vamos a Llegar.

The hatchery just called.

Even though the computer sent me an email saying that my ducks had shipped, my ducks did not ship. They had a hatch failure and no ducks were shipped.

My ducks are not dead in a box somewhere. They will ship in April.

Oh road, I am so sorry! I know this is a huge loss for you and so much harder having to figure out how and when to tell your son.

I really hope that the flu passes quickly. Poor kid needs a break!

Guys! Ugh!! I just want to Check in. Had/having one of the worst times of my life. My son was in hosp for almost three weeks with complications from pneumonia. Had to have a chest tube and so many scans and X-rays and sedations and blood work. We came home and we got the flu and now my son has it. But the worst thing was in the middle of it all my brother died. Suddenly/unexpectedly. We don’t know if it was a post Covid thing or heart attack or stroke but he didn’t respond to the usual texts one day, didn’t show at the hospital. I called police and they found him dead in his home. His dog friends were kind enough to take on his dogs after a few days and we had to go through a lot in his house to find documents etc. Very challenging to deal with my dad under these circumstances because he was disgusted by the house and just wanted to complain about the state of affairs and now that he’s planning the memorial my sister feels he is only concerned about appearances. We still haven’t told my son. The funeral for our next door neighbor is tomorrow (died day after my bro) but now I don’t think we can go to that either due to my son being sick. My bro’s memorial won’t be til April or May now I guess. I am not sure how much I can check in just wanted you all to know what’s been going on. I hope all of you are doing ok. Sending ð?'"ð?'"ð?'"ð?™?ð??¼

Got off to a good start this morning but have not managed my evening well.

Took a plastic grocery bag of trash to the gas station when I got gas today - mostly packaging I am letting go of recycling because it requires too complex a process.

Brought home the giant clay mixer from school (which belongs to me personally) to use in my studio. I do not really have a spot for it, but I have a spot where I can put it, and I am hoping it will help me get some of this clay processed - which should make more room.

Ran one load - wash/dry of laundry and one of dishes.

Tired.

Still no ducks.

Good morning.

Lila, I think when something traumatic happens, it knocks us back - we have less resiliency. So if another bad thing happens before we get a chance to recover, it hits us harder than it would have and we get knocked back a lot more.

Like grass - thick, tall healthy grass has deep roots and can stand some time without rain. Cut it short and the roots actually die back. Then if it doesn’t rain, it goes brown quickly.

Also, sometimes if you have too much to handle, your body will store it and hand it out later when you can process it.

Be gentle with yourself.

Sometimes going to bed is the best option.

I don't know what is wrong with me. Is it a thing that if you have a very stressful traumatic experience and then another one a day later that it does something to your brain that takes a long time to recover from? The thing with Teen was really awful but it has been almost 2 weeks and I still feel like I can barely cope with anything. Not sleeping well, etc. I am doing better in that I actually did go to work today and did fine for about 5 hours and then suddenly I felt like I was completely wiped out and had to come home, where I am sitting here staring into space non functional.

Better than last week, when my work limit was about an hour and a half and then I would be a bsket case.

Anyway I got work done, and now am home zoning out. I would like to declutter but I have zero energy. I want to go to bed.

I read your posts but my brain is offline.

So yesterday I took Bean to school so his parents could pick him up there (close to home) and I could fire a load in the kiln.

All I tossed out was diapers.

I am really struggling with sleep and my weight and organization.

Someone was fired at work and I know part of the backstory and an email was sent out which Dh says was very appropriate from a company standpoint and made it sound like the person had to quit suddenly for personal reasons and I feel totally gaslit by the email. Dh says quote: you don’t know, they could have offered them the chance to quit instead of being fired and they may have mental health issues going on that contributed to the behavior that made it not possible for them to keep working there. and that just feels like more gaslighting, and the part that is hard for me is that I am already wary of parts of my administration, and this just makes it impossible for me to trust any communication from them.

Also, I am stressed about the ducks.

I cleaned off the couch and put a few papers in the recycling.

I am going to shower and brush my teeth and pack up some things that need to go with me today for the class I am taking tonight, and then go to school.

Well, I'll chime in on the general themes floating around here - I've made a simple list of spiritual practices for Lent which feel like they will help me grow closer to God, a variety of practices and sacrifices and just trying to cultivate that trusting attitude like you said, Lila.

I'm fat; I don't want weight loss to be for my sake during Lent, but if I can try not to be a glutton that's a good goal, for sure. Or sloth - laziness - that may be more why I've gained. I let my fears and stress become huge obstacles to getting to the gym or anywhere else to exercise. That trend needs to reverse. I need to dig way back in my memory and recapture the time last summer when it was actually relaxing and positive. I got stressed out, the gym changed their locker locks in a way that I got all worried about (how to remember what to do with the new ones - but I've written a little cheat sheet now and printed it out, so I can do this).

Letting go of material possessions is the ongoing thing - back in 2015 when I joined this board, I was wanting to be a minimalist and part of the impetus was my beliefs, and the rest was just being fed up with being a hoarder. Nearly 8 years later (gulp) so much has happened including the pandemic - feels like a tornado went through in my head about it all. But I'm ready to start just doing what I can where I am, for now. Hoping momentum will gradually pick up with each success.

SubC, I think I was so computer and data backing-up preoccupied, I didn't catch that you were the one who suggested to Lila to put the cameras in tubs. So now that I know that, I think your reasoning was good as well. I guess now she can weigh the pros and cons and pick whichever strategy ends up working best. It's good that we all have the chance to pick each other's brains.

My computer's been mostly behaving itself today. I am hoping I'll be able to track down anything problematic and deal with it. I don't feel as intimidated, provided I am diligent about backing up files - that is one time when Justin Case proved his worth, lol.

Good thoughts, SubC. I have left two churches in the past that I was in for years, so I know how that is. The one I go to now is more compassionate and kind. I never knew about Lent and thought it was just giving things up - and my new pastor has explained it the way you did. It's not about self improvement in a "world" sense but in a spiritual sense of getting closer to God, or more like the ideal of Jesus. It's about removing something that is in between you and God, or just something you don't need, and giving that time towards God. So like if you give up watching TV for two hours that is not really about Lent, but it is if you use those hours to pray, read the Bible, serve others.

So for me I used to be a binge eater and food became something I spent a lot of time on, for my own pleasure. I think by fasting I am trying to change that and when I get hungry while fasting I use that as a trigger to pray or read or turn to God in some way. Or fix something that I think keeps me from God (maybe gluttony if you go with a Bible term?) Clutter is the same way. It keeps me from trusting him.

So when I do not eat for a stretch of time, but pray instead, it helps me focus on what's important.

And when I give away things that may have value, it is me trusting God that He will provide what I need in the future.

I read a really cool book by a monk a couple years ago. I wish I could remember it. But it explained why they give up pretty much everything. Yeah, that may be extreme, but I think there is something to be learned about valuing the spiritual over the flesh, no matter what one believes, right?

Tasks done so far:
- cleaned up half the dog yard (poo)
- listed some overabundance of produce online and gave it away
- opened a box that was in my room that is for a colon cancer study, completed the steps and scheduled a fedex pickup for today (one box gone from my room!)
- working on clearing the area next to my bed. Mainly I am putting things where they go instead of on the floor and have not tossed anything there yet.

So, maybe take this with a grain of salt as I was raised in a Protestant church and left the faith (I find the more time I spend in churches, the farther I feel from god. Ymmv)

My understanding of lent is not so much that it’s about self improvement in a temporal sense, or suffering or sacrifice or self discipline, but that it’s about giving up those things that separate us from god, removing distractions and recentering and refocusing on what is really important. It’s supposed to be a time of prayer and reflection.

So, in that sense, lent could be a great time to declutter your life. Looking at the time and energy you are spending on things that could better be spent serving god - whoosh! Seriously, instead of �does this spark joy?� It’s �how does having this help me live the life god wants me to live?�

On a less spiritual note - Bean and I added the daddy giraffe to the animal collection today. He was very pleased. (I didn’t buy him any card or treat for valentines, so that’s our February thing.

Lila what a lovely post. I like this a lot. My BF is Catholic. I grew up in congregational churches. I really love the peace you are bringing to your life. Recognizing that a pile of stuff could be replaced with peace is powerful.

For me, for today, I am going to the UPS store to return my brothers modem. I switched his internet a week or so ago and I must return this.

Big day for me yesterday, having two different girlfriends over. I am trying to skip apostrophes so pardon the poor grammar and stilted language.

Today I want to make more donation bags. I do not believe that goodwill is open and I have a car full of donations to make. This must be my priority for Monday.

Tonight is trash night. I have my recycling ready to go out.

Good morning. A day off for many of us? Yes for me!

Does anyone else participate in Lent or something like it? This Wednesday is Ash Weds and I never knew anything about it until my current church, which is not Catholic but does have an Ash Weds service and talks about Lent. I have already begin a 'season of fasting' which I wanted to try this year with the 16:8 intermittant fasting because I require structure and it is something I want to do as a self discipline. I am using this time to stop idolizing food, eating lots of junk and fast food and sugary things that harm my body, and using the hunger as a turning-to-God point.

I also have thought this morning that the mindset of giving, not hoarding, trusting God and being a free giver to trust in the Lord to provide for the future is something I am trying to cultivate. If I cultivate that mindset, it will follow that I give more of my unused belongings away, and trust that I will have what I really need.

I will try to channel that mindsent during Lent into crafting my environment to reflect my inner peace. I thought of this when I got up this morning and looked at the piles of STUFF on the floor just a couple feet from where I got out of bed. Wouldn't it be nice, and peaceful, to get up and have all of that gone?

That is scary, CM, with the computer situation. I no longer have a computer other than my work laptop. All else is iPhone or iPad. I hope it is okay. The cyber stuff terrifies me!

SubC! I know you weren’t advocating to keep the cameras! You are a gentle, kind soul and I was being like a drill Sargent. Lila, why not package them up in one eBay listing for say, $100? Maybe someone would want all of them and that would give you some funds! Some people like to get a whole bunch. And if someone says, I really only want camera x and I’ll pay $30, you can sell it! Worth a shot!

I wish I could sell on eBay. I never dedicated myself to it. I know there is money to be made.

So I got rid of eight pjs. Two pair of pj shorts, three pair of pj bottoms, and three pair of complete pjs. Then Emiko came over, took a look at my pjs and asked if she could take a pair. So I went into my pj drawer and let her choose. So nine in all. As I wrote this, Emiko texted to say she’s wearing the pj pants. So that’s good news. I have to be tough with myself.

I’m pretty excited about the ducks, SubC.

Okay tomorrow is a day off. Let’s see what I do. I saw a girlfriend today and we did some walking around the city. Then Emiko needed me to help her with a work project. I did not see mom today and I feel guilty.

Okay I’m going to read now.

I want to chime in that I was not voting to keep the cameras, I was just voting to move them to an available space (minus batteries to avoid a disaster) if they were too much to handle right now so that Lila can finish her room.

I feel like anything that speeds up the room is a good choice, but yes, now is better than later if you can do it.

Dd surprised my by turning up at 12:30 with Bean while I was still throwing pots. He did not take a nap today, but she made lunch and they baked some muffins while I set up the duck pen. Then Dd left.

So I did not cut brambles, bake any bread (Bean and I will bake it tomorrow) or do any lesson plans.

Bean has had his dinner and his bath and stories and gone to bed, and Dh is resting in the house after a long day of golf. He can be in charge of Bean, so I need to go back out and do a little more work on those pots. I just threw a cover over them and came in at lunch time.

I did get a load of laundry put away and a load of dishes run. And I put one thing from the barn in the garbage when I was working on the duck pen. Better than nothing.

CM, oh, when the computers do weird things and it's not like it used to be it stresses me out so badly!! I'm glad it went back to normal for you. I do not like change!

Thank you for the encouragement and possible ways to handle these things. I know it would be a huge weight off my mind to just get all the files off these computers and photos off the cameras and get rid of them!! I have thought about just calling the computer stores around here and asking how much it costs to get all the files off a computer. If it isn't too much, it might be worth it to just pay them to have it done. Now, to me "too much" is $50 so maybe I am way off. But I would pay $25/each to have someone else get my files off, and just GIVE them the computers for any parts they could use! I think I will call around. That would free up a huge amount of physical AND mental space.

I just cleaned out the litter box which I hate doing, especially when Teen has let it go for too long and is refusing to do it. I had to take it outside and wash it. So gross. I like the cat ok but it is not MY cat. However it is like a therapy cat for Teen so I can't rehome him. He is a nice cat, actually. I just would prefer Teen do the litter box, which they do about 75% of the time.