a chair is

Letting Go

2011-12-31T10:24:00.000-05:00

This isn't a new broom, but I'm thinking a lot about 'sweeping clean' and letting go.
And one of the things I'm considering letting go is this blog.

I am uncomfortable having two blogs.
But there are things I like to share that don't seem to fit with my vision for my other blog, Lizards in the Leaves. That blog is supposed to be for sharing my artistic journey, this one for sharing my never-ending quest to be more organized, to deal with my Stuff, to simplify, to live with intention and meaning.

I also have a web page.
And an empty etsy shop.

So I'm feeling a bit scattered - part of me here, part of me there....there ...and there.
Add Facebook and Google+ and Twitter to really clutter things up.

I question whether it's good for me to have my cyber-being separated into all those parts. Or have all those homes to maintain.

So this is something I'll be thinking about during the coming winter retreat.
Maybe I won't let this blog go.

Maybe I'll just let go of the idea I need to post here 2-3 times a week. Not that I've done that with any regularity over the years, but the idea that I should is always in my head.

-------------------
My word for 2012 is Intention.
Are you choosing a word?

Have a happy, abundant year!

)O(

Tea for One for Hours

2011-12-15T08:50:00.000-05:00

I drink a lot of tea.

White, black, green. Various permutations in the form of Chai. Sometimes it seemed as though I would just get started on my work when I would want to make another cup of tea. Sometimes I need the break. Need to move, stretch…both body & mind. Sometimes I need to keep working.

I’ve begun taking tea with me to the bookshop I work with in this stainless steel tumbler. I bought mine at Teavana when I was in Boston last spring. (There's a nifty little basket/strainer attachment so you can steep tea right in the tumbler, but I rarely do that.)

Last week I started using it at home. I pour out just enough for a few relaxing sips and the rest stays nice and hot.

Lets me stay focused on my work if I need to stay focused. And still have the bliss of tea.
--------------------
In other matters:
Right now, things are not going well with my attempt to lose the regained weight. I know it’s the exercise issue. And maybe the honey wheat pretzel twists.
I’ll figure it out. I know that, too.

I’m also trying to figure out where I’m heading with my work. How I want to continue my blogs. IF I want to continue my blogs, at least in the form they are now. I guess I’ll figure it out as well.

)O(

Inbox Zero Perk

2011-12-08T11:54:00.000-05:00

GMail has some themes that change through the day.
I like Orcas Island and Ocean. This is Ocean.
Sounds weird, but being able to see the whole picture is another impetus for me to keep my inbox at zero or near-z.
I say use whatever it takes to motivate. Especially if it's free.

These ocean images calm me, too. Win-win.

Wisdom: from Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity

2011-12-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

I've been reading a LOT of other blogs and websites lately, going farther afield than my usual haunts in the fiber arts. I'd like to share what I'm reading out there from time to time, especially things which help me sort out my life and my Stuff.

I'll post such things with the label 'Wisdom.'

Today, I received an email from Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity. He offered his latest free pdf manifesto called The Tower.

I'm finding it very inspiring, especially as we come to the end of a year, and especially for me in my just-turned-sixty threshold state. It offers simple wisdom on creating direction and meaning for one's life, on focusing one's energy.
I don't want to characterize it any more than that.

You can read his introduction to The Tower and download it here.

---------------------------

Owl feather image found here.

)O(

Wordless Wednesday / 90 Calories

2011-11-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

Picture by me.

)O(

Less Paper Clutter: Using Print/Save as pdf

2011-11-26T11:26:00.000-05:00

Upgrading my computer was one of the best things I did this year.
I’m proud that I managed to use my old iBook for more than 6 years, but it was so time to upgrade.

I chose the MacBook Air. And I love it.
But this isn’t about that.

I just wanted to share something here that is reducing my paper clutter and obviously reducing use of paper and printer ink.
That is the use of Command: Print >Save as pdf.

I have no idea if something equivalent is available on PCs, but on a Mac, most of the time when you use the Print command, when the window pops up, there is an option to Save the page as a pdf. This isn't something new on Macs either. I just didn't use it like I'm using it now: to reduce the amount of paper I have to deal with.

Here’s how I’ve used this just in the last couple of days, to save things I normally might have printed out or tried to save the URL so I could go back later to read online:

Order record from Republic of Tea
Article from the July 28 2008 New Yorker on how we come up with ideas
New York Times article on Marianne Moore
emails from Blogger with my blog entries

That’s at least a dozen pieces of paper I might have printed and then had to find a place for. Of course, I have to find a place for them on my computer. I generally try to do that right away. I have a file marked Digital Articles which I use to store articles until I read them and decide whether to save them permanantly. Then they go into a more informatively labeled file. Or get deleted.

Here’s a screen shot of the Print Window and location of the drop-down menu that lets one Save as pdf.

See it large in your browser window here.

Sometimes you'll still want to print things, but this option gives you a chance to have it securely stored (if you back-up regularly!) and think a bit before making a hard copy.

)O(

My New Motivational Metaphor

2011-11-25T12:33:00.000-05:00

I watched this video, laughed (a lot), passed it on.
Then I began to think about cooking a turkey as a metaphor for all the procrastination and dithering, rationalization and fear that keeps me from getting things done.

"Just put the f*cking turkey in the oven"* is a catchphrase I'm going to try out for awhile.
(Edited, of course, when in sensitive or impressionably young company.)

Thinking of certain items on my To-Do list as 'turkeys' might be very useful.

Think about all the ways we needlessly complicate things that must be done, when the tasks are often quite simple and straightforward.

If we just start getting those turkeys in the oven and going for walks (metaphor, of course, for the stuff we are eager to do) how nice would that be!

So, do you have any turkeys to get in the oven today? Any walks you want to go on?
-------------------------------------------

*If you're a vegetarian and that image repulses you, feel free to go with tofurkey. Actually 'f*ckin' tofurkey' has some very nice consonance to it.

)O(

and another simple thanksgiving

2011-11-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

Still doing the simple Thanksgiving.

Only this year I'm adding a batch of spicy ginger applesauce.

It's very, very quiet here at almost 10 a.m. Strangely quiet. I realize it's the quiet of no leaf blowers or other lawn machines. And right now, I am very, very thankful to know this blessed quiet.

The cranberries have popped in the hot sugar water and are out in Mother Earth's fridge.

For this moment, all is well. All is very well. (and quiet....)
Blessed be.

)O(

Wordless Wednesday / Bathroom 1911

2011-11-23T09:57:00.001-05:00

Picture found here.

)O(

Tuesday Fitness Project Redux Update: Week 2

2011-11-22T09:34:00.000-05:00

Tuesday Fitness Project Update Facebook Status:
One more week of eating cleanly & lightly but no significant weight loss from last week. Tai Chi every day, but obviously must move more.
One excellent thing to report is that I am no longer feeling depressed/guilty about my weight regain. So I have lost a great deal of spirit weight.
And the Tai Chi has already gotten me more limber. And I totally resisted my usual poetry reading sweet binge, though the pumpkin rolls were trying their cream-cheesy filling best to lure me

150 calorie teatime - cinnamon raisin toast, light butter, chai

What I need to do is resume using my mini exercycle.

That will entail a whole process of overcoming resistance to being down in the basement for any length of time. It's partly the lack of good light. It's partly the clutter, though it's pretty functional clutter, not just Stuff piled higglety-pigglety.

And it's Lily, our new dog. I'm not sure (since I haven't actually tried to get down there and seriously work or exercise) but I feel like she won't be content to lie down in the doggie bed while I cycle. I feel like I will be constantly having to make sure she's not grabbed a ball of yarn or started gnawing on my Saori loom.

Perhaps, too, it's a reluctance to be down there with all my looms and the tools of the art work I've been neglecting lately.

There. Now that I've articulated my resistance...I have a sense that is step one in ridding myself of it.

Really? I'M stopping you from exercising???

)O(

Wordless Wednesday / Meditation Room

2011-11-16T13:12:00.000-05:00

Picture found here.

Tuesday Fitness Project Redux Update: Week 1

2011-11-15T09:30:00.003-05:00

This morning’s Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Right back to food journaling everything, upgraded my Tai Chi practice from 'sporadic' to 'daily' (and it's been amazing outside this week, esp. in the wind.) Happy to report I am minus 3.2 lbs. (you should see the happy on my face!

What a great start - losing 1/5 of the goal!
I doubt I will continue to lose at the rate of 3 lbs a week, but do hope to maintain a steady pace of 1-2 lbs.

Last week I focused on clean, light eating and getting back into the habit of keeping a meticulous log.
That’s relatively easy for me. I love eating things that are good for my body - more than I love eating things that are not so good.

When I stay present with my body and my desire for health, it’s not so difficult to say no to sugar. Writing everything down helps to keep me present with that desire.

It’s the ‘moving’ part of my plan I find difficult. Especially if I call it ‘exercise.’ So I won’t.

Tai Chi isn’t ‘exercise’ to me. Neither is training & playing with my canine companion, Lily.
Plan for this week: find more ways to move.

Not me. Not my backyard.

Picture found here.
(That blog looks very interesting, I'm bookmarking
it to read more.)

Wordless Wednesday / Planning a New Tradition

2011-11-09T11:56:00.000-05:00

Picture (and lighter gingerbread cookie recipe ) found here.

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Doin' It Again

2011-11-08T21:08:00.000-05:00

Getting out the tools.
Time to get serious and lose the 15 lbs I gained back.

I know how to do it. 1200 nutrition-packed calories. Measure and weigh. Write it all down. Move my body.
Go public.

In Which I Pay Homage to My Polartec 300 Jacket

2011-11-06T08:07:00.001-05:00

[This is a long post - you might want to make a cup of tea]

I have had this jacket for 19 years and I think it’s still got plenty of years left.

It’s a Land’s End Polartec 300 jacket and quite often it’s my primary winter outerwear.

I bought it in 1992, after moving here to Indiana the year before.
From Miami, Florida.

I was forty and I’d never seen snow..

I hadn’t a clue about winter comfort, except I knew about dressing in layers. That’s because when it gets what passes for cold in Miami, you just put on a pile of clothes. If you have a sweater, by the time you figure out where it might be, it’s warm again. In Miami, we didn’t have Winter, we had the annual Season of Cold Snaps. *

So I knew nothing practical about keeping warm in Real Winter (except maybe to stay inside with central heat, another - brilliant- new thing to me.) That first winter, I made do with cloth coats I got at Goodwill and the staying-inside-as-much-as-possible plan.

The following fall, I sat down with catalogs and studied the outerwear sections. I liked the catalogs that rated things in terms of temperature suitability. If I remember, the catalogs I liked best were Land’s End and LL Bean.

What I wound up buying was from Land’s End - the Polartec 300 jacket above, in charcoal, and a hooded, insulated coat in a deep burgundy. Both go with most everything I wear.

I reasoned that one or the other would do for regular cold or regular cold and snowy, and that I could wear both of them together for extreme cold. I added a pair of Polartec gloves to the order and called it in. (I don’t think there was any online ordering back then, but in any case, I had no computer.)

That winter (and every one since) I discovered that the Polartec 300 jacket was what got the most wear. It’s an amazing jacket. It keeps me warm and dry, even in light snow. A washing every once in awhile and an occasional once-over with a sweater de-piller keep it looking presentable. Often I wear it with a hoodie underneath, which gives me a hood and layers.

I still have the hooded coat, too. It’s my go-to when it’s really, really cold and I have to be out shoveling snow (something which always, even after 20 years here, makes me think, ‘How did I get here, doing THIS?’ and ‘I hope the neighbors aren’t watching because I’m sure I’m doing THIS wrong.’ )

The point of this post, here on this blog is this:
I cringed at spending about $250 on these items of clothing back in 1992. But I bought after careful thought and I bought what I believed was quality.
And I was right in this case. Getting 20 years of wear comes out to a cost of $12.50 a year for my well-performing outerwear, and will continue to decrease with every additional year these items are used.

My other point is that I am satisfied with wearing the same outerwear year after year, as long as it keeps me warm and does not look too worn. I chose colors that I liked that go with most of my clothes and I’m so pleased with these items year after year that I’m not tempted by passing trends in style or color.

What I lack is a coat for dressy occasions, but those occasions are so very few in my life that I don’t feel the lack often.

Another point I consider when I’m feeling all puffed up about my winterwear’s longevity is that I probably put minimal wear on it. I do get out and about in the cold, but my tendency is toward reclusiveness and retreat in the winter (which could be the beginning of another post) and I’m very blessed that I can allow that natural inclination its head. For people who have extensive outdoor activities -- work or play-- the notion of a jacket’s usefulness lasting more than twenty years might seem way too optimistic.

How many winter coats and jackets do you have cluttering up your closet? Do you really need to keep them all?

----------------------------------------
*One memorable Cold Snap (my last one in Miami - perhaps I was being warned) we actually had temperatures below freezing for a couple of days. That year, the power company instituted rolling blackouts on Christmas Day. For fifteen minutes of every hour, our power was shut down.

A couple of nights before I had been up at 4 a.m. with pain from an abcessed tooth, digging around in a closet, searching for the lone space heater I dimly remembered we owned.

I found it, way at the back, underneath some boxes and old toys, pulled it out and started to plug it in when I realized it was layered in dust. With visions of blazing dust balls shooting from the elements, I then dug out the vacuum cleaner (not quite so deeply buried) and there I was:
Freezing and shivering, in pain, with a bunch of Stuff pulled out of a closet, cluttering up the hallway, vacuuming a tiny space heater at 4 a.m.

I wanted to weep, but was afraid the tears would turn to ice on my cheeks.

That same snap caused all the trees, freaked out by the freakish cold, to just drop their leaves. All the trees, all at once. The Problem of the Leaves was the great topic of concern - no one really knew what to do about them. It was a very strange time in Miami. (Well. If you read Carl Hiasson ‘strange time in Miami’ is quite redundant.)

Wordless Wednesday / Ottoman2

2011-11-02T10:25:00.002-04:00

Wordless Wednesday / The Chair Today

2011-10-26T00:20:00.000-04:00

In Which I Organize My Vintage Tea Stash

2011-10-24T14:20:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I attempted to be ruthless with my (admittedly ridiculously) large stash of tea. Much of it should probably be consider 'vintage." But unlike wine or Beatles memorabilia, vintage tea is likely not so good.

Note I said "attempted" up there. I did discard quite a bit, but there was much I chose to keep. What I did do was switch the tea from higgledy-piggledy stacks in a 2-shelf cabinet into more orderly single file line-ups in a 3-shelf cabinet.

Here's a picture of the 2-shelf tea cabinet as it was in 2006 (and yes, it looked much the same in 2011!) when I used for an Illustration Friday project:

and here is the tea, a bit more organized:

Doesn't look much different and what's the big deal? Why write a post about this?

Well, tea is a big deal to me. It's an important part of my daily life, my self-care. Tea is good for me in many ways, both for the physical health benefits, and for the emotional/spiritual benefits of ritual. Sitting down with a nice hot cup of tea is soothing and de-stressing. The motions of tea-making (especially when loose leaf tea and a tea pot are involved) can be calming, almost meditative.

So to have my tea cabinet in order is a big deal. Most of the tea I kept was Republic of Tea in their nice little cannisters. My hope is that the tight-fitting lids have kept the tea fresher than the tea in bags in cardboard boxes, most of which I discarded.

And I've decided to make an effort to use that ~~old~~ vintage tea. Now that I can actually see what I have, I'm choosing a Tea of the Day to have for at least one of my several cups.

Sometimes the Tea of the Day becomes the Tea of Several Days. I have been enjoying this one very, very much:

So I think this is worthy of a post because organizing my tea stash gave me a message about organizing what is most important to my life- when those parts of my life are in order, they are fulfilling in ways that make easier to deal with and let go of the things that aren't really important.

(In the interests of full clutter disclosure, I must note that I still have a great deal of tea in my basement pantry and on the counter in my kitchen, though all those are much newer teas of which I partake with regularity and which have less likelihood of becoming vintage.)

Declaring Email Bankruptcy

2011-10-13T12:15:00.001-04:00

Today I want to write about what Leo Babauta of ZenHabits calls ‘declaring email bankruptcy’ :
freeing one’s self from the mountain of unread or unanswered email debt that so easily accumulates.

You clear your inbox in one decisive move, by archiving or deleting EVERYTHING.

The mail isn’t really gone if you archive, it’s just not in your inbox anymore.   It’s kind of the equivalent of self-storage - not a good idea when you are dealing with physical Stuff, but not a bad idea when dealing with email.

It was very exciting to hit that button that archived well over 3,000 emails on gmail.
And it was more exciting to delete the 1,000+ emails in my AOL account.

Deleting is truly letting go.
However, I’m glad I archived the gmail, as I have needed to retrieve a couple of things at that mailbox over the last couple of weeks. But if I hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been disastrous - just more time-consuming to gather the information I needed.

It has been well over a month since I declared email bankruptcy. Right now, there are 0 emails in my AOL inbox, and 2 emails in my gmail - both the latter have been read, but need to stick around a bit as reminders for things that need to be done.

In order to maintain this blessedly minimal inbox, I have:

--steadily unsubscribed from dozens of things, keeping less than 10
--been consistent in quickly handling all the email that does come in
Read or delete? is the first question I ask for each one.
If I read it, my next choice is between these actions:
    --delete
    --answer now if at all possible /save for later answering
    --file with an appropriate label in one of my google sidebar files or file in the general archive

98% of mail leaves my inbox, the other 2% sticks around until I take whatever action it required. I review those stick-arounds often and make sure to deal with them in a timely fashion.

The result of this cyber decluttering is very satisfying and I’ve extended it to the way I keep my computer desktop and files. Since I got a new computer last month, it has been very easy to start off with a clean slate. All my files from my old computer are in one file, sort of the equivalent of my email archive. I am slowly pulling out what I need, and handling it in a much more organized fashion. I have very little on my desktop these days.

An important part of both decluttering the mailbox and the computer is finding a way that works for you to maintain the lack of e-clutter.
Limit what comes in.
Find the simplest way to deal with what does come in.
Deal with it regularly.

Hmmmm….exactly what works with physical clutter as well!

Back to Work...

2011-09-19T09:17:00.000-04:00


The Chair - September 2011

Just popping in to write a quick note after a whole year of not writing here. As you can see, The Chair is in dire need of its seasonal decluttering, since it hasn't had one in more seasons than I want to admit. (Let's just say I see last winter's wear peeking out.)

I seem to be in a fine decluttering mode lately. The cause? Something about getting a nifty new computer (a MacBook Air!) to replace my 6 year old iBook, and having my cyberlife massively tidied up. Something about turning 60 in a couple of weeks. Something about losing my beloved spirit companion, Clover, after nearly 12 years of her constant loving presence. All these things have come together I guess to firmly tell me I'm really entering new life terrain and I have an opportunity to let go of a lot of baggage, along with the letting go of things and people dear.

So I'm on a mission again. I gained back 15 pounds which must go away again. My bloated inboxes on two email accounts are svelte now and I'm on a diet there as well. I'm deleting and unsubscribing like mad. (A friend recommended I try unsubscribe.com and there you sign up (free) and get a nifty little icon in your email tool bar. When you open an email you'd like to unsubscribe, just click on the icon and it gets done. It will also help you get out of any weird apps on Facebook that take your information.)

First thing I did this decluttering go-round was to create a clear space for me to relax, read, knit, drink tea. And I think that's a good idea when one is embarking on decluttering: Create a least one oasis, a little corner away from the clutter, where you can have the feeling of peace and calm that comes from breathing in simplified, decluttered space.

Here's mine - The Big Chair and Ottoman.

I didn't take a before picture, but let me give you a word picture...imagine towering stacks of books, magazines, papers piled on the ottoman. Imagine the fat arms of the chair covered with...well, books, magazines and papers. All slipping and sliding off at the most inconvenient times. Oh, and add a knitting project or two to the mix.

So, it's no wonder my husband said, after I got it looking like this, "Where'd this ottoman come from?"

To help your visualization, here's a picture of the Other Ottoman as it is right now:

Imagine that...only not so neat.

Art Space Bliss

2010-09-11T08:37:00.000-04:00

Still working steadily to transform space taken by books, books, paper, books, books. Transform and reclaim.
So involved in the process, I'm not able to pause and document it. But I can tell you about it. With every box that leaves here, every item tossed, something in my being is lightened and energized. As I transform space from inert book storage space to lively working space, something in me is transformed as well.

Something interesting is emerging, too - it is all still cluttered space....but it's functionally cluttered.

This is working space.
As I sat here the other day, working on pieces for the fiber arts show I'll be in next month, I had a moment of pure bliss. Pure bliss is something that regularly infuses my spirit when I'm creating with fiber, but this had more to do with the fact that really for the first time in my life, I feel as though I have space for my art. Dedicated space for working as I need to work. I felt such peace and hope and gratitude - it was, in the true sense of the currently overused word: awesome.

Here is new SAORI loom - it's just perfect. It's light enough that I can have it further out in the room to be behind it to deal with the warp and then tuck it back near the wall to weave.

So cluttered it is in Studio2, but it's clutter I can live with, work with.

Speaking of functional clutter, I'm reading a book with a radical perspective on mess and clutter:
A Perfect Mess / The Hidden Benefits of Disorder--How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman.

I've only read the first 50 pages, but I'm already seeing how some aspects of my own tendency toward clutter are not negative at all, but may well be adaptive. And it reinforces my conviction that many organizational systems are time and energy wasters.

My goal now is to find that balance between clutter and disorganization that creates anxiety and procrastination and clutter that is functional and comfortable.

Major De-Cluttering Going On

2010-08-22T08:12:00.000-04:00

I have no pictures, you'll just have to imagine a couple of big basement rooms filled with books. A kind of crazy hodgepodge library filled with many, many unmatched bookcases and shelving units each filled with books, boxes of books, vintage magazines in magazine cases, plastic bins filled with books stacked and towering. Small bookshelves and tables tucked under larger worktables, shelves on top of the worktables..bins and shelves everywhere bins could be stacked or shelves inserted.

And books, magazines, ephemera -- all filling every possible nook and cranny in those shelves and bins. Shelves with rows of books behind books, books laid lengthwise across tops of other books (are all booksellers and booklovers cringing about now?) A frightening, yet surprisingly organized chaos of books.

Ever since I started working again with an open shop here, BookNation, I've been slooooooowwwwwwly packing up boxes of books and getting them on the shelves at the shop. Very slowly. Weeks would go by without me bringing a single batch of books in. If I had taken a box or two in every week since we opened (Feb. 2009!) I might very well have very few books left at home (well, very few books for sale, we're not even discussing my personal library here.)

As this year began, I did begin to reclaim some space as fiber art studio space, but it wasn't much, and still had books on most of the shelves in it, though at least those shelves were only ones against the wall and the central area of the room was useful and filled with looms and bins of yarn. And that is pretty much where things were when a month ago I suddenly found myself filled with energy and will to get these books moving.

It was probably the possibility that I might actually get the grant I'd applied for last February - a grant to get a small floor loom. A small floor loom for which I had absolutely no room. The grant awards were to be announced at the beginning of August. So, mid-July, I started packing up books and taking them into the store. After I'd taken 12 boxes, I swear I still could not see any appreciable difference in my space, other than there weren't books stacked over the tops of other books, books double-shelved.

Then my church was having a yard sale, so more books and assorted Stuff went out the door...it began to be apparent that things were leaving my house. Chi was released, began to flow, I was energized!! Oddly enough, other spots in the house began to get decluttered as things went along.

And then I got the grant! That loom would definitely be expecting a suitable working space in which to reside and more and more books went, shelves were moved, bins emptied and stacked one inside the other.

So far, at least 34 boxes of books have left here and my loom arrived three days ago and....and...it nestles perfectly in the space I created for it!

Now, if I can only stop pricing, packing books and sorting and shredding paper (that's another post!) and organizing long enough to finish assembling my loom and begin working on the grant project!!!

Checking In After Too Long...

2010-06-28T09:20:00.000-04:00

Well, the project of my last entry some 3 months ago went nowhere. I haven't lost a single pound, in fact I fluctuate upward a pound or two. I guess I just don't have the mindset I cultivated last year which enabled me to reach the goal I set. I feel good where I am, I like the way my clothes fit, I like the way I feel when I move. The notion that I could feel even better, look better....seems greedy somehow. I feel like I should be grateful to have accomplished what I did last year, enjoy where I am.

My chief issue is exercise. I still can't make it what I want it to be: an integral part of my day, like brushing my teeth, drinking tea. Even though I know that exercise has far-reaching, almost amazing benefits. Not only for weight loss and maintenance, but for mood issues, cognitive health, longevity - quality and quantity of life. To read the latest research, getting a variety of exercise is a panacea.

I know all this. And still it's a struggle getting myself away from writing, from making art, from reading - getting myself up and moving. I shall keep trying, though.
-----------------------
I've been feeling pretty stressed lately - after my winterlong retreat (which was wonderfully relaxing and recharging, I plan to do it again) I began to accrue commitments and responsibilities that, when listed, floored me. I wasn't supposed to do that.

And my house is pretty cluttered, especially my work areas, and that's just a big energy suck.

I listed all that I'm doing, many projects, deadlines, events that culminate in the fall. Here's what I wrote in my journal about that:

Still feeling overwhelmed, but realizing that I have a choice about how I look at these things. I realized that this is exactly what happens when I’m faced with decluttering. I am constantly seeing the whole picture of what must be done and it is overwhelming. I really need to understand how to focus on parts of the big picture. Otherwise I am stunned and paralyzed. Inertia. There must be something positive about being able to visualize the whole of things, so I don’t want to lose that ability. I just want to control it. Otherwise I’m just doomed to feeling the hopelessness of trying to accomplish it all.

A full and rich life will have a wide range of details and activities, I think. Do I really want it all to be finished and have nothing scheduled, nothing to be involved in creating? Of course not. I have to learn how to view the richness of my life in a different way. And that’s a start, right there...using the phrase ‘the richness of my life’ instead of thinking of it as ‘the overwhelming number of things I’m committed to doing.’

And there you go - that's what I'm thinking about today.

Twelve Pounds to Go Project

2010-03-23T09:18:00.000-04:00

My Facebook status this a.m.:

"Twelve Pounds To Go Project: Started last week, managed to drop the 2 lbs I'd gained over the winter & now I'm poised to go for the final weight loss stretch. Goals: weigh 126 lbs, build a little more muscle & create an exercise routine I will actually maintain. Would love to have this accomplished by May 19, which would be one year since I began my fitness quest."

I've gone back to my faithful food-measuring tools, keeping a detailed food log, with calorie counting. 1200-1300 calories a day. This works well for me.
Over the winter, I ate well, maintained my 'no refined sugar' status (well, except when my husband made brownies) and added some high-calorie things that have super nutritional value: peanut butter, avocado, pumpkin & sunflower seeds. I think the 2 pound gain came from not measuring those so much!

Over the winter, I began working to improve my lung function & reduce asthma. I am working with my doctor on this, have gotten off two medications, added a minimal amount of inhaled steroid. In addition I'm also looking to nutrition to reduce inflammation and bronchospasm. Making sure I get enough magnesium is a goal in that latter endeavor. Exercise, visualization, stress reduction and learning to play the didgeridoo (!) round out my plan.

At first, when I got off the long-acting bronchodilator, I had to use my rescue inhaler much more often. But eventually that shifted. I actually went nearly 4 weeks and only used it once!! Got a respiratory infection and had to use it a bit more, but as I've gotten better, I'm doing well again.

I'm sure that my weight loss & fitness project has helped in improving my breathing.

I have a pedometer and try for 6-8,000 steps daily. 10,000 is what is recommended, but I'm working up to that. Walking a couple of miles in the early morning at the mall makes a huge difference in meeting the step goals! Yesterday I had a total of 8, 400.
Will post on this weekly!

Organizing Time / My Planner

2010-02-09T12:13:00.000-05:00

I have been reading a fairly helpful book, Organizing Your Day by Sandra Felton and Marsha Sims.

I'm also working, for the umpteenth time, on creating a system that works for me. I'm actually great at creating systems - horrible at sustaining them. I feel like I'm getting a bit closer. The key is keeping it simple. Very, very simple.

I need to remember my planner history - over and over I tried ready-made planners or elaborate systems utilizing ready-made pages, pages I created myself, 3-ring notebooks, small 6-ring notebooks, filing cards in boxes, filing cards in photo books.

I was never able to create a planner that worked for me, that didn't become a huge chore in itself. Then, I guess the Universe took pity on me. I found a small Day-Runner cover, a 4" X 7", which used spiral-bound components - it had a monthly calendar insert, a phone/address booklet. I added a weekly calendar that had space for writing to-dos. I have used this for more than 10 years now and it totally works to keep me aware of appointments and events and deadlines and birthdays and important anniversaries.

Over the years, I've had to replace the cover - I now have one from Day-Timer that's even better, with slots for cards & a photo holder on the inside cover, and I have had to use components from other systems as well because sometimes I can't find the Day-Runner ones. Sometimes I use the free calendar from my credit union.

Right now I've got an At-A-Glance Executive Weekly Planner, which has the calendar (tabbed monthly which is great) and the weekly pages right after each monthly calendar pages. I love this format.

It's helpful in using such a small planner that I can, and like to, write tiny. My favorite pens are the Pilot G-2 micro with 0.38 point.

The address book is the same one I started 10 years ago - it's rather falling apart and filled with information that's no longer useful. I did buy a new book, and began the tedious process of transferring addresses and numbers over. However.... I ... can't... find... it... now. (Typical lament of the disorganized clutterbug...)

This planner and Post-It notes are probably the reason I SEEM to be amazingly organized to many people.

And its simplicity and longevity in my life are the reasons I must have "Remember The Planner!" as my battle cry as I work to create a system for organizing my time and projects and papers.

The Chair's Seasonal Portrait - Winter 2010

2010-02-09T11:52:00.001-05:00

The Chair, Winter 2010

Every once in awhile, I like to take a picture of The Chair. The Chair, after all, is sort of the raison d'etre of this blog, a symbol, a symptom. And, after all these years, it's kind of a beloved bit of cluttery chaos to me. The Chair has appeared on a couple of other, more well-read blogs, and once, was asked to be part of a professor's class presentation in the UK...something on symbolism and photographic images, if I remember correctly.

For last year's picture and some from previous years, you can scroll through the entries here.

I would like to point out the improvement in the number of shoes underneath the chair. And the lack of books stacked on the seat, although a few may be hidden under all the winter clothes.

Am I tidying up The Chair anytime soon? Probably not until Spring.

What I am working on in the decluttering/organizing realm is time and paper management and my tendency to over-commit. I'll write more about that in my next post.

Fitness 2010

2010-01-02T14:06:00.000-05:00

At the time I last wrote here, I think I was at a point of low energy in my fitness journey. It seemed time to just breathe and be, a time to rest in my new body, and focus on creating a calm sort of holiday time. So I took a long break from recording and reporting, though I continued to monitor my weight.

I ate pretty much everything I wanted to eat and my weight hovered over a 2 pound range. What I found most gratifying is that what I wanted to eat was not so much. At the RiverWools party, I had a little of every delectable sweet offered. And I didn't feel guilty and I didn't feel deprived.

However, by December 22, my weight was at the top of that 2 pound range, was about what it had been in mid-November (141.6), and I decided it was time to focus again on quality and quantity. As of today, Jan. 2, I weighed in at 137.4, my very lowest weight since beginning this journey back in May 2009. I've lost 39 pounds since then!

I'm spending today reveling in my success over the last 33 weeks. And rededicating myself to Fitness Project 2010.

Some changes:
I've decided that a good goal weight is 125-128 pounds.
I'm upping my calorie allowance to 1400-1450
(1200 calories was fine for that first phase, but it was not enough to allow for some healthy things I need to have in my diet: almonds, avocado - good fat things)
Exercise.

That last is my biggest problem, the element of healthy living that I have the most difficulty with.

Since the weather got chillier and I couldn't do Tai Chi outside, even my Tai Chi practice has fallen off. Tai Chi is foundational for me. So my first goal is to get my regular practice back. And to learn 24!!

As I do that, I am going to plan and visualize other exercise in my life. For me, setting intention and visualizing manifestation of intention is crucial. I absolutely believe that has been a key element in my success so far. Before I began, I spent the month or so before in such planning and visualizing. And I had an mental image of myself in almost the very body I have now. That image was the prize I kept my eyes on. And it wasn't just physical either.

So, my goals for the next few days: eat wisely, do Tai Chi, visualize.

2010 will be the best year yet!!!
Namaste.

Fitness Tuesday Update - So close...

2009-11-17T08:12:00.000-05:00

My Facebook status this morning:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Trying to get back to making this project my priority, get my schedule back (early bed, early wake-up) and get more exercise. Lost 1.6 lbs this week (whew!) for a grand total at the end of Week 26: 36.2 lbs. (5.2 lbs to go to my Primary Goal Weight!!!)

So. I didn't post here last week, partly because I was super-busy with the annual workshop on loss and art, and partly because there was nothing to post except that I didn't lose any weight, but rather had gone up nearly a pound. I've lost that and then some this week, so feel like I'm getting back on track.

I finally started feeling Well about a week and a half ago-had been feeling so Unwell for long enough that feeling Well felt...well, quite odd! It took me a moment that morning to figure out what was different. And when I did, I felt a rush of intense gratitude. I try to hold that gratitude every day. I don't want to take feeling healthy and whole for granted - it's a major blessing.

People ask for pictures...here's one taken not so long ago, with me doing the "Look, I have a waist smaller than my bust!" pose of weight loss commercials.

...and wearing my luscious Round Trip Jacket. I'm more than happy with the way my handknits fit the smaller me. And am looking forward to knitting, oh, say a Medium or Large instead of an XXL-less knitting time, less yarn to buy. And yes, that was definitely on my list of motivating thoughts for staying with the Fitness Project!

Tuesday Fitness Update

2009-11-03T09:50:00.000-05:00

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Such low energy still - whatever is going around is tenacious. And yet...I've stayed focused on the goal and lost 1.2 lbs this week for a grand total at the end of Week 24 of 35.4 lbs lost.

I missed posting last week (.6 lbs lost ) due to inertia, I think. I've been sick for weeks now- actively ill with some bug, probably not The Flu, for nearly two, and dragging ever since, then getting more actively sick again for a few days, now back to the low energy, low level of congestion.

Beginning to wonder if allergies are part of the mix - I know I definitely feel....allergy/antsy when I have to crunch through the leaves piled near my car. Also wondering if I'm not being as vigilant about my nutrition since I got so busy with fall commitments mid-September. I know I'm not cooking as creatively or eating as many veggies as I was eating before that.

Stress level is high right now, too. Very high. In less than two weeks, we'll be holding the workshop "Creating a Path Through Loss / The Arts as Healing Tools." I'm chairing the planning committee this year and I just haven't been on top of it due to this draggy illness.

On the brighter side, I'm really pleased with how I look and how I move these days. I love how some of my favorite jackets & shirts drape and flow around less me. And every time I bend, stoop, lean, reach...I am conscious of such a difference. There is ease, maybe even elegance...the movement drapes and flows, I flow in the movement.

I am beginning to have a different body sense...it has something to do with compactness, of a feeling of being more substantial. It's as though I am more solidly connected to, radiating from, my center. When I weighed too much and when I weighed too little, that sense of being substantial and centered was absent. This is both a physical and a...spiritual sensation.

This is very interesting to me, that I can sense this clearly: I am coming to a place of balance with my physical body, my center. It isn't about that number goal. It's about that balance.

Fitness Tuesday Update: Low 140s

2009-10-20T15:50:00.003-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

FitnessProject Tuesday Update: been ill for awhile, hopefully am edging toward wellness...still managed to do a little Tai Chi here & there, have lost another 1.2 pounds this week, for a grand total loss at the end of Week 22: 33.6 lbs.

Despite feeling crummy still after two weeks dealing with a respiratory Thing, I'm truly thrilled with how I'm slowly & steadily I'm moving towards that image I hold of a fit, limber me creating art, drinking tea, doing Tai Chi & finding ways to give to the community.

Yet I'm a tad depressed though about asthma, weak lungs - and how every cold I've gotten for two years now has settled in my chest and become bronchitis or almost-bronchitis. I had hoped that my wonderful new habits in diet, exercise & sleep might change this pattern. Well, I still have hope that they will.

As I look at my life over the past few weeks I had a lot going on. Mostly wonderful goings-on, the 3-day Arts Fest, a daylong fiber event with me teaching a triloom weaving workshop, family visitors -- and days with Sophia who was ill with a bug of her own and couldn't go to day care, some other family & financial issues....

So...a whole lot of good & bad stress. As we all know, stress leaves one vulnerable to illness, never mind the cortisol/belly fat connection! I'm going to be more attentive to stress management, I think.

Fitness Tuesday Update on Wednesday - No Deprivation

2009-10-14T07:51:00.003-04:00

Here's yesterday's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Despite enjoying Saturday's chicken cherry chili, the pumpkin whoopee pie, the fabulous Indian meal at Martha's (which ended with Lana's brownies AND chocolate ginger) I still lost .6 lbs for a grand total at the end of Week 21 of 32.4 lbs lost. BMI now out of the "overweight" and into the "normal" range.

Yes, still going without the safety net of the food journal AND eating socially at special occasions AND still losing a wee bit. This is good. This is practicing for maintaining my weight at whatever winds up being my final goal.

The special occasion was a daylong "Celebrate Fiber" event out at Sycamore Farm on the east side of Terre Haute. I taught an afternoon weaving workshop, but went out early to, well, celebrate fiber! That meant I was there for lunch.

In the evening, Martha, the owner of my local yarn shop, had a wonderful dinner at her home for the shop teachers - takeout from the local Indian restaurant (my favorite of world cuisines.) There were five different entrees, a mountain of rice, naan, and a variety of...condiments, I guess...a sort of relish, raita, etc.

So. I think I made some wise choices and decisions. At Sycamore Farm, I opted for the chili offering instead of the local beef hot dog with corn slaw...and did not eat quite all of the serving. At Martha's I had a little of everything and then just a little more, one tiny brownie and not two, and I did not eat all I wanted to eat. But I certainly ate well and ate enough.

After ending the meal with a cup of raspberry tea and enjoying the company and conversation, I felt nourished and comfortable and had not one pang of guilt.

Not even over that little pumpkin bread whoopee pie I had at the Farm. (I actually ate only half of it then, the other half as my late afternoon snack.)

Fitness Tuesday Update - Weight Loss Should Be Easy

2009-10-06T08:37:00.004-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Still struggling with exercise issue. Still grateful for Tai Chi. Still eating without a net (food log.) Still losing steadily. At the end of Week 20, another 1.4 lbs released, for a grand total loss of 31.4 lbs.

That really says it all. I've done nothing this week to up the exercise. Nothing. Just going up and down the stairs a lot as I'm working more in my basement office/studio. And using my next pound down number as a sort of mantra. I think the latter really helps to keep me focused, to keep my eyes on the prize, and the food portions appropriately sized.

From the beginning of this project, I've had a strong positive sense that I will definitely reach my goal: change poor lifestyle habits, lose weight, get stronger. As I have gone into the Last Ten Pounds(Maybe) phase of the journey, I'm getting a lot of negative suggestion from well-meaning people about how difficult that last ten pounds can be, about what a struggle I have ahead of me.

I reject that. I reject that any of this journey to care for my Self by caring for my body is a difficult struggle. It is a joyful challenge.

And from the beginning, I've also had this strange recurring thought:
Losing weight should be as easy as gaining it. I'm not saying it is, but I think it should be and I think it can be. And it begins in the head, with thoughts and conscious attention to them.

The idea of losing weight as easy is heresy in the current religion of weight loss. I've never watched a Biggest Loser episode - but I have seen bits and pieces of that and other televised weight loss/fitness shows. The overriding image is of sweat, tears, faces contorted in pain and misery...and buff people yelling "encouragement."

Is it required that we suffer in order to feel that we've accomplished something?

My life won't begin when I reach my goal. My life is now. My life is the journey. And I'm going to cultivate an attitude of joy and excitement for the duration. No suffering. It feels good to eat well, to sleep enough. It feels good to move...it feels even better to move with ease.

I should sweat a little more, get my heart pounding a bit faster on a regular basis. And I will. But I don't need anyone yelling at me. I'll do it and it will feel good.

Fitness Tuesday Update on Wednesday -The Last 10

2009-09-30T07:49:00.004-04:00

A day late....my Facebook status yesterday (which was my birthday):

Thank you all for the lovely happy birthday energy! One of my Fitness Project goals was to give myself the birthday present of being 20 lbs lighter - halfway to my ultimate weight loss goal. Well, the gift turned out to be even greater - I'm 3/4 of the way! At the end of Week 19, I've lost another 1.8 lbs, for a grand total of 30.4 lbs lost!

So, I'm heading into that infamous Last Ten Pounds to Goal.

Or is it? My plan was to get to a weight of 135 and assess how I feel and move, how my clothes fit and, yes, look. So it may not really be the Last Ten.

In any case, I've just gotten through a major project (a booth at the 3-day Arts Fest) and I have some temporal space in which to breathe and focus again on my fitness.

I am still not exercising or doing strength training as I want to be. As I should be. That is the toughest thing for me. How many times have I written this here?

I am much more consciously active now, and I do my Tai Chi regularly. But the minimum 30 minutes of cardio 3X plus strength training 3X a week is eluding me.

I've got all the Stuff to do a variety of workouts and exercising: my pedal exerciser, resistance bands, weights....I finally ordered a pump to firm up the 55cm exercise ball that's hanging about the living room. And a book from Amazon:

And yet....I... am... not...... exercising....

Obviously, I am slowly and steadily losing weight doing just what I'm doing. And I feel, well, fabulous! Better than I felt in my thirties!
But if my ultimate goal is fitness and moving into my crone years with health and strength and stamina....then I've got to get more exercise.

I've got to stop saying, "I hate to exercise to exercise."

I think I need to approach this the way I approached changing how I eat - a holistic approach from a variety of directions. I think I've got a good start on that, but one thing I haven't done is use guided imagery/visualization/hypnosis tapes. So that's where I'm going next!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Underwear, Cupcakes

2009-09-22T10:47:00.005-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Journey update: A little scary week, as I didn't log food at all. Didn't look up a single calorie. Didn't use the measuring cups or spoons. In the circus of my weight loss journey, that's walking a tightrope without a net. I'm happy to report, I did not fall. Lost another 1.2 lbs for a grand total at the end of Week 18: 28.6 lbs. Taaaa daaaaaa!

It’s a little scary not counting every single bite and toting it up, but I know I need to be able to judge what and how much to eat without that. I think I got a little more exercise this week, with the emphasis on the “little.” Still...there is the “more.” I’m feeling physically quite well.

I got some new clothes last week - mostly flowy jackets, just ‘cause I love flowy jackets and also because I’m not wanting to get too many new clothes now with nearly 15 more pounds to lose. I believe my flowy jackets will still look nice on me when I reach my goal.

And finally bought new underwear, yes! Lucked out on my favorites: Jockey Elance with covered elastic waist and legs. Original price: $18/3 pair - marked down to $12.99 + an extra 30% off, $9.09 + 20% more off with a store coupon - Final price $7.27 for a package of 3. And I got 3 packages.

Of course, I had no choice about the color (red patterns) and they were French cut, which I probably wouldn’t have chosen. And they are size 6 - which I probably wouldn’t haven’t chosen either. But that was all they had on that sale table - red French cut size 6. At the beginning of this journey I was wearing size 8 and they were feeling tight. I’m not sure I believed that I could comfortably wear just a size larger than I used to wear when I was thin-thin. But I can.

That brings me to the issue of knowing (or not knowing) what size I am. I’m wearing size 8 jeans right now, jeans with a button and zipper. That’s down from size 16...with an elastic waist. I couldn’t even get into a 16 with a waistband. But with the bulk of my fat around my middle, if I put on a pair of pants with a waistband that fit, there would be billowing fabric around my (relatively) skinnier legs.

I’m used to picking sizes with lots of X’s. It was weird to go into the store and bypass those sizes, actually try on an M or two. Mostly I’m comfortable with L’s. And knitting pattern sizes and yarn amounts? That’s a whole other learning curve for me.
------------------------

Here’s a picture of a cinnamon cupcake I got at a party on Saturday night. It was made by my friend, Susan Tingley, who has a sweet little business called Caboodle Cupcakes. She makes delicious, interesting cupcake flavors: blueberry, rhubarb.

This picture was taken last night. Yup, I can’t eat it. It’s too sweet. I took one sliver Saturday night and opted to have a different sweet snack:

2 of these snack toasts each spread with a tsp of light creamcheese comes in at about 105 calories (okay, I’m still AWARE of the calories!)

So, Susan, I’m sorry I can’t eat your cupcakes anymore.
But I’m not terribly sorry....

the unrepentant ex-sugar-addict,
Zann

Fitness Tuesday Update - Broken into 140s

2009-09-15T09:44:00.002-04:00

Here's my Facebook status today:

Fitness Project Tuesday Update: Feeling especially fine the last few days. I have a constant sense of gratitude for that. At the end of Week 17, I've lost another 1 lb (have just moved into the 140s) for a grand total loss of 27.4 lbs.

So...I have not seen the 140s for a very, very long time.

About 10 years ago, when my panic disorder resurfaced in astounding strength, I weighed close to 180 lbs. I started walking as part of my program to deal with the panic attacks. (And that's hard, physical exertion effects are very much like panic attack symptoms.) While I hadn't originally intended to lose weight (though I certainly needed to do so), I found that I was indeed losing and then began to consciously work towards more weight loss by counting calories and walking more (I used to walk 4-5 miles a day in two sessions.) I lost about 30 pounds.

What I've just lost recently is pretty much the same weight I lost in 1999, most of which returned during the last 5 years as I dealt with all the family sorrows...and did not take good care of myself.

In any case, ten years ago I never pushed to lose more once I reached 150 or so. Occasionally, my weight dipped into the 140s, but it wasn't coming off as easily and I didn't make the effort to overcome the plateau I seemed to have arrived at.

So I'm determined that this time will be different. I'm certainly going to go for 140, probably for 135. Then it will be time for assessment - will I want to drop 10 more pounds to be at 125? I know that in my long-ago past, I felt wonderful at about 127. That was during the time I was losing the weight I'd gained after my second child. But I didn't stay there for long - back then I was generally underweight and, unless I was pregnant or just post-partum, it was a struggle to keep my weight up at 105.

But I sure wasn't really healthy then!

And right now, even with more weight to lose, I feel physically great. Stronger and more limber. Better than I remember feeling in my 30s - and it seems like an extraordinary blessing to me, to feel this way at just 2 years shy of 60.

Awesome Cronehood - now that's a good goal!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Stress, Exercise

2009-09-08T08:58:00.005-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

Fitness Project Tuesday Update: Discovered I can do my pedal exerciser and: knit, read, play iTouch games, do some computer work,make phone calls. This bodes well for getting in at least that 30 daily minutes. This week's weight loss: .6 lb...grand total at the end of Week 16: 26.4 lbs

Notes from my Fitness Log 09.05.09:
Obviously I haven’t been keeping this log up in detail, logging every single thing I eat, adding up each calorie. But it’s okay. I think it’s good to not do this at this point. Kind of practice for maintaining my weight and healthier lifestyle. I am certain that I have been eating within my calorie budget, though I know I’m probably not eating as well. By that I that I’m still eating lots of whole, unprocessed foods, but I’m not cooking as much or making the many-ingredient salads as I did in the earlier days of my fitness project.

I have been extremely stressed by my other (mostly volunteer) project commitments of late. Extremely. This is something I must get a handle on - how to do these (ultimately) fulfilling and worthwhile things and enjoy the whole process - the planning and organizing, the preparation. I need to take a very mindful approach - and consciously center myself in the work. If this work is my life, it needs to be reveled in and enjoyed throughout. If it can’t be, then it is not work worth doing.

In regard to my Fitness Project, while I have maintained my healthy diet very well, and continue to lose little by little, I am not keeping up regular exercise goals. Even my Tai Chi practice has fallen off this week. I must do something about that for sure. Yesterday I did 30 minutes on the pedal exerciser for the first time in a long while. I felt so good afterwards. That’s what always happens. Why can’t I remember how good it feels after (and, at a certain point, once I’ve started, during) and be motivated to begin?

Seems to me that I should try very hard for 30 minutes of cardio every single day. AND my Tai Chi daily. With strength training 3X week. Or also daily, but doing upper body one day, lower the next. So that would be a total of an hour and a half a day. Which seems like a lot. But if I spread it out into periods of time as breaks from the sedentary work position....a thought.

But I don’t need to pressure myself, to stress about this on top of everything else. I’m just holding the thought and knowing it can manifest in my life.
--------
It's three days after that entry. As you can see from the Facebook update above, I've decided that one possible solution to my exercise dilemma is multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is something I've tried to stay away from in general in my life. But in this case, if it helps me to get in the exercise I need, I'm trying it!

And stress - ah, that is a worthy topic for several entries and I'm sure I will write more on it. What's interesting is how I know so much about stress, what it can do to one's body and mind...and still often find myself in A State. I guess that perhaps my knowledge helps me to recognize bad stress (there is indeed good stress) early on, before it results in physical illness or panic attacks. Then there's the stress/cortisol/belly fat trio...yup, a future entry here.

Meanwhile, I'm breathing and taking steps to shift my perspective about all that I'm doing, as well as taking a realistic look at that and letting go of some things. And of course, trying to remember the amazing power of exercise in handling stress!

Namaste,
Zann

Fitness Tuesday Update - Changes

2009-09-01T09:48:00.005-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: I can't believe I'm actually still doing this, that I haven't missed a week and that I'm starting Week 16. I believe it's because I completed NaPoWriMo, writing a poem a day for a month. It set me up for success! This week's stats: 1 lb lost for a grand total loss of 25.8 lbs.

An odd thing has been happening - my appearance is (to me at least) so dramatically altered that it's a bit disconcerting, even a bit frightening. Sounds weird, doesn't it?

I lie in bed at night and when I fold my hands across my stomach...it's not the stomach I've had for years. I move and it's not the way I've moved for years. The physical sensations, the way I occupy space in the world, in my clothes....all different.

Visually, I look in the mirror and see...not quite a stranger, but it's not quite the face I've been seeing for years, nor is it quite my young thinner face. It's not my mother's face...it's a bit like her mother's face, though.

And then this makes me think of my late son Patrick - 16 months before he died, he was in a terrible wreck with serious facial fractures. The surgeons did a fantastic job of putting together the jigsaw puzzle of his facial bones - only a tiny scar near one eye, and he still looked handsome. But his face...was different. Not until he was able to wear his contacts again did he really look in a mirror, weeks after the accident. He said, "I look different." And that was all he ever said to me about it.

If I'm having such an odd time with the changes in my face and body, even though it's on purpose and I know I'm moving towards better health, I can't help but think about Patrick at 18 and how difficult that must have been for him to just wake up one day to his new face. He felt like he couldn't complain because he survived, because the accident was entirely his fault and he was driving impaired. And he continued to drink and use drugs until he overdosed.

I know it's all done and past, but still I often wonder if he had been able to talk about his face and the trauma, had been able to acknowledge and grieve that loss instead of self-medicate....
if...if...if...

Maybe I'm thinking about this too because I'm in the thick of planning for the annual workshop held partly in Patrick's memory: Creating a Path Through Loss / The Arts as Healing Tools. Maybe that's why I do this every year, and why I'm working with the local integrative health center on programs that focus on the healing power of expressive art.

I didn't expect this entry to move to these places. It feels melancholy here. But I am at a melancholy stage in this weight release/fat reduction journey. Most of my favorite clothes no longer fit me. Even my underwear....eeek...it used to fit snugly around my 8-inches bigger waist. Now, well, as my daughter says, I'm wearing "granny panties" - either they're sort of....billowing...around my mid-section or pulled up practically to my chest!

I know, I know. These are good problems to have. Still these are profound and fundamental changes in my life and my body...my Self.

It's going to take some time and inner work (and certainly some new underwear) to adjust to them.

Namaste,
Zann

edited to add a Before / During picture (not ready to call it After yet!!)
(mysteriously, I don't seem to have too many full-body photos from before...)

Fitness Tuesday Update - On the Move Again

2009-08-25T12:21:00.002-04:00

Here's today's Facebook status:

Fitness Project Tuesday Update: Still wanting to be more regular with cardio, but my diet is tuned up, only doing the meticulous calorie-counting here and there - I now just KNOW what and how much to eat. At the end of Week 14, I've lost another 1.2 lbs for a grand total of 24.8 lbs lost (15.2 more and I'm at my goal!!)

Not much more to say. I'm very happy to lose a pound a week.

Some of my favorite clothes are now too big for me and I'm in Transitional Wear now - some things I'd grown out of, and some cheap new things, as I'm not spending money on clothes that, hopefully, won't fit me well by the winter holidays.
--------------------------

In Caroline Demoise's book, Tai Chi as Spiritual Practice, she advises to choose one aspect to focus upon when doing a form - breathing, flow, knees, the way the foot comes down -- to choose just one aspect out of all the things that make a satisfying Tai Chi practice. To try to get it all together all the time is difficult and frustrating, but if you choose one thing to put your concentration on, that aspect will deepen and improve, become less effortful to maintain.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately and how it can apply to other things in my life. And for my Fitness Project, it means that I choose one aspect of my plan to focus on each week.

This week I want to focus on building muscle. I want to add some new strength training exercises to the basic ones in Strong Women Stay Slim. So I'm checking through some other books (Body for Life for Women, for one) and various articles I've clipped for reference.

Namaste,
Zann

Clutter Catalogue

2009-08-20T09:39:00.004-04:00

I've written about this before - the 600+ boxes of Stuff that Andy Warhol left as "time capsules." Boxes and boxes in which he just threw...well, everything imaginable, then sealed it up and sent it to storage. And it fascinates me, that because all this Stuff is associated with Warhol and other celebrities, it is worthy of archivists' attention and is being meticulously sorted through and catalogued.

Andy Warhol's Junk

Years ago, as an experimental literary piece, I meticulously retrieved and listed the stunning amount of Stuff found under and in my sofa. I have no idea where that piece is, but I remember counting a lot of Cheerios.

There's some notions of 'decluttering as art projects" flying around my head right now.
Think about it!

Zann

P.S. I'm editing this post to include a great link my friend Deborah posted in the comments:
http://www.warhol.org/tc21/

You will be able to see and read about each item in Box#21.

Fitness Tuesday Update - Plateau Indeed

2009-08-18T06:40:00.003-04:00

Facebook status this a.m.:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: Feeling better, working on stress issues. Definitely need to move more. My Tai Chi kicks (if you can call something that slow a kick!) seem higher, feel stronger. Weight loss has slowed to a crawl, but hey, at least that's still movement. Lost 1 pound this week, for a grand total at the end of Week 13: 23.6 lbs.

Notes from my Fitness Journal this morning:

A.M. Notes: Am ecstatic that the scale this morning showed one pound lost over the last week. I wasn't sure if I'd lose at all, the scale sure wasn't showing progress through the week!

Something definitely shifted for me around Week 12 when I got the stomach virus.
My weight loss has slowed to a crawl (Turtle has long been one of my totems, I’ll need to keep him in the forefront right now!) and my mood and optimism are pretty low. I’m terrifically stressed on several fronts, too. Combine all that with the simple fact that less calories are burned when one weighs 23 lbs less, and I think that may be a good explanation for the shift.

I don’t feel I can reduce calories any further and still have a balanced and healthy diet. Obviously I need to move more. That’s hard for me, except for Tai Chi, but I’m trying!

-----------------------
The good things from this last week:

I didn't food journal a lot, but I know I ate within my calorie budget. I feel as though I have a very good sense of what and how much I can eat now.

I did walk twice last week, had good Tai Chi practices all week.

So, I start Week 14 with renewed determination: my goals are to move more and to revitalize that optimism that characterized the first weeks of Fitness Project.

When I thought of Turtle, I remembered this image I created for an Illustration Friday back in 2006:

Seems like a good image to hold for this time!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Plateau?

2009-08-11T06:28:00.002-04:00

Today's Facebook status:

Tuesday Fitness Update: "Always bear in mind that your resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing." Abraham Lincoln That's what my teabag said this morning and it seems fitting,for I weigh in a mere .6 less than last week, and I felt a tad discouraged, thinking I might be at The Dreaded Plateau. Shall go forth with resolve to succeed more important than any one pound!

Actually, I am not thinking plateau. I am thinking stomach virus - the one I got a week ago. It laid me very low for 3 days and I am still not 100%. I did not record food intake as meticulously as I have been (though I feel I ate perfectly reasonably) and I certainly did little exercise. Even my daily Tai Chi was less.

I suppose the good...great... part is that I did not gain any weight. And, as I am at the half-way point in my journey, this seemed like a good time to stop, take stock, reassess and renew my commitment to my goals. Oh, and be very happy I've lost 21 pounds!

I'm aware that the less I weigh, the fewer calories I burn - takes less energy to haul my body up the stairs, etc. So I know that I need to adjust things a bit as my weight goes down. I can't eat less than 1200 calories and still get proper nutrition, so it means I need to move more.

As I look over the last 12 weeks, I see that my focus during the first phase has been holistic, but primarily on food. I've made amazing changes in what I eat and how much, changes that I can certainly live with for always. I love the way I'm eating now.

So Phase Two logically should be exercise. If I can make changes in that area that will stick with me for always, I will be delighted. I think I've made a good start with Tai Chi and the stretching I do. My Tai Chi practice is a daily, sometimes twice daily, routine. And I love it.

But I have to have more cardio-type moving in my life. So my goal is to have another 30 minutes a day of some kind of brisk movement - walking, pedal exerciser, improvisational dance. I think having a variety of choices is a key for me. I am also coming across things here and there that indicate the variety is good for the body and metabolism as well.

And the third component - strength training. I need to do that 3X a week.

So The Plan for the first part of Phase Two is to focus on the cardio, with a little bit of strength training. In about six weeks, I'll focus on the strength training more.

I started out this week by getting myself to the mall for a 2-mile walk yesterday. It felt great! In a few minutes I'm gonna put on those shoes and go do that again.
yes, yes....

Fitness Tuesday Update - Mini-Goal Reached!

2009-08-04T17:54:00.002-04:00

My facebook status today:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: not feeling so fit as I got a Horrible Stomach Virus Thing yesterday - am on the upside I think --this week's weigh-in shows another 2.4 lbs lost for a grand total of 22 lbs. at the end of Week 11. (My diligence gets credit for 1.5 lbs, Horrible Virus the rest...)

I'm still recuperating so I'm not feeling like writing much, but I'm very excited about the 22 pounds because it puts me over my half-way mark in the weight-loss part of my fitness quest.

I had originally hoped to lose a pound a week and reach 20 lbs by my birthday at the end of September. I have actually averaged about 2 lbs a week.

I'm still looking to get more exercise. Sunday night I did 30 minutes of improvisational dance/movement to Gabrielle Roth's Tribe CD - well, 27 minutes, lots of drumming, you just can't help but move.

About a year ago, Sounds True had a fabulous sale on a set of her Wave DVDs - a collection of ecstatic dance workouts, also described as moving meditations. They still have a great price on the set of three (19.95 each if bought singly, $34.95 for the set) here.

So as I am searching around for a cardio exercise that I can incorporate into my life that doesn't seem like a chore, I'm going to get out those DVD's and Roth's book Sweat Your Prayers and work with them awhile.

oops Tuesday Fitness Project Update (on Sunday)

2009-08-02T15:45:00.003-04:00

My husband pointed out to me that I hadn't updated here last Tuesday. He's not on Facebook, so he didn't see the status I posted that day...so here it is:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: At the end of Week 10, all is going well. I'm tired of counting calories, though not tired of the way I'm eating, just writing it all down. But I shall continue that. Once again not enough cardio & strength training, so I'm renewing my focus there. Weight loss this past week: 1.2 lbs for a grand total of 19.6 lbs released to wherever freed-up pounds go.

This week has been difficult. I still haven't gotten back into doing the strength training & cardio. I am under a great deal of stress with a lot of projects and commitments and I'm not handling the stress so well. I suspect that the exercise will probably help a lot with that, so I'm determined to get it back.

I'm still doing 40 minutes or so a day of my Tai Chi, though. It's such a gentle, relaxing sort of movement I tend to forget it is exercise. And on Thursdays, I do my personal practice in the morning and have an hour class in the evening. So, it's not like I'm not exercising!

132 calories

That's dessert sometimes, sometimes a snack.
It is:
1c berries (60) 1/3 c nonfat plain greek yogurt* (44) 1 tsp honey (20) 1T Special K cinnamon pecan cereal (8) (132 calories total)

*I've gone back to draining my own yogurt again. This used to be called 'yogurt cheese', but now it's generally referred to as yochee. Yochee has a smooth, thick, creamy texture that feels rich, even made with non-fat yogurt. It can be sweetened for dessert, or herbed for savory dips.

Either way, if you can have dairy, yochee is a great addition to the diet of the calorie and health conscious.

And I'll say a word about that Special K Cinnamon Pecan Cereal - in addition to sprinkling a tablespoon on my yogurt snacks, I carry around a little snack container, with that cereal, 1T dried mixed berries and 4 almonds. About 140 calories, and it has saved my calorie budget more than once, by providing me with healthy crunchy munchies when I'm out.

Other favorite carry-arounds: sliced apples, carrot sticks and red pepper strips. (Sometimes I even plop a tablespoon of hummus into the container.)

That's about it. Hopefully, I'll remember to post my Tuesday update here. On time.

Thanks for the support!
Zann

Fitness Tuesday Update - Appetizer

2009-07-21T09:12:00.005-04:00

My Facebook status update today:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update -spent a lot of time this week feeling grateful at how well this is going, at new limberness, flexibility...and the weigh-in shows I've lost another 2 pounds, for a grand total at the end of Week 9..do you hear a drumroll? I hear a drumroll.....18.4 pounds (drum turns into chant: new jeans, new jeans, new jeans)

The above was my late-morning nosh yesterday. I want to title this picture "Why I Don't Get TOO Hungry and Why I Am Totally Enjoying My Food."

That is 1/4c organic cottage cheese, 1 multigrain cracker, 1/3 peach, sliced, 3 carrot sticks, and 6 oz Snapple Red Tea. That is about 150 calories.

The other elements of this satisfying mini-meal between breakfast & lunch, were calorie-free: a small blue plate, a pretty rice bowl, a tablecloth in pleasing colors, sunflowers, a good book. What you can't see is the wider ambiance in which I ate: the rustic screened porch, the sublimely balmy summer air, the deep greens of grass & leaf, the clear blue sky and my beloved dog friend, Clover, dancing in and out.

I'll be the first to admit I'm a lucky woman - that the circumstances of my life right now allow me to make my fitness and weight loss Priority #1, that I can afford to buy organic cottage cheese, fresh vegetables & fruit, the pretty little bowl, and that the weather this summer is so glorious.

I have the time - and I make the time - to prepare my food and eat it with a bit of ceremony and thought. My calories come from small amounts of a wide variety of foods, and are not consumed mindlessly, but thoroughly enjoyed.

There are times, like yesterday's elevenses, when I feel nourished by just the sight of my meal.
That's the perfect appetizer for someone on a 1200-calorie budget!

Fitness Tuesday Update - Metabolism

2009-07-14T07:04:00.003-04:00

Here's my Facebook status this morning:

Tuesday Fitness Project Update: still feeling great, stamina & strength & flexibility up & Sophia's birthday cake notwithstanding, lost 1.4 lbs this week for a grand total at the end of Week 8 of 16.4 lbs.

I've written a little bit about my food & exercise choices and this week I thought I'd write about another component of the personal fitness/weight loss plan I've created for myself. In addition to cutting calories by eating less & better, and moving to burn calories, it seems wise to support and possibly enhance metabolism - the rate at which we burn calories, a rate which naturally slows as we age.

There are a zillion tips on things to add to the diet which are supposed to boost metabolism. I have added some. I did not have conscious criteria for what of all those things I would add, but in thinking about it, I believe it has to:

be sensible (i.e., not wacky or risky) & easy to add.
be tasty & not add too many calories if any.
have other possible benefits to my health in addition to raising metabolic rate.

So I have added the spice turmeric, red pepper flakes, green tea, and ice to my water.

Other things I'm paying attention to that I believe help my body to run more efficiently:

protein - I'm getting it from a small amount of meat & tofu, beans, lentils, eggs (super protein & I make scrambled eggs with 1 whole, 2 whites a couple of times a week)

good fat (I take an Omega 3 supplement & I use freshly ground flaxseed here & there)

quality & quantity of sleep

hydration

strength training

frequency of meals (I eat every 2-3 hours, hearing the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh in my head, " Time for a little something!" Little being a key word!)

This isn't meant to be comprehensive on the subject of metabolism. I'm not sure why what I'm doing is working so well for me, except perhaps that I have chosen to approach my fitness goal holistically - to do a wide variety of things in moderation, to support my mind, body & spirit, and to create a way of eating & moving & being that won't end when I reach my weight loss goal.

Fitness Tuesday Update on Thursday - Exercise

2009-07-02T12:19:00.003-04:00

Running late on everything, but better late than...you know!

On Tuesday, my Facebook status report:
-------------------------

I am loving what I eat, am rarely hungry, have boatloads of energy - need to be better about cardio exercise - Lost 1.2 lbs last week, so at the end of Week 6, the total lost is 12.6 lbs

----------------------

So I seem to be settling in to about a pound a week weight loss, which is what I had originally planned. It was a big boost to me to lose 2+ pounds each of the first couple of weeks, but I'm pleased to have a slow & steady pace.

I thought I'd write about my exercise this time. Exercise is always the hardest part of fitness for me. I truly hate to exercise to exercise. It seems to me that's a very modern problem - once upon a time, human life was filled with moving as part of daily work and life.

I remember reading a study that showed that even the simplest things (like having to roll down car windows manually rather than push buttons) burned calories here and there, adding up to hundreds in a week.

So my goal was to figure out what would get me moving and keep me moving. I needed to find ways to make my exercise be (a) part of my daily work & life and (b) tolerable, if not pleasurable.

So to meet the "a" requirement, I park farther away from where I want to go, I take stairs instead of elevators, I go up and down the stairs in my house more often (it's very nice not to feel chagrined that I've left something upstairs or downstairs, but instead see it as an opportunity.)

Theoretically, I could clean house for fitness, and I am doing a little more. A LOT more would help the decluttering, too. Another thing is to stand rather than sit while doing something.

The cornerstone of my moving for fitness & weight loss is Tai chi.
I love Tai chi. I have been doing it for nearly two years and it is astonishing to me that I've kept with it for so long. That's because I love it. It does things for me physically & on another level entirely - an emotional/spiritual level. Here's a poem I wrote during the National Poetry Writing Month challenge: When i do Tai chi sometimes

I do the Tai chi forms created by Dr. Paul Lam, called Tai Chi for Health, in classes at The Maple Center. Pretty soon, I'm going to expand my range a bit in another class and learn 24.

I do my Tai chi practice every day, along with some stretches. I do it outside early in the morning (it's been glorious) and I do it for 30-40 minutes. Many days, I do a sunset practice as well. Calorie burn tables show 30 minutes of Tai chi is very close to 30 minutes of walking.

In addition to Tai chi, I have my choice of walking or exercising with a small pedal exerciser called the Magneciser. I do my walking at the nearby mall because the air & heat just don't agree with me.

When I walk, I generally do 2 miles. I have an iPod and I listen to lively music or interesting podcasts or audiobooks. I try to do 18-min. miles. I stretch afterwards, a special stretching that I created using one of the benches. Sometimes I even do Tai chi there at the mall. It feels good to do it right after the walking.

The pedal exerciser can be used with the arms on a table or with the feet. Sometimes I do both. I try to do at least 20-30 minutes. I have my online friend fiber artist Diana to thank for sharing her experience with the Magneciser and the link to getting one at the best price I've seen. (About $112 with shipping.) I'd put the link here, but the company site seems to be inaccessible.

Finally, I added some strength training - the very simple program in Marian Nelson's book "Strong Women Stay Slim." That's on my schedule for 3 days a week.

So - I feel like I have created a plan for myself that is very tolerable - and truthfully I feel SO good when I exercise that I have become a tad less averse to exercising to exercise.

I'm not doing the walking and pedaling as often as I should, though, and so my current goal is to step up the efforts in those departments.

Finally, I'm thinking of adding "dancing improvisationally and wildly" to my exercise choices.

Movin' on....

My Fitness Project: Tuesday Update

2009-06-23T06:47:00.005-04:00

This is Tuesday, which has become my weekly day to measure my progress in the weight loss part of my plan to get fit. Here's what I posted on my Facebook status update:

Lots of energy, knees thanking me, started strength training & I finally learned how to make some delicious marinated baked tofu. 1.4 lbs lost this week, grand total after week 5: 11.4 lbs.

I promised some details, so here goes.
I probably spent about a month thinking, planning, journaling in a serious way. The most important part of this time was building my commitment, coming to the point where I was able to make this project my number one priority. And not feel guilty for doing so.

I also created a vision of myself, limber, energetic...not thin, but...lean & focused, grounded and centered, comfortable in my clothes, in my skin.

As I go on, I'll try to write more about some of the things I've thought about fat, about how I came to be so overweight, about how hard it's been to think of myself, my physical self as a priority.

Food
I chose what is generally considered a minimum for daily calories: 1200.
I eat something every 3 hours or so.
I take a multi-vitamin. (I also take other supplements for health reasons, ones recommended by my doctor.)

I religiously keep a fitness log, writing down everything that goes in my mouth, and adding up the calories for the day. This is a vital part of my plan. Many people would find this tedious, and some days I do. But I know that eventually this will pay off in my having a better sense of healthy eating, of portion size. I won't have to do this forever. I will just know. Finding how many calories in a food is blissfully easy with Google.

The log also helps me to balance my diet - I can see that one day I had too much fruit & not enough veggies, or that I need to get a little more protein. I'm not sure that I can get a perfect balance every day, but feel I can over a 2-day period.

I have made a set of measuring spoons & cups my best friend. I divide suggested serving sizes in half & have discovered that a little bit of the higher-calorie things can go a long way in complementing the lower-calorie foods.

As for what I'm eating, here's yesterday's log entry:

Tea: black, honey, milk (26)
Snack: 1/2 Luna bar (85)
Breakfast: scrambled eggs (1 whole, egg whites ) (115), 1/2c chopped onions, gr. peppers, zucchini (30), tomato slices (15) 3 carrot sticks (10) 1/2 tsp olive oil (20), 1 T 2% grated cheddar (20) (210)
Lunch: 1/2 pita (80) baked tofu (125) 1T hummus (25) spinach & cut veggies (30), 3 carrot sticks (10) (270)
fruit cup (melon, 5 rainier cherries, apple wedge, 1 prune) (100?)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
Snack: cacao nibs (30) caramel rice cake (50) 1/3 small banana (25) (105)
Tea: black, honey, milk (extra) (31)
Supper: 3 oz. chicken baked bbq marinade (130) 1c broccoli (30) sliced tomatoes, onions (25), 3 carrot sticks (10) (195)
4 oz red tea snapple (20)
1 square dark chocolate 6 gr. (28)
Snack: 1/4c yochee (43), 3/4c mixed fresh fruit (peach, apple, blueberries) (50) 1T Special K cinnamon pecan (8) (101)

(1186)

My biggest food problem has always been sweets. My basic diet preferences are pretty healthy, whole grains, lots of fruit & vegetables, yogurt, small amounts of meat. (I probably ate too much cheese, though. )

But once I'd eaten the healthy meal, it was as though it permitted me to have a big ol' sugary, fatty reward: the red velvet cupcakes w/ cream cheese icing at Bella Rossa, the tiramisu or Boston cream pie at Crossroads, a bag of cookies & brownies to take home. Newman-O's!

This remains somewhat of a mystery to me, but since May 19 when I began this journey, I have not had any of those treats, nor have I actually fought serious cravings for them. In fact, I have almost an aversion to them. There have been two exceptions: when friends got married ten days ago, I chose to enjoy their wedding cake (and it was lovely indeed - a strawberry cake, with a perfect rich icing/luscious cake ratio) and I had a small chocolate cherry nut cookie baked by my friend Marta who has recently opened a bakery. I put that one cookie on a blue plate, put milk in a little 2 oz glass, and took 6 mindful bites.

In any case, I am pleased to report that my sense of sweetness has become much more acute since I stopped bludgeoning my palette with refined sugary treats. I have even switched to 1/2tsp honey instead of a heaping tsp of sugar in my tea- something I thought I'd never be able to do. Another shocker to me was switching to nonfat, plain yogurt from lowfat vanilla yogurt.
I will occasionally add a bit of honey, but most of the time I'm quite content with how it tastes with fresh fruit.

("Yochee" on the last snack above is drained yogurt. It is a bit denser and therefore more calories in a cup than non-drained yogurt, but it has a wonderful rich creamy texture.)

So that's a little something about what I'm eating and what I'm not eating.
Next time I'll write about exercise.

Namaste,
Zann

Diet Clutter

2009-06-17T09:34:00.002-04:00

For the past month, I've made fitness and losing weight my #1 priority. I have many thoughts about this effort and about women & weight issues, and I feel ready to start sharing this journey. Not because I think anyone should do exactly what I'm doing, but because maybe some of the things I'm doing might work for others, and because maybe it's just inspirational to share such things. Also because blogging & going "public" about this is part of my plan to help me stay focused, to keep this my #1 priority, to keep my eyes on the prize.

I was a little scared to blog about this from the beginning for a lot of reasons, probably some of the same ones that made me delay announcing to my family & friends that I was attempting to quit smoking 22 years ago, until I was certain I meant it. I was successful in that beyond my wildest dreams, so much that I feel as though I had a healing, not a battle.

In many ways, what is happening for me right now seems like a healing, too.

I think that it's appropriate to blog about weight loss in my decluttering blog. Over on Flylady (the organizing/decluttering site), she's even got a book about applying her system "...to your Body Clutter, the most personal clutter of all." I haven't read the book, so can't comment on her approach, but I'll bet she's got some great ideas.

So. Four weeks ago, after a month or so of journaling and planning, I got started on my own personal Fitness Project.
My starting weight: 176.4
My original goals: to lose 50 pounds over the course of a year, to feel well & strong & limber & flexible. I had a mini-goal of losing 20 pounds by my September birthday.

I have since revised my weight loss goal to 40 lbs which would put me at 136. However, I reserve the right to revise again (up or down) as I go along. I am not going to let the scale be the sole measure of my fitness level, but also consider how I feel, how I move through the world, how my clothes fit me, and what my doctor has to say about my health issues.

My plan is the tried-and-true: reduce calories, increase exercise.
I am also adding a third component: to nourish my spirit and keep my resolve strong.

I'll add details of exactly what I'm doing in future posts. I'll end this one by saying - it's working for me!
I started feeling wonderful by Day 3. At the end of 4 weeks, I've lost 10 pounds.
Wooo hooo!

magazines, magazines

2009-04-22T12:46:00.003-04:00

Partially read New Yorkers, some dating back to December, 2008

No solutions here, just a statement of the problem.

I buy (and subscribe to) a LOT of magazines, possibly too many magazines. They tend to pile up, partially read. There are quite a few magazines which I need...er... want to save. I need to figure out a system for dealing with them.

I did decide that most of the New Yorkers above were finished as is. Out of that batch, I reserved only 3 more recent issues to (hopefully) finish reading.

My art and craft magazines are the primary ones I save. And they truly are quite useful to me. Articles which I barely skimmed have, years later, proven of great interest as I embark on the exploration of a new technique or art form. So those just have to be keepers. These are magazines which often retain some value, too. (So here's public notice to my heirs - that collection of Spin-Off magazine going back to 1985, the first 20 or so issues of Threads -- put 'em on eBay!!!)

So, that's my current clutter issue right now: thinking about a system both for reading the magazines and for storing the ones I keep.

I'll let you know what I come up with, if anything.

'Zann

Spring Cleaning of THE CHAIR

2009-03-26T09:15:00.006-04:00

I like to take a picture of The Chair every so often to record the ever-shifting flow of Stuff that accumulates there. When I decided to document its end-of-winter09 state, I was seized with a great desire to Spring-Clean it.

This was best accomplished by sorting all the Stuff. I wound up putting everything on the sofa and felt amazed at the sheer volume of Stuff that The Chair manages to hold.

Over the back of the sofa is a pile of clothes, winter coat and jackets, shawls and scarves.
On the seat are a nice selection of books, files, miscellaneous winter accessories.

There is also my purse (an ergonomic Healthy Back Bag) and The Bag That Keeps Me Amused In The World (its weight negating any healthy effects of the aforementioned purse) and my purple labyrinthe tote which serves as my auxiliary Bag of Amusements, and a secondary cloth tote which serves as a Bag for Important Files & Papers for Meetings. Then there is my Tiny Purse, into which I transfer Absolute Necessities when I must go purseless and without amusements into the world, something that doesn't happen often.

I'm thinking the subject (and contents) of these totes and bags might be explored in a separate post. Or with my therapist.

On the floor, the stunning number of pairs of shoes that can be stuffed under that chair, along with a nice pile of socks and a whole lot of dust bunnies clinging to them all.

I sorted, hung up all coats and put away shawls and scarves and gloves. Sent socks and hoodies off to the wash. Found Coraline book!! Got out the vacuum and vacuumed under the chair, then vacuumed all the shoes, put 'em in a box and took them to my bedroom. Emptied the Auxiliary Totes.

And here is The Chair, as of this morning, a week later -- in an almost Zen-like state of simplicity and relative emptiness.

Happy spring to all!

Namaste,
'Zann

long and wordy road...er, post

2008-08-26T11:23:00.003-04:00

I think I'm at a new stage in my long journey to declutter my life and house, get more organized and have the time and energy I want to devote to creative work. I think.

So much has happened since I began this journey: my son Patrick's death, the down-the-rabbit-hole years with my mother's dementia that followed, and now this year, my mother's death.

I'm not who I was when I began this blog.

Things are a little bit better in the physical aspects of my house -- less cluttered in ways that were serious impediments. Much of the work I documented here has held, decluttered spaces have not (for the most part) filled up again with clutter.

I feel like I'm closer to creating the sort of life I need. I have an abundance of time for myself that I have never had before.

But I need to be wise about how I use that precious commodity. As I've made certain volunteer commitments (that seem to expand and expand!), I'm finding myself feeling that my time for my own art is being compressed. An image arises of painting myself into a small corner of my life.

I just found something in my MacJournal - an exercise from the book, It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys. I was earnestly working with that book when Patrick died and I haven't picked it up since. That was well more than two years ago.

I'm of a mind to begin working with it again. Now my focus is less on dealing with the physcial clutter (though there are certainly still some 'hot spots' here!), but more on protecting my time, making conscious decisions about how it is spent, being more organized and thoughtful, setting priorities. And dealing with my lifelong tendency towards procrastination.

Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and post the exercise. It's pretty personal, but I think it's a useful thing to share. And I made some important observations that make this a good place to pick up working with the book again.
------------------------------------------------
This was written in February 2006 from the exercises in Chapter 2, "What is Your Compelling Purpose for Organizing?"
What disorganization is costing me:
Money
I spend too much money on things I cannot use because of the clutter.
I buy things I already have either because I can’t find them or I forget I already have them.
I tend to shop (online mostly now) and buy things because of moods (either low or high!)

I always want more of something - as though I will run out of a favorite thing and not ever be able to get more. Or, if I love something, like a pretty roving, I will try to buy more as I am using it. Sometimes I won’t use something because I don’t want to use it up and not have it any more. Hoarding.
Sometimes I amass books (on a subject I’m newly interested in, by a particular author I’ve gotten interested in) or every tool and material for a new art form, etc.

I am unable to work at my home business of bookselling, so I have no income of my own anymore.

Time
Disorganization is costing me dearly in terms of time. I have terrible senses of regret and guilt over the time I have not used wisely in the whole course of my life.

It’s not the amount of time I spend trying to find things - finding things is not one of the big problems of my clutter/disorganization. In fact, I seem to have an almost psychic gift for finding things and I can even do it for other people! I find things in others’ clutter!

It’s the amount of time I have been left in a state of inertia because of the clutter.

It’s the time I didn’t spend creating something because it was just too overwhelming, trying to find the space for the work, gather the materials all in one place, then clean up afterward. Of course, if I did manage to overcome the first two, and actually work on a project, I rarely clean up immediately afterward. And I often don’t finish a project, so I leave it out, thinking I’ll get back to it. My project tools and materials, the project itself at times, will just remain on whatever flat surface I manage to find to work on, make me feel guilty about not cleaning up then get dispersed, scattered - cleaned up by the natural movement of things in a house.

So - my clutter/disorganization costs me the joy of seeing the fruits of my creativity. It has robbed me of the growth and skill I might have at 54 if I had been able to work regularly on writing or drawing or fiber arts.

(Another area to explore: process/product, procrastination, attention...)

The cost has definitely been to my purpose and journey as an artist.

Family & Social Costs

I have begun to wonder if my panic disorder is also connected to my clutter/disorganization.
My family has certainly suffered because of my panic disorder keeping me from travel.

My kids have probably felt uncomfortable having people over. I certainly feel uncomfortable having people over.
My kids haven’t had a good role model for life management.

My husband has had to live with clutter and he is my polar opposite - compulsively neat and tidy. He must find it excruciating to move through my clutter.

Psychological Costs

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that there is a connection between my clutter and my anxiety. And maybe even the panic attacks.

I feel tremendous guilt at having this clutter about.
I often hate to go to others’ homes because I wind up being filled with longing for the neatness and beauty I see.

I start an enormous number of things that I don’t finish - impulsiveness? disorganization? short attention span??
My clutter distracts and diverts my attention.

Health Costs

I am stressed by the clutter around me.
Dust probably impacts my breathing.
Clutter depletes me, robs me of energy

Spiritual / Soul Costs

It actually hurts my spirit to be surrounded by clutter. It’s ugly and jarring.
To be surrounded by clutter, depletes my energy on a spirtual level as well as physical.

Summary:
My disorganization and clutter stunts my growth and prevents me from fulfilling my potential as an artist. I have lost years of accomplishment to this problem.
My disorganization and clutter creates difficulties for my family and sets a poor example of life management for my kids.
My disorganization and clutter prevents me from inviting people to my home and diminishes my social network.
My disorganization and clutter may well be a significant cause for my suffering anxiety and panic disorder (both of which cause me mental agony and prevent me from enjoying life and travel.)
My disorganization and clutter fill me with guilt and feelings of low self-worth.
My disorganization and clutter rob me of vital energy, both physical and spiritual.
Time, money, energy, creativity, fulfillment, joy -- all are costs of my disorganization and clutter

What I will experience when I declutter and become more organized:

I will have energy, both physical and spiritual.
I will enjoy being in my home and inviting people over or welcoming in an unexpected visitor.
I will have a sense of serenity and peace and will not feel the burden of all the things that need to be done around the house.

I will have time and space for my creative work. It will be a pleasure to begin a project, with materials at hand and the proper place to work.

I will feel fulfillment when I can be creative.

I will again be able to sell books and have a small income of my own.

I will be able to let go of feelings of shame and embarrassment.

I will not fear that I will end up like my mother, wasting years and my spirit, fretting about ‘tidying up’ or getting things done that will never get done.

My anxiety levels will decrease.
--------------------------------------------------

Decluttering by Flood - Part Two

2008-06-14T07:09:00.004-04:00

Here are some pictures of the storage unit, the first taken when I opened the door, others after we'd cleared it out some:

This plastic box was lying on the floor right in front. I was amazed that it was dry inside, so right away I knew that I had at least whatever is in here saved:
Two similar plastic boxes did not fare well.

Roy (Roy is one of Patrick's best friends and has been working for me on and off as my 'personal assistant) worked tirelessly to help me save what could be saved. I am so very grateful to him for the way he worked, putting up graciously with the moments when I just had to show him something and tell him a story evoked by the object - that happened most often when it was something that had to be tossed. It was a way of honoring the thing that would be lost, and maybe a way of preserving it by passing on its story to another.

It took us about three hours to get to the point where it was obvious that everything left in the unit was soaked through with the nasty flood water. At that point, we decided to take a break, get something to eat. Then it would be time to tackle my other storage unit.

First we decided to just take a look at it. It was one of those roll-up doors and it was very hard to move. Roy did get it open about 2 feet -- many things were pressing up against it, soaked books tumbled out...

I decided right then that I was finished. We pulled down that door and walked away. I signed off on the units, preferring to just let go of what was in mine. It was mostly books and art magazines - not my better stock, or I wouldn't have kept it in this sort of storage unit. I also had a few personal things in there, but I don't remember exactly what. It's better that I don't.

I'm going to close this entry with a journal entry I wrote the next day.

June 12, 2008 10:30 AM
This morning the tag on my teabag says:
“I make the most of all that comes. And the least of all that goes.” Sara Teasdale 1884-1933

(ST was one of my mother’s favorites.)

In any case, that little quote is quite pertinent to my life right now and I will do well to remember it.

Yesterday I spent 3 grueling hours in the hot sun, clearing out my mother’s storage unit. It had been filled with 3-4 feet of water. It was a terrible mess and much was lost, but that makes the items saved more precious. I wound up being able to save a wee bit more than I expected. I had just assumed that the only items that might be safe were in the two huge plastic garbage cans at the back of the unit, marked “family history.” Those indeed were dry (several dozen plastic bags in each, filled with papers, though I think it is not the “best” family history stuff.)

I was also able to retrieve a handful of other papers,that were in a plastic bag and had not gotten wet inside. In that was: a copy of my mother’s birth certificate, a 1952 letter from my Great Aunt Anna May (Auntie) to my grandmother saying all sorts of nice things about the months-old me, a charming letter from Mom to Dad in 1962 detailing her perennial difficulty with housework, a sweet and poignant 1944 letter from Dad pleading with Mom to let him know for sure where he stood with her....

And I also found the small photograph of my grandfather as a young man and a little booklet of his poetry that I had found when we were beginning to sort at the unit last week before the flood.

In addition, there was a box of scrapbooks and notebooks Mom had been compiling. At first, I nearly tossed the whole box - it was soaked. But I pulled out the scrapbooks and only the edges of them seemed damp. So I set them out in the sun while we worked.

I am so glad - they are books filled with my mother’s earliest published writings, my parents’ wedding album, a notebook of Mom’s correspondence, the album started when Dad died. I also managed to save a few very old pictures, of my great-grandfather (in a wheelchair in what I believe was the conservatory of their villa in Nice circa 1890), my Aunt Suzanne (Hooty), Aunt Nell, my grandmother and her sister Eleanora (who died in 1904.) Ah, just an amazing jumbled-up assortment of family memorabilia.

I could pretend the flood jumbled it all up, but the truth is that no one ever organized these papers (though my mother made some efforts here and there) and a hundred-plus years and a few interstate moves acted like one of those giant tumblers used to mix up entries in contests.

All is well.

'Zann

Decluttering by Flood-Part One

2008-06-13T08:02:00.004-04:00

With that title, I don't want to make light of losses by flood - we were in one in 1993, in which we waded out of our apartment and never went back there to live. In comparison to the devastating losses I'm seeing in our community right now, our material losses were minimal. But the experience was traumatic enough for me to be able to feel that I have a pretty good idea of what one feels when the water rises inexorably and goes where it wants to go and takes away what it wants to take.

We had 7 inches of rain here in Terre Haute last Friday night/Saturday morning. I awoke to a reverse 911 call telling me the county was in a State of Emergency, all roads closed, and that we were to stay home. I went to look down in the basement and saw the damp sheen of a layer of water on the floor, headed towards the drain/sump pump.

It was never anything measurable in my basement. I spent some five hours on and off with a 5 gallon shop vac, filling and emptying it some 10 times. As the rain stopped, the results of my efforts began to show as spots here and there stayed dry. This wasn't flood water in my basement. This was an incursion of rain water through the ground and foundation, something that happened when rain was particularly heavy, though it happened much less once we replaced our gutters with extra-wide ones. There were certain vulnerable spots where I keep spill pillows - 4 foot snake-like tubes filled with a material that will absorb a gallon of water.

This event, however, overcame the gutters, the snakes, and left me with a very cluttered basement to dry - a task I'm doing with Roy, and my de-humidifier, bleach water and Lysol. Luckily, most shelving and bins are up on small blocks of 2X4's.

Sometime during the day on Saturday I realized that I was going to face a bigger problem. I was hearing that the whole area was heavily flooded where I have two storage units. One was full of books and a few personal things. The other was the unit where everything was stored of my mother's from her home in Florida and trailer in North Carolina.

I had just been out there the week before, beginning the task of sorting through. There was a stunning amount of paper - family history items going back to the 1800s, photographs, letters, documents, and a vast amount of my mother's files and writing. The trilogy of novels which my father was writing were also in there.

It was Monday before was able to get through to the road the storage facility was on. The road was clear, but....

....this is as close as I could get to the units:

I thought I could see that the whole door to Mom's unit was visible, but watermarks on the buildings showed that it had been 3-4 feet high along the walls.

I went back home, to work on the basement. As we moved things and cleaned, I began to fill boxes with things to go to Freecycle or Goodwill. I kept trying not to think of the losses in the storage units, but trying to find a way to think about it that would create a positive result.

The week before, I had been truly stressed at the volume of Stuff that I was going to have to deal with. I did not want to bring it to my home for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was the respiratory problems that old paper gives me. All this was stored improperly for decades, in a garage in South Florida. It was laden with the leavings of a variety of paper-munching insects.

The task of sorting and properly perserving this treasure trove of family history seemed a monumental task which I wasn't sure I even wanted to try. And certainly, I'd need to find a place to do it. There was no way I could work through the summer heat right at the storage unit.

Well, one thing the flood had done was to give me the answer to that dilemma. Right after I took the picture above, I went to rent another storage unit. I knew that I'd need some place to take anything I could salvage. This unit is indoors, climate-controlled. It's where I have Patrick's things stored. It stayed dry and safe during this flood.

Roy and I were able to get into the units yesterday. And that will be Part Two of this saga.

My Christmas Tree is Still Up

2008-03-04T06:50:00.003-05:00

Yes, my Christmas tree is still up.
And that's okay.
Life has been Big lately. My mom passed away on Valentine's Day.

And my tree is still up because I left it up on purpose. The Last Crisis with Mom began on Christmas Eve Day and the following weeks of intense presence with her were exhausting. When I'd finally get home, I could barely think or knit or do much of anything. (There was a brief respite around the time I made my last entry, when she was stable and I took more time away from the nursing home.)

I would just gaze at the tree often during these weeks - this small fake tree that I had managed to adorn with my most favorite ornaments....it just made me feel better to look at it. And so I decided to leave it up until Valentine's Day. But the Universe had other plans for that day...

So now I'm thinking.....Easter.

The Chair 2008

2008-01-26T14:55:00.000-05:00

Greetings! I am terrifically excited to feel the urge to resume posting here.
Without further ado, I'd like to share a picture of The Chair back in mid-December:

As you can see, it was mostly A Closet then, but there was a wee stack of books and papers under all the clothes.

My valuable assistant Roy returned for awhile and with his help, I got quite a few things done, including putting away all those clothes (it was mostly my knitted shawls, scarves, jackets) and discovering that chair was still there:

I did not put away the shoes.

I've been getting lots of good ideas for organizing my time and figuring out my priorities from Zen Habits. Simple systems are the only ones that ever prove valuable to me, and ZH is a great source of simple things to try.

Meanwhile, this stuff has been sitting behind my sofa (which is the entrance path from the front door) patiently waiting for me to do something with it. Originally, I thought all these books and magazines were going to go into the bookshop I'm supposed to working with, but it has not even begun to open. I believe this pile has been there for at least 6-8 months.
A few days ago, I felt the urge to just let these things go and I offered them on the local Freecycle, with a specific pick-up time listed (I'm absolutely in a time crunch due to having to deal with my mom and the nursing home a lot right now.) I shouldn't be surprised but not a single person who agreed to come actually came -- even when I extended a second pick-up to which each agreed.

So I'm now on a round of contacting others who wanted these items and have set up a new time for tomorrow. Sigh.

In an interesting bit of serendipitous irony, I just noticed when I was uploading this photo that the top book is entitled "Going Nowhere Fast!" I'm gonna go move that book right now.
Just in case it's creating some odd feng shui energy with those words....

Hiatus

2007-10-31T11:29:00.000-04:00

I'm overwhelmed with a lot of things right now and blog-guilt is one.
I love this blog and it's been so helpful to me, but I've never really been able to resume my joy and enthusiasm for this and the decluttering project since Patrick's death.

I've tried. I need to have a new plan, a new vision and it just isn't manifesting.

Now what I need to do is put this blog on an official hiatus, so I won't have the nagging sense of 'i need to blog about that...' . I'm thinking through the end of this year.

We'll see what happens after that.

For now I expect to continue with my arts blog Lizards In the Leaves.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement and feedback I've received since the beginning!
Blessings and best wishes for the upcoming holidays!
Love,
Zann

Brief Update, Clutter, phobia work

2007-10-22T09:33:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a longer entry to document a bit of exposure therapy I organized, but I'm trying to become more regular with my blog entries again, so I thought I'd at least check in with a brief entry here.

I'm sad to report that my dining room table is all cluttered up again. And it really is blocking energy! So I need to get that taken care of ASAP. I'm not posting a picture because I'm tired of taking pictures of that and you're probably tired of looking at them. I've also gotten a bit of clutter in some of the flat surfaces in the living room that were blessedly clear for such a long time. It's not horrible, though! But if I don't get them cleared soon, it could lead to horrible.

On the plus side, I have discovered Bloglines -- a blog aggregate site (free) which allows me to subscribe to my favorite blogs and sites, and has alleviated me of the stress I was feeling at not being able to keep up with the ones that have been really inspiring and useful to me. With Bloglines, I can instantly see which blogs have new entries and read them. Maybe I'm the last person on the internet to make use of this, but I thought I'd pass it on. It really has saved me a lot of time and angst!

I've also just started to read The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka.

I haven't read enough yet to know if this is going to be a really great book for me, but enough that I think it's worth mentioning for others to take a look at. I certainly embrace the idea of having a small, meaningful existence fraught with beauty. Susanka has a website at notsobiglife.com and offers for her readers some forums, inspirational quotes and chapter-by-chapter resources.

I end this entry with a picture of Dashboard Robin, a promise to soon relate what's happening on the driving/phobia front.

Phase Two & Decluttering My Psyche

2007-09-16T08:19:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since I've blogged about decluttering because I haven't embarked on anything new. I realized last month that I had actually reached a plateau of sorts, that I had decluttered enough so that function and even some joy had been restored to my life. In other words, my primary living/working spaces became usable, a pleasure to inhabit. I realized that something was completed, a Phase One that I had not discerned, that only became apparent in its completion.

Wooo-hooo! (a brief moment of celebration)

There is still a great deal to do overall, though, and I've been thinking about what Phase Two should be. There are large areas of the house that still need my attention: my basement work areas, a room I have upstairs, my unruly stashes of books, yarn and clothes.

I realized that in order to work on these areas, I have to work on me more than I did before, I have to deal with my innate procrastination, poor use of time, distractability. I have to make a decision about my business of bookselling (which has been on hold since the shop closed, since my whole being became occupied with trying to help Patrick, and my mother.) I have some bookkeeping, paperwork and tax things that must be re-organized, filed and dealt with, and I must find a way to keep up with those things so I don't get behind again.

And I have to really and truly work on my driving/travel phobia.

This last is so huge that I considered creating a new blog to document it and be part of my therapy plan. But I already have two blogs that I find difficult to keep current, adding a third would be preposterous.

I realized that concrete work and journaling about this phobia really does fit into the mission of this blog.

So, in the coming posts, I'll be working out what the physical decluttering of Phase Two will be and I will also be reporting on my work to....hmmm, this is interesting, I am having a difficult time trying to find the verb I want to use in conjunction with this phobia work. "Conquer" is what comes to mind, but that word does not feel at all right. Dissolve? No.

Ah! Let go.

I will be reporting on my journey to let go of this phobia.

Wooo-hooo!

It Worked!!

2007-07-11T12:41:00.001-04:00

45 days ago, I wrote of my clearing-off-the-dining-table-for-once-and-for-all aspirations.
(Read the previous post to refresh memory of The Plan)

I'm delighted to report that I really did what I expected to do...I methodically worked to get all that transferred clutter put away from the folding table in my daughter's room, had it done by the time Paul returned from Mexico (whew!) AND, most wonderful of all, the dining table has remained clutter-free.

Well. Not exactly clutter-free - it has resumed life as a useful and contributing member of this household, providing a nice flat space to work on or eat from. So there is almost always something happening on that table. Sometimes for a few days at a time, as when I started yet another crafty/arty interest: beaded needle-woven neckpieces...and had the materials out. But the key word is "happening" -- things are being done on that table, things are in process, it's creative and functional clutter.

I waited awhile to post about this, because I wanted to make sure that it was a major shift for me, that I did not start allowing the dysfunctional clutter to accumulate after a couple of weeks. But...hooray....it has been about six weeks and that hasn't happened.

It has been wonderful to have a friend over for lunch and sit at the table (we won't talk about the table itself, a thrift shop purchase, along with the unmatching and falling-apart chairs...), to have space to show Molly how to use her new sewing machine, to sit down and do the bills, lay out a project to measure, cut, match up a seam....

oooh, good chi is flowing, energy moving....

That &$%*#@!%$ Table - Again!

2007-05-26T10:16:00.000-04:00

Okay - short and sweet.
That kitchen/dining room table MUST get cleared for once and for all.
Paul, if you're reading this, brace yourself. Or click away...

I've put a table in the middle of Molly's old room (one half of which is piled with Her Stuff, one half we try to keep clear for extra bed, alternate TV viewing.)
T E M P O R A R I L Y, Paul! When you get back, this project will be done, I promise!!!
(Paul's in Mexico. While he's gone this mouse is decluttering in ways that would make him very uncomfortable....)
The idea is to move everything from the dining table to the [Temporary!!!] Sorting Table, thereby giving me the instant gratification and the freed-up chi of a free and clear dining table. In theory, the freed energy will allow me to tackle the sorting of the Stuff in Molly's room.

Yes, there is a big risk involved. The risk, of course, is that I will allow clutter to accumulate once again on the dining table and the clutter will remain on the table in Molly's room and I will find myself with the same awful chi-sucking mess X2.

But the rewards...ah, worth the risk.

If you're still reading, Paul, Happy Birthday -- and please, don't worry. That table will be out of Molly's room and you won't even know it was there. Well, you will know it was there, but only because of the picture above.

One more before picture:
Scary, isn't it?
And if you've been reading this blog for awhile, you'll probably remember we've been here before. This time I'm really going to try to understand why this table gets like this and change it.
Really!

Time to Regroup, Assess, Plan

2007-04-11T10:19:00.000-04:00

First, I want to say hi to the amazing numbers of visitors from The Happiness Project. I've had a sidebar link to Gretchen's site for some time -- it's such a great site. She gathers up and tries out all kinds of tips and philosophies about happiness and writes about her experiences. Each Wednesday is Tip Day and there are sidebar links to all the past Tip Days. Well worth bookmarking and checking regularly!

I feel like it's time for me to regroup, to assess my progress and get back to more of a plan for this project. I have been gentle with myself since Patrick's death and am very grateful that I was able to continue to work on this in a small and steady way over this past year. But I feel like it's time to step up the pace a bit and even tackle some more challenging things.

I've made a great deal of progress in clearing up spaces that have long been cluttered -- and I absolutely believe it's true that energy gets blocked by pockets of clutter in our homes. I think of decluttering as "freeing the chi."

I've also been pretty good about not allowing clutter to return to those spaces, and have had some success in changing habits that contributed to the clutter.

Two notable exceptions:
The Chair and The Kitchen Table.

The Chair that started this all continues to be a magnet for clothes and books and shoes. I've managed to not put files and important papers there since the first time I cleared it, but I cannot seem to stop stowing my shoes underneath, piling books on the seat, and draping shawls, sweaters and jackets over the back.

Some people have suggested The Chair is now more a sculpture, a sort of ever-changing bit of installation art and I'm often tempted to view it that way. In fact, I photograph it regularly.
Here it is today:

I suppose that one way to deal with clutter is to transform one's thinking about it...but how many clutter areas is one allowed to call "art?"

My kitchen table is also a constantly shifting repository of Stuff.
Here is the table in mid-March:
And here it is, as it is today:
As you can see, with the exception of a few things, it's a whole new bunch of Stuff!

In the case of the table, it's not Art, it's a Tool. I use it to help me tidy up other areas, it's a place to pile and sort the Stuff. I need to utilize it this way, it's truly necessary. I think, though, that what I must do is become more organized in how I use it and try to finish the sorting projects and clear it regularly.

There is definitely something about having that table surface free that is very energizing -- when it's cluttered up, it must be a sort of black hole for chi. If you are familiar with the Flylady's organizing site, you know that having the kitchen sink all empty and clean at the end of the day is kind of a touchstone. That, along with putting on a pair of lace-up shoes in the morning, becomes a cue for working to maintain order and organization.

For me, it's the kitchen table and my work desk in the basement.
My basement office desk:

So. I think that I will start with those spots as I regroup-- the kitchen table and my desk. My goal is to get both areas decluttered and functional....and to not allow the day to end without tidying them up.

As for The Chair...I think I'm just going to let it be what it will be for awhile, though with warmer weather in the offing, I just may get those shawls and sweaters put away!

Namaste,
'Zann

Kitchen Decluttering Continues

2007-03-29T12:47:00.000-04:00

Progress Report:
As usual, I've forgotten to take pictures of many things. Roy and I continue to work twice a week. The 'small-increments' or 'little-by-little' method is starting to add up nicely.

We moved on to the kitchen counters a couple of weeks ago.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

BEFORE:

AFTER:

What I don't have pictures of is the progress in my basement pantry/laundry room.
Just to make you feel better about your clutter and disorganization and procrastination, or at least not so alone, if I had taken pictures, you would have seen the wasteful, shameful result of years of whole foods co-op organizing, social activism and good intentions paired with little time for cooking and family resistance to things labeled 'organic,' 'whole,' 'low-fat,' 'vegan', 'macrobiotic,' 'sodium-free,' 'natural' . (Except for Annie's Mac and Cheese, Little Bear Tortilla Chips and Ambrosia Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips)
You would have seen me toss things dated 1994, use by December 1999...you would have seen go:
part of a case of chocolate soy pudding (acquired before moving to this house in 1996)
half of a 10 lb bag of long grain brown rice that had turned yellow
2 lbs of rancid organic almonds
lemon juice from Israel acquired pre-move
old, old organic flours in several varieties

There was more. I can't bear to contemplate it. Shameful.
But not unforgiveable. And I forgive myself so I can keep on trying to change the things that led to the situation...

More Little by Little

2007-02-27T21:33:00.000-05:00

I'm shocked to see how long it's been (41 days said Technorati ) since I've updated here! Some difficult times (check my main blog if you have an inquiring mind...), but I'm pleased to report that I have continued to work fairly steadily at my decluttering. Most importantly, I've managed to maintain already-decluttered spaces pretty well.

Here's what I've been up on some of the past 41 days.
Right now, I have created an area in the basement where I have been able to neatly stash the astonishing amount of mostly-paper clutter that has plagued me - years worth of it that has accumulated in boxes and plastic baskets, etc. I try to regularly get down there and spend at least 15 minutes working on it at a time. I would say that I have come to the half-way mark, maybe even the three-quarters mark. I certainly have made a great deal of progress with it.

I sort into three categories: Shred, Recycle, Save. I try to deal with the Save stuff right away - if there's no file, I make one -- but if I don't, I have still managed to significantly reduce the amount via Shred and Recycle.

One thing that I have done is create a notebook in which I keep all the manuals, instructions, information that comes with a variety of things we use in the house -- from the humidifier filters to the instructions for a French clay facial mask. I use a large 3-ring notebook filled with sheet protectors. Inside each sheet protector I put a sheet of heavyweight paper. That way I can put two informational items in each sheet protector, one on either side of the paper.
Right now, I'm just putting items into the sheet protectors one after the other. Eventually, I might try to organize them in a more orderly fashion.

My "personal assistant" Roy,

continues to work for me a couple of days a week. In addition to running various errands, he does the shredding, takes the recycling to Goodwill and, as seen in the following photos, will put on a dust mask and do battle, armed with the vacuum.
This was the most recent major project we embarked upon: the tops of the kitchen cabinets. Roy handed down everything to me and vacuumed. I sorted and washed things. And 3/4 of this stuff went off in Roy's van!

That bread machine in the 2nd photo up there has been there since we moved into this house in 1996! Good-bye , Bread Machine!

I took a picture of this Tupperware to show the dust that was on pretty much everything, and since this is the kitchen, the dust was that dust-grease combo, despite the fact that we do very little frying. Now this bright orange Tupperware has been up there for years as well - it was a garage sale find and I think I thought it might be collectibles. It collected dust, at any rate! Good-bye, Hunter Orange Tupperware!

So. The end result: all the keeper items - maybe 1/4 of the Stuff -- fit neatly on top of one section of cabinets. I tried to keep only the things I really use, but I did save my huge cookie cutter collection, despite the fact that I haven't baked from scratch for years...too many wonderful sugary memories attached to them.

The other two cabinets are absolutely clear.

Whoo hoo!

Next, I will probably have to utilize that space (in a neat, planned way of course) to help in bringing some order to my miniscule counter space which looks like this:
And then I suppose we'll have to look inside those cabinets.....

Of course, I've no idea when that might be. My de-cluttering seems to just happen these days, with little advance notice of where or when.
I'm just glad it's happening!!

One Neat Space

2007-01-17T15:45:00.000-05:00

I haven't done much serious work on decluttering since before the holidays, but I think it bodes well that my Christmas tree was put away last week. My desire for this to be an utterly honest documentation of my de-cluttering odyssey makes me also add that the ornaments are still out on a table in a room upstairs awaiting proper wrapping and storage. I have in mind a project (eeek, I am beginning to hate that word) to sort through the ornaments and keep only my very favorites since we've started having a small tree. Let's see if I can manage to do that before it becomes so close to next Christmas that I deem it silly to put them away.

Of late my intention has been to keep one space relatively neat so that it is restful and soothing to occupy it, a space that will be my retreat from the disorder of the other areas I need to work on, a space that will be renewing. It seems to be the living room.

Now in the living room, the Big Armchair with Ottoman is where I sit to do nearly all of my fiber work. And the ottoman has had a tendency to become a chaos of yarn and fiber and tools and patterns and books and magazines (big ottoman). The effect of that chaos on my work and on the pleasure in doing my work is profound. If the space so close around me is so cluttered I do not focus, I move from project to project, ideas spin off into the ether, and I feel scattered and unsettled.

Before the holidays, I managed a huge clean-up of my fiber arts clutter in the living room (there is another ottoman that was absolutely full as well as the floor space around it.)

And I have been making a conscientious effort to keep that space free of clutter and regularly tidy up the Big Armchair with Ottoman. I re-organized my knitting and crochet tools,
and gave projects containers of their own. I try not to have so many at hand by putting them neatly away in the room that is becoming sort of a studio--Patrick's old room.

The reorganization of my knitting and crochet tools came about because I purchased needle and hook storage cases, ones which I had turned up my nose at before but which I now love. They are the Ashland Sky translucent vinyl envelopes, and they seem outrageously expensive and sort of unattractive. Martha at my yarn shop had a great sale before Christmas, so I picked them up for a bit less.

But now that I am using them and finding them exactly what I needed, I'd say they are worth the price. The vinyl is soft and supple and rolls right up and I like the translucency that allows me to see my tools.

So, I have a relatively organized and neat work area and when I look at most of the room around me, I am soothed by the gleaming wood floor and neatness and order.

My view from the Big Armchair used to look like this (these before pictures were taken just less than a year ago--and it pretty much looked worse by the time I began to work on it mid-December!):

Now, it looks like this:

Ahhhhh.

Desks of Creative People

2006-12-31T14:16:00.000-05:00

I love synchronicity! After my last post, it delighted me to run across the blog On My Desk, a site where various artists share a look at creative Stuff of their lives.

I have about 6 flat areas in house that might qualify as "my desk." Right at this moment, though, my desk is my lap, the ottoman in front of my chair and a small side table to my right. Oh, and the fat arms of the chair itself....
Here is the Zann's-eye view of my current working space (sorry for the flash -glare)

Wishing all of you a very joyful New Year, full of abundance and creativity!

Two Articles

2006-12-27T09:46:00.000-05:00

I've been sick for days and am slowly recovering, so I offer for this entry links to a couple of interesting articles which relate to Clutter, Stuff, Accumulation.

This first one, from Art on Paper magazine really tickled me:

"At the time of his death in 1987, Andy Warhol left behind a warehouse full of cardboard boxes that contained the ephemera of his daily life, cleared from his desk on a regular basis from 1974 onward...."

I have boxes like that all over the place. I'm just imagining needing an archivist to deal with them, instead of a Merry Maid.

The second one is from the New York Times of 12/21/06, kind of a defense/rationalization for clutter called Say Yes to Mess.

This article made me remember writing an essay in high school called Creative Clutter: A Mess with Purpose! I think there are good arguments to be made for certain kinds of "mess," but there is a point when clutter becomes dysfunctional and makes life difficult and miserable. That's what I'm trying to deal with here.

Progress Report

2006-12-14T14:48:00.000-05:00

Despite the fact that I am not blogging about it often, my decluttering project continues. With Turtle as my totem animal, I am just moving along, slowly and steadily. The structure of the project has changed immensely since Patrick's death, but the long-range goal remains exactly the same.

I no longer seem to be able to pick an area to work on, post a "before" photo here and then get the task done and post an "after." I sometimes don't even know I'm going to declutter an area until I'm in the middle of doing it! And then I'm not thinking of pictures, but just involved in the work.

Perhaps the biggest change in how I'm approaching this is that I now have a Personal Assistant! Well, la-di-dah...I know I'm very lucky to be able to manage this. I wrote about Molly's boyfriend Roy helping me at the end of October by vacuuming and taking lots of stuff off to the recycling center and Goodwill. That worked well and Roy really needs some extra work these days, so it's turned into a two times a week event. Sometimes Roy runs errands for me to the post office, bank, grocery store, etc. and sometimes he helps me work on an area that desperately needs decluttering.

I once thought that no one could help me with this, since there is much Stuff that needs to be sorted and evaluted and either let go or kept in a better place. What I discovered is that Roy can be a sort of First Response Guy....the clutter disaster area beckons, Roy goes in with a bunch of empty boxes and sorting flats and the vacuum (with dust mask) and gets everything organized for me to do the actual sorting out.

Sometimes I'm able to do it while he's doing another thing, and at the end of a couple of hours, he's off to Goodwill with a bunch of stuff and I have yet another decluttered spot.

Maybe no one else could help me this way - Roy is Molly's boyfriend now, but he was one of Patrick's best friends and a bandmate...so he's been like part of the family for many years now. So I'm comfortable working with him, and he's so respectful and understanding and shares the loss of Patrick with us. Because it's Roy, I was able to visit the storage unit where we have most of Patrick's possessions and begin to use it again for our other storage needs, like some of my mom's things, the books for my business -- the reason I got that climate-controlled unit in the first place.

And now, for some pictures...these are some of the things we've worked on over the last few weeks:
In the root cellar -- well, it's not really a root cellar, but for some reason I think of it that way. It's a small room in the basement that has a long worktable in it and lots of shelving along the other side. It became the repository of boxes and boxes of Stuff, many of them never unpacked from our move here ten years ago. There were a great deal of homeschooling-related papers and files and materials. It also housed the phenomenal amount of things I used and saved from my intensive two years organizing workshops, protests and vigils against the death penalty. There were at least 8-10 boxes of materials, both in the root cellar room and in one of the main basement rooms I use for an office.

Because I can no longer do this work as I used to, I decided to donate my materials to the more active Bloomington Coalition Against the Death Penalty. I allowed myself to keep one box worth of these materials.

Final result of the massive sorting, about a third of that work table cleared:

Please imagine a crazy pile of boxes and flats and papers and newspapers and bags of buttons and t-shirts all piled on top about 3 feet high. Underneath imagine a stack of shipping boxes with a 1-inch layer of dust over the top.

Now you can see how much better it looks, right?

The table itself looks yucky, but it's clean and best of all there's a goodly amount of freed-up space. I reduced what I'm keeping to this (yeah, okay, it's more than a box, but I haven't fully organized and sorted the Keepers. I still intend to reduce it to one box):

And in my office area, please imagine two precarious stack of boxes full of flyers and videos and paper, paper, paper -- all so heavy I could not get the top drawers open on these plastic bins!
So all this freed-up space is becoming Functional Space instead of Clutter Storage Space! On top of the plastic bin, I have two files which I am culling and a box in which I put things to be mailed to people.

I have already turned the rootcellar table space into a sorting area for that bunch of boxes of papers you may remember from a few entries back:
This is the pile I was promising to go through little-by-little:
Well, I went through it, consolidated, had Roy do so much shredding the paper shredder was practically smoking. What's left, along with some similar To-Be-Sorted bins from my kitchen table is now in the Root Cellar Sorting Area:

This is much reduced from the massive pile of papers above, and is continuing to be reduced. I hope to have that work table bare again, ready for another project.

And here is the space that was occupied by those towering piles of papers:

Functional again - I am using the space to sort boxes of books I will be putting in the book shop I hope to be working with after the first of the year. When I fill a few boxes, they are going to the storage unit to await shelving (and hopefully SELLING) in the shop.

The materials I sent to Bloomington weighed 78 pounds and fit in this box (which I wound up repacking into two easier-to-handle, cheaper-to-ship boxes):
That's a pack of incense propped against it for size comparison. Oh, and I also went through a bunch of other shelves and donated a big box of science materials to our old homeschooling group:

To sum up, this entry was about letting go of materials from activities and life that has changed, freeing up spaces in my basement, creating functional areas that are giving me more room to work on continued decluttering. Of course, the main goal is to have my bookselling work areas become pleasant and efficient. Not there yet, but getting there!

Next: The Saga of the Kitchen Table

Our New, Simple Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T08:53:00.000-05:00

As we begin this first holiday season after Patrick's death, we have decided to allow it unfold as it will. I decided not to make any elaborate plans that might be stressful or commitments that might weigh me down with guilt if not fulfilled. I will be present with my grief and open to any joy that might come. And memories that arise of sweet times past....I hope to receive them as gifts to fill my heart and to be grateful for them. As for the painful memories, I will embrace them as well and give them their place, too.

The celebrations at this time of year have always been very meaningful to me, especially as our family traditions evolved in ways that became rich in spiritual nourishment and de-emphasized the acquisitive material aspects.

I have always known that at some point, we would find ourselves alone and would have to re-create ways to celebrate and honor the season. What I did not know, of course, was that we would have such losses and sorrow to live with.

We have not had a "normal" Thanksgiving since 2003 - the year we thought we were starting the new tradition of having people over for a dessert party in the evening. We did have a lovely time that year and in 2004 planned for the same. But plans were changed when Patrick was critically injured in a car wreck and lifelined to an Indianapolis hospital. That's where we had Thanksgiving dinner that year.

Last year, Thanksgiving came just days after my mother had to move into the nursing home, just one event in a terrible roller coaster of dementia events that had begun in September. I had spent 15 nights at her apartment during that time and was sad and frustrated and exhausted. And Patrick's ongoing addiction struggles were another roller coaster. It's no wonder that we just decided to do nothing for Thanksgiving.

With no pressure or plans, I wound up making a very simple dinner. I remember that I did it mindfully, as a Thanksgiving dinner, and that I felt pretty good about the day. This year, I decided to re-create that meal and think of it as our new tradition.

We had no guests and we didn't even eat together! Paul worked at the university for the afternoon and I cooked and spun wool. For me, it was a peaceful day.

The meal? Well, it would not win any awards, but it was nourishing and comforting. And it took only about an hour of work. I am not ashamed to say that it all came from boxes and bags and cans -- I just added love and thanks and some tasty embellishments.

A simple meal that started with 3 things - a bag of fresh cranberries, 2 cans of Progresso Lentil soup, a Betty Crocker Brownie Mix.

Back of the bag cranberry sauce recipe - with the addition of dried apricots and cherries.

To the soup I added a package of frozen extra-sweet corn, a package of frozen carrots and some sauteed onion and a little water. I cooked a pound of lean ground beef with more onions and some Mrs. Dash garlic/herb seasoning and added that to the soup.

To the brownie mix, I added chopped walnuts, raisins and dried cherries. I also added an extra egg.

After about an hour the cranberry sauce was cooling on the back porch, the soup was simmering and the brownies were baking. AND I had washed pots and bowls and utensils as I went along, so ta daaaaaa:
I was finished fixing Thanksgiving dinner!

I hope all of you had a nice Thanksgiving and have much for which to be thankful!

Micro De-Cluttering, Happiness Project

2006-10-29T09:15:00.000-05:00

I know I am never going to be able to get back the same spirit and energy I had when I first started this blog, but I am still committed to simplifying and decluttering my home and my life. I am just unable to focus on A Plan anymore. I am in a period of time that I just have to live and be and do the best I can at the moment. But I try to keep the Big Picture in mind.

The Big Picture is of me is in an environment that is pleasant and soothing, not distracting and guilt-inducing, space that invites creative thought and work.

Lately, I've been doing micro-decluttering. That's what I call it when I clean up a very small space -- not even a whole drawer, but a corner of a drawer -- in a very short time -- two or three minutes. I haven't done this in a systematic way by working on the same drawer or flat space. It's rather nice to have little spots of organized, simplified space appear here and there all over the place. They speak to me of hope....

Yesterday, I hired my daughter's boyfriend to come over and help me a bit. Together we got rid of a huge pile of cardboard boxes ( I will confess they were mostly Amazon boxes, I've been ordering a lot of books lately.) We also made some small progress in my basement work area. It was all mostly vacuuming and gathering things for the recycling center -- cardboard, old printer ink cartridges, catalogues and magazines. Then, and I think this is key, those things were taken immediately to the Goodwill recycling center.

At the last minute before he left, I suddenly saw two halogen lamps we had decided not to use YEARS ago. They had been sitting, unused, gathering inches of dust, since a hapless moth had burst into flame after flying over one, a flame that was perilously close to the basement ceiling.
We dusted them off as best we could, and off they went.

So, between the micro decluttering and the somewhat larger areas Roy and I tackled yesterday, there are spaces throughout my house that are speaking of hope quite convincingly.

This morning, through one of those serendipitous Google wanderings (that started because I googled a phrase I had in a dream), I found a blog called The Happiness Project. Oh, just go there. Look around. You'll see why I'm recommending it from this blog and why I'm going to put in a link on my sidebar. And you might be happy I sent you there!

Why these pictures are GOOD!

2006-09-23T09:54:00.000-04:00

This was my shipping table early in September, cluttered, with packing materials, remains of previous packing and books to be listed or catalogued.

This was my shipping table a few days ago:
Why this is better is that it's cluttered with SOLD books, books awaiting packing and shipping. Books that have now been sent on their way. My shipping table and I are back in business!

In the other room, where I have a lot of books stored, as well as my main office desk, I also have the most appalling accumulation of personal books, magazines, catalogs, and PAPER. Bills, receipts, notes, bank statements and more. Way more.
But this picture is GOOD:

because what you see is Sorting-in-Progress. The magazines and catalogues in the picture are now in boxes in my car, from which they will be dropped off at the recycling center. The stack of boxes with the blue plastic basket on top is a centralized amassing of the Paper Clutter. I have already shredded a garbage bag full of bank statements and intend to go through these boxes a little bit each day - okay, who snorted and said, "yeah, right!"...???
I am going to do it as planned. Really.

This picture is good, because it used to look like this:

Not much difference?
I beg to differ. From six precariously stacked too-high piles of books placed willy-nilly (NOT good for book health at all) to two much shorter stacks and 3 boxes of books, sorted into my very general first sorting round of Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children's.

So. It may not seem like it, but I have definitely made some progress in the last few days, towards reclaiming my bookselling work area and in getting back to work in a small way.
That's good!

I Really Have Started to De-Clutter Again

2006-09-20T11:53:00.000-04:00

I think I actually really truly am back to work on getting through the clutter and disorganization of my house and life.

I hesitated to write this earlier, but I think I've broken through my grief malaise. Of course, I had to then break through the bedrock of my congenital malaise/procrastination issues.

And it's extra-hard now. I described it best in a note I wrote to a group of online friends, so I'll just copy that here:

".... I'm dealing with some tough times - 6 months since Patrick's death, he died right before the Spring Equinox, so now to me all the changes, the Equinoxes and Solstices contain a thread to his death. I'm also very close to letting go of my mini-van, which is where Patrick and I spent a huge amount of time together. It's in the shop now and I'll be giving it to Pat's roommate.

I'm also getting back to work, selling books on eBay and soon I may have a chance to sell in an open shop with one of my old colleagues. Getting back to work means I'm trying to make some order in my basement office, work and storage areas. As I've been working down there today, I've been finding so many reminders of Patrick, stray pictures, his old homeschooling journal from 1995....

And the layers and juxtaposition of papers, magazines, notes, receipts, etc., can be read like an archaeological dig -- it's painfully obvious how my life just stopped at certain points in the last 2 and a half years. Patrick's car wreck was November 22, 2004. I came across the Neilsen ratings material I was supposed to use on November 25, the Round Robin letter from my old group of friends in Miami that I initiated in 1992 when I moved here. It came the day of the accident and I forgot about it and I never answered it. The Robin died that day is what I thought when I finally remembered it had come. I hadn't even seen it fron that day until this.

This is work that must be done. This is letting go that must happen.

It's just really hard, though.
thanks for listening..."

What was interesting to me is that my break-through seemed to come with my finally clearing out the mini-van in preparation to give it away. Cleaning out the car is where I started this blog! There wasn't a lot of mess, but the car had boxes of things from cleaning out my mother's apartment months ago....

sigh.

What I'm thinking now is that for those of us who struggle with clutter, de-cluttering is fraught with meaning, that Things hold inexplicable energies that need to be dealt with, stories that need to be told, if only to one's self, before letting them go. And it's strange which Things have meaning for us.

It took me only a half-second's thought to offer on Freecycle the encyclopedia the kids used a lot when they were younger (of course, that letting go gives me Shelf Space - a prized commodity around here), but I agonized over an old cell phone bill.

Today I shredded that May 2005 bill....how could that be hard? But it was - it had pages of calls that Patrick made in May 2005. I stared at the numbers and looked at the times he called mine...and finally put it in the shredder pile.

Ob-la-di, ob-la-da....

Hoarding

2006-08-10T16:07:00.000-04:00

Last night, MSNBC was running a show on people who hoard. I've been assured that I am as yet nowhere near being a capital-H Hoarder, a pathological label for behavior that is thought to be a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder. (The program also mentioned research about a genetic propensity, as well as the presence of a certain strep-related antibody which may affect part of the brain which is involved in OCD--all interesting stuff...)

However whenever I encounter such stories, it's sort of like a Scrooge/Ghost encounter. I feel I'm being shown what might have become of me but for the grace of God/dess and my husband....or what I could yet become. I always find things that resonate.

The program last night emphasized some of the therapeutic work hoarders can do. One of the things is to gain an understanding of why the OCD manifests itself in compulsive collecting, amassing of Stuff.

There is the insecurity of feeling as though each thing is a thing you might need someday.
There is the exhaustion of having to think very hard about that, analyzing the possible future use of each piece of paper, old bolt, broken clock. That is so overwhelming that people allow the things to accumulate, waiting for the day when they will feel up to the task of thinking, sorting, discarding.

And then there is the perfectionism. This is what many people find difficult to believe-that these people who live in the extreme conditions that can result from hoarding are perfectionists. Perfectionism is overwhelming and inertia-creating. Because you can't do the task perfectly, or because you are so afraid of doing it wrong....it never gets done.

These aren't new thoughts, and perhaps I even wrote about them before. But seeing the program has gotten me thinking about these things again. And I think it is really important to spend some time in understanding the "why" - for those of us suffering from Clutter, Disorganization and Too Much Stuff.

I think the key word is "suffering" - there is a certain amount of clutter that is part of my creative process, and it is a clutter that is inspiring and moves me forward in my artistic endeavors. Then there is the clutter that overwhelms, that absolutely impedes my work, and stands in the way of happiness and growth. That's gotta go!

Right now, I'm going to focus on the perfectionism. My goal right now is to identify when that is operating in my psyche and move through it to get some things done, however imperfectly.

current status: coping

2006-07-26T07:07:00.000-04:00

I am feeling the weight/energy drain of clutter, too much Stuff, and unfinished tasks. (Overlaid and permeated with the fog of grief and sorrow.)

I suspect that if I can just find a way to begin again that it will be a good thing for me on many levels.

The existence of this blog is also a weight. This, too, is a neglected and unfinished project. I sometimes think of ending this blog. But I'm not ready to do that just yet.

My son Shaun came over a few weeks ago and put together all the bookshelves I bought the week Patrick died. I bought them to put up in his old room, which he had already moved from. If Shaun hadn't done this, I know that those shelves would still be sitting there, unassembled, boxed, propped against the wall. The room has been very starkly empty and raw all these weeks.

It will always and forever be "Patrick's old room," the room he grew up in. I stand there and close my eyes and see it as it was. I can still hear the sounds of his guitar playing, game playing, snoring.... And take a moment to hold my love for him, to be grateful he came to be our son.

It took me a little while start to use those shelves, to work in that room. I wind yarn in there and I worked on my first weaving in there last week. As I do those things, it seems to transform the energy in that room, soften the sadness somehow, fill the emptiness with a new creative energy and potential.
I believe Patrick approves....

I Might Be Back...

2006-06-10T12:27:00.000-04:00

Technorati says it's been 60 days since I've made an entry in this blog. I want very much to resume what I started here, but frankly, it's agonizing trying to resume activities from my old life. And I know now that is the right phrase to use: "my old life." Patrick's death was also, in a different way of course, my own. Patrick's death was for my life the equivalent of a huge natural disaster, one which takes the earth down to only its earthness, one which changes forever the landscape. I am working very hard to just survive until new growth comes to soften the harsh lines of devastation, until I feel like I can begin to build things again.

Meanwhile, the same old clutter has crept back in the last 12 weeks...even The Chair is back to being what it was,
a chair, a filing cabinet, a closet. I offer pictures of how things have reverted to what they were when I began this blog. One of these days, I hope to wake up and feel like dealing with it all.

I think maybe it is a good sign that I vacuumed the living room today for the first time in all these terrible weeks. I sucked up cobwebs that lurked in the corners of the entryway ceiling, and did away with the bizarre pile of dust and bits of yarn and wool that had secretly gathered under the ottoman. A good sign.

I'll close with the final lines of a long poem I wrote about my longtime relationship/fascination with the moon, a longing to understand what its message might be for me... the last part of it juxtaposed my being in the hospital for Patrick's birth with being in the same hospital just a year before, when I nearly died of an asthma attack and I'd seen (or thought I'd seen) a lunar eclipse from my window. In the poem I was looking at the full moon from my hospital window after Patrick's birth....

"....a year later, bruised
and still trembling
with the birth
of my third son,
it seemed important
to stand
unaided
before the same speechless sky
expecting nothing.
I would only love
the luminous constant mirror,
the path of its recurrence.

Full with everythin
possible and intransient,
the slow pale oracle
of my longing
revealed something at last,
saying,
you can always
start over, levitating
from the edge
of a shadow,
as pure and whole
as this."

And so, I'm hoping that the poet-seer me spoke true, that I can levitate from the edge of this terrible shadow and start over....

2006-04-10T09:16:00.000-04:00

"Even in a world that's being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong."
--Hildegard von Bingen

I feel....okay today. Tomorrow I might be blindsided by my mourning again, but right this minute I feel okay. Okay enough to feel that it isn't awful of me to try to write in my blogs again. Okay enough to feel it isn't awful to pick up pieces of my old life and use them as I'm finding my way to the new one - a life in which one of my children has left not only the nest but the planet. Daughter Molly has chosen to go ahead with her own plans to move out and did so over a week ago. My life is indeed profoundly new.

No pictures to show just yet. And I am moving very slowly.
My goals right now in regard to dealing with the mundane tasks of moving toward an orderly life are to catch up on the paperwork, pay the bills for April, get that kitchen table cleared off and vacuum. Some laundry.
That seems quite enough for now.

2006-03-31T09:54:00.000-05:00

Those of you who read my main blog Lizards in the Leaves know that my son Patrick died on March 18, the day I wrote my last entry here. I have not been able to bear coming to this blog and reading my last entries because they were so full of him, of his moving the last of his things out, of his getting his car, of the huge change that made in my life, of how we were going to use his old room....

I am living moment by moment and each one can be radically different. I do intend to resume my journey here because....because I have to do that. In fact, it seems more imperative than ever. But it surely will be a bit different journey.

We now have all of our son's possessions to care for. In the grand scheme of things, he didn't have a lot. We decided the only way we could get through doing this is to consider the care of his earthly things to be sacred acts.

When I started this blog, I felt this it would be documenting and helping me on a journey that had spiritual dimensions, but I didn't realize how spiritual those dimensions could be. One of the driving forces behind my desire to simplify and de-clutter my life was indeed the fear of leaving a big sad bunch of Stuff for my children to deal with when I die. And that is certainly something to consider when we buy and acquire and accumulate.

My son left behind, for the most part, things which had significant meaning for him. As bone-deep sad as it is to handle these things and think about giving them away, because these objects were meaningful to him, it becomes a significant way to grieve --to let them, and him, go with one more act of our love for him.
Love. It's everything.
Everything.

the 3-day time-out

2006-03-18T12:06:00.000-05:00

Just a quick check-in - I like to update my blogs at least every 2-3 days and it's been almost a week since I wrote here. Major family stuff occurred this week - reunion with siblings, niece and nephews; my son getting back behind the wheel(in his own new used car) for the first time since his terrible November '04 accident; my daughter flying off to a long campus visit to the college to which she might transfer. There was much talking into the wee hours, great cookies, a couple of good meals and the added fillup of a bit of car trouble.

All that happened in three days and suddenly it was Thursday and everyone was gone and I didn't have to drive anyone anywhere. And I felt a bone-deep exhaustion. So I've slept and slept and knitted and spun a bit and done a bit of looking around rather bewildered at what is suddenly a very different world for me now that I don't have to drive my son everywhere - one with more time and more space; and the freedom to decide for myself how to spend the time and move in the space.

I am applying my 3-day time-out rule here.
A long time ago, I arbitrarily decided that 3 days was the allowable maximum for pining over a broken relationship, lost job, disappointment or for freaking out of any kind. 3 days for wallowing in self-pity or recovering from a not-so-restful vacation, sudden change in circumstances, etc. 3 days to stay in bed with covers over the head, hair getting lank, eating only yogurt and/or chocolate. And after that, time to get moving, take a long shower, wash that hair and get on with life.

So today is day 3 of my bewilderment/exhaustion wallow. Time to make some decisions, set more goals, get moving. I have hats to make and clutter to de- and weight to lose.

Bookshelves are coming on Monday and I will be able to fix up Patrick's old room as a really functional space. But first, on Sunday, I will finish working on the remainder of Mom's things which the retirement community allowed me to move into a smaller,vacant apartment. They are going to let us continue to use a little wire storage unit that went with her independent living apartment so I am just going to move those boxes of papers into it for now and not try to make sense of them and organize them yet. Mom has not asked about them, so that seems an okay thing to do for now.

I want to say that I am still reaping the benefits of what I've accomplished so far in my decluttering. In the past, a 3-day swoon would have been made unpleasant by being surrounded by clutter, accompanied by rampant guilt at the mess's existence and disgust at my inertia. But these days have been, on the whole, restful and recharging -- which, after all, is really the purpose of the 3-day time-out in the first place, n'est-ce pas?

paper clutter, new space

2006-03-12T17:38:00.000-05:00

Before I get to my intended topic, I'd like to tell you something about my Secret Pal. This is the 7th SP project, where knitters with blogs get matched with others and spend almost 3 months spoiling each other. I recently discovered the identity of my SP - and also discovered that this blog has inspired her to start decluttering and blog about it! Peacock's blog has the clever title of Beyond the Frame - because she was careful to make sure the pictures she used on her fiber arts blog didn't show the clutter in the background! She is truly a sister in the struggle...

In next few weeks I'm going to concentrate on paper clutter. Gotta get the taxes done and this year I can't do the extension thing which I usually do since my daughter needs our tax information for financial aid applications.

So I might as well use this time to also do some heavy-duty decluttering in the realm of all the saved paper craziness, and some organizing that hopefully will make my paperwork life easier. I am working on a better system for bill-paying and recordkeeping for the family, which for the last few years has also included my mother. For monthly bill-paying, I'm trying out a variation of the system I found described here.

Meanwhile my son, who moved out last summer, has finally gotten almost all his stuff out of his old room, and my daughter is planning to move out soon to have a few months sharing an apartment with a roommate before transferring to a university in another city. Boo-hoo. Yahoo! Free, empty space; more room.... a wonderful and yet dangerous turn of events. If a clutterbug is not cautious, empty nest-freed rooms can become big junk drawers.

This brings me to the sliding block puzzle analogy.

You know those sliding puzzles where you try to make a picture or particular numerical pattern or shape out of a mixed up set of squares? These squares are fitted together in a larger square frame and you may move only one at a time. There is always an empty spot, so that you can move a square to move another square to move another...and so on.

There's some online, like this one: Get My Goat, a puzzle from 1914, in which you try to move a goat inside a fence - you should be able to solve it in 28 moves. (If you like these kinds of puzzles, I found it in the Classic Puzzle section on the Sliding Block Puzzle Page.)

If you're still reading and haven't gotten hung up on those puzzles, here's the analogy:
completed puzzle = my decluttered, organized household
empty square = Patrick's old room

Without that free space to use as things need to be shifted around to create some order, the task of decluttering is a zillion times more difficult. In fact, for me, it was nearly impossible. I have so much Stuff, there's no place that's clutterfree enough to use as the holding space while I get to Stuff that I can get rid of so I move back the Keeper Stuff....and so on. (This analogy is sister to The Old Woman and the Pig analogy.)

This lack of a free space has been a huge obstacle for me, producing that cycle of overwhelmedness/inertia. For awhile, I tried figure out how I could utilize my storage unit that I use for my book business, but I was reluctant to put it to a personal use since it's a business expense.

I also saw big red flags in using a storage unit, both from the standpoint of it being inconvenient and from the possibility of suffering the Out-of-Sight-Out-of-Mind Syndrome. (And I've seen those Hoarder Horror Tales, those who really have it bad fill up their homes then rent storage units and fill them....shudder...)

So, here's what I plan to work on: Patrick's Old Room (which we eventually see as a computer/library/guest room). Since he originally moved out, I've started to use the room to store some yarn and bins of my finished fiber work, as well as a place to keep the printer my daughter and I use for our laptops. My husband would really, really like to have some bookshelves in there - his own (incredibly neat) home office bookshelves are overcrowded and he'd like to have a place to display all the running trophies he's been winning - one of which he just acquired on Saturday---way to go, dear!!!

Friday Patrick and a friend came in and took out the last of his furniture.
For now my goal is to make the room functional, both for our intended use of it and as my free space in the grand decluttering puzzle I'm working.

Here are pictures of the room as Patrick left it on Friday, all my stuff piled helter-skelter:

I did begin work on this yesterday and am about halfway through. Took me awhile, as the dust was so bad it aggravated my asthma. I need to remember to wear a mask when I get into places that haven't been cleaned in awhile!

I'm very excited about having this space and using it wisely!

'zann

little feats and little stripes

2006-03-10T09:41:00.000-05:00

Life has been very, very difficult this week with my mother's situation. I have encountered my boundary, I think - the place where my tolerance for stress ends and hives begin. I should have remembered this from last October when a similar thing happened, but I didn't and had to get the message again: my poor mother is in a place where nothing I do or give will be enough and so I have to set the limit for doing and giving where I need it to be for my own health and well-being.

I feel almost desperate that these changes I'm trying to make in my life do not get sabotaged by events and responsibilities. I probably spent two days this week in a kind of de-stressing crocheting mania, and have created some marvelous hats, but the bills weren't getting done and there was no decluttering and guilt began its dreadful nibbling at my spirit. And so I resolved again that every day I must do something, anything, even the tiniest step onward (little feats) towards my goals.

I do count as "onward steps" my taking the time to maintain order I've already established, and I have continued to do that. This is really a remarkable shift - I used to run out the door on errands or appointments leaving behind the clutter and mess of whatever I was working on up to the last minute before I had to leave. It is starting to become more of a habit for me to make myself stop working so I have time to tidy up. And it really only takes few minutes.

Here's one of the little feets I accomplished:
SOCKS!

This was the result of doing laundry and also gathering together two huge batches of single socks I had been accumulating in the hopes of finding their mates.

Alas, this following is an After picture, all the socks still left partnerless:
At least they can all fit in one drawer now and I shall continue to try to match them for awhile. At some point, they are going to go or become something crafty.

Speaking of going, I am still working on letting go of clothes.
There are some items of clothing that I keep for purely sentimental reasons. They even have names, like Seinfeld and his Golden Boy t-shirt.

There's the shirt I call The Binky Shirt - a worn blue cotton from India that I haven't worn in maybe 15 years, but which I can't bear to throw out because I wore it constantly when I was pregnant with my daughter and for many, many nursing months (years) after. I'm wearing it in numerous pictures of me c.1988-91. It's called the Binky Shirt because I used to keep toddler Patrick's pacifier in the pocket and he'd pat the pocket when he wanted his Binky....awwwwwww, the memories, the memories. I haven't run across it yet in my goings through the clothes, but it will come up and decisions will have to be made.

Meanwhile, Little Stripes is in the to-go pile. Little Stripes was ordered from one of those catalogues where all the colors have names like mud and cloud and echinacea, and all the people look pensive, petulant or bored rich. For some reason, this sort of catalogue appealed to earth mother post-4th-pregnancy chubby moi. And I ordered this shirt and a long brown skirt in a heavy cotton knit, neither of which was very wearable in the climate of South Florida.
Luckily I moved north shortly after and got good use out of both.

It's 15 years since I bought those and the skirt is still a keeper. But Little Stripes has been hanging around for years since I stopped wearing her/him (unisex size) regularly, worn at all extremities:
so loved, though, I just haven't been able to let her/him go. And it was only after I took a picture and promised to write about her/him that she/he would let me say good-bye.

Good-bye Little Stripes!

Compared to the rather dramatic decluttering projects I accomplished when I started this blog, I know the matching-up of socks and the discarding of one shirt must seem awfully insignificant. But they're not - the sock matching reminded me that the regular doing of even the smallest decluttering task can make me feel good, on track and closer to my goal.

And letting go of Little Stripes was a big lesson for me. I think I learned a way to deal with the sentimental impulse that is one of every packrat's major issues:

Do something to honor and keep the memories and emotions evoked by the object: take a picture, do a bit of writing about the object and the memories it carries. Digitize it, turn it into bytes, move my clutter to cyberspace!

It may slow things down a bit if I wind up trying to honor everything I keep for purely sentimental reasons, but I think this idea is going to be very useful to me on this journey.

back to the journey

2006-03-05T22:09:00.000-05:00

After finishing the main part of my mother's apartment, I decided to take a few days as "off" as I can, thinking I'd catch up on paperwork, do some reading in the Paul book, rekindle the fire of my first days in decluttering. Alas, none of that really happened. I did try to relax a bit, though my procrastination about doing the bills and paperwork was always there in the background, making me feel a bit guilty. Very familiar pattern. I decided to just observe it, and try to learn more about it, since I wasn't able to overcome the procrastination enough to actually do the bills and paperwork! I'm not sure what I learned except that I hate it when that happens.....

Today, I felt all the to-do's I'd thought I'd do as overwhelming. So I decided not to think about it and make a hat. I've made a lot of hats this week. And I'm very excited about these hats as they are very close to the visions I have of the sort of work I most like to create. You might think this belongs more on my fiber arts blog, and that's where I'll post the pictures in a day or two, but I wanted to write about this here as I really think that the decluttering I've accomplished so far is a major reason why I'm experiencing this creative leap towards my artistic vision. Even the the little bit I've done has been tremendously freeing for me in so many ways.

And that is, of course, my purpose in embarking on this journey.

But there's more....I made a hat, yes, but I pushed myself a little to get back to the journey and accomplished this today:

Remember this kitchen shelf?

Now it looks like this.
Not particularly pretty,
but it's functional and organized,
dried fruit and nuts far less
than 5 years old
and shelves for art
supplies near where I
work and need them!
And best of all, some
empty space - the bane of
decluttering when you're in
as big a mess as I am is that
there is no place to put
anything when you do get around
to trying to put things in
appropriate places.

And remember my shipping table?

Well now it looks like this:

Of course, I don't have any book orders right now, but
I'm ready for 'em!

And now, I'd like to show you why I don't have anything to ship -- the total disaster area that is my main work area and the reason why I haven't catalogued, uploaded, created auctions, etc. since the bookshop closed last September. I'm not saying I'm ready to tackle this next, but I know I've got to deal with this very soon.

I don't think this picture really captures the extent of the disorder! It is the one area that really does look a bit like those poor packrat/hoarders homes. You can hardly get to the computer there, there's stuff on the computer chair, and look, my scale is just sitting on top of the scanner...I had to move a bunch of stuff because we had a leaky pipe and I've never put anything back. That was at least 4 weeks ago....

Finally, to end this long entry, I want to publicly thank my canister vacuum. I love canister vacuums. I hate uprights. There is nothing like a canister vacuum for ease of dealing with attachments, getting into the small spots and corners. And they follow you around like a loyal dog, or R2D2, and best of all, help suck you out of a mess and really help to make that decluttered area look so much better!

Thank you, Mighty Mite!!!

why is this bookseller.....

2006-03-01T11:23:00.000-05:00

......packing a book for shipping on her dining table? Why, when she had to shlep all the packing materials from the basement; why, when it hurts her back to work standing at such a low surface????

The answer to those burning question below.

Meanwhile I feel pretty good about the situation with my mother's apartment switch. I really did get everything done that needed to be done by yesterday. Today the retirement community folks are going to move all the papers I still need to go through, plus furniture going to charity. They will move it into a vacant apartment where I can spend a little more time dealing with the papers. They have also decided to allow my mother to keep the little cage storage unit that goes with that apartment, and once I get some organization to her papers, I can store them there. That way, I can bring small amounts of them to her to go through or work on, and we won't be overwhelmed and she won't be able to mix them up again.

I guess I didn't say that one of the most important things is that my mother had been working on getting her poems together to publish a collection. She had been working with a personal assistant over the last year and before she became so ill, they had poems in good order, discovering that there should be three books, and pretty much had the manuscript ready for the first. But last September my mother's life came crashing down with a very stunning onset of dementia/depression/hallucinations. Her papers got shuffled about, mixed up...a tornado inside and out.

So The Papers are very important and I need to take care and time with them, and it looks like the situation will now allow that. And in such a way that it needn't take over my life and cause great stress.

Needless to say, I haven't been spending much time on my own clutter. But it is time to get back to my journey. My next assignment is in the answer to the question above: 'Why is this bookseller packing a book for shipping on her dining table?'

Because her shipping table looks like this:

eeek! Next time I'll write a bit about how my little bookselling business has nearly vanished over the last few months and how much I want and need to have it back as part of this journey.

wishing all a jolly, stress-free day,
'zann

content with small means

2006-02-28T08:44:00.000-05:00

The following quotation was in my morning's email, well part of it, in my "Word of the Day" mail that I signed up for with gratefulness.org. I thought I'd offer it here because it's appropriate to the subject of this blog and because of various synchronicities I feel: William Ellery Channing is a famous Unitarian and I am a UU, though not famous; and because my middle name is Channing and it's a family handmedown name and I've always wondered if I'm related to William Ellery in some way.
So you see I have this tenuous connection/genuine affection thing for him, and I'm pleased to share his words:

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury,
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with an open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious,
grow up through the commonplace.
This to be my symphony.

Dealing with Mom's apartment is going well and in a few minutes I'll be getting ready to spend most of today there. There are many thoughts I've been having as I do that task, thoughts that bear on the issues I deal with in regard to my own disorganization and clutter. I will have to process them a bit more, but I'm anxious to share them here because they will probably be very valuable to me personally as I seek to change. And hopefully sharing them will be of use to someone else working with the same sort of challenges.

just time for a quick note

2006-02-25T14:17:00.000-05:00

Well. I must face certain facts in life and one of them is that I am not Superwoman. Another one is that there are only 24 hours in a day and a third of them should be spent in sleeping or, at least, relaxing. We must not give thought (envious or admiring) to Martha Stewart's apparent deal with the devil that allows her to function at high capacity on a reported 3-4 hours of sleep. That reminds me of the excellent "Beggars" or "Sleepless" trilogy of books by Nancy Kress, which explores what might happen in a society divided between those who need to sleep and those who do not.

Ahem, back to the matter at hand which is supposed to be an explanation of why I'm not posting oodles of pictures of decluttered spots and my enthusiastic notes about the philosophy and spirituality of decluttering.

The situation with vacating my mother's old apartment is rather critical. The retirement community wants me to be out of there by March 1. I had hoped to keep it an extra week. To be fair to them, they are offering to help me "in any way" they can, that's what they said!- even to move things to another vacant apartment to give me more time to sort through the papers, etc. I may take them up on it. But since I really want this to not be hanging over my head, I'm going to try very hard to complete this by the 1st. It will be much better for my mother as well, as having stuff in two apartments only adds to her confusion and distress.

I will need to focus all my attention on taking care of that for the next few days. But I wanted to reassure you dear people who peek in here to cheer on my progress: I am keeping my own journey at the top of my thoughts, maintaining order where I've already created it, taking time to knit or crochet a bit, and even managing wee spots of decluttering here and there.

Some progress notes:
I have gotten into a routine of leaving nothing in the car and, when I come into the house I take a few minutes to hang my coat & scarf in the entry closet, put away anything I've brought in with me. Formerly, everything sort of got dumped in trail as I came in - my purse or tote on the floor in the entry, my coat on The Chair, and anything that came in with me (shopping bags, books, papers, knitting.)..wound up on the dining table or The Chair's seat or the line-up of stuff on the floor behind the sofa.

I also take a few minutes several times a day to clear off the ottoman and chair arms (they are fat enough to function as end tables!) where I knit and read and often blog.

I have decluttered a couple of the shelves on those kitchen shelves I posted pictures of in my last post. Now I have a spot to put the little box of drawing and collage supplies I really wanted to have at hand close to the table where I'm working on things right now.

I also spent a little time today clearing clutter and organizing in a room I've not yet shown here: my little room upstairs which we all call The Goddess Room. It's a special room and deserves a special entry, and I will say no more for now.

So. The journey continues and all is well.
peace and art,
'zann

plans, easy kitchen declutter

2006-02-21T07:42:00.000-05:00

I expect to be spending the next couple of days dealing with the clearing of my mother's old apartment, figuring out what she needs in the new (much) smaller apartment, what needs to be kept and stored in her storage unit, and what I must find a new home for. Today is the delicate task of working on her papers - her writing and her saved paper items are her most precious Stuff and of course the source of her most pernicious disorder and clutter. And because I keep running across family things, it is a difficult task emotionally for me - Mom's poetry and writing is primarily about nature and our family, there are love-letters from my late father to my mother, written in the 40s, his old i.d., his writing,too....

But I am not going to let that task derail my own decluttering!

I still have the organizing of my important paperwork to do. This is the only thing I have procrastinated on in the last two weeks and it feels like a huge weight hanging over my head. Never mind that I am determined this year to NOT get an extension on income taxes, to get them finished by April 15.

I also feel I need to do some of the mental preparation work in Marilyn Paul's book - really work on the visualization and affirmation exercises, so that I have a very clear picture to call on of what I want my life to look like.

That's a lot of things to do that won't have a big visual effect, and I like that visual effect of my efforts. So I'm also going to work on a couple of clutter spots that won't be very difficult, but will give me that frisson of pleasure and encouragement to view:

This is a small shelf in my kitchen/dining room.
Ever since the kids were little, I've kept a little nature table scene a la Waldorf education classrooms/homes. There seems to be a great deal of dust in this gnome house and a giant can of raisins seems to have landed in the gnome's front yard (look closely and you can see him standing next to it.)

On the shelves below is a motley mixture of new and old food items, spices, nuts - I'm sure there is dried fruit in those containers that is many, many years old.

In the same area, here is another kitchen catch-all spot which goes from bananas and honey and table linens to a shelf of kitchen towels and spices to a shelf of tools and a good supply of baking soda.

It's a beautiful golden sunny day here in Indiana!

'zann

thoughts after two weeks

2006-02-19T12:41:00.000-05:00

It was two weeks ago today that I started this blog and my grand life-changing project. I am amazed at what I've accomplished in both the outer and inner realms of my life. I feel as though I'm moving very, very fast and that has both an up and down side. Today I thought I'd deliberately slow down a bit, take stock and reflect on what's happened for me so far, and where I want to go in the next couple of weeks. The following is a bit more personally revealing than I usually like to be.

One thing that I haven't mentioned is that in the last two weeks I have also been working on clearing out my mother's 2 bedroom apartment. She has moved into a smaller, assisted-living apartment, a studio. She is also a clutterbug of grand proportions, and much of my impetus to change my habits has come from observing everything she has gone through for the last few years, as well as my memories of her in earlier years.

I can distill all that into this: I believe my mother has spent an enormous amount of her 83 years in dealing with clutter and too much stuff and messiness and disorganization. She feels guilty, she worries and frets, she endlessly 'tidies up' and she has never gotten tidied. I believe she has lost precious creative time (she is a writer) and precious time to create her own self.

I was horrified at the thought of the same thing happening to me.

This was a fully realized thought for me over 3 years ago and that was when I first tried to embark on this decluttering journey - 6 boxes of papers went to the Goodwill shredding facility and I thought I was well on my way to developing a daily decluttering routine that would save me from living a life of frustration and longing, with far too many dreams unmanifested.

Then in February of 2003, awful things began happening to close family - violent deaths and accidents and illnesses, serious and traumatic events, huge changes - like my mother moving here to my city. ( Oh, and never mind That Change that occurs for women at midlife....in the face of all these other events in my life, menopause is a distant star going nova. It'll take years for me to see the light from that event and realize it happened!)

My poor mother is now traveling the sad and terrible path of dementia. It's more of a roller coaster than a path, and for her now, life is filled with horrific hallucinations and delusions. Some might question the wisdom of my embarking on this major decluttering/enlightenment journey as I am dealing with the difficulties of my mother's illness.

But the Big Thing I've Discovered this past two weeks is this:
This journey is my salvation . And it needs to be all about Me.
Everyone says, 'you have to take care of yourself...don't forget about you...' Well, this endeavor is Self-Care of the highest order. With my living room well on the way to being decluttered, I have an area in which I can truly relax - read, spin, knit, think. And I've found that when I feel low or depressed, some time decluttering gets me moving and uplifts me. It's wonderful that my husband and daughter who also live here get some benefits, but that's just a nice side effect. I wouldn't be able to feel so determined or sustain this level of effort, if I didn't do this just for myself.

Finally, I am doing well in my effort to change habits that have contributed to my clutter: I am consciously trying to bring less in and take more out, and I am taking a moment to put things away as I go. So all the progress I've made in clearing clutter is not being undone, and I feel like I am on my way to making new habits to support that.

Not sure just what I want to work on in the coming days, so all I'm going to post today are some results photos of the last couple of days' work.

The clothes are piling up...

in the Going to Goodwill Pile!!!!
(Note: these are already out in the car, ready to be uploaded to Goodwill tomorrow)

And remember the Hearth o'Clutter?

It now looks like this:

This is as good as that area is going to be for now. I would love to have posted a picture without that plastic bin and tote, but those things aren't going anywhere soon - the tote is full of knitting to finish and the bin is full of recent book acquisitions and art/craft magazines that I definitely need to keep and will start putting away little by little as I get rid of books and magazines I definitely don't need to keep.

I feel good today. Real good.

too many clothes & six impossible things

2006-02-16T11:38:00.000-05:00

I have A Plan for Dealing with the Clothes Situation. I have far too many clothes, but every time I have ever tried to weed them out, it doesn't take long before I get bogged down in an awful, fuzzy-headed can't-make-another-decision inertia. So it just cannot be a task to be done all at once, like cleaning up my dining table.

I talked to my sister last night about getting rid of two things for every one piece of clothing I want to keep. I was thinking about doing this in conjunction with doing laundry, but I think even that would be too big a job. I've come up with something else that just might work for me.

Every day, when I get dressed, I will "pay" for each item of clothing I want to wear by getting rid of two. And I decided to start today:
I am "paying" for my jeans, black shirt and vest by discarding six things. I am very happy to say that two of the items were kind of tough to let go, including a purple vest I knitted.
I am not going to include underwear or socks in the plan.
I am also going to try to wear things that I rarely (or never) wear but keep because I like them and believe I will wear them. Someday. Today's vest is one of those things. I got it at Goodwill months and months ago, and I think I've worn it once, maybe twice. If I don't start wearing it more often....OUT IT GOES!

Ooh, I thought that "OUT IT GOES!" with the same feeling I imagine the Red Queen had when she cried "OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!"

Writing of the Red Queen reminds me I wanted to mention here something from the Marilyn Paul book . In the chapter on visualizing, she wants you to imagine the kind of life and home you want to have.
She anticipates that you might feel you are imagining the impossible and quotes the exchange between Alice and the White Queen when Alice is asked to believe the Queen is 101+ years old.

Alice laughs and says "There's no use trying....one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

As a book person, I love the reference. And I also love it as a directive -- to visualize six impossible things before breakfast, six wild and crazy visions of that orderly, joyful, creative life I want....

and here's the ironing board - freed from clutter to be useful once again!

side effect decluttering - The Chair is A Chair!!

2006-02-15T13:40:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn't plan this, but in working on the hearth o'clutter yesterday, I had to move other things and put things away and consolidate and one thing led to another and.....voila! Two more energy-sucking clutter spots have vanished!

The Chair

I have to say I feel sort of sad that it is now A Chair That Was A Closet That Was A Filing Cabinet and not nearly so interesting.

But it had to be done. Right???

Oh, I had brief moments of crazy-thinking that I could somehow preserve it, make it a real art installation (as someone mentioned to me). But where would it go? And most of the Stuff on it was Stuff I use regularly and need - my monthly bills files, important papers for my mother and son, my winter coat and scarves, my shoes for goodness' sake! - just parked there because all the appropriate and convenient places are respositories of Stuff I Don't Use and Need.

(Incidentally, that shawl on The Chair is the first fiber thing I ever actually completed and wore - crocheted, 1971 acrylic, made while awaiting the birth of my first child.)

Here's the second clutter spot that bit the dust yesterday:

The Ottoman
Magazines, magazines, magazines,
knitting, knitting, knitting,
books, books, books,notebooks
pens, bits of notes, bits of yarn and fuzz

(before) (d'uh)

et apres:

I need say no more about The Ottoman, except that it's really nice actually to put my feet up when I sit in My Big Fat Chair!

So...next on the decluttering agenda, finish the hearth o'clutter (half-time picture in the previous post below shows current state of the project) and catch up with paperwork, get it more organized. Now that won't be so visible a project to document in pictures.

I put all the paper stuff from The Chair into a file box, and right now it sits at the dining table where I am forced to work on paperwork until I can get a desk area cleared off somewhere else:I shall try very hard....no, I will keep the dining table neat and orderly and work to create (ASAP) a better, easy-t0-maintain system elsewhere for dealing with life's damnably necessary paperwork.

Finally - I'm gonna take care of this spot toute de suite,
since I'm unearthing all sorts of things I want to iron or do finishing work on - my pie wedge shawl, and the sweetest bluebird-embroidered cloth I got on eBay ages ago. It had been languishing, un-admired and un-enjoyed, at the bottom of the Chair-Closet...

It will probably be a couple of days before I post here again, as I've got to take care of that paperwork and I also want to work on some art.

I feel like I've made a great start on what I expect to be a project that will take me a year (!), though I have a secret goal of finishing this by my 55th birthday at the end of September. My first priority has been to make some space where I can actually relax and not feel all those pulsating waves of guilt that emanate from clutter-spots. And it feels very good to have done that!

pants, hearth of clutter (half-time results added)

2006-02-13T10:47:00.000-05:00

Last week, when I was looking around to see what other people might be saying about clutter on blogs, I came across an inspiring entry back on 02.08 from RamblingMuse, complete with a couple of great quotes from Thoreau.

This morning, I had one of those moments when I am just amazed and frustrated at how I hang on to things long after I should have let them go.
I had a bit of a time crunch as I was getting ready to take my son to work and I am behind in getting my laundry done, so had to grab a pair of very old pants to wear.
I've never really liked the color of these pants, but the cotton is soooooooo soft in its worn-ness that I really love them, so I've kept them around for 10+ years, pulling them out when there's nothing else to wear and always enjoying a moment of textural delight as I feel how soft the fabric has become.
I put them on, grabbed my (handknit!) socks and went downstairs to get my socks and shoes on. Just as I was pulling on my sock, I put my leg over my other and this was the sight that greeted me:Now, that didn't just happen. (oh, and if you're distracted by the long johns, here's all you need to know about them )

No, that rip is not even a rip. Over a year ago, I had to cut my pants so I could get them on after a knee-high cast was put on my leg. Did I throw them away when I got home? Nope, I washed them and saved them (in a pile of stuff on my dresser), thinking I'd make something with the material.... which I never did. Recently, in clearing up the pile on the dresser, I neatly folded the pants and put them in my drawer so I could pull them out this morning and be shocked.

Where are they now? In the garbage? Nope. They are now lovingly folded and put in my sewing room (which really looks just like a cluttered attic room right now.) We'll see what I do when I get around to the decluttering up there.

Next on the decluttering action agenda, the wall of clutter across my hearth (we never have fires because of my asthma, not that we could get to the fireplace if we could have a fire....)
What we have here are the Christmas fixin's to be stored (some ornaments to be tissue-wrapped first), and bags and boxes and plastic bins of yarn and fiber, knitting projects-in-progress (not much progress), and knitting equipment.

This is proving to be a more involved decluttering! Most of this Stuff is Stuff that Needs to be Stored, Good Stuff, Keeper Stuff...so it's taking me longer 'cause it's definitely Old Woman and Her Pig nesting tasks that are involved. Here's a half-time picture, it's coming along!

great book, spinning area (results added)

2006-02-11T15:39:00.000-05:00

I know I said I wasn't going to even look at, much less buy, any new books on getting organized but the other day I bought three. Right now I'm only going to write about one of them.

It's Hard to Make a Difference When You Can't Find Your Keys by Marilyn Paul

This book is definitely for me and the journey that I envisioned for myself when I began this blog to document it. I even read the introduction (which is entitled Organizing as a Path to Growth.) I am also underlining and making marginal notes, something I rarely do. That means that the book is truly mine.

You can get a zillion books on how to clean and how to sort Stuff and how to throw it away and how to organize. But it's the rare book that helps you discover why you amass so much Stuff, why you are messy and disorganized, and how you can change those things.

The first thing Paul suggests is to fully understand your compelling purpose for getting organized. She writes, "When you create order not for the sake of order alone, but to manifest something that is deeply important to you, you get the fuel for change."
She provides very simple written exercises that get to the essentials of one's longings and purpose.

Then, to help reinforce your will to change, she offers an exercise based on an Anthony Robbins declaration that '....one essential ingredient of creating change is to associate enormous pain with the way you are living now, and enormous pleasure with the way you want to live."

After doing that, it's time to make a commitment to getting organized and changing the behaviors that have created the clutter and mess and disorganization. And that is at the end of Chapter 2, which is where I am.

I actually made the commitment a week ago when I started this blog and I am really delighted to discover this book - I believe will be a valuable companion in helping me to keep that commitment.

Doing this blog and having the comments and encouragement of people who are reading it is equally as valuable. Thanks!!!!!

Time to declutter my spinning area- two compelling reasons: it's right there by the front entryway and the clutter is absolutely affecting my enjoyment of spinning there.

This is going to be tough, as one of my biggest clutter/storage problems is with my art materials, my fiber stash, my yarn stash and all the tools that go along with these creative urges of mine.

02.12.06
Before I post results, I want to add another view of the table where I spin. I took it just before I embarked on the task. It's pretty horrifying....

I've been working all afternoon on this. Behold:

I am pleased to say that I dealt with the horrifying table clutter most honorably. Everything on it was either thrown away or put away properly, nothing went to create another pile o'clutter.

I cannot say the same for the bags and bags of fiber, spun yarn, unfinished knitting projects, bags of knitting needles, etc., that were lined up behind the sofa. They moved over to what I am thinking of as the Hearth of Clutter, over where the Christmas tree box and ornaments await their putting away. But that was the only way I could really sort things out (and they are all sorted out, really just need to be stored now ) and get some semblance of organization. So I would say I am only half finished with this task and I shall post a picture of Hearth of Clutter tomorrow and make that my next task.

Meanwhile, I am going to feel real good about the order I've restored to my spinning area!!
'zann

christmas tree & dining table (results added)

2006-02-08T09:29:00.000-05:00

Just a quick entry today, I've been a too verbose lately. With dental work today and doing stuff for my mother tomorrow, I'm not going to be home much. However, I intend to do some decluttering every day. Even if I can only spend 10 minutes, it will keep me going.

My next two tasks (the first feels very embarrassing to post):
Take down the Christmas tree!

Clean off the dining room table

02.11.06 - Had two days of things that kept me out of the house, but I worked on these projects when I could and I'm happy happy happy to report:

Tree's down and tucked tidily into its box. Clearing a path to the storage space in the attic is a Task for Another Day, as is wrapping up the ornaments and getting them all put away.

And here's a nice clean dining table. Right now, since it's the only desk-type surface available, this is where I have to do paperwork, but I'm going to try to keep it uncluttered. No. I am not going to "try" - I will keep it uncluttered. Really.

Yes. Over there in the bottom corner, those are 3 manual typewriters. It's an inherited curse/trait - both my mother and I will buy any old working typewriter if it's less than $20. ( I think my mother would buy them even if they don't work )

I have to say that I have used all of these at one time or another. The one in the middle is Really Cool. It's a Royal Swinger typewriter and it has a transistor radio in the lid. Works, too. How could I pass that up for $5?????? And what if the electricity goes out and I must type a poem? Gotta have a manual typewriter around, right? I suppose I'll have to choose between these at some point and let two go. I'll discuss at a later time my old Selectric that's stowed away upstairs.

pigs and buckets and my car

2006-02-07T09:17:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I posted in the sidebar an Official Folk Song and an Official Folk Tale for this blog. Why? Because as I was contemplating various things I need to do to continue my quest here, I realized that so many of those things required something else to be done which required something else to be done which required something else to be done in order to do the previous something else in order to do the previous something else, etc. in order to actually complete the original task.

That litany, that sequence of tasks that have to be done to accomplish the simplest thing, is the bane of every clutterbug's existence and also induces that familiar glassy-eyed state of Overwhelmed Inertia....

and I was reminded of the traditional folk song There's A Hole in the Bucket and I also thought about the old folk tale of The Old Woman and Her Pig. Now the latter is, as most folk tales are, rather violent with the butcher-hanging and ox-killing and all, but it is certainly an appropriately metaphoric tale for what I have to do to get the pig home - the pig being, in my case, this monumental challenge to declutter and organize my life.

The specific thing that spurred my thinking about this part of the problem of clutter was thinking about taking stuff to Goodwill, both for donation and re-cycling. Also I need to get my bookselling stock of books out of my house into the climate-controlled storage unit I rented a couple of months ago. I realized that I have to clean out my car in order to efficiently proceed in getting Stuff and Books out of my house and into their right places.

Clean out my car???? OH, man - that means I'll have to find a place for all the Stuff that is in my car! Some of that Stuff in my car is boxes of books that I didn't have room for in the house (that have been there since we closed the bookshop in September!), but didn't want to put in the climate-controlled storage unit until they get catalogued, until I get more organized, and I didn't want to put them in the non-climate-controlled storage unit and.... blah, blah, blah.

Maybe there isn't any rope-gnawing or dog-beating involved, but it is certainly the Old Woman and Her Pig scenario. I don't know what time my pig is getting home, but I know I need to clean out the car before it can even start in that direction.

As for the Hole in the Bucket, I've decided that the Hole-y Bucket is the perfect metaphor for things you just shouldn't even bother to deal with, the Stuff that needs to go. The people in the song go through all the things that need to be done to fix that bucket and they come right back to find out they can't fix the bucket without a bucket. Pitch the Hole-y Bucket and get a new one. Or do without.

So...I'm going to think of things in this project as either pigs worth the effort to take home or unfixable hole-y buckets that need to go.

(Incidentally, I choose to think the Old Woman is taking home The Pig to be her companion animal, a loyal and comforting pig-being presence in her lonely little thatched-roof cottage.)

TASK: Clean out the car

Doesn't look too bad from a distance - Stuff is not piled up much past the bottom of the windows....

Let's open the front passenger door:

There's junk all over the dashboard, a pile of stuff between the seats that is actually Stuff I Use pretty regularly, music tapes, my deliciously warm wool lap blanket knitted in a rosy Lamb's Pride worsted - but mixed in is a lot of junk-drawer type clutter, old pens that don't work, papers, etc. Let's look in the back seat:

Now, here's where we're getting into the mess - the floor is covered with trash, trash bags that have trash in them, and dozens of empty and almost-empty water bottles, some rolling around on the floor, some already bagged to take to recycle. I carry around extra coats and gloves, for my mom or one of my kids, just in case....and what's that over there on the far side of the seat? It's....

.....Oona Baboona Orangutan!
and her pet rabbit.
Oona jumped into my cart one day at Goodwill, saying she wanted to ride around whimsically in my car. My kids don't get the whimsy, they find Oona embarrassing ('Makes you look like a Crazy Lady, Mom' said 17 yo daughter with pierced nose, blue fingernails and goth-black hair). I also have to explain Oona's just a stuffed toy to my elderly mom who finds her a tad.... startling... each time she rides in my car.

And now, the back back:

Bumper-sticker clutter......
and

boxes of books, catalogues and magazines for Goodwill, more water bottles, stuff still in the car from the late-September Artsfest booth I had, trash, books, papers, a snow shovel, old straw hat, books, and a still-boxed folding hand truck bought for all that taking of catalogued books into the climate-controlled storage unit...etcetera.

Well, wish me luck! I feel like I need to do this ASAP because the weather, while cold at 30-ish, is pretty good for now and because the clutter in the car really is a big obstacle in the way of my getting de-cluttering tasks accomplished with more ease. Will post results when there are some....

Am trying an experiment, editing my post to add the results. Here goes....

It was really amazing how cleaning the car worked out. I did most of the work in about 50 minutes in a very efficient way...took my son to work, then went to my old non-climate-controlled small storage unit. I decided to just go ahead and put most of the books into storage there. The books are just bread-and-butter books, nothing rare or particularly delicate, and all the books I've ever stored there have survived just fine. And really - not sure if my car is any better than that storage unit anyway!

So...I just unloaded and rearranged and picked up trash right there in front of my unit. Then I drove home, stopping at the Goodwill recycling center right on the way, where I unloaded the dozens of plastic water bottles and the zillion magazines and catalogues.

Then I drove to the alley behind my house and straight into the garbage can went the bags of trash - the neat thing is that I made it just before they came to pick up the trash today. I felt SO efficient and quite virtuous, though there was still a bit left to do. Took me another 50 minutes or so - and I want to stress that I dealt with everything, I did not just shift Stuff from car to another Stuff Stash - everything has been recycled, thrown away or put away. Car isn't clean, needs to be vacuumed for sure, but it's now fully functional and ready to be of service to me in getting the pig home!
(Oh, and I almost left Oona at Goodwill, but just couldn't bear to do it. Maybe I will someday.)

Two of these boxes are: the emergency coats and gloves and car maintenance.The third is one box of things that still needs to be sorted and put away.

Not bad, though. I'm happy.

books & systems

2006-02-06T09:20:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd write a bit about books and systems available on the subjects of clutter and organizing, but first some words about my husband - he is a very neat person, and does a lot of housework-type stuff. He has been very understanding (most of the time) about the clutter, and I know it hasn't been easy for him.

I offer a public thanks for all he does to keep the matters of the household running!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I took this picture of the dining table this morning:

Guess which side "belongs" to my husband.....

As for those books and systems, I've probably skimmed through them all and bought half of them. I'm not too shabby at devising systems myself, and once I set my mind to de-cluttering, I don't have a terrible time parting with things. My difficulty is (just like with weight loss) maintaining the system. So what I need is not so much the system, but the philosophical/spiritual/psychological shift that will help me change my patterns of acquisition, messiness, procrastination.

Two books which I really find helpful for my needs in those realms are:

Clear the Clutter / Make Space For Your Life by Inge van der Ploeg

The Spiritual Tasks of the Homemaker by Manfred Schmidt-Brabant

Both of these books are European, one translated from Dutch, the other from German, and I got them through Anthroposophical Press originally (they are available on Amazon)....so if you know anything about Rudolf Steiner and anthroposophy you will have some idea of the spiritual sensibility expressed in them. It seems to me to go a bit further than the notion of work, of the keeping of one's home, as a sacred activity, but it is in that realm.

In future posts I'll try to be a little more informative about these books, include a few excerpts that I've found valuable.

And then there is Flylady . Here is her book:

Her site is a virtual life coach for dealing with clutter and housework and organization. And there is a huge amount of practical information and inspiration that is available for free on the site. I am not sure I would want to actually follow her plan (you can jump in at anytime) day by day since I'm such an independent soul that likes to wander my own path. But I'm sure I'll be taking some of her great ideas with me.

I've decided to try to limit myself to those resources - otherwise I'll probably fritter away my time reading a zillion books and websites on "how to declutter" and never do any decluttering!

Here is the mail table just past the entryway. We're looking at 2-3 months of catalogues, and a variety of miscellaneous stuff - my asthma meds, a tape recorder, box of checks, glue I bought to glue the carpet on the porch (6 months or so ago). Underneath are gardening books bought several years ago when I thought I'd try to to some gardening, a nice supply of canvas totes and a basket of ancient receipts. I haven't even looked in the drawer, but it's really small so there can't be too much Stuff in it.

Okay, so I didn't deal with the gardening books and totes. They all seem to be tucked away fairly neatly and seem happy there and the totes are just where I need them, to grab up when I'm running out the door for carry-around knitting, or library books. And our sad little plant needs to be there, too, I think. It was given to us on the sudden death of a beloved family member in 2004 and that's where we put it then and it just seems to belong there.

All in all, it's been a good day - some de-cluttering, some paperwork done...I feel hopeful, even a bit energetic.

the stuff right by the front door

2006-02-05T17:40:00.000-05:00

I've decided on the general format for this blog's entries. First, I'll share a little bit of where my thoughts have led me, trying to stick as closely as I can to the topics of clutter, possessions, organization, hoarding, time, space, black holes, etc. Then I shall post a picture of a very specific, practical task I want to accomplish. And finally, if all goes well, I will post pictures of the results. I expect that sometimes I will post the task and the results will appear in a later entry.

My thoughts in no particular order:

I want to avoid using words like battle, attack, conquer. I don't want to be in a war. Instead I will try to use words like transform, change, create, accomplish.
It's best for me to focus on small tasks, trying to find ones that will make huge differences right away. To that end, I think that trying to clear clutter from the main living spaces is most important right now.
I must keep my focus narrow - if I step back and look at the whole house and all that needs to be done, I feel overwhelmed - inertia follows. Nothing gets done.

I've had many more thoughts today, but will save them for other posts. It is action time!

This is a spot in our little tiny entryway where I tend to drop the canvas bags I tote around - all the Stuff I seem to need in my busy life on the road, much of my time spent helping one of my sons and my elderly mother. There's also a box of books I bought 'way back in the early summer of '05 - a great acquisition of some series mysteries that I haven't even started to read yet. What else...oh, an unopened box of software I bought weeks ago and a bag of unfinished knitting projects I've been carrying about.

I went through all the totes, consolidated my essential carry-arounds into one, actually found places to put most of the things away, and a few were consolidated with like things in some other stack in some other place-not something I want to do a lot, but one of my biggest obstacles right now is lack of space to put things away properly.

I vacuumed the area, and made myself stop.
Here is another pitfall of trying to clear clutter - some of us cluttered folk are, believe it or not, perfectionists! And one of the reasons we don't get things done is that we make the task so involved or time-consuming it becomes overwhelming. I had to fight my urge to take up the rug and vacuum under it, to clean the smudge-laden door, the baseboards, etc.

The thought occurred to me that if I can take care of the clutter, I can actually reward myself by hiring a cleaning service to come in and do that kind of cleaning. Now, I don't know if I will actually do that, but the notion that would be possible is very helpful in keeping me focused on the primary task - Clear The Clutter!!

Things I Am Happy to See Again

unearthed a bar of one of my very favorite chocolates: Lindt Bittersweet
a couple of anti-war buttons
Annie Modesitt's books: Confessions of a Knitting Heretic and Cheaper Than Therapy

and so....I begin

2006-02-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

This is a huge, huge project.
I am a person of wide-ranging interests and all the Stuff that goes along with each endeavor. Attention span sometimes as wide as a subatomic particle.

I have thousands of books. Books I love and keep. Books I love and sell. Books I just sell.
I have yarn, bins and bins of it. And fiber.
Magazines.
Art supplies:
for knitting and crocheting and spinning and felting and dyeing and sewing; for beading and wire work; for drawing; for collage and paper crafts

and I have papers and papers and papers and pictures and way too many clothes....
I'll stop.
Everyone knows what makes up Clutter.

I'm not exactly sure what form this blog will take - at first I shall just write a bit, try to find the way I need to proceed.
I know that I need this to be a real journey, with lessons and joys along the way.
Some enlightenment. Oooh, that is a very good word for this journey! And I will end this entry with that word.
Enlightenment.