Ok, I was reading
http://manvsdebt.com/stuff
And I liked the way Adam had all his belongings listed out. I decided to make my own list...hoping that it will keep me on track when weeding out my room. I made my list by saying to myself "If you had to quit your job for any reason and move this week, what would you need to take with you"? I guess I'll pretend I already have the van I mentioned in yesterdays blog and only keep what would go into that. Guess I will need to schedule a yardsale soon too.
I’m on a 3-day weekend right now, so I’m getting serious about weeding out my room starting tonight.
Seeing as I’m single & live alone and don’t have any stuff left with family, I assume my list could be smaller then Adam's when I’m done. (or maybe not)
I hope to only have 9 boxes in my room when finished. 1 box for each category, if an item don’t fit in the box then it don’t fit in my life. Sorry, but for now I'm not going to list every item that will go into each #box.
#1 Bathroom stuff
#2 Kitchen stuff
#3 Misc Household
#4 Tech Stuff (this term came from Adam,usually I called it the camera/computer box)
#5 Important Stuff (got that idea/term from Adam)
#6 Clothes
#7 Books
#8 Pictures (until I can scan them onto my computer..taken before I got a digital camera)
#9 Jewelrymaking supplies
Oh I know myself well enough to know that this will be tough because I am what some people would call a "packrat" or "hoarder". If you do an online search for both terms you would find a description of me. Well enough is enough....I QUIT!! I'm starting over, starting now.
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Friday, July 23, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Makeover for Life
http://www.farbeyondthestars.com/how-to-imagine-your-ideal-reality/
Now I read that blog yesterday, and it got me thinking. In fact I thought of it alot while I was at work today, too.
Now 1 of my brothers will ask me about my goals & dreams a couple times a year. I used to joke to my brother that he was like a racehorse. If you have ever gone to a horse race, then you probably saw that horses had "blockers" on their head that prevented them from getting distracted by anything around them. All the horse could see was straight ahead which was toward the finish line (their goal). My brother has been in the military for 25 years and he has more college degrees then anyone I know, and he got them all by the time he was 40. I wish I could be more like him.
I had already come to the conclusion that goals were something that you actively work towards, and dreams are just that...DREAMS, a fantasy, some far-fetched idea that could be the next Monday night movie or best selling novel. In my wildest daydream I can be 4 inches taller, with different colored eyes & famous living in a mansion instead of this dorm room I'm sitting in. But of course I know that daydream will never be reality and I accept that.
Now according to some people, we all have to have a goal, but if a goal is something that you are working towards, then I must not really have any goal. I have a hard time sticking to just one thing at a time. I lose focus easily.
"Why is setting goals important? Because goals can help you do, be, and experience everything you want in life. Instead of just letting life happen to you, goals allow you to make your life happen." Part of my problem has always been to analyze the heck out of everything and to take forever to make a final decision on anything. Usually if I do decide to go for something, it will end up being to late.
Now in the blog mentioned above, Everett says to dream big and list what you want to accomplish in one years time.
I think I will do this slightly different then what he probably had planned.
PLAN A:
My goal for the rest of this Summer: weed out my room!! By the end of Summer it will become my "minimalist dreamworld".
By the end of Autumn: Pay off my old court fine of $1,500.
For the end of March: I hope to get my driver's license back & hike to Phantom Ranch for a birthday weekend.
By July 2011 (1 year from now): I want to buy a used van that is already converted into a living space.
And in about another year~Summer 2012, I want to travel, take & sell photos while living in that van.
I'm still debating whether I really want to take on the burden of owning a vehicle again. I can make a list of pros & cons about owning a vehicle, so I might just scrap that idea. If I decide not to get a van then I will just skip the court fine and continue saving money...for "plan B" which I will explain when the time comes.
http://manvsdebt.com/sell-your-crap-survey/
This is another interesting blog that I probably should read more often. Adam asked for pictures of clutter, and today I sent him quite a few pictures of different areas of my room...OMG, what was I thinking? Now if that don't motivate me to declutter this roomful of crap then nothing will. I have no idea what he will really do with the pictures, but I'll have to send him new pictures in September of the "new & improved" room.
Now I read that blog yesterday, and it got me thinking. In fact I thought of it alot while I was at work today, too.
Now 1 of my brothers will ask me about my goals & dreams a couple times a year. I used to joke to my brother that he was like a racehorse. If you have ever gone to a horse race, then you probably saw that horses had "blockers" on their head that prevented them from getting distracted by anything around them. All the horse could see was straight ahead which was toward the finish line (their goal). My brother has been in the military for 25 years and he has more college degrees then anyone I know, and he got them all by the time he was 40. I wish I could be more like him.
I had already come to the conclusion that goals were something that you actively work towards, and dreams are just that...DREAMS, a fantasy, some far-fetched idea that could be the next Monday night movie or best selling novel. In my wildest daydream I can be 4 inches taller, with different colored eyes & famous living in a mansion instead of this dorm room I'm sitting in. But of course I know that daydream will never be reality and I accept that.
Now according to some people, we all have to have a goal, but if a goal is something that you are working towards, then I must not really have any goal. I have a hard time sticking to just one thing at a time. I lose focus easily.
"Why is setting goals important? Because goals can help you do, be, and experience everything you want in life. Instead of just letting life happen to you, goals allow you to make your life happen." Part of my problem has always been to analyze the heck out of everything and to take forever to make a final decision on anything. Usually if I do decide to go for something, it will end up being to late.
Now in the blog mentioned above, Everett says to dream big and list what you want to accomplish in one years time.
I think I will do this slightly different then what he probably had planned.
PLAN A:
My goal for the rest of this Summer: weed out my room!! By the end of Summer it will become my "minimalist dreamworld".
By the end of Autumn: Pay off my old court fine of $1,500.
For the end of March: I hope to get my driver's license back & hike to Phantom Ranch for a birthday weekend.
By July 2011 (1 year from now): I want to buy a used van that is already converted into a living space.
And in about another year~Summer 2012, I want to travel, take & sell photos while living in that van.
I'm still debating whether I really want to take on the burden of owning a vehicle again. I can make a list of pros & cons about owning a vehicle, so I might just scrap that idea. If I decide not to get a van then I will just skip the court fine and continue saving money...for "plan B" which I will explain when the time comes.
http://manvsdebt.com/sell-your-crap-survey/
This is another interesting blog that I probably should read more often. Adam asked for pictures of clutter, and today I sent him quite a few pictures of different areas of my room...OMG, what was I thinking? Now if that don't motivate me to declutter this roomful of crap then nothing will. I have no idea what he will really do with the pictures, but I'll have to send him new pictures in September of the "new & improved" room.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Need a morning routine
There must be a reason that doctors tell new parents to put their babies on a schedule for everything.
As unprepared & flexible as I am with my everyday activities, I have noticed that I am better prepared for my day when I force myself to get off the computer to follow some sort of routine.
My alarm clock has not even been plugged in for over 2 years. I go to bed early enough so that I wake up on my own before work, but I never wake up at the same time every day. Usually it doesn't matter if I wake up 4 hours earlier then when I have to catch the bus or 30 minutes before. Either way, I will spend time online checking emails and facebook.
Today I got up before 1am and never got around to making coffee until 1:50am because I was to busy on the laptop. I haven't looked for my uniform for work yet, I have not jumped in the shower or brushed my hair. Lately my addiction to the internet has taken over my life again...over an hour later, and I am still online and drinking coffee.
I need to set some sort of routine every morning that will include a little excerise, cleaning up in my room, breakfast and maybe laundry (if I don't do laundry the night before). This morning I woke up in plenty of time for all those activities but have done none of them because I spent my morning online.
Would be less of a hassle if I remembered to do laundry in the evenings, and had everything I need for work set out, before I go to bed.
As unprepared & flexible as I am with my everyday activities, I have noticed that I am better prepared for my day when I force myself to get off the computer to follow some sort of routine.
My alarm clock has not even been plugged in for over 2 years. I go to bed early enough so that I wake up on my own before work, but I never wake up at the same time every day. Usually it doesn't matter if I wake up 4 hours earlier then when I have to catch the bus or 30 minutes before. Either way, I will spend time online checking emails and facebook.
Today I got up before 1am and never got around to making coffee until 1:50am because I was to busy on the laptop. I haven't looked for my uniform for work yet, I have not jumped in the shower or brushed my hair. Lately my addiction to the internet has taken over my life again...over an hour later, and I am still online and drinking coffee.
I need to set some sort of routine every morning that will include a little excerise, cleaning up in my room, breakfast and maybe laundry (if I don't do laundry the night before). This morning I woke up in plenty of time for all those activities but have done none of them because I spent my morning online.
Would be less of a hassle if I remembered to do laundry in the evenings, and had everything I need for work set out, before I go to bed.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
boxes, boxes, and more boxes
I have more boxes of stuff in my dorm room, then probably anyone else in this community. Way more boxes then I can even deal with.
Every january, the housing office comes around to spray for bugs and whatnot. Everyone had to drag stuff out from under the beds for the spraying. Well that
was 6 months ago, and boxes have never gotten back under my bed. In fact over
1/2 my room got taken over by all my boxes of stuff.
Well this week, I'm starting to declutter the boxes and weed them out. Actually this morning I'm going through stuff that isn't even in a box but got thrown (or pushed/kicked)under the bed.
Course it's hard to make piles of laundry, books, piles of what to keep, what to throw away because I literally have no space in my room to make piles of stuff.
I have read books and/or blogs that say you should start with 1 box at a time. Well the first box I picked up this morning had cords for phone & computer, a box of instant pudding mix, a bag of rice, jewelrymaking supplies, hairclips, Irish Spring soap, last years bank statements, last years paycheck stubs, loose change, magazines, paperwork from NH court, bills, reciepts, holiday decoration, glitter, keychain with keys I no longer use, batteries that might or might not work, variety of business cards & brochures to places I want to go to someday, few pictures, old watch that no longer works, my birth certificate, and the small box from Qwest when they sent my modem.
I have a hard time figuring out what I can actually throw away or what I want to throw away. Course if I put everything I wanted to keep in a "keep pile" I would put most of the box in a keep pile...which would really get me nowhere. It would be almost like putting the box of mis-matched stuff back where I got it. And probably ever box in my room is full of mismatched stuff just like this one.
Obviously whoever writes books/blogs about decluttering and organizing has never been in my room.
It will take me the rest of the Summer to go through all the boxes in my room...hopefully I don't just give up on this project before I am done. It's a good thing I have a 3-day weekend coming up to. Guess I know what I will be doing .
Every january, the housing office comes around to spray for bugs and whatnot. Everyone had to drag stuff out from under the beds for the spraying. Well that
was 6 months ago, and boxes have never gotten back under my bed. In fact over
1/2 my room got taken over by all my boxes of stuff.
Well this week, I'm starting to declutter the boxes and weed them out. Actually this morning I'm going through stuff that isn't even in a box but got thrown (or pushed/kicked)under the bed.
Course it's hard to make piles of laundry, books, piles of what to keep, what to throw away because I literally have no space in my room to make piles of stuff.
I have read books and/or blogs that say you should start with 1 box at a time. Well the first box I picked up this morning had cords for phone & computer, a box of instant pudding mix, a bag of rice, jewelrymaking supplies, hairclips, Irish Spring soap, last years bank statements, last years paycheck stubs, loose change, magazines, paperwork from NH court, bills, reciepts, holiday decoration, glitter, keychain with keys I no longer use, batteries that might or might not work, variety of business cards & brochures to places I want to go to someday, few pictures, old watch that no longer works, my birth certificate, and the small box from Qwest when they sent my modem.
I have a hard time figuring out what I can actually throw away or what I want to throw away. Course if I put everything I wanted to keep in a "keep pile" I would put most of the box in a keep pile...which would really get me nowhere. It would be almost like putting the box of mis-matched stuff back where I got it. And probably ever box in my room is full of mismatched stuff just like this one.
Obviously whoever writes books/blogs about decluttering and organizing has never been in my room.
It will take me the rest of the Summer to go through all the boxes in my room...hopefully I don't just give up on this project before I am done. It's a good thing I have a 3-day weekend coming up to. Guess I know what I will be doing .
Monday, July 5, 2010
Blogging sites
I found a site called Technorati and was able to find tons of interesting new blogs to read from this site. I still have not figured out how to get my blog listed on their site though.
This was the messege I got from them:
Jun 28, 2010. We could not find the claim token ZHQ8QP4WK234 in any posts in your feed. Please make sure that you have entered it correctly in a post body and that the token appears in the feed whose URL you have given us. Once you are sure we should be able to find the claim token, use "Update Site Feed URL" so that we can check again.
Read more: http://technorati.com/account/claim/2591427/#ixzz0srNxwrG4
~I'll assume I'm supposed to post the claim token # somewhere, so hopefully this will be good enough.
I had tried "dreamhost" for about 2 hours...and ended up get charged $9.99 for it.
I have a few of Leo Babauta's books on minimalism and a book called "Blogging for Dummies", so maybe soon I will figure out how to get more people reading my stuff.
This was the messege I got from them:
Jun 28, 2010. We could not find the claim token ZHQ8QP4WK234 in any posts in your feed. Please make sure that you have entered it correctly in a post body and that the token appears in the feed whose URL you have given us. Once you are sure we should be able to find the claim token, use "Update Site Feed URL" so that we can check again.
Read more: http://technorati.com/account/claim/2591427/#ixzz0srNxwrG4
~I'll assume I'm supposed to post the claim token # somewhere, so hopefully this will be good enough.
I had tried "dreamhost" for about 2 hours...and ended up get charged $9.99 for it.
I have a few of Leo Babauta's books on minimalism and a book called "Blogging for Dummies", so maybe soon I will figure out how to get more people reading my stuff.
Payday
Payday was June 30th (3rd payday for June)
worked~68.73 hours
Take home pay~$255.53
$127.76 went into my savings account and as of today, I have about $325 saved in that account right now. Saving money sorta reminds me of the old tale "The Grasshopper & The Ant". The grasshopper would be someone who spends the whole paycheck on fun stuff or materialistic stuff and the ant would be the person trying to save as much as they can.
The state of NH is still taking money out for 3 kids, even though Kevin is now 18 and graduated from high school. It was supposed to be 40% for 3 kids before and now it should be 30% for 2 kids, but NH is not very good with math. Time to get my papers together to send to NH....well it seems that NH is just a bit slow. I got a letter in the mail (after payday, but dated before payday) that from now on NH will be taking out $162.
Seeing as I will have some extra money I contacted Qwest to have wi-fi hooked up in my room, and it finally got hooked up today. Now I have to pay $69 for the modem (a 1-time fee) and $25 a month for 6 months, then it will cost $45 a month...not counting all taxes/fees.
worked~68.73 hours
Take home pay~$255.53
$127.76 went into my savings account and as of today, I have about $325 saved in that account right now. Saving money sorta reminds me of the old tale "The Grasshopper & The Ant". The grasshopper would be someone who spends the whole paycheck on fun stuff or materialistic stuff and the ant would be the person trying to save as much as they can.
The state of NH is still taking money out for 3 kids, even though Kevin is now 18 and graduated from high school. It was supposed to be 40% for 3 kids before and now it should be 30% for 2 kids, but NH is not very good with math. Time to get my papers together to send to NH....well it seems that NH is just a bit slow. I got a letter in the mail (after payday, but dated before payday) that from now on NH will be taking out $162.
Seeing as I will have some extra money I contacted Qwest to have wi-fi hooked up in my room, and it finally got hooked up today. Now I have to pay $69 for the modem (a 1-time fee) and $25 a month for 6 months, then it will cost $45 a month...not counting all taxes/fees.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
One thing at a time
I have a habit of making long to-do lists, and then getting to tired or bored to ever finish my lists.
So this week I'm shortening the list. This week I will take care of all my clothes.
yes, a whole week to deal with clothes!
I washed a small load of laundry and put 3 shirts out on the free table today. By the end of the week, I want all the clothing thats scattered around to be washed, taken care of neatly in dresser or put out onto the free table.
I started making a list of what clothes I had that I wanted to keep:
6 pair of shorts
7 pair of pants
3 hoodies
3 sweaters
4 dresses/skirts
about 20-30 shirts (this is the hard one)
Now I don't even know if 20-30 shirts will fit in my dresser; and I am only keeping clothes that fit in my dresser. That would be a different shirt for every day of the month.I'm sure I have plenty of shirts I hardly ever wear. The hoodies & sweaters I might just keep in my suitcase under the bed (otherwise they are so bulky that they could take up a whole drawer all by themselves)and well maybe my winter hat, scarves, and gloves can get packed away in the suitcase too. Figure if the suitcase is going to take up room anyways, I might as well use it for storage.
My closet doesn't have a door on it and my desk is inside my closet, so I don't need or want clothes hanging in there.
Luckily most of my shorts, pants and hoodies are all dark colors so even if they all get dirty I can wash them all together when I do laundry. (which is very important).
I have a couple bright colored t-shirts that I always seem to leave out of the laundry waiting forever for other bright colors to wash with them.
The main thing is with all my clothes:
I'm tired of trying to figure out what fits, whats clean, or where I put something.
I will need more socks to wear for work though...alot of my socks have holes in them.
I wear a uniform to work provided by the company and mostly the same 2 pair of pants on my days off.
Guess at the end of the week, I should post a picture of my dresser (if I actually finish what I hope to finish with all my clothes)
So this week I'm shortening the list. This week I will take care of all my clothes.
yes, a whole week to deal with clothes!
I washed a small load of laundry and put 3 shirts out on the free table today. By the end of the week, I want all the clothing thats scattered around to be washed, taken care of neatly in dresser or put out onto the free table.
I started making a list of what clothes I had that I wanted to keep:
6 pair of shorts
7 pair of pants
3 hoodies
3 sweaters
4 dresses/skirts
about 20-30 shirts (this is the hard one)
Now I don't even know if 20-30 shirts will fit in my dresser; and I am only keeping clothes that fit in my dresser. That would be a different shirt for every day of the month.I'm sure I have plenty of shirts I hardly ever wear. The hoodies & sweaters I might just keep in my suitcase under the bed (otherwise they are so bulky that they could take up a whole drawer all by themselves)and well maybe my winter hat, scarves, and gloves can get packed away in the suitcase too. Figure if the suitcase is going to take up room anyways, I might as well use it for storage.
My closet doesn't have a door on it and my desk is inside my closet, so I don't need or want clothes hanging in there.
Luckily most of my shorts, pants and hoodies are all dark colors so even if they all get dirty I can wash them all together when I do laundry. (which is very important).
I have a couple bright colored t-shirts that I always seem to leave out of the laundry waiting forever for other bright colors to wash with them.
The main thing is with all my clothes:
I'm tired of trying to figure out what fits, whats clean, or where I put something.
I will need more socks to wear for work though...alot of my socks have holes in them.
I wear a uniform to work provided by the company and mostly the same 2 pair of pants on my days off.
Guess at the end of the week, I should post a picture of my dresser (if I actually finish what I hope to finish with all my clothes)
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