Organization

Things Which Help Me Be Happy

By / November 7, 2011 / 1 Comment

Based on the experimental evidence from the last month there are some things I need to make a more regular part of my life to increase my happiness.

Spend more time with people who are glad to see me. This past weekend I got to see several people whom I like very much, but whom I have not seen in a long time. Each of them lit up and faced me with a smile to greet me. Spending hours talking over everything small and large was truly enjoyable, but that instantaneous glad-to-see-you reaction was an instant mood lifter. I could hear it in the voice of a friend I talked to on the phone as well. It made the self doubting voices scatter and find somewhere else to be.

Seek out more new things. Going to Antelope Island was marvelous. Going to the art museum with Kiki gave my brain all sorts of new thoughts to think. Even the trip to the dump was interesting and sparked new trains of thought. New experiences engage my brain and feed my creativity.

Teach more often. I’ve taught some art lessons in kids’ classes as part of a volunteer program. Preparing was fun, teaching was fun, and I walked out feeling energized. A local conference has invited me to teach next spring. My brain has been happily percolating plans to make those classes the best ever. I love teaching. I love the moment when I look out at the audience and can tell that my words have been interesting or useful.

Embrace my organizational talents. I plan and organize almost reflexively. Even when something is clearly not my responsibility or not my problem some part of my brain will latch onto it and think through how it could be solved or done better. This is valuable and essential in our business. Yet somehow I wanted to discount this gift. I wanted to be appreciated for my creative efforts not my administration. But pulling organization out of chaos is a huge creative act. When I see my organization as creative it becomes a soul-filling activity rather than a draining one.

Save money to fund dreams, not just fend off bills. I’m not really sure how I forgot this one. I used to do it all the time. In our early marriage every spare bit of money was put away so that some day we could afford for Howard to quit his corporate job. Then that dream arrived and all the money went toward making sure we could keep it. We have kept it, but I lost the habit of stashing money into savings. This meant that when an unexpected expense came finding the money to cover it required juggling and stress. Three months ago I decided I wanted to fund a family trip next summer. I started stashing money away for it. Last month I raided that stash completely dry to pay a medical bill and was grateful that dreaming had preserved funds which otherwise would have disappeared somewhere less important. Today I stashed away money for that trip again. I honestly don’t know if we’ll get to take the trip, but saving for it makes me happy. Having a financial buffer to pull from makes me happy. Either way I am less stressed. Saving money is a good thing.

Snuggle and hug the kids. I sometimes forget the power of touch. When I hug my children regularly fights are less frequent and less severe. Snuggling little kids is instinctive, it is easy to fall out of the habit when they get bigger, particularly when they are bigger than me. I can’t snuggle my teens, but I can pat a shoulder as I walk by. I can hug them before bed. I can remember to focus my attention on them when they need something. All of these things remind me that being with my kids is fun, not just a series of challenges which need to be tackled.

I’m not going to try to organize a systematic plan to fit all of these things into my life. Instead I’ve written them on a page in my River Song journal. Since I’m thumbing through that book at least a couple of times per week, I’ll keep running across the list. Bit by bit I’ll absorb and internalize these thoughts. Then they will naturally express themselves in my actions. I’m also watching to see what other things I’ve missed observing that make me happy. It is like a scavenger hunt where I compile the list as I go.

My Closet and the Clothes in it

By / November 6, 2011

After my post about Red Shoes and Wishing, someone pointed out that what I was trying to accomplish with a wish list might work better as a Pinterest board. So now I have a Pinterest account and I’ve begun slowly populating my pin boards with appropriate images. I’m not sure how I’ll use the site yet. I’m still in the being-confused-by-new-social-media-site stage. Fortunately that stage is now a familiar one and I’m confident that it’ll begin making sense as I use it.

One of the pin boards I created is called “wearing beauty.” I’ll be filling it with clothing I own, clothing I admire, and clothing I hope to own some day. It allows me to collect images of fashion in a way that lets me survey it at a glance. The red shoes go there, for example. It is already apparent to me that the board gives the impression that I dress elegantly every day, which is simply not true. Most days I’m wearing what I affectionately call my “mom uniform.” It consists of a pair of jeans, a solid color knit shirt, and either bare feet or socks. The shirt usually has stains or spills on it. My hair may or may not have been brushed that day. On cold days I accessorize with an old red terry cloth bathrobe and bright yellow fuzzy socks. When I’m headed out to run errands or do other out-of-the-house things, I’ll upscale to an unstained shirt, brushed hair, and shoes. These clothes are not fashionable, but they are supremely suited for their task. While wearing them I am able to get stuff done without fussing over my clothing. There is a beauty in utility. If I have some spare creative time I may see if I can find a way to represent my mom uniform on the Pinterest board.

For years the mom uniform was the only clothes I owned. Even my church clothes had a heavy emphasis on wash-ability, move-ability, and adjust-ability so that they did not interfere with the management of young children in an environment not particularly suited to them. But then I started having to make professional appearances. I was able to let that part of myself which enjoyed fashion wake up and start collecting pieces. These days I’ve got clothing ranging from formal wear to paint-spattered work clothes. Each category of clothing is useful to me, but I am constantly winnowing to make sure that the various clothing types stay in balance. Sometimes clothes which are too worn for professional clothes get moved over to the nice mom clothes. Nice mom clothes gradually become stained mom clothes. Some items get culled completely as they are no longer useful. The culling is critical to make sure that I don’t run out of space in the closet.

I do have a special category of clothes called “project clothes.” These are clothes which are not yet what they could be. Sometimes they need mending or adjusting, but other times I intend them as the basis for a full creative project. I can’t have very many of these, they take up space and are not currently useful. However project clothes are the hardest category for me to cull. I have to let go of how I imagine they could be. Sometimes I have to let go of a shiny possibility in order to make room for a useful necessity.

All of this makes it sound like I spend lots of time and money considering my clothes. I don’t. I buy new things a couple of times per year and most of my “new” things are second hand via a thrift store. Usually these shopping expeditions occur in the the nerotic pre-public-appearance stressful time where I become convinced that everything I own looks horrible. A couple of new items can stave off that feeling for about half a year. Hopefully my new Pinterest board will not prompt me to be more spendy, but will instead help me have a clear picture of how to spend money carefully on things I really want and can use instead of a closet full of project clothes which I have no time to fix.

Score Card for the Week

By / October 27, 2011

Projects completed:

Gleek’s multi-page mystery story featuring the ghost of the explorer Samuel De Champlain which needed to demonstrate the qualities of an explorer, have at least three clues, have at least three obstacles, be detailed, and typed. With a card stock cover.

Kiki’s art project for reflections which she originally envisioned as five small paintings matted together to create a single image. But then some of the details were too small for painting, it didn’t turn out how she pictured, and she decided she hated it. In the end she stayed up til 3 am the night before it was due, discarded three of the paintings to finish up the other two, and still was not happy with the result. At least it got turned in.

Gleek’s explorer board game based on the life of Samuel De Champlain. We re-purposed all the pieces from a CSI Miami board game that I found at the thrift store. There was much cutting, pasting, taping, and gluing to get everything in place.

Link’s balsa wood bridge. He did this pretty much by himself, both carefully and methodically. There was a moment of panic in the final assembly, but all turned out well.

Link’s book reports. He had to finish up two book reports before the end of the term. This meant finding and reading books then writing the reports. Fortunately both the books and the reports can be short. One down so far.

Putting up t-shirts in the store and then shipping them. All the packages ordered before 8 am yesterday are out the door.

Howard spent some time designing new merchandise. Most of these items are ready to go.

Gleek’s Tiffany Aching costume. This included the creation of a book entitled The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales and the acquisition of a black witches hat.

Patch’s Nac Mac Feegle costume. The Halloween shopping fairies smiled upon me yesterday afternoon and let me find all the needed pieces in a single store. I have a little bit of minor sewing to do, but I still count finding all the pieces as a win.

Projects incomplete:

Mailing another 30 or so packages.

Link’s second book report.

Kiki’s page-long Japanese translation assignment, which was due today.

The repair of the furnace which decided not to heat the house today. Current house temp 61 degrees and dropping.

The repair of my windshield so that I can pass safety and emissions and re-register the car. Also so that I can get that chugging noise in the engine checked.

Howard wanted to draw several weeks of comics, hasn’t happened yet.

Helping both Kiki and Link figure out costumes.

All the less urgent things which got shoved so far out of my brain that I can’t remember what they are. However I will remember them quite clearly next week when they still aren’t done.

Patch’s reflections project which he had originally envisioned as a visual arts piece, but discovered that creating what he had in his mind was beyond his current capabilities. The new plan is for him to write a story on the theme instead. This is due next week. Time must be made for it over the weekend.

Gleek’s book report. This is due on Monday. Fortunately she has already read the book and the report itself is not particularly difficult to put together.

Emotional dramas endured this week:

Gleek’s fear that her story and game were not good enough.

Kiki’s emotional roller coaster over her art piece.

Link’s overwhelmed sadness at having end-of-term pressure.

Kiki needing to work through her emotions about a mean girl at school who has chosen her for a target.

Patch being much more volatile and quick to anger than usual. Still haven’t figured out if this is an age thing or if there is some underlying emotional issue that I need to dig out.

5 out of 6 Taylers having at least one semi-depressed day during which all efforts seemed futile and the tasks ahead insurmountable.

Many arguments over the cat because the whole family loves the cat, but we all have differing opinions about how to appropriately love, play, and interact with the cat. The cat also has opinions, but is fortunately blessed with a deep well of tolerance and patience.

Kiki realizing that she simply does not have the skills nor the time to make the Samus armor costume that she has been envisioning for over a year. She had to grieve and figure out how to put that dream down for awhile.

Many arguments along the lines of “argh! You’re not listening to me!” vs. “I was listening, I just needed to finish this one thing.” Also many arguments over “Yes you did!” “No I didn’t!” Players were completely interchangeable. Everyone took their turn being unreasonable.

Other thoughts:

I have a hard time feeling sympathetic with children who are feeling overwhelmed when I am also feeling the same thing, only my overwhelmed also encompasses all of their things as well. Yet observing this out loud does nothing to help anyone, and it is in some measure false. Their things are theirs and I should keep my mitts off.

Link really impressed me. The day after stomping off sad and depressed, he sat down and made his very own checklist for how he was going to accomplish all of his work. Then he calmly and quietly work his way down the list. He just did it. I need to remember to compliment him for that maturity.

I don’t like it when I go into a rant and realize that I sound exactly like the rant which annoyed me from a child only hours ago. It makes me have to face the fact that either I am as childish as they are, or their rant was valid and I should have been more respectful of their emotional experience. A little of both probably.

On Monday the shirts arrived. Today I will ship out the last of them. We’ve had the influx of income which lets us re-stock the store for Christmas and which will let us pay bills in the interim. I am very glad of this. I could wish that this event was not in the middle of all the other events, but it couldn’t have happened earlier and we didn’t want to delay. We need this flurry of merchandise right now, but it will be nice to get back to the slower-paced work on creating books.

And after writing all of that out, I discover that I have no interest in actually calculating a score for the week. Instead I’ll just let it all be what it is and hope that next week can be calmer.

Budgeting 101

By / October 15, 2011 / 5 Comments

The basic concept of budgeting is this: Dividing your estimated earnings into assigned categories for spending. If you are on a fixed salary this process is fairly simple. I’ll cover some basics, and then talk about some more difficult cases. I am addressing this primarily to people who are not in dire financial need or poverty. People in those situations need to seek out local resources for help in finding solutions which are tailored to their particular situation. This post focuses on budgeting on particular. I’ve got a more general post about financial management that might be helpful to read first. Onward we go.

The mechanics of budgeting can be as simple or as complex as you wish to make it. If you never overspend and always have money waiting for emergency expenses, then the system you’re using is working for you. Stick with it. If otherwise, here are some places to start in putting together a budget.

Pick some categories and assign dollar amounts to them, making sure that the totals don’t add up to more than your salary income. We have categories for groceries, gas/electric, water/garbage, auto insurance, life insurance, medical, auto repair, auto fuel, clothing, dining, entertainment, savings, and assorted other categories which are more particular to us. What you name your categories is not as important as making sure that you have one to cover every way in which you spend money. I use a lot of categories because my financial program (Quicken) makes them easy to track, and then I can run reports to tell me exactly how much we spent on comics in the last year. If you’re new to budgeting, fewer categories might feel less overwhelming. However it is best to make sure that your fixed expenses, like utility bills, are not in the same category as discretionary expenses like eating out at restaurants. One of the most important things that a budget can do for you is to make sure that you don’t spend your rent money on going out to see a movie, but it can only do so if rent and movies are not in the same category.

A useful way to visualize budgeting: When I’m teaching my kids about budgeting, I use the envelope method to help them visualize. They divide their allowance into several envelopes or jars. This lets them plan ahead for how much they want to spend on the various things in their lives. If the Candy envelope becomes empty, the only way to spend more money on candy is to borrow from another envelope, or wait for a new influx of income. The kids borrow money from envelope to envelope all the time, but the act of pulling it from another envelope helps the kids see that if they spend all their money on candy, then they will not have any left for books or for what ever cool toy they’ve been coveting. In my budget, I loan money across my discretionary categories all the time. I do not pull money from the fixed expense categories like Mortgage Payment.

Pick a tracking method. We keep all our money in one checking account and just track the categories in our financial program. When money is really tight, I keep a little tally in a notepad that I carry with me. Then I can refer to it at a moment’s notice when making buying decisions. If I buy socks I subtract it from the Clothing category on my tally. I know a friend who issues himself a cash allowance for fun spending, essentially applying the envelope method for everything except bills. What ever method you choose for tracking, always refer to your budget tracking method before spending money. If you don’t have money in an appropriate budget category for those lovely new curtains, don’t buy them. Not even if they are on sale.

Knowing how much to put in each budget category can be tricky if you have never done a budget before. Start by looking at bank statements, bills, and receipts from the last few months. This can teach you a lot about where your money is going. Add up the amounts you spent in the various categories. I’m usually shocked by some category of spending that I did not realize was adding up to so much. Use whatever information you have to make some guesses and then get started. It is more important to start training your brain to think about how you spend, and whether you should spend, than it is to get the numbers right. The numbers are your measurement tools, not something which will be graded by others. You will goof up. That’s okay, learn something from it and do things differently next time.

Some good practices for budgeting:

  • Pay your bills first, as soon as you can. That way you’re less likely to use the money for something else.
  • Don’t use your checking account balance or your credit card balance as a measure for whether you can afford something. Use your budget.
  • Build savings into your budget. Keep an “in case of emergencies” fund. But also, pick something you want and save for it. It can be anything: college, retirement, a trip, a car, being debt free. It needs to be something you’re willing to sacrifice for. Put that money aside until you have enough to pay cash for your dream. This fund will probably be raided in times of emergency, but then you’ve made your emergency less financially catastrophic.
  • Pay down your debts as fast as you can. Debts weigh on you and limit your financial possibilities. The interest you pay on debt does not add anything to your life except stress.
    Be extremely cautious about acquiring debt. See above.

Some questions and answers about difficult cases:
What if your income is irregular? Not everyone has a bi-weekly paycheck, which can make budgeting seem difficult. However most bills are on a monthly billing cycle. If you set up your budget on a monthly basis, then having a budget can help even out the bumps. Average out your expected income over the course of four months, then divide that by four. I would recommend low-balling your estimated income per month. Some months you will have more than this, others less. Sticking to your budget in times of financial plenty will help you fill in the times when money is scarce. If your income is irregular, stashing money into savings is crucial.

What if money is always scarce? If the total of your estimated expenses by budget category is greater than your estimate income, you are in financial crisis mode. It is time to sit down and seriously look at all all your financial commitments to see what can be eliminated. Being able to eat is more important than having 300 channels. Find every way you can to reduce expenses: cancel subscriptions, pick less expensive foods, sell a car. There are a lot more than you might think. I recommend reading books like The Complete Tightwad Gazette many of the methods inside won’t apply, but the mindset of “I can do this cheaper” is important when money is tight. If you can’t bring yourself out of financial crisis mode within a couple of months, look up local debt management resources. There are often free resources out there to help people get control of their finances.

What if you get hit by an unexpected expense? This happens all the time. Medical bills and car repairs are the biggest culprits. In a solid budget there is some planning ahead for these things. Create a budget category for “in case of emergency” and stick money into it each month. This is what savings accounts are for. Planning ahead means that the unexpected expense is merely annoying instead of an emergency.

What if you have an expense which is not monthly? My auto insurance comes due twice per year. Property taxes on our house are due once per year. I take the amount I’ll need to spend on these bills and divide it by the number of months between payments. Then I put that amount aside each month. To use some made up numbers: if $100 per month is allotted to Car Insurance, then when the $600 bill comes due I have money waiting. If the $600 insurance bill was an annual bill, I would only need to set aside $50 per month. Put this set aside money where you can not accidentally spend it. I routinely put this into my savings account and then transfer it back out when time comes to pay the bill.

What if I goof up and forget to track my budgeting? I do this all the time. This past year I hardly checked my spending against budget categories at all. I was too busy and distracted. The result is that we over extended a little bit, but not much. The reason we did not over extend is because all the years of practice I’ve had in tracking a budget trained my brain to think about money in ways which kept me in check. The act of tracking your budget is training your brain to be financially responsible. Like any sort of training, it takes practice. Just start up again and keep going if you forget for awhile.

What if it is just too overwhelming and stressful to track all those numbers? Then your budget needs revision. Simplify it. Break down to something that is one step more organized than you were before. Adding little pieces of financial organization to your life can make a huge difference over the years. I revise my budget about once per year to make sure that my categories and tracking methods are still working. Systems fall apart, just use the good pieces from the old system to build a new and better system.

And that is enough for now. There are lots of good books on budgeting and financial management that you can get from your local library for free. Your librarian will be happy to help you find them.

When I get Financial Management for Creative People 102 and 201 written up, I’ll link them here.

Take time to read the comments below. Lots of additional good ideas there.

A Greenhouse Realization

By / October 9, 2011

Four kids steered through pre-church preparations, two kids helped to weather emotional upsets, dishes, Sunday dinner, and Family Home Evening preparations were all done. I’d earned some quiet space. I thought that the me-of-now should get to do something she wanted. So I gathered my journal and scriptures to retreat to my room. I also carried with me a printed article that I’d read on the internet that morning. I’d skim read it in the last moments before the pre-church rush. Something in it called to me, so I printed it for a more in depth reading. Or perhaps for clipping and taping into my River Journal. The events of the day had left no time for pondering until that moment.

The article told the story of a woman who had an invigorating, well-paying, and rewarding job. Yet one evening she discovered herself crying without knowing why. Something about her job did not fill her soul. She realized her life did not give her chances to nurture. I could see why the story resonated for me. I too have cried and then had to puzzle out why. I began to write a journal entry to puzzle out how her experience was different than mine. I started the sentence “I nurture all the time” but stopped halfway through, suddenly not sure that the sentence was true. I spend all day most days creating a family structure optimized for the growth of everyone inside it. Yet building a greenhouse is not the same as tending and fertilizing the plants within it.

There in my room, away from my family I realized that at any free moment my first thought was to retreat, to spend time alone. All day I maintained the structure of the greenhouse and then fled from it rather than relishing the atmosphere inside. As I scratched away with my pen, my four children were downstairs engaged in reading, drawing, and playing. I put my pen down and grabbed a deck of cards. At least I could sit in the same room with them playing solitaire. I could be part of the quiet togetherness that they were having. Within moments of the first card shuffle, Kiki offered to show me a different game. She and I played several rounds together while the other kids played their own games. We laughed a lot. I once dreamed of the time when I could play cards with my kids without having to adapt for young players. I almost missed out on it.

I need to remember that the point of the green house is the flowers.

Financial Management for Creative People 101

By / October 13, 2011 / 5 Comments

The first thing any creative person needs to know about managing finances, whether you’re an artist, a writer, a musician, a film maker, or anything else: Good financial management is a skill. It can be learned by anyone no matter how good or bad they are with numbers. Granted, if numbers are not your friends, there may be struggling and swearing involved, but learning and practice will gain you the skills you need. You will get things wrong, sort them out, and then get them right. More than once. The key is to not give up, because if you are a creative person who wants to make a living doing creative things, you’re going to need to manage your finances effectively. Even if you don’t want to make a creative living, you can still make your finances more organized and less stressful. I graduated with a major in Humanities. I picked that major in part because it did not require me to do any math. Numbers were not my friends, and yet I learned this. You can too. Here are some places to start:

1. Create physical space for financial things. This can be anything from a basket to an uber-organized filing cabinet. The key is to have a place to drop all those bills and receipts before they have a chance to get lost. I have a file basket on the end of my kitchen counter. It contains file for the school papers of each kid, and a file for bills and other To Do papers. When mail arrives, I throw away the junk and drop the bills, checks, and other business papers into my accounting folder. Howard empties his wallet and dumps receipts into the folder as well. Then I ignore them until it is time to go through the folder.

2. Pick a method for tracking your money. I use Quicken for family finances and Quickbooks for the business accounting. Both of these are solid programs which will require a learning curve, but I’ve found them invaluable. I know people who use spread sheets or even hand-written ledgers. Pick something that feels most comfortable for you. The key is to start keeping track of where your money comes from and where it goes. If you’ve never done it before, this process can be very instructive about your spending habits. It is vital information which you can use to make your life better.

3. Make an appointment to do your accounting. Put that appointment on your calendar and keep it. I do this weekly. Every Monday I grab that accounting folder and go through everything in it. I pay the bills, enter the receipts, cash the checks, and file important papers. Once per week gets me the good news quickly and prevents the bad news from getting out of control before I handle it. When I’m pretty sure the accounting holds bad news, I do it anyway. The bad news I imagine is always worse than the bad news in the papers. I know people who do their accounting every other week or once per month. I found that it was easier to procrastinate on the longer schedule, so now I account every Monday morning.

4. Outline clear responsibilities for all people associated with the accounts/bills. If you’re a single person who manages your own money, this is not yet relevant to you. If you share your bills or finances with any other person, it is important to know who is responsible for the accounting and bill paying. Early in our marriage, Howard and I split the accounting. These days I do it all and just give him financial reports. How exactly you do it doesn’t matter as much as the fact that everyone involved knows their responsibilities.

5. Create a budget. A budget is a plan for how much money you will spend on the various expenses in your life. This topic is big enough for it’s own blog. I wrote up some basic budgeting in my post budgeting 101. For now, let this suffice. If you have never budgeted or planned your spending, start by keeping track of what you earn and what you spend. When you have several months of information you are ready to make a budget. The power of a budget is that it lets you see when you should not buy that shiny toy even if you still have money in your checking account because that money will be needed next month for car insurance. A budget helps remove the surprise from your bills and can lower your levels of stress.

6. Save save save. If you get extra money, squirrel it away into a savings account. This money is what helps you reach your dreams. The only reason Howard was able to become a full time cartoonist was because we spent the prior decade of salaried employment saving up money and paying down bills. A solid savings account is also your shield against disaster. Everyone ends up with unexpected bills. These are easier to handle if you have money in your hands instead of lots of take out pizza. It is easier to save money if you know what you are saving it for, so keep your dream in view and save for that. This year I’m saving money because there is a trip I want to take next summer.

That’s enough to get started. Changes and learning are easier to incorporate in your life if you don’t try to change too much at once. Other financial posts which may interest you:
Budgeting 101
Financial Management for Creative People 102: Structuring your finances to support a creative business. (Forthcoming)
Financial Management for Creative people 201: Taxes, incorporation, and business plans, Oh My! (Forthcoming)

You can learn this. Good luck!

Project Complete: Staining Our Deck and Playset

By / October 1, 2011 / 2 Comments

Wooden structures like fences and decks are, in theory, supposed to be re-stained every couple of years. This protects the wood from damage and keeps them looking pretty. We haven’t done that kind of maintenance in over a decade. First there was no time. Then there was no money. Then there was neither time nor money. However the seeing the gradual dilapidation of these wooden structures was making Howard and I both feel sad about the state of things. I finally freed up the time and sneaked enough money from the budget to make it happen.

This is the playset before we began. You can see remnants of the original stain on it, but much of the wood is bare.

Step one was to rent a pressure washer and blast off all the old paint. Howard handled pressure washing the playset. I managed the deck. Our gargoyle, Winston, had a supervisory job. The washing took five extremely wet and dirty hours.

The water blasted off old layers of stain and also some top layers of wood. There were many places where we had to be careful that the high powered stream did not damage the wood more than necessary. I suspect that would not have been an issue if we’d been properly maintaining our wood through the years.
This is the playset all clean and dry.

Next came staining. We used five gallons of stain and about 22 man hours of work. We decided to apply the stain using brushes rather than a sprayer since our last sprayer experience was…messy. It was a lot of work, but we got it done.

From a distance the structures look like new. Up close you can see all the dribbles, drips, spots where the washer gouged the wood, spots where we neglected to blast off the old stain, and places where the wood is just old. It is not perfect, but now when we step outside it feels nice instead of feeling depressing. I can live with that. On to the next project.

Sunday Dinner in Process

By / September 25, 2011

Food currently in process:
Rolls -currently rising with the oven pre-heating. I began the dough before church, kneaded and rolled in the space between church and a church committee meeting.
Fudge -cooling. This is the promised reward for Gleek and Patch who have spent the last month braving primary without any toys or distractions. I made it after my committee meeting just in time to start everything else.
Rice -simmering. This will be the basis for the Sunday dinner which Patch has decided to cook.
Hamburger -thawing. Soon it will become beef stroganoff.
Vegetables -canned. Awaiting a can opener and a microwave.

Apparently in this new rhythm of life my Sundays are all about church and cooking. I’m not sure whether this is a problem yet. The minute resentment appears, shifts will need to be made. Today I’m not minding it because I’m focused on the positive benefits of all of us sitting down at the table to eat lots of delicious food. I’m staring at the puffy roll dough right now and they’re going to be amazing.

The other things I do on Sunday are often preparatory for the rest of the week. I make lists, plan meals, remind everyone of their Family Home Evening assignments, and sometimes have time to sit down and work on the family photo books. It is definitely a day focused on family and on being prepared. I am not doing my usual round of things, which I suppose qualifies as a day of rest. On the other hand, I hardly take time to sit down. For now I need to hold the patterns as they are. I really like the results of all the things I do on Sundays and this is the only way I’ve found which structures those things into existence. Any changes would have to be made carefully or important things will fall back out of the schedule.

For now I’ll just stick the rolls in the oven, then call Patch to come help cook while Link sets the table.

Tasks Like Beads on a String

By / September 17, 2011 / 4 Comments

I want to knock down a wall in my office. It would combine my office with a small pantry area, thus making my office bigger. It is a lovely plan, and now that I’ve thought of it I can hardly wait. Unfortunately on the office side of the wall are two book cases full of books. These would have to be boxed before the smashing could begin. On the other side of the wall are shelves full of canned food. There is also a freezer. The canned food and freezer need to be relocated to the garage before the smashing can begin.

The garage is something of a wreck. I know exactly where the canned food and the freezer will go, but it requires me to move some shelving, relocate an old drawing table, reorganize the bikes, and generally clean up the garage. One of the things currently filling the garage are left over shipping supplies from the shipping day we had last July. There are also boxes of displays and merchandise which we brought home from the summer conventions. Some of these things are bound for our storage unit. The rest really need to find a home downstairs in my shipping room, which is next to my office on the other side. Before I can begin moving the food and freezer this must all be moved.

My storage room is a complete wreck. It is filled with boxes of merchandise, boxes for shipping merchandise, boxes left over from conventions, and random things which got stacked in there to “be out of the way.” As I need things, I shift the things that are on top of them until nothing is neat and I’m having to wend my way through piles of boxes in order to grab things for shipping. The whole mess needs to be reorganized before I can put anything else in that room, including shipping supplies. Behind the place I stand to do shipping is an under-the-stairs cupboard. It would be an ideal place to stack shipping boxes so that I can grab them easily. Before I can fill it with the shipping boxes from the garage, I have to find a new home for the school supplies and random junk.

My office has a set of cubby cubes. They are poorly organized, half full of games and other random stuff which I shoved in them to be out of the way. These cubbys would be a good place for the school supplies and random junk from the under-the-stairs cupboard. The games in them really belong upstairs in the toy cupboards where the children can find them and play with them.

The upstairs toy cupboards are a jumble. There is no space in them, but there will be once they’ve been organized. Finally I found a task which did not have a “but first I must” in front of it. So that is where I will start. It will probably be a month of Saturdays before I finally manage to get to the task I really wanted to do in the first place. In the mean time I am looking around my house and wondering what idiot organized it so poorly in the first place.

I Think I Need a Cookie to go with This Milk

By / September 10, 2011 / 4 Comments

It began with the pencil drawer. Through attrition it had turned into a “why can I never find a pencil in this” drawer. So I dumped the thing out and sorted it. Then the drawer was lovely and neat, but the kitchen counter had piles of all the things I had taken out of it. As I took the piles to various locations in the house, I discovered that the reason all the junk had ended up in the drawer was because the places they belonged were also messy. Before I was done I helped organize both kids rooms, sorted the linen closet, vacuumed four rooms, helped my boys trade bunks, tightened all the bolts on the bunks so they wouldn’t wobble, did dishes, wiped counters, de-junked cubbies, and put away games. And just like the mouse in that book* I also took a nap in the middle, because I got really tired. At the end of the day the house looked much nicer than at the start, and I was still full of restless energy. Hopefully tomorrow I can rest.

*The book is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and if you haven’t read it, the title of this post will not make sense.