The Ramblings of a Renaissance Woman

I know I mentioned in a previous post that I started repainting the house.  This was in preparation to replace the carpeting.  This project I started at least 4 years ago.  This past November the project was completed.  I finished painting the last room needed and the carpet was ordered.  For the most part, all of the painting was complete except my bedroom and closets.  The thought of emptying the closets and the room seemed so daunting and the longer I waited the worse it became.  The main reason was that I would need to ask for help.  Those that know me know this is an area where I struggle. …

Our house fire, while traumatic, was an opportunity for growth.  Before the fire we had so much junk, kids toys, cookware we never used, and every scrap of paper I ever received was held onto just incase are just a few examples of what cluttered the house.  While we were in the rental house with our rental furnishing it was refreshing not to have so much stuff.  My goal moving home was to keep up with this new minimalist attitude.  Over time things creep back into your life and you don’t even realize.  A craft project here and there and you have extra of this or that you may need…

I set a goal for January to go through all of my kitchen cabinets and drawers.  Removing everything from each so that I can clean the space and then go through each item and determine what should stay and what needs to go.  I am happy to report that I finished this goal today.  Most of the cabinets and drawers were not that difficult to quickly tackle, and I purposely started with the easy ones so I felt like I had accomplished something.  The worst two were saved for last, the proverbial junk drawer and the cabinet with all the plastic food storage containers.  The junk drawer was not as…

Most January’s I like to start fresh.  As the previous year comes to an end I purge my closet of items I did not wear or that do not fit well.  Once the new year begins I turn all of my hangers facing out.  As the days go by and I wear an item, when it is returned to the closet I put the hanger back the normal way.  At the end of the year I can see what clothes I wore and assess the ones I did not.  Some of the clothes I did not wear may be special items like my ski pants, we did not ski last…

As I usually do as the year comes to an end, I started looking through my journals for my goals from the year. I wanted to see what I accomplished and see what areas needed work.  To my surprise I could not find a single goal I wrote down for last year.  It was then that my year came into focus, no wonder it felt off. Sure I had signed up for the tri groups 12 training sessions to help improve my strength and I was getting the pool every other week but I never wrote down my targets.  How can I hit something if I don’t see it?  Work-wise…

It has again been months since I have written anything.  Ideas have popped into my mind and I brush them away choosing to be inactive.  Oh I start off strong at the beginning of the new year and at the start of each month but gradually I stop being as productive as I intended.  What I have realized is that I am consistently inconsistent.  So now that I recognize that, how do I harness this and rework it to my advantage?  I am trying to figure out what trips me up that derails my productivity.  Is it when my set routine is changed by adding in an activity that is…

When my children were little, to get them to clean up I used the timer game.  Since cleaning can feel overwhelming to small children, I would challenge them to see how much they could clean up before the timer went off.  The smaller they were the longer the time, but never more than 30 minutes.  The other day I was cooking soup and had 5 minutes on the timer so I challenged myself to see if I could clean the freezer before the timer ended.  Fortunately for me I had 2 five minute intervals and within that ten minutes the freezer was almost cleaned.  I needed just a few minutes…