First Thing I've Wrote All Week

It has been a week I don't want to repeat. We had the funeral on Wednesday, and everyone in our dysfunctional family behaved. My comment has been "We didn't have to take anyone out and beat them with a stick; it was a great service!" Here is the tribute page the funeral home put up for my grandmother with the obituary. We had 83 signatures in the guest book, so at least that many people came to a Wednesday afternoon funeral. She started thinking that no one would come toward the end.

UfYH helped me get on the ball as far as housework goes for this past week. The only things out in the kitchen are the water bottles I need to refill and put back in the fridge. Make-up that I put on for the funeral is still out and I need to put that away. And paperwork covers the writing desk in my home office. That's it. Given how I have (especially under circumstances like this where other people need more of my energy than I do) let everything go to the point where a marathon cleaning session is a must, this development feels HUGE.

I took Mom out for a spa day to help her relax and got my hair cut. My hair has an interesting characteristic when the weight of the length is taken off. It flips out like Mary Tyler Moore's. The student and hairstylist instructor didn't believe me until they kept using the hair dryer and brush to make it curl under and the hair would come off the brush the wrong way. A flat iron finally got it flat so I could leave the beauty school.

This morning when I woke up, half my head is still flat. The other half flipped out. :p

This is the first thing I have been able to write in a week. Just when I thought I'd have breathing time to write (just to keep my flow going, not expecting to produce anything useful), the phone would inevitably ring with Mom needing something. And I'm not trying to sound like a selfish bitch, but I need my coping strategy too! Object lesson for this week: write first before housework when the normal routine has been thrown out the window.

Weekend plans: grocery shopping and new cell phone shopping. Last Friday, the damn thing did not ring when Dad called and I didn't have it on silent. Then I plugged it in when I got home and the next morning it was dead. I think it was a battery issue because I got it to charge after checking it, but overall, I'm not in love with this phone so I should find one I like better. Also on the agenda: finishing the thank you cards and any other paperwork Mom needs help with.

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The BookWorm

My grandmother just died

3:45pm Neller Ree Vampran drew her last breath. My mother was with her. I wish I had more pertinent details of her life to share. I did this biographical interview thing back in high school, but where the hell is it now?

It's not a big shock, she's been declining for over a decade, and it's been especially bad for the past three months.

Best way I can help my mother is by helping with logistics and cleaning their house. I don't think my mother has seen me on a cleaning frenzy before, and certainly not one aimed at her stuff.

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The BookWorm

Daily Chores and Me Take Two

Last I checked in with Mom, Mama Ree was responding well to the treatment and was due to move out of ICU for another room in the hospital. It's been a few days so I don't know if that has happened yet or not.

I spent the weekend, Lundi Gras, and Mardi Gras dealing with a nasty head cold. I'm still coughing, but I can breathe through my nose even if my voice still lives in another register (or maybe it's just my hearing). The achies are gone, which goes the longest way to making me feel functional again.

So all the chore changes I wanted to implement last Friday fall on this Friday instead. Which is all good, because I found Unfuck Your Habitat this week. Despite my Jerkbrain's insistence, my house is not a disaster area. I'm fairly good at putting things back where they go. My fall downs are dishes—that spills over into the rest of the kitchen—vacuuming, and dusting. So why do I keep having freak-outs over not following my checklists and staying on top of the chores? Third-generation packrat who knows just how nasty it can get if I let my ass fall into the inertia of laziness.

The second part of this issue is I have time scheduled for the chores in the morning before I leave for work, but I haven't been waking up on time so everything has fallen off schedule. I know the biggest issue with that is going to bed on time, which hasn't happened in a while, but last night it didn't happen because I was finding my kitchen again. Yeah, definitely time to have every chore on maintenance level, so I can use the free time to exercise and write and relax.

What I like about UfYH's tactics (besides the sighs of relief with the before and after pictures "I'm not that bad yet") is her insistence on breaks. You either work for 20 minutes and take a 10 minute break or work for 45 minutes for 15 minutes. It may have took four 20/10s to find my sink under all the dirty dishes last night, but giving myself permission to sit at the computer for ten minutes in between sessions was liberating. And I didn't cheat and stay on the computer longer after the timer went off.

So the goal for this shake-up is to keep all the chores at maintenance level (where a few minutes everyday equals done) and to move it back to the morning unless that's completely impossible. Currently, my chores are broken down into what must be done daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly.

Daily Chores

• Make bed
• Empty sink of all dishes
• Spend 15 min. on budget subtasks
• Worked on Writing Project #1
• Worked on Writing Project #2
• Worked on Writing Project #3
• Set out stuff for tomorrow
• Exercise for the day
• 30 min. on website maintenance
• Weekly chore for the day

This works—except for the minor fact of actually DOING them—so the only tweak I'm making is to change the time limits to 20/10s.

The goad attached to weekly chores that if you miss doing them, you aren't supposed to do them again until the days rolls around next week. That way two weeks' worth of ick factors into making you do it. Your mileage with this tip will vary; since I don't remember the last time I vacuumed, it's probably not working as intended.

Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – Update Fiction Tracker
• Wednesday – Vacuum whole house
• Thursday – Change litter and clean bathroom
• Friday – Pick up whole house and Post to blog
• Saturday – Laundry and Cook meals for the week
• Sunday – Weekly Review, take body measurements, add measurements to FitDay.com, and write Hot Bod post

This would be the stuff that's not being done in a timely manner.

Doesn't matter what weekday I put vacuuming on, it doesn't happen. And when it does, I'm cramming it into my weekend. So first thing is to officially move it to the weekend, Sunday in fact. What was on Sunday for diet and exercise tracking is moved to Thursday. Updating the Fiction Tracker works better on Fridays when I'm writing other blog posts, so that leaves Tuesday free to pick up the whole house.

Updated Weekly Chores

• Monday – take garbage out to main can
• Tuesday – pick up whole house
• Wednesday – change litter and clean bathroom
• Thursday – Take body measurements and add measurements to FitDay.com
• Friday – Write blog post, update Fiction Tracker, and write Hot Bod post
• Saturday – Laundry and cook meals for the week
• Sunday –Weekly review and vacuum whole house

The Kanban Flow looks a thousand times better with those streamlines. The only thing I have left to do is add in the Writing Projects #2 and #3.

Weekend plans: As much as I would love to see Bruce Willis blow up Moscow, I'm broke when it comes to movies. So I'll stay home and work on my taxes and see if I will be unbroken in the near future.

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The BookWorm

Derailing the Plans

I feel like crap, coming down with the post-nasal drip cough. I dragged my butt to work, dragged my butt home, and the plans I had was to tweak when I do what chores and blog about it followed by curling into bed and not getting up until Monday.

Mom calls me when I get home needing a ride to the hospital after dark. Mama Ree is back in and she has pneumonia. I wasn't planning on celebrating Mardi Gras but I can't believe she's back in on a major holiday again.

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The BookWorm

February's Here Already

Time is relative, but I think that was the fastest January has ever flown by. So how did I do on my monthly goals?

• Exercise 30 days in a row. – I managed 10 days. Exercise also doesn't travel well.
• Cut out grains as much as possible. – No, I didn't stay away from the sweets like I should have.
• CCFairy's homework is due Jan. 18th. – Done.
• Finish all alien languages for Stellar Gift of Death - I'm going to run a day over.
• Write 20 days on Strix: Forget the Sun - I have wrote and brainstormed, but not 20 days worth.

I could have done much worse.

February Boulders

• Use BodBot for a month. – I want to kick up my exercising and push what my body is capable of. This web-app tailors exercise programs for you.
• Cut out grains as much as possible.
• CCFairy's homework is due Feb. 20th.
• Write 20 days on Strix: Forget the Sun.
• Read through Stellar Gift of Death and wiki catalogue details on aliens and locations.
• Post all the TDKR fanfics.

Another do-able list; let's hope I get more done.

I had a good time this past weekend. I ended up playing a wizard, which I don't recommend after too little sleep and too early for cleaning. It was a fun adventure, even if we didn't get to finish it.

This weekend's plans: avoiding the Superbowl and starting Krista's wedding dress. And if Mom isn't up for sewing, I've got writing and housework to do.

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The BookWorm