to do

Falling Forward

20 August 2012 / aidan, life, pictures, to do

Aidan is back in Ohio. He left early this afternoon. It was hard. It always is. The summer good-bye is always the hardest, though. Because he’s been with me for so long and I’ve gotten so used to him being here. It’s so quiet in the apartment now.

Yesterday, all three of us went to Naperville just to hang out–our last full day of hanging out in the summer of 2012.

He’s like a kid in a…oh.

We had a fun day. I miss that little booger. *sigh* But this year, I did something I’d never gotten the chance to do. I got to buy Aidan all his school supplies and some of his school clothes! Chris and Matt usually do that after Aidan’s in Ohio. Chris did buy most of Aidan’s school clothes, and Matt got him his backpack. But I got to buy all the supplies (I’ll take any excuse to buy office/school supplies) and his lunchbox and socks and stuff like that. Probably kinda silly to get excited over that, but I’m not going to apologize for it.

So, this evening I’ve been sort of relaxing but also trying to sort out all the stuff I need to start focusing on. It’s time for seasonal deep cleaning. The annoying thing about cleaning is that it doesn’t STAY that way after all that hard work. But a dear friend of mine pointed me toward the UFYH tumblr and it has some really great ideas about getting stuff done. Adam wants to reorganize our coat closet area in the front room, which I’m totally in agreement with. I have a LOT of coats and I’d love to see them all contained in a wardrobe that CLOSES. If we can find one big enough. I’d like it to have room to hold shoes and purses as well. I know.

I also need to go through all my clothes and get rid of stuff. Like for real. I have too many clothes and nowhere to put them. It’s time to go HAM on that stuff. The last time I did that was 2008. Basically, here is a rundown of all the work I want to do:

– Declutter my closets. All three of them. Getting rid of clothes, shoes, coats, anything I simply cannot fit or don’t/won’t wear anymore.
– Thorough cleaning of Aidan’s room. Boys are truly disgusting sometimes. I’m not sure WHAT Aidan did in there but man. Adam and I have our work cut out for us.
– Clean up the foyer. The motor oil stain on the carpet out there–we can’t do anything about (don’t even ask but it wasn’t our fault), but there are random boots and shovels and paint cans out there. I’d like to clean it up at least a little bit.
– Organize all my CDs. I have a buttload of CDs and I have to figure out how to get them somewhere easily accessible yet they need to be nicely organized.
-Redo the DVD shelves. They WERE organized, but Aidan and Adam have since ransacked the things looking for certain DVDs and/or video games.
– Unclutter my lotions, soaps, hair products, fragrances, makeup, etc. I have SO MUCH of that stuff and most of it just needs to GTFO.
– Clean out the refrigerator. It’s back to being a hot mess.
– Clean out carb city. Cause there are things there that have been there since 2008 or 2009 (unopened, of course), and y’all, that ain’t kosher.
– Get rid of old magazines and catalogs. I don’t know WHY I am holding on to some of my magazines… I get so many free subscriptions and honestly, the ONLY ONES I ever really read are Reader’s Digest and Yoga Journal (which are not free, go figure), so I need to let all the other subscriptions run out and just keep those two, right? I mean, I LIKE having my bathroom filled with Popular Science (come on, it’s SCIENCE!) and W and the Rachael Ray magazine (they were all free!), but Newsweek is usually outdated by the time I get around to reading it. I don’t even know what else I subscribe to. Oh wait, Fitness or Self or Shape something like that. I don’t need to renew those subscriptions. And catalogs. I keep Free People around for writing inspiration, but I need to just cut out the pictures I like and trash the rest. I don’t want to get rid of my American Girl catalogs but seeing as I have them come to two different addresses, I don’t need to have doubles of all of them, now do I?
– Do something about the HUGE number of books I have. Which will be painful, but is so necessary. We’re completely out of shelf space.
– Clean up my doll display. I still haven’t unboxed my Designer Jasmine and Tiana, and one of my Ellowyne Wilde dolls is hidden behind a baby Tiana doll. Poor Katniss is sitting here like “WTF. You bought me as soon as you could and now I’m just sitting here in the box.” I need to change my Julie out of her summer clothes and into an autumn outfit and maybe I should think about displaying another American Girl doll because I have 12 of them and most of them are in a bin in Aidan’s room.

Me and Julie, when I first got her in 2009.
She was an early birthday present. 🙂

The Katniss Barbie I just got last week.

Some of these need to be done immediately, others (like the CDs and DVDs) are pipe dream projects that will happen when I’m inspired, have time, and really just want to get it DONE. I also feel like some trips to Garden Ridge and/or The Container Store and/or Ikea need to happen for everything to take place like I want it. AND I need to have a plan when I go into those stores. We went to Ikea last week and my mind just goes like this about EVERYTHING whenever I’m there:

And then I get all overwhelmed and I’m just like:

So I really need to have some sort of plan before I hit those stores. It’s cute that Ikea sent me a huge catalog the other day, isn’t it, tho?

Basically, though, for my sanity and just because it’s better, I need to seriously tackle some projects around the house. Get some music on, bust it out, room by room, and be like:

Maybe I can post before/after pictures? Make it kind of a series here? What do you think? I wonder if I could even stick to it, but it would be great accountability….

In other words, I got my yoga teacher training midterm today. Twelve pages, 225 questions, 4.5 credit hours. I have until September 20 to get it done. Trying to coordinate meetings with my other classmates so we can work on it together. I’ve already filled out a few answers that I knew off the top of my head. We’ll see how it goes.

My 2013 Life Planner arrived on Saturday. I think it’s super pretty! 🙂

My 2012 Life Planner has been amazing. I take the thing just about everywhere and I love showing it off to people. It’s worth every dime I paid for it, and I’ve already started filling in my 2013 Life Planner. Lots of yoga teacher training things to populate.

And this guy finally got to come home with me:

Love Beast! 🙂

One thing I really want to do is cut back on my Internet time. I waste away many, many hours on tumblr and Facebook games when I have toys to be played with, books to read, hell, books to WRITE, yoga poses to practice, journals to write in, pictures to take, an exercise bike to use, and of course, there is that list^^ of all the cleaning I need to tackle. But it’s hard because as a freelancer, I am essentially ON CALL and need to be available, at least from 9am-5pm M-F. (Who am I kidding? Like I actually get up at 9am!) And I’m actually really happy with the amount of work I’ve been getting. It’s just the right balance. Enough to keep me quite busy, but it’s not taking over my entire life and stressing me out to the point of tears and wishing I would get sick so I could call off work.

But in the evenings? I really need to unplug. One thing I loved about the movie Juno was that the parents were never on their computers. They were always doing crafts or projects–engaging in hobbies that were not computer/tablet/smartphone related. And even though I suspect that Juno was set in a time when life wasn’t so computer-centered, it’s still nice to see.

OK, this entry is really long. Sorry about that. I guess I had a lot to say.

‘Til next time!

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Christmas Prep Take Two!

15 December 2011 / christmas, friends, life, living in chicago, pictures, to do

ten days!!!

Who’s excited? Who’s with me? Woohoo, Christmas time is here!

I’m DONE with my Christmas shopping. I’m DONE mailing out packages. And I’m almost done with Christmas cards. It feels so great to knock stuff off that to do list, doesn’t it?

I’m not done yet, though. I still need to do the following:

· Christmas newsletter
· finish wrapping presents
· clean the apartment (of course)
· shop for foods

I’ve been having a pretty decent week. The tiredness finally started to leave me Tuesday morning (just in time for yoga with Mia Park!) but that didn’t stop me from venturing out on Monday to visit and have lunch with former co-workers.

on my way

After lunch, I headed to State Street to do some Christmas shopping and Christmas fangirling. I went to Macy’s (I know that hardcore Chicagoans refuse to acknowledge this store as anything but Marshall Field’s, but I’m afraid that’s before my time–it’s always been Macy’s to me) because I had to see the windows and also the big tree in the Walnut Room. They put one up every year.

beautiful tree

Macy’s. WOW. That store really dresses up for Christmas. I love it. I went to Bloomingdale’s a while back and they have one little Christmas section. Macy’s is all Christmas all the time and it’s beautiful.

just a tiny fraction of the decorations in that store

store windows

I spent yesterday working on Christmas cards, and today I wrapped presents, packaged them up, and made the trek to the post office. The APC was down, so the line was super long. My postal clerk was a sweetheart, though. An hour at home, then I ventured out again to shop with my friend Missy. I controlled myself. Sort of. In all fairness, the stuff I did buy was for other people (stocking stuffers) except for the soap I got from Anthropologie, and the cupcake from Magnolia Bakery because HELLO, it’s National Cupcake Day and how would I look, not buying a cupcake on National Cupcake Day when they are RIGHT THERE? Huh? So yeah. I had to do that. And I DIDN’T let Missy talk me into the beautiful pink sweater that was on sale because I have enough clothing.

I did talk HER into this pic with me, though:

Then I talked her into this photo because she’s pretty and she’s a ginger.

I know I do my fair share of complaining about Chicago (their newest stunt is giving people parking tickets randomly just because they can–oh wait THAT’S NOT NEW), but I love this city at Christmas. Downtown is gorgeous with all the lights and decorations, and this year it’s warm enough to be out and about and enjoy it all. I loved walking down State Street with Missy and seeing the decorations and the windows and listening to the bell ringers, and then sitting and chatting by the big tree in Daley Plaza.

the tree at Daley Plaza and Chriskindlmarket.
It’s definitely not their most robust,
but it’s there and it’s lovely.

‘Til next time! 🙂

13 Comments

No Bueno

6 December 2011 / christmas, friends, life, pictures, sick, to do, universe are you listening?, wtf

I’m not doing so well today. I am worn down, exhausted, and have zero motivation to do a dang thing. Mercury is in retrograde and OH WOW is it showing.

1. Web browsers are acting weird. Google Chrome is acting weird with my WordPress dashboard, so I have to use Firefox to add posts. I also need Firefox to work on the newsletter for Moksha because Namaste Light does not play nicely with Chrome these days. However, Firefox is SLOW once it gets going and it really lags on my system. Plus, it doesn’t always play nice with LiveJournal. So now I get to bounce back and forth until one of them gets their act together.

2. Monthly newsletter went out and there were some hiccups AGAIN. I asked them if they wanted me to step down and she said no, that I’m doing a great job, and it was just one of those things. I’m doing a good enough job on everything else that they’re still going to trust me with January 2012. So, I will DO DAMN BETTER. I promise.

3. I ran MacKeeper to get rid of duplicate files, but it decided that many different original files were the same, so it tried to delete all those as well. I caught them, but now it’s a disorganized mess. Fortunately, I have backups of most of the organized folders, so I can just overwrite the messed up ones.

4. My iPod crashed. It crashed and deleted all of my music and playlists. I manually sync because I don’t have the same things on my iPod that I do on my computer. Saturday evening, a Tori Amos song kept erring out, and I think that’s what did it. iPod corrupted. Hours of hard work, selecting and sequencing those playlists by hand… gone. *sigh* The Christmas 2011 mix was the best mix I’d ever made, too. And the yoga practice mix? That was freaking hard to put together and now I have to do it again. But first, I have to get the thing to mount. And also to stop crashing and locking the library. Time to restore all systems, I suppose.

5. Computer battery needs to be serviced. Which likely means replaced. Which means bye bye $130.

On top of Mercury’s retrograde screwing with all my technology (and giving me an inexplicable urge to buy an iPad when I don’t need one at all), I’ve just been feeling like a poop log lately. Worn down, nauseated, and just generally tired. And my ear is hurting again. I have so much I need to do and no motivation to do it. This weekend, I was hit with a double whammy headache, one of them being a migraine that was extremely painful. Little appetite, just not feeling myself. I don’t like it. Oh, and the tip of my tongue has been burning the past few days. Feels like I burnt it with food or bit it a million times, but instead of getting better and going away, it’s getting worse.

I NEED TO GET BETTER!

Just to give you an idea of how worn out I’ve been:

1. I turned down a trip to Target. Adam knows that if I say “no” to a Target run then something’s seriously wrong.

2. I haven’t watched one Christmas program/DVD/movie. Not even A CHRISTMAS STORY. I adore A CHRISTMAS STORY. What is happening?

3. The apartment’s not completely decorated for Christmas. Honestly, Adam and I put the tree up Friday, I decorated it, then I was done. I haven’t made any effort to do anything else since. THIS IS NOT LIKE ME.

To add insult to injury? My new(ish) awesome glasses? They have a chip in the lens. I dropped a plate the other day and thought it had avoided the glasses, but I guess not. So it’s back to the ugly cheap frames for me until I can get them repaired or either get a new pair. I mean, I can *somewhat* ignore the chip, but I don’t know if other people can. Suck.

I have so much to do (in no particular order, it just all needs to be done on or before December 15):

01. Christmas newsletter
02. Christmas cards
03. reestablish iPod
04. finish decorating apartment
05. major litter box cleaning
06. organize closet and clothing
07. wrap presents
08. clean living room (this may as well be a permanent on the list)
09. plan Christmas menu
10. make Christmas food shopping list
11. return library books
12. finish Christmas shopping
13. buy cat food
14. laundry
15. two newsletters for Moksha
16. use Body Shop Groupon
17. send packages

Yea, whatever is bugging me needs to GET TO STEPPIN’. I ain’t got time for this mess.

As much as I love iProcrastinate, I didn’t like that it didn’t give me reminders of when things were due. So I decided to use Producteev. It has a reminder function. Except… it doesn’t seem to be working. I should add that to the list of things screwed up by Mercury’s retrograde. *sigh* Or maybe the software just sucks.

So now I’m on the hunt for another To Do program. I might have to break down and PAY FOR ONE. *gulp* I mean, what’s the point of having a productivity program if all it does it make me panic because it doesn’t tell me when stuff’s coming up, just when it’s due RIGHT NOW?

In spite of all this bleh, I had a good time Saturday night. I hung out with a bunch of former coworkers from Schawk. It was so good to see them all again. One can be glad to escape the craziness of the workplace, but the people will always tug at me.

Brad, JT, Hayley, me, Tyrone, Duane

I’m a homebody. I don’t go out a lot. It’s nice to get out sometimes, though. Although I think Saturday night might have done me in. Maybe I’m still recovering from that.

Also, did I mention that my birthday is in 14 days? No? Well, now you know.

Anyway, I’m off for now. Time for more resting so I can get better once and for all. I WILL get better. Hear that, Universe? I WILL get better within the next 12 hours.

Please send me lots of good vibes for many various things, OK? 🙂

Till next time….

13 Comments

Night Owl In Full Effect, Yo

12 November 2011 / life, ronni, to do

source

I think I’ve managed to completely screw up my sleep schedule. Just to give you an example, this is what I did yesterday/today.

Yesterday, I woke up at 7am, and stayed up and read til about 8:30 or 9am. Went back to sleep until 11:25am. Got up and went to yoga. A NICE long yoga class. Came home and stayed up til about 6pm. Read, then crashed at some point. Woke up at about 11pm. Stayed up til after 5am. Got out of bed today at about… 1pm.

Y’ALL.
THAT IS MESSED UP.

(You know what else is messed up? I forgot to make a wish for 11.11.11. How lame is that?)

I *like* to get up around 10am at the latest. My husband wakes up at 6am or something crazy like that every day. So by the time I think about rolling out of bed, he’s been up for four hours already. It makes me feel bad.

Although it shouldn’t, because I am up really late at night so it’s not like I’m sleeping ALL THE TIME. I’ve been this way since high school, always preferring the late night to the bustling day. It’s so quiet, and I’ve lately been appreciating quiet very much.

In the Sing Yourself Awake! workshop, Suzanne Sterling talked about how yoga makes us more sensitive–so sensitive that we can’t tolerate certain things anymore. It’s true. I can’t stand to watch (or hear) movies/TV shows with violence, yelling, or lots of anger. (I used to love The Boondock Saints–I wonder how I’d react to it now.) I don’t like bars. In fact, I hate bars. Loud music or a TV show (that I didn’t choose) is like an assault on my soul and it gets me completely tense and stressed out.

So, to counteract that, I should be making noise of my own. Except as adults, we’re kinda taught that making noises is… weird. I mean, I get anxious when I’m out shopping because I don’t want to be bothered with all the other people (seems like no matter what I want to look at, a million other people want to look at it too even though no one had been there until I got there, but I’m sure as hell not going to squat down and make a first chakra noise to calm myself while I’m in the grocery store or the toy aisle at Target or avoiding being run over by a double wide stroller in the North Avenue Whole Foods.

(Seriously, what is wrong with the customers in that store? It’s really scary in there.)

I thought about getting up really early and heading downtown to do some shopping. Then I remembered that it’s Saturday and that I didn’t want to deal with crowds. I considered cleaning the fridge–then I remembered that we need more trash bags and Adam has the car, so I can’t go get any. I mean, I *could* but that would mean hitting CVS and seriously overpaying. Nope! Thank you! That leaves Aidan’s room. I really don’t want to tackle Aidan’s room. Aidan destroys it when he is here, and when he is gone, Adam finishes the job. But we need to handle it soon because Aidan will be here in ten days!! I told Adam to tackle the high level stuff, and that I’d handle all the little details he misses; the things that make the room look nice and smell nice and like a room instead of The Temple of Doom. BUT, with Christmas coming up, I want to make sure I have easy access to the decorations and things. So I WILL have to do a bit of heavy lifting so that stuff won’t get buried, buried, buried.

It’s a very delicate operation. And I have to try not to hurt myself in the process. Still, I think I WILL brace myself and head into Aidan’s room and see what I can do. Wish me luck!

Believe me, I’ll need it.

12 Comments

Rambling…

9 November 2011 / adam, books, shopping, to do

I’m tired. I need a full day where I don’t have to do anything but read and sleep. I really should not allow myself to indulge in such a day until all my chores are done, but meh. I also should not be blogging at 1am but there you go.

Christmas is 46 freaking days away. Time is FLYING. I have all of these “to do” items that i put in my iProcrastinate in early/middle October. When it’s the middle of October, November due dates seem far away. Well, now all that stuff is coming due now and I’m kinda like WHOA. WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN? In fact, two of my items are past due. FAIL.

I started Christmas shopping in earnest Monday. I was out with my friend Angelo, and we hit Bloomingdales, Filene’s Basement, and many other assorted stores along Michigan Avenue. I was able to knock out a good chunk of my shopping for Adam. Go me! I also let Angelo treat me to a white chocolate raspberry mocha from Starbucks. I very rarely indulge in Starbucks, and I get this particular coffee drink once or twice a year. It was yummy.

Adam and I went out to the ‘burbs yesterday. I found the most awesome store at the Westfield Fox Valley mall. It’s called Funk-E-Breeze and it’s the store that Hot Topic and Spencer Gifts WISH they could be. I wanted just about everything in there, but I settled on buying lots of incense. Because mmm, incense.

We hit Anderson’s Bookshop, the best bookstore in the whole wide world. Seriously, you should be jealous of that bookstore because it is *just that awesome*. This bookstore gets folks like Tyra Banks, Weird Al, and Jodi Piccoult. And they *hand sell* books. They listen to what you like and suggest books that are similar. Awesome. Anyway, Adam’s an author, and he went to Anderson’s to sign stock. How cool is that? But you know what’s even cooler?

You can win copies of Adam’s books!

EXTRAORDINARY is an epic tale of love, magic,
mystery, musical theatre, and unicorn poop.
UNICORN POOP people!
You know you want to read it.
Honestly, it’s my favorite one by him thus far.
Check out the entry post here.

Adam also writes under the pen name S.J. Adams.
(I think Adam thinks S.J. is real. Seriously. I get concerned.)
SPARKS is a John Hughes-esque novel about a
Full House-obsessed girl
who attempts to get over a crush
by embarking on a “holy quest” with
a couple of misfits who have invented a religion.
Check out the entry post for this book here!

Yay! And that’s all for now. Til next time!

Linking up with:

Whoo!

17 Comments