Cleaning the kitchen

I really should take before and after photos. I’m always much impressed by the “after” look. Today is the day to wash floors, de-clutter, re-arrange, and get rid of things I don’t use.

Spring cleaning

Now that we have four cats, we seem to get a lot of these…

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What to do while unemployed

This came up in a BookCrossing discussion. My answer follows.

• Plan your garden? If it’s warm enough, plant a few things. Tell the people at the garden store that you’re looking for a new job.
• If you have TV, turn on some of the daytime exercise shows and bounce along with them.
• Start a daily stretching session- it will make you feel years younger. (Whartons’ stretch book is good–active isolated stretching or some such.)
• When you can leave the house, walk at least 3 miles a day (1 hour at a reasonably brisk pace) - but start off with five days of 20-minute walks and 5 days of 30-minute walks to get acclimatized.
• “Edit” your closets by passing along things you don’t wear, things you always put back for next time, things that itch, shrink, wrinkle at a hard look, or simply don’t flatter you. Compare them to clothes worn by people in the next level up of your profession.
• If there’s a public pool, swim. Tell the people you meet at the pool that you can swim during the day because you’re between jobs right now, and you’re looking for a new opportunity.
• Review what’s going on in your industry or one you’d like to be in and find out what skills you’ll need over the next few years.
• Phone your employed friends, meet them for coffee, and ask what’s going on in their lives. Let them know you’re looking for work. Maybe they’ll have heard of something.
• Learn to draw.
• Mend things that need mending or throw them out.
• Re-write your résumé.
• Find out what school at The Boy’s next level of school is going to need by the time he gets there, and work with parents who are there now to help provide it. Mentiond that you’re looking for work.
• Once Boy is well, run round and do all your long-term errands such as dentist, doctor, floor polishing, renew professional memberships, plan next year’s vacation. (Pitch tent in backyard? Need tent!)

I talk a good game, don’t I?

Spring planting

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It’s time to start thinking about a garden, especially if food prices are about to go up.

Plantings are scheduled relative to the expected date of the last frost:

• Six weeks before: lettuce
• Four weeks before: peas?
• Two weeks before: beets?
• On the date: ?
• Two weeks after: ?
• Four weeks after: ?
• Six weeks after: set out tomatoes

April 1, according to the Sudbury Star: start tomato seeds.

Computer problems

More LOLcats

Something happened to my laptop computer and now all I get is the Blue Screen of Death. None of the starting modes work. I have to dig up some original disks and do something about it so I can get access to recent files and photos.

Remember the Milk

Finally, the Web has come up with something I’ve been wishing for: a good online manager of to-do tasks.

Good days

The last couple of days were productive. Yesterday I cleaned the kitchen, did some re-organizing, and washed the floor (including under the stove), while Andie did research for a Guiding project. I also got Marlowe checked up at the vet. She has interstitial cystitis, possibly caused by stress, and has to take anti-inflammatory medicine in her food and take some kind of mood booster. I’ll try to borrow back the feline face hormones, which make all the cats more relaxed.

Today we went swimming at 7:00 a.m. Later, I helped Andie clean up her room. She had to go back to Hamilton.

It’s slowly thawing here, which is better than a quick thawing, which tends to cause floods.

Monday Melee for January 28

I just discovered this collection of bloggers about getting organized: Monady Melee.

The Monday Melee up til now has been answers to these five questions:

1. The Misanthtropic: Name something (about humanity) you absolutely hate.
2.  The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus.
3.  The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.
4.  The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.
5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.
6.  The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.

The new questions are these:

1. The Magnificent: Name someone you absolutely adore, and tell us why.
2. The Muddy: Tell us something about life you just don’t “get”.
3. The Magnetic: Name something or someone good (or bad) you’re drawn to and you just can’t help it. Tell us if you want to change this or not.
4. The Mainstay: Who or what is something you just can’t live without? Why?
5. The Masquerade: Tell us something about yourself we wouldn’t already know.
6. The Mettle: Tell us about a time you showed courage in yourself, or tell us what you wish you had the courage to do.

The new questions areGo to the original Monday Melee post for the rules and icons.

Meet a professional organizer

Sandy Wright of WrightEdge Solutions says,

“Here’s a description of my typical workday.

• During a first session, which is 2 hours, I interview the client as to the organizing goals, barriers and others who may share the space.
  
• I tour the area to understand the living style and get a feeling for what might or might not work.
  
• During that session a plan is developed and at least one element is begun. Subsequent followup is discussed and scheduled if appropriate.
  
• Followup sessions are usually 1-2 hour work sessions with my providing a session log with ‘homework’ to be done by the client and suggested products.”

(Link)

More sorting

Part of the solution to clutter is just to keep working against it. Today, I went through a pile of papers and recycled some of them; discarded some magazines (and just moved some others); and dug out a few books from among the papers.

My son was here to help. He’s sick, but made some phone calls and Web searches to explore options for getting my laptop computer going again: calling an independent service; getting Dell to fix it; or downloading something from the Web. If I locate my Windows disks, I should be able to boot up the computer from that and restore or repair the registry.

I tried on my winter coats and reluctantly discarded a few that I’m not wearing often enough.

I finished up yesterday’s laundry and did two more loads.