Step Four: Buckle Down

I am a horrible time-waster. And it seems the more stressed out and busy that I get the more I tend to want to waste time. This past semester is a great example of that. Towards the end I got frustrated. I did not want to study or even do the reading, or pay attention in class. I knew I wouldn't learn the material magically but I began to lose my motivation. I do feel though that getting more of my home into order has the potential to help me get more of my mind in order, thereby making the semester slightly easier to deal with. The more that I have physically organized the more mental clarity I am finding. Unfortunately classes start the week after next.

Quick side note, who the hell drives off without clearing ANY of their car off?! I just looked out the window to see this car with a back window, and the entire passenger side full of snow, as in can't see a speck of clear space, leaving my parking lot.

Back to buckling down. The fact that school will be starting up again soon does not leave me very much time at all to finish this mission. Although the first week or two I won't have that much crap to do. Next weekend I am having Mini-Geek's birthday party since my family will be back from Hawaii (may they have a snowstorm for their return, similar to the one that we're having now) by then.

I need to learn that I do not need to my google reader a zillion times a day and read every single thing on there. The world will not end if I do not see every lolcat posted on icanhascheezburger. XKCD is not a necessary start to any Monday, Wednesday, or Friday morning. I do not need to at least skim through every article that Wired posts. I do, however, need to stay on top of woots. They sometimes sell out.

Step Three: Eat Better

My diet sometimes contains some crap, especially during the school year. I am constantly grabbing this and that out of the vending machine or a slice of pizza on the way to class. I try to make it better things out of the machine, I don't eat chips, they're awful things. I look for granola bars and whatnot. This needs to end. Or rather not continue once the semester starts back up.

I've considered going vegetarian again, but I am not sure yet. I really don't eat much meat and I rarely, if ever, eat red meat.

I eat too much bread, I already know that.

Since break started I've been eating a bit better. I'd like to do even more of our shopping at the little local place, assuring that I buy less frozen food and more fruits and vegetables. I go there some but I'd like to go back to doing most of my shopping there again.

As for the exercise, I think that I broke one of my toes earlier. I apparently developed this problem earlier where I could not walk around without slamming my toes into something. I whacked all 4 smaller toes on my left foot into the Wii Fit board earlier. The second from my left is rather bruised and they hurt like hell still. Super way to start a new year.

Step Two: Exercise

This past semester I gained some serious weight. Not just a couple of whiny pounds. Not like 30 pounds, but more than I'd like. I started off doing so well but a lot happened and the exercising didn't very often. One of my good friends thinks that a lot of it was stress. I was probably more stressed than I've ever been these past few months.

Again, this semester I'll have a bit more time so hopefully I can make some changes here with a bit more ease.

The last couple of weeks I've been on the Wii Fit pretty regularly and adding in my yoga DVD nearly every day, sometimes managing both the morning and night sections, and my evil exercise ball DVD with the woman who says awful peppy work out like things in that irritating voice.

I don't get why I don't do yoga more. I feel amazing after I am done, physically and mentally. Being all stretchy is super-fun. And this woman doesn't mess around when it comes to the morning one, she makes sure that you sweat by the time that it's over. I miss yoga classes at school. Naturally they're full for spring so that's sort of out of the question.

I know that once classes begin again I won't get as much exercise time in, but I would really like it if I could at least bother to do it a little bit this time around for the entire semester.

As far as Decluttering goes, rather than finishing this post yesterday I spent a bunch of time going through one of the hall closets. I cleaned out an insane amount of junk, both to donate and to trash. I just felt so much better taking that one small step that I cannot wait to drop off Mini-Geek with his grandma and get to work on today's project, either my bedroom closets or the basement storage!

Step One: Declutter

A new year is rapidly coming up and I'm preparing to make changes in my life. They are things I've been wanting to do for a little bit now but I have been putting off because I took on far too much this semester and then I was doing the whole Christmas thing and now I have time to relax. If I get on it I'll write a post a day for each of things I want to change.

I was reading a post the other day and it further enforced that I want to declutter my life, starting with my physical home. I have too much stuff. Some of it has no point. I'm a pack rat. I have a Jones Soda Co bottle because it has a hysterical cat picture on it sitting on my desk, somewhere around here I have a cheesy little trinket box that I have had for well-over 10 years, probably closer to 15 than 10 for reasons I really do not understand. I realize that with a 4 year old (as of yesterday!) and being a student "stuff" can't be avoided. Papers will occasionally overtake my desk. Toys will migrate throughout the house. However there is far more than I need to be in control of that I am not. I have a basement storage unit that is full of stuff, most of which I don't need or use anymore. Having a child and pretty much wanting another one, eventually, doesn't help. But I do need to remember that when that "eventually" comes I will be in a different position than I am in now. I will have more disposable income than I currently do, heck I have more now than I did when I had my son. Getting rid of things like the giant plastic high chair is really not that big of a deal. Toys do not need to be kept. Ever. I mean aside from a few special ones. Maybe. Clothes that I do not wear need to go.

I just have too much meaningless stuff.

I also have a nasty habit of not putting the more used stuff back where it goes. I often find I have a pile of text books, papers, and whatnot on the floor by my desk. Piles of hoodies find themselves throughout my home. (It's really more than cold enough that I should be wearing an actual coat by now. I think I'm holding out until it gets down to at least 12 at night so it doesn't seem so cold or something.) Wii games and DVDs don't get put away. Some mess is just more familiar to me I think. I grew up in a good-sized family. It's a big family by most American standards now. I had 3 sisters and a brother, my sisters are considerably younger than me (they're technically my half sisters). A mess here and there was completely unavoidable. Sure the toys got picked up the evenings and everything, but there was nearly always a pile of school papers and drawings and mail somewhere. The bedrooms were nearly never all spotless at once.

I also spent a lot of time with my packrat grandma, even living with her for a few years when my parents first split. I miss her very much and loved her dearly but when she passed away stepping into that basement truly made me realize she had a bit of a problem. She died in 2005. There were Brand Names catalogs from the 1980s in the basement. There were school papers from my father. There was tax stuff from much, much farther back than necessary. She also had this habit of writing notes to herself. There were little pieces of paper everywhere, tucked away just waiting to be discovered. We found stacks of paintings of people in the garage. She had once said she didn't know who they were, they came from her father's house.

I don't want that to be me. So decluttering, here I come.