Deep cleaning

Well, to accomodate my New Year's resolution of reducing the clutter in my life, I started deep cleaning my house. We just moved to this big beautiful house (5 bedrooms, huge living room, large kitchen, dining room, etc...) this July. I love it here. We just finished repainting the kitchen and dining room and it's just gorgeous.

So, anyway, we've accumulated some clutter. Nothing major, like you'd see on TV, but still a decent amount. So I took 3 hours yesterday and DEEP cleaned our room. It feels soooo much better in there. Airy and refreshing.

Today I'm going to do the same to the kitchen and dining room.... and also alleviate some of the bottlenecks there. Our garbage is ALWAYS full. Overflowing. However, we still have the tiny 'apartment sized' garbage can we bought when we got our first apartment. So, I'm going to get a larger one. Also, I'm going to rearrange the cabinets to make more sense for the kitchen.

Tomorrow, I'll do the living room and bathroom. Then Monday, I can work on the back bedroom, basement, and the basement bedroom. Then I will do the girls' rooms upstairs.

After I'm done with all of that, I will begin my new organization system for all of my paper crap.

I feel better already. :)

New Year's Resolution part II

So, I've come up with another New Year's Resolution. I'd like to reduce the 'clutter' in my life... namely the paper clutter. It's the worst. No matter what I do, I seem to accumulate more and more of it. So that's my second resolution. To do away (or control) the paper clutter.



Now, on to the "How" of executing my New Year's resolutions.....



The first one, letting go of my anger and all that toward's Dave's family, may be the tougher of the two to execute. The little trick my pyschologist gave me (see the "crazy crazy crazy" sign on www.myspace.com/dreamingofgeorgia and read my 1st new year's post) helps, but it doesn't quite alleviate the problem. What to do? I've already told Dave that I am looking out for my best interests and absolving myself of his family and ex-wife. That was a huge step. I've begun conditioning myself by physically telling myself "NO" as soon as a thought of them creeps into my mind. I am a firm believer in conditioning yourself into a different lifestyle or change. It worked for me when I decided to get healthy and lose weight. Conditioning. I will keep that up and keep referring to my CRAZY CRAZY CRAZY sign.

Now, on to the clutter problem. I know the key is organization and planned execution. A lot of it comes from the girls' school stuff. So, I can try a trick I read about with "inboxes" for each of them. My magazines, I've already solved that problem (I'm a magazineaholic!!!) As soon as I'm done reading them, they get tossed into a milk crate. When it's full, I have a lady who comes and gets them. She and her 5 daughters read them and pass them on. I am really proud of that solution. Now, comes the hard part. The compulsive PRINTING that I do with recipes, coupons, LISTS, and everything else. Do I cold turkey that and give it up? Or find some way of wrangling it all? When I finally came up with my filing system for all of our bills, that REALLY helped. Maybe I can do the same for all of the crap that I print. That will work. Yea!! I'm proud of myself.

:)

My New Year's Resolution

Okay, okay, I know it's about 2 weeks early (give or take)... but somehow, I came to this today and absolutely knew that it has to be mine. First a little bit of background. I am hated by pretty much all of Dave's family. Not just hated, but treated as though I am the anti-Christ. This has gone on for three years. I won't slander anyone by telling the gorry details of the mean, vindictive, horrible things they have said and done to me. But let's just say that it's bad. Not your regular "in-law" hatred. And it's not just them, but his sister, her kid, his ex-wife (same deal, not your everydy run of the mill ex-wife hatred), his grandparents. It's been a very long three years. They've dedicated the time to making my life miserable and making our wedding as non-celebration-esque as possible. So to say the least, I'm resentful and actually hateful towards these people. This is not who I am. I'm not a hateful person. I'm a country girl.... I love everyone if they give me the chance. But this hatred has taken up soooooo much of my energy this past three years. And I can't take it any more. I just can't. I've done everything in my power to make ammends for something I didn't wrong in the first place. I've tried to play nice, I've done EVERYTHING I can. To no avail.

So, I've come to the conclusion (my resolution) that I just have to give up my hatred, resentment, my anger, and my hostility towards these people. They obviously are not going to change. And as my shrink once told me, they are not capable of acting socially "normal". She said that I have to see a big blinking "CRAZY, CRAZY, CRAZY" sign whenever I have to deal with them or even think about them. (those of you who've been on my myspace page will see that I actually have a sign that says that very thing.... to remind me) I have to let it go, because they are wasting too much of my energy and they honestly, don't deserve it. They're not worth the time it takes to be hurt by them.

So that's my resolution for this year. Though it's come a few weeks early, I think that it is very good.