take on 43 small challenges to build fresh momentum

9) put the small table in the basement

10) Put all the clothes in the bedroom

11) drag the matress into the bedroom

12) bring the mirror into the bedroom

13) FLATTEN BOXES and STORE in basement – or recycle unusable.

well, the living room is basically cleared out, so when the furniture gets here day after tomorrow, there won’t be a major crisis in having space to put it.

I have the mattress dragged into the bedroom and made up – nice and toasty with my space heater and my two little ones cozied up in here.

I have the big table moved out to the dining room (aka study).

Tomorrow is GARBAGE DAY – so I do need to be sure to get up in the morning and take out the garbage and the recycling…... which has been accumulating for a bit.

All in all, a good day’s work. I’m nervous about work work – job and all that – but happy to have some progress on the home front.

The furnace failed this morning. With some graceful luck we are having a mini heatwave. Where last week it was 6 degrees on waking, this morning and tomorrow we have record highs of 60. Thank god for that.

The thing about that is… not only is my apartment in such disarray that I’ve been too embarrassed to let my landlord schedule painters for the last (sept..oct…) 5 months, but also… I’m not allowed to have pets.

But, one can’t endlessly delay notifying the landlord about the furnace when a mini-heatwave is scheduled to last only 2 days.

I would HAVE to notify the landlord of the furnace situation; I would HAVE to accept that he would potentially be in my apartment within 24 hours.

AND, I would HAVE to get my mattress into the bedroom by TONIGHT, because it is the only room I am able to keep warm with a space heater.

So, my untidy flophouse has undergone quite a bit of work today, despite my mood, which has been not so stellar lately.

Progress has been slow, but steady. I keep returning to the tasks, because I know I can’t not finish—moving everything, and ridding the place of traces of cat lady lifestyle. When he actually comes, the little ones are going to have to go into the car, which they’ll hate, but it can’t be helped.

(One also can’t help notice how gentle and well-timed this mini-disaster is. It happens on a day when the record temperature gives me enough time to get all of this done… so that I can go one night before notifying the landlord, so that I don’t have to panic. And yet, it lights a fire under me to get moving, really moving, on all this. And tomorrow morning is garbage day. THEN!! I get a phone call from the IKEA delivery people and they say that my furniture is not coming this Sunday… rather, they are ready to deliver TOMORROW. I was able to put them off until the day after tomorrow. Sometimes, I’m amazed at how life tucks itself around me, trying to help me get along.)

3) take apart the computer stuff and put it on the floor

4) bring the lamp into the living room.

5) Turn the table over and take off the legs

6) bring the top into the living room

7) bring the legs

8) reassemble

9) put the small table in the basement

10) Put all the clothes in the bedroom

11) drag the matress into the bedroom

12) bring the mirror into the bedroom

13)

After this weekend in bed with the laptop – the place I often wind up when I am by myself, even though I hate myself for it and know I should do something else – I’m feeling anxious. Not just anxious… I mean, a little panicked.

It’s the feeling I get when I run out of time to do everything I’d planned, or anything I’d planned. I think, even though there is no external authority for me to report to on this home-making goal, on some level I can feel the awfulness of losing a lifetime to procrastination and avoidance and laziness. Lost weekends accumulate.

It’s a creepy feeling, when the awareness of it starts to fill my heart and the back of my head. Lonely and creepy.

I’m scared, because I don’t feel like I belong anywhere.

But, the cure for bad feelings is engagement with normal day to day life. So, I just need to face this overwhelmed feeling and do little things, build momentum.

Embracing_freedom’s comment about focusing on making a nice comfortable bedroom sounded so nice, and about just doing a little at a time. I just read it again and took comfort from it again. So, I’m just going to break it down into the tiniest steps, and I’m going to be happy about every single one of them, because each one is necessary, and each one is progress, and more than I was doing before.

1) Get the laundry out of the dryer (it was down there for days)

2) Make space in the dining room for the desk and computer stuff.

3) take apart the computer stuff and put it on the floor

4) bring the lamp into the living room.

5) Turn the table over and take off the legs

6) bring the top into the living room

7) bring the legs

8) reassemble

9) put the small table in the basement

10) Put all the clothes in the bedroom

11) drag the matress into the bedroom

12) bring the mirror into the bedroom

13)

I am in such a state of ambivalence.

You all know this age-old question of mine, about where to live. I’m struggling with it mightily, right now, because I have NO MONEY – and in 2 months, I don’t know where I’ll be living.

I don’t love the city I live in. I don’t even like it much. I find it too expensive, given its lack of appeal.

I dream always of moving elsewhere – back to NY, or to the West Coast to be in sunshine and among friends and friendlier people. Boston is a lonely place, and there’s a pall of misery, it seems, over everyone. I know that’s just my own distorted perspective because I haven’t made any friends and I really dislike the snow and cold.

I was looking at apartments – little dung holes with flimsy curtained windows and wood paneled walls, fluorescent light fixtures and shallow bathtubs. With slimy real estate agents who squawk at me about the convenience to the highway and the convenience of Murphy beds, and the convenience of the coin-op laundry in the basement. Then we go down there and it’s a frightful place where Japanese directors could shoot their horror films.

It’s really the pits, I tell you… having no money in a place like this. When I lived in the midwest, for LESS RENT than these little dumps are charging, I had a beautiful sprawling apartment with a sweet little laundry room of my very own, right in the apartment, and a pool and gym in the complex (not that I ever used those, but still) and two assigned parking spots. A 5 minute drive to work.

And now this. For what? For my family. That’s what.

Oh, I have to hit the road – brother wants to beat the traffic back to Beantown. I’ll have to continue this thought later tonight.

I’ve just reviewed my initial list of things, and find that many of the items on the list are things I did manage to accomplish in June, but can’t bring myself to cross off, now, because they all need to be done again. The kitchen, bathroom, living room and office all get dirty again nearly as fast as I clean them.

The progress on cleaning and organizing did make me feel better about life in general. I have spent far more time outside my bedroom, working actually in my office on the current semester’s assignments.

The health initiatives – going for a week’s adherence to various healthy behaviors – haven’t been AS successful. I did manage to cut the drinking back dramatically (though not to nothing), my sleep hygiene is much improved and I haven’t watched TV/Netflix quite as compulsively. I cleaned up my diet marginally – got back below 160 for the first time in 2011 – but not enough. But, not a lick of exercise as yet.

I feel the list needs revamping – because the idea is to build FRESH MOMENTUM – and right now a long list of chores doesn’t feel fresh or particularly relevant. At least, I think there are other areas of my life in more desperate need of momentum building.

Stuck life areas most in need fresh momentum:

• I’m BROKE, unemployed, clueless and terrified
• I’m running out of time on my lease, don’t know where I can afford to live, and have been too scared to think about it
• I’m extremely insecure about my qualifications to work in the field for which I’ve gotten a degree
• I’m afraid to try and fail at a job
• I really don’t WANT a job in this field, particularly
• I spend very little time mentally focusing on the realities of this situation
• I don’t spend time conscientiously building my skills or figuring out what type of work might be a good fit for me

• I’m overweight
• I’m really physically unfit and lethargic
• Dissatisfied with my body – I cease to take much care of my clothes or appearance
• Anxious about everything – I zone out with TV and internet far more than is healthy. I don’t like how it makes me feel.
• I’m not putting the health-promoting food and water into my body.

• I actually think the apartment is fine for now. The self-care and work areas are really in crisis and need the most immediate infusion of new energy.

So, first thing to do is give some thought to what kinds of activities could bring new momentum and light into these areas of my life. I’ll give that some thought for the remainder of the weekend and report back with a list.

22. Clear the office floor of books – PROGRESS

23. Clear the office floor of papers(put into file boxes) – PROGRESS

24. Sweep/mop the office May 27th, DONE!

25. Make a clean space to arrange keyboard, guitar, music stand/stuff in a practice area. – MAJOR PROGRESS

33. Sweep / mop living room – PROGRESS

... Now I just have to deal with the interruption of having to visit mom for the weekend. I hope the momentum won’t be nipped in the bud – but if it is, I’ll restart when I get back.

5. Green tea instead of coffee – 1 week

13. Clear the bedroom bureau
14. Clear the table in the office
15. Put the clutter from the table and bureau into plastic drawers
16. Sort the clean/dirty laundry piles

21. Sweep and mop the bedroom

28. Flip my mattress May 24th done

31. Get a haircut May 24th (came out looking pretty nice)

36. Clean bathroomtop to bottom

37. Do something kind/loving daily– 1 week
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.

It feels overwhelming even to contemplate the de-cluttering and re-energizing of my life with these challenges… but I am SO stuck – and I need to free myself of this stuckness. I can’t move forward with any new goals or aspirations until I let go of my numbing habits, get conscious and start digging myself out of my chaos.

Most of these 1 week goals are things I’d like to instate forever, but making them 1 week goals to start with will make it easier to get started.

1. Make my bed every morning – 1 week
2. Stay out of bed for a minimum of 8 continuous hours every day, – 1 week (cleaning apartment, studying at library, café, bookstore, working out @ gym, wherever – just not in bed)
3. Wear day clothes during the day, PJs in bed, and bathrobe only while drying off – 1 week
4. 1 week without drinking alcohol
5. Green tea instead of coffee – 1 week
6. NO flour/sugar – 1 week
7. Visit the gym daily ^{even if all I do is confirm that it’s still there} – 1 week
8. Meditate 20 minutes each morning – 1 week
9. Keep the bedroom an electronics-free zone – 1 week
10. No media (internet/tv) past 8pm, every night – 1 week
11. Create a flylady morning routine
12. Carry out my fly morning routine every day – 1 week
13. Clear the bedroom bureau
14. Clear the table in the office
15. Put the clutter from the table and bureau into plastic drawers
16. Sort the clean/dirty laundry piles
17. Put away the clean
18. Wash the dirty
19. Bring the dry cleaning to the drycleaner
20. Bring the goodwill clothes to goodwill
21. Sweep and mop the bedroom
22. Clear the office floor of books
23. Clear the office floor of papers (put into file boxes)
24. Sweep/mop the office
25. Make space to arrange the keyboard, guitar, gig bag, sheet music stand and sheet music in a nice little music practice area.
26. Practice guitar for 30 minutes each day, for 1 week (rewarm to it)
27. Wash my bedding
28. Flip my mattress
29. Clean out my car
30. Schedule a tire rotation and replace the spare
31. Get a haircut
32. Sweep and mop the kitchen
33. Sweep and mop the living room
34. Wash my bedroom windows
35. Organize my office bookshelves
36. Clean the bathroom top to bottom
37. Do something kind/loving for someone every day – 1 week