Conga Friday

[Sunny]

Hi Everyone! I couldn't remember when I posted last and had to look it up. It was Wed. evening after shopping all afternoon. So here it is Friday! Sunny out and 76*; it was supposed to get up to 83* today and may not have.

The house is in pretty good shape. Any need for a Conga will be tomorrow morning. I did desk day instead; wrote checks and got them out to mailbox in time for pick up and paid some bills online. Dh and I just sat and relaxed for a little while, conversing about "this and that".

Yesterday we worked in the front yard. Dh raked and filled two bags full of leaves, twigs etc. and mowed the lawn. I dug up amaryllis bulbs from the grass near the property line of the house next door and transplanted them in the garden in front of our house. I cleaned out the corner by our porch and that all looks much better. I still want to rake the extra pine needles from the side yard around to the front as ground cover. There is still a lot of weeding to be done, but will do a little at a time. Three hours was long enough. My leg muscles are sore today --- I'm not used to crawling around in the dirt.

Harriet, those cupcakes look delicious. One year ddil#2 took cake decorating classes and we bought her a whole kit with all kinds of baking and decorating tools. She uses it all a lot.

It is now time to see about supper!

So, Ivy, what were the 'steps'?

Ivy, that's what I was wondering?!

[OKay]

Lego storage & play area project is done! After a week of having dining room table covered with Lego's it feels wonderful to have it restored to "normal".

[Ivy]

DH will get towels out of the dryer for me, because my shoulder's sore from working yesterday. He got back from Costco, the crochet book wasn't there yet, so he took me to WM. I got to see the beautiful view of the Olympics Mtn. Range. I got a blue cotton floral short-sleeved nightgown and 1 cone of P 'n' C yarn. It's mostly white, with a few flecks of bright apple green & blue. I plan making facecloths with it, then use my old/faded ones for cleaning.

DH wanted to take me out today because April 14 - 18, he'll maybe be serving daily on jury duty, so next week will be an "odd" week, in case he's not here all day. But if he serves daily, it means I'll have time to clean, crochet, read, etc... before Easter. I'll get in QT, maybe too *MUCH* quiet time? But it'll be nice, I will miss him, but it's good to have time for getting ready for Easter that week, whether he serves or not.

Dgrson's super excited about working on a big project with several people, said he'll tell me later what it is, and sure sounded happy about it.

I think I'll go crochet awhile, get the nightgown dried, and finish up the lol's I have left to do, before dinnertime. The blueberry muffin from WM was exceptionally delicious! It was nice to get out, too.

Have a great afternoon, Everybody!

[Elizabeth]

Hi everyone! This has been the week of job fairs, three to be exact! The first one was all sales stuff, definitely not me. I only went there because the web page implied the Corps of Engineers would be there. They weren't. Got leads from the second two that I need to follow up on. I have made a schedule and reservations for my parents visit last night. Today, I judged at a science fair and have eaten lunch.

Some stuff I need to do:
file unemployment claim (will do after posting!)
consolidate info from job fairs and follow up (may be next week)
LOL

Countdown until my parents arrive: 16.4 hours until I have to pick them up at the airport.

House stuff I would like to get done before they arrive:
kitchen - total disaster
MBR - not too bad, but does need work
DD's room - not too bad, but too cluttered. Since she is having my dad (interior designer for 50+ years) redo her room, that is ok. I will sweep and put a few things away though.
sewing room - worst disaster of the house. Also having interior design help here.
LR - one hot spot + chair clean where dFosterCat14 threw up AGAIN
front porch - sweep
car - clean out and vacuum

All right, I will file that unemployment claim then join the conga!

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Started a load of laundry after dinner. Think I might have napped in my chair too. Dh certainly startled me when he came downstairs.

Dh is going to watch another movie tonight so that frees me up to do paperwork or work in the basement. Or vacuum upstairs. The vacuum is waiting for me in the bedroom. Today is bedroom level but I've only done the sheets and towels, I haven't done vacuuming, dusting or bathroom cleaning.

Dh commented on how the kitchen looked like a 'show' kitchen. He meant it in a nice way but the result comes from me taking down the personal touches and getting things stored away inside cupboards. The cleaning helped too. I still have the floor to do but am waiting until tomorrow for that. I'm too tired today.

[Ivy]

OOOOOOH! You wanted to know the 20 steps? There are 20 of them, so here goes:

20 STEPS~

1- Select a single issue such as anxiety, depression, or tension, guilt, anger, conflict & number each issue.
2- How is issue #1 causing you or another to suffer?
3- State: Have you or haven't you disregarded it?
4- State: Have you or haven't you tried to deal with it?
5- State your willingness to reduce your suffering.
6- State ways you've tried to deal with the issue.
7- Decide why your effort at a solution was not effective.
8- Find out how you react to change in regard to that issue.
9- Decide if you want to run the risk of that change.
10- Enumerate what you have to lose or can gain by making a change in the issue selected.
11- Choose a possible solution in dealing with the issue. Call it alternative #1.
12- Put alternative #1 into action.
13- Collect input from others regarding the efforts you've made.
14- Evaluate your new action, (alternative #1), in the terms of losses and gains.
15- Decide on alternative #2, if #1 failed.
16- Repeat evaluation process for #2.
17- Continue alternative process if these are impractical, inconvenient or ineffective.
18- Determine if you've reached your limit regarding the issue you're on.
19- Try to find the end point of any issue you're working in BEFORE you become discouraged with your efforts.
20- Feel free to return to any issue you've already worked on.


This list might even be 20 years old or older, too. I have no clue if it's from a book or magazine article. It made perfect sense to me, when I re-read it, so I wrote out my list and then I prioritized my day-to-day life, based on what's the most important to me and which causes me the less stress and anxiety. I didn't even think to post the 20 steps list this morning, either. I don't know why. Maybe I didn't think it was interesting enough to post the list? But it sure did help me out, left me with calm, after I wrote out my steps and I feel very reassured, how if my steps go kaddywampus on me again, I can always re-evaluate my list and do it again, until I'm satisfied with it. For instance, after the Christmas crochet is over, I can leave that off my list or replace it with something else that's been nagging at me to do.

I think this is good for problems at work, at home, relationships, jobs, chores, preparing for holidays, dealing with people or problem people, for making goals, weight loss, seasonal things, such as gardening, working on wedding preparations or getting a kid into a college of their choice- or just about anything.

Now that I've given you the 20-step list, do any of you use tools like mind maps or story boarding, for projects, goals, baby-stepping spring cleaning or different things like that? I story boarded a short story, now I need to write out the paragraphs by hand. Sometimes, if I have a period of time, say 8 weeks, before a certain goal is to be done, I mind map it in black markers with colored markers, for motivation, and make a poster of it for my office, to look at. A "Google" search would bring those ideas up, so you can see different examples and I bet maybe at YouTube they may have some examples, too.

I got a bit of a nap in, s2s before dinner, so now it's time to go eat leftovers. It's still sunny here, is a beautiful evening and DH will watch the Mariners play, while I crochet and read. All the laundry got caught up. I have some hot spots to put out, but they're minor ones, except the main office hot spot is a major one.

Have a good evening, Everybody.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Ivy: Thanks for taking the time to type that out for us.

I've got two loads of laundry done and sorted through paperwork and mail. I'm doing Quicken entries of household expenses now. Almost done and then I can go to bed.

Watched 2 episodes of Mr. Selfridge off Netflix. Ok but not like Downton Abbey for being engrossing. I might switch to watching repeats of that instead.

[Ivy]

Kathryn, Your kitchen sounds beautiful to me. I need a show kitchen for Easter.

Elizabeth, Good luck on the job hunt, again, and enjoy your parents' visit, too. Will they be there throughout Easter or do they stay a bit longer, too?

DH won't need to serves on jury duty for Monday the 14th, so he'll stay home to mow, etc.... He plans on getting our Easter pork roast on Thursday. We have enough food, except will need to get bread, by Thursday. We'll be pre-Easter cleaning, this week, too.

All the laundry's put away now, won't need to do anymore for 1 - 2 days. Plan to crochet, read, walk, clean, and work on a story or 2, this upcoming week, too. I won't put the pink tablecloth on until Saturday evening. Decided to not do the placemats, since none of them match the pink. Will just set places right onto the tablecloth. Also, I read the bottom of the china, which is Noritake China and it's the "Daryl" pattern. It has a gold ring and a silver ring around the outer edges of the dishes. So pretty. I like how the roses are a light pale pink and the leaves/stems are grey. It's unusual-looking to me, yet very pretty.

I need to write a to do list for tomorrow, too, and work on the weekly one, on an 8 1/2" x 11" tablet from Sunday to Saturday. Ddil got it for me. It's nice to have the entire week at a glance.

[Elizabeth]

Hi again! I do believe I am living in a sitcom. (Better that than a soap opera!) I cleaned and vacuumed the car, but the glove compartment fell in my lap! I put it back together, and it stays put; as long as you don't actually try to OPEN it or anything. While putting that back together, either the glove box bulb burned out, or I bumped it probably the latter. Of course, the stuff from the car is now in the hall, so THAT needs decluttering. As I came inside, a piece of door trim came off (house door trim, not car). So, I retrieve the screwdriver and put that back together. As I make this repair, dFosterCat2 escapes into the garage. (She cannot get outside from there). As I put the screwdriver away, I knocked the fire extinguisher over and the pin came out. Putting the pin back resulted in a blast of powder to the kitchen floor! That is now mopped up, but my black pants are full of the powder, and probably my hair too! After this post, I am going to (1) scoop catbox (2) LOL and shower, and (3) have myself either a wine cooler or a blue Hawaiian!

My status:
file unemployment claim - DONE!
consolidate info from job fairs and follow up - deferred
LOL - starting after post
kitchen - progress made, probably 15 minutes more to do
MBR - not started
DD's room - not started
sewing room - not started
LR - DONE!
front porch - DONE!
car - DONE!
hall - not too bad, but not started

Countdown until parents' arrival: 11 hours until pick up time.

In case you are wondering, I am NOT staying up all night and I will be working 15s.