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Mirrored from Just Orb.

• To the people who were expecting information from me yesterday, you will be receiving it today. If anyone else needs anything, I'm BUSY! #
• Taking a coffee break before doing some math. Probably won't make the math any easier, but at least I won't fall asleep! I hate math. #
• Two 25 year old women who live with their parents, have never paid bills, bought groceries, done chores buying a house together? Priceless! #
• "I think the time and maintenance it's going to take, you know, to keep a house up are things that we're not willing to do." Ha ha ha ha ha! #
• Holy moly, math done! Now to take a mental break and eat something before compiling everything into a human readable format. Brain pain! #
• Brain work done! Information disseminated! Now to get ready to FaceTime with my mom. Have I mentioned I hate video chatting? #
• Video chat with my mom wasn't as awful as anticipated, but now she wants to make it a weekly event. I may change my opinion in a few weeks, #
• I have a splitting headache. I think I'll premake some of dinner now, in case this turns into a migraine. #
• Have decided to completely change tonight's dinner plan and make pizza. Pizza is easy. Also … tasty. #
• The two houses next to Mom's have been bought, and there's going to be a restaurant of some sort built there. That'll be interesting. #
• Just noticed I didn't get the granola that was supposed to come with my farmstead box this week. Wah! I'll have to email them about that. :( #
• Oh, apparently the farmstead box said something different in the email than the web site. I got the tea on the email list. Guess I'll live! #
• Pizza devoured! Once that settles, we'll be having a cinnamon bagel with some if that locally made cream cheese for dessert! #
• Tomorrow starts early and is 95% guaranteed to mostly suck. I better get to bed and try to sleep, so I won't be crankier than necessary. #

Mirrored from Just Orb.

• Situation: annoying. Mood: cranky. Outlook: less than awesome. Bring on the coffee! #
• Having set up the rules for my Decluttering Creativity Challenge, I will now move on to dealing with the rest of my existence. #
• Going to go find a good pot for my new spearmint plant while my next cup of tasty coffee is brewing. Then it'll be time to dig in the dirt! #
• Found a proper sized hanging planter for the spearmint. The only problem is it's totally ugly. Must do something to rectify its hideousness! #
• Can of gloss white spray paint located! Ugly pot soon to be less ugly … or at least differently ugly. LOL! #
• Did a little touchup painting on that pot, and now I'm sitting here panicking about what to make for dinner. It'll probably be pizza. #
• Pot Painted http://t.co/Dk7XQ3md #
• Now that the spearmint has been safely and prettily repotted, time to put on clean clothes and seriously contemplate dinner preparations. #
• I've got some spicy ground turkey thawing which I may use on a pizza or in something else. I'm going to take a little nap and ponder it. #
• Took a much longer nap than intended and woke up cranky and more tired than pre-nap. Having Chuy's takeout for dinner, which is nice. #
• Busy reading a number of biological research papers. Not exactly great pre-dinner reading. #
• First time trying the Chicken Flautas from Chuy's. Plenty of food on the plate and all of it excessively yummy! #
• Hello, vertigo and a nose bleed! I thought the sinus infection was gone, but it would seem not. Boo. Hiss. #

Mirrored from Just Orb.

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The pot is a little less ugly now that it’s been painted white, and the new spearmint plant is undoubtedly happier not to be root bound in its prior home. Yippee!

Mirrored from Just Orb.

I have too much stuff. Much of this stuff is in the form of things I want to make other things out of at some point in the future … either artwork or repurposing into something useful. While recycling and reusing the old to create the new is indeed a noble pursuit, it still leaves me with way the hell too much stuff, mostly owing to my lack of time and energy to make and repurpose as quickly as I would have to in order to NOT have so much stuff on hand. In other words, I collect stuff faster than I use stuff.

Something has to done about all this stuff. Luckily, I have a packrat gene and not a hoarder gene, so getting rid of stuff is generally not a problem, aside from finding the time and energy to get that done. The last couple years, i’ve been really good at getting rid of stuff (or using it) in a timely manner, but … sometimes the stuff just really starts to stack up, and then it feels like an overwhelming task to get rid of anything or even to start getting rid of anything. Have you ever sat back in your chair and looked at a huge project and just stalled on starting in on it because OMG, where to begin? I think we all have at least once in our lives!

All the same, I need to get started getting rid of stuff, and the easiest way to do that is to start in on what I call my arts and crafts junk^† … the ever growing pile that resides in my current arts and crafts workspace (aka the kitchen). It didn’t start out as a huge pile. Just two smallish boxes of art supplies and interesting things. I bought a large plastic storage box a while back, organized the lot of it in there, and vowed to keep the pile down to only what would fit in said storage box. Naturally, I totally failed at this. It is now a pile of boxes, bags, and miscellaneous bric-a-brac. It’s all really interesting stuff, I assure you! Things that gave me ideas or put thoughts in my head of some sort, but it really hasn’t been sorted or judged worthy or unworthy, and since I’ve mostly been doing paintings and drawings for the last year or so, none of it has been getting used either.

Since that pile seemed like a good place to start getting rid of stuff (and a quick way too), yesterday, I dug into it, fully intending to get rid of lots of stuff. I sent half a trash bin of stuff on its way out of my life, and then, I started finding really interesting stuff and got overwhelmed, tired, and cranky. I made myself a cup of coffee, walked away from the mess I’d made in the kitchen, and began contemplating my situation on the Tree of Woe (with a soundtrack of my ever helpful cats rustling through and gnawing on the stuff tossed and stacked around the kitchen). That’s when it came to me: I need to find a way to facilitate getting rid of this interesting stuff in a way that is fun and creative rather than annoying and tiring!

Therefore, I have devised a challenge for myself, and I’ve decided on some rules. You know I love rules!

1. One small box or bag … or collection of loose objects that would fill one small box or bag … to be selected each Sunday.

2. Within the next seven day period, all objects in each collection, box, or bag, must be repurposed into something useful, used to create something artful, placed in a box for donation, or tossed in the trash or recycling bin.

3. If, at the end of the seven day period, the prior rule has not been accomplished, all items must then be placed into the appropriate outgoing receptacle (trash, recycling, donation).

4. One unused item each week can be carried over to the next week’s collection, but no item can be carried over a second week without being used. At the end of its second week in a collection, the item must be placed in the appropriate outgoing receptacle if not used.

5. a) If all items in a collection are used before the seven day period has expired, the remaining time may either be “waited out” or the next week’s collection can be selected/begun early with the extra time added to its seven day period. b) If all items in a collection are recycled/donated/trashed before the seven day period has expired, the next collection must be selected immediately with the extra time added to that collection’s work period (maximum 14 days). c) If items in a collection have been both used and recycled/donated/trashed before the seven day period has expired, any leftover time must be waited out.

6. Purchased art/craft supplies (glue, paint, tools, etc.) have a permanent pass from forced donation/recycling/trashing (though such will be allowed if desired), but they MUST be placed in their proper storage location. If no such proper storage location currently exists, one must be created.

7. Each week’s collection will be photographed and posted on my blog no later than Monday noon. Update photos during the week are at my discretion. A final photo of any objects repurposed or created during the seven day period and objects which will be removed from the household, as well as the item to be carried over to the next week (if any), will also be posted no later than Monday noon.

8. Whining, wailing, and the gnashing of teeth is both allowed and expected. Breaking the rules is not.

And there you have the rules of the game! I’ll be starting my personal decluttering creativity challenge this Sunday, so stay tuned for those mandated blog posts!

1. † To be fair, the majority of the boxes in the Box Room are also arts and crafts junk, but one pile at a time, right? The Box Room will be next, right after the pile in the living room. [↩]

Mirrored from Just Orb.

• Three good things about today: It's grocery day, it's hump day, and … hot coffee. #
• I think I may get out the sewing machine today. I require new pajamas. My favorite ones are past worn out! It's a tragedy. #
• When in doubt: mid-century modern. #
• Pajama making on hold. I have no acceptably comfy fabric in my stash. Guess that project gets moved to the weekend. Boo. Hiss. #
• Second cup of coffee brewing. Then I'm going to do something creative that doesn't involve drawing. A bit burnt out on drawing right now. #
• Just did some supply procurement research for one of my larger projects and …. HA HA HA, no. Back to the planning stage. Way too much $$$. #
• Today's plan was to organize and clear out my art/craft supplies. Now the kitchen is a wreck, and I don't seem to be throwing anything out. #
• Think I need to go at this differently. Perhaps I should grab a box of stuff and set a deadline to either make something with it or toss it. #
• I guess I could leave all my arts and crafts junk lying about the kitchen and let the cats chew it to bits, which is what's happening now. #
• I'm taking the challenge! One bag or box of junk a week to be put to creative purposes or tossed out, with blog posts to keep me honest. #
• Thank goodness I got the kitchen recovered in time for the groceries to arrive! #
• Oh gods. More cabbage and kale … and eeeeek … beets. Beeeets. Have I mentioned I loath beets? #
• On the bright side of grocery day: local-made cream cheese & bagels, organic tea and coffee, and they tossed in a small bag of kettle corn. #
• My ability to resist buying $7 leopard print, low rise, skinny legged jeans in my size was tested tonight. I failed said test. #
• Oh hell. I still need to go do the dishes. I will not fail to have a clean sink when I wake up in the morning! #
• It would be great, if my unconscious sleeping body did not have to be involved in a two way cat fight over who sleeps where on the bed. #

Mirrored from Just Orb.

• Suppose I should stop reading the last decade of Popular Woodworking magazines and do something slightly more productive. #
• The new modem and router seem to have solved our Internet problem. Next storm will be the true test. It always goes wonky when it rains. #
• The house smells of cabbage, fennel, and oranges. Making something different for dinner tonight. Hope we like it! #
• Why is Around the World in 80 Plates on the SyFy Channel right now, instead of the expected Stargate SG-1?! Feeling annoyed and ripped off. #
• Why is a cooking competition show on the SyFy Channel anyway … at any time of day or night? Ridiculous! #
• Since I've been denied tonight's rerun of SG-1, and the cats have been pestering me for an hour, I guess I'll just go to bed. >:( #

Mirrored from Just Orb.

I have been a total slug about getting the food porn posted! I know some of you just love the food photos, so I hope you don’t overdose on this one!

Feta, onion, basil, and mushroom mini meatloaf with oven fries and a garden salad. The meatloaf was top notch, and I will be repeating the combination.

Pizza night! I’ve given up trying to make the perfect crispy pizza crust and am now focusing on making the perfect standard crust. I also changed my sauce recipe to make it thicker, so I could put more on without it getting soggy. Toppings included pepperoni, mushroom, grape tomatoes, feta, onion, and provolone cheese. Lin declared this the best pizza I’ve ever made. It was quite yummy!

Basic stew with beef, cabbage, carrots, onion, and potatoes. This is the first stew I’ve ever made that didn’t use a tomato base. It’s also the first huge pot of stew that vanished in one day. Apparently, we liked it. A lot.

Spinach tagliatelle with beef and mushrooms topped with repurposed pizza sauce and shavings of provolone cheese, served with steamed broccoli. Mmm, mmm, good!

Last night’s dinner was a bit of a culinary adventure. I had some veggies I needed to use before the next box of groceries arrived but that I wasn’t entirely sure I really liked (or knew what to do with, especially all together). Greenling to the rescue! One of the recipes they sent along with the groceries used the things that needed using, so I made it!

Cabbage, fennel, spring onion, garlic, and snow peas (which I added to the recipe) sautéed in an orange juice sauce, served with poached Italian sausage. I wasn’t sure what the veggies would taste like, and I was concerned it would be really sweet or otherwise obnoxious in flavor. It wasn’t! The flavors all blended well and ended up being really mild. I can’t say I’d go out of my way to buy the ingredients to make it again, but should I find myself with them in my fridge, I’d definitely repeat this.

There then, all caught up on the food porn! Hope I didn’t make you too hungry!

Mirrored from Just Orb.

• Typical Monday. Started with a Mom Crisis at 8 am. Thankfully, I still don't have a phone, so I can curse loudly while politely texting. #
• Now that I've solved everyone else's problems, I need to start today's missions: making more sherbet and baking bread. #
• Bread is out of the oven. Peach sherbet ingredients are pre-chilling in the fridge and soon to be churning in the ice cream maker. Yippee! #
• Time for an afternoon coffee and dinner planning. I think we'll have pasta of some sort tonight. #
• Laundry started, dinner prepped and ready to cook, sherbet chilling in the freezer, bread cooled and bagged, and I'm ready for bed. Beat! #
• Would it be considered rude to go measure your neighbor's porch to settle and argument? Probably so. LOL! #
• Now that the issue of neighborly porch sizes has been settled, I think I'll find something more productive to do like folding the laundry. #
• Also, let it be known … I have awesomely cool neighbors! #

Mirrored from Just Orb.

• I shouldn't say anything to jinx it, but I appear to be having an official day off as planned. Sshhhh. Don't let the universe know! #
• Feeling peckish. No time like now to try that celery flavored drinkable yogurt that's been sitting in the fridge being ignored. #
• I will now have to eat several handfuls of granola to make my mouth forget the celery flavored drinkable yogurt. #
• Time to end my long day of doing nothing. It was really great finally having a fully lazy day. I desperately needed a day like today. #

Mirrored from Just Orb.