Maybe

I signed up for Nablopomo, or "National Blog Posting Month" for the month of May. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now that it's pushing 11pm on a Sunday night and I am for the first time sitting down at the computer, I think perhaps I was wrong...
Nablopomo was initially developed to go along with nanowrimo (national novel writing month, when crazy people sign up to churn out a novel in the month of November. I did it back in 2009, and of course have not returned to that manuscript even once. Someday, perhaps...). Now, nablopomo is EVERY month, and every month the minds behind the frenzy offer a theme. This month it's "maybe." Following the theme is optional, and most months I have fleeting thoughts about engaging it and committing to writing more in terms of quantity, if not at all "more" in terms of quality.
Last week, in my post-Easter exhaustion and hopefulness, I entertained all kinds of crazy notions about making more time to write (and read, clean, exercise, cook, etc.). We'll see how that turns out.
I'm learning that in some ways, maybe in some of the least helpful ways, Easter works like New Year's Day in my life - there is before, and after, when of course I'll get everything organized and straightened up and put back on track. Somehow I don't think a massive self-improvement project is what the liturgy has in mind when we are reminded of the newness of life we have in our risen Lord.
Maybe I should just cut myself some slack.

Dining Room Organization Duet

Once again it has gotten late. Technically it's tomorrow, but I'm so close to finishing NaBloPoMo that I am thankful once again I haven't changed the time zone on my blogger settings... A college friend of mine, who also moved to Bozeman last year, came over this evening to help me sort out boxes in our dining room. We still don't have a dining room table in the dining room, which has made it a convenient catch all for all kinds of things, including half-unpacked boxes of china, crystal, and heirloom dishes and silver. Now it is organized, and quite a thing of beauty. The pile of "figure out what to do with this" stuff isn't too big, and I will confess has more things originally belonging to Grant than to me, but it feels good to have at least one more space in the house a little more organized and tidy. At this point things mostly have places, and are mostly in them. We'll see how long that lasts. The great thing about having this friend over was that she gets as excited as I do about vintage textiles, dishes that belonged to my great-grandmother, and that when I held up my Grandma's butter ball paddles she instantly knew what they were. We even looked online to find out how to make butter balls. Someday I will be the ultimate hostess, just like my grandmother always was, perfect butter balls and everything. Enough for tonight, it's past my bedtime and I'm afraid this stream of consciousness might spill over its banks in unseemly ways... Happy 6th day of Christmas!

Plan B

Surprise, surprise, the day didn't exactly go as planned (read yesterday's post for more info). It's not entirely my fault, though. The plan included a fun social event, the plan for which was hatched on Christmas Eve Day. While Grant led worship up at the hospital I headed to some members'/friends' house for a spaghetti dinner. Another family was there, too, and the three of us women decided we'd like to get together to make some more Christmas cookies, particularly of the more labor intensive variety: krumkaker and rosettes. I volunteered our kitchen, since I knew that would be motivation to clean, plus I have a krumkaker iron and all the equipment for rosettes. (Mind you, I've never actually made rosettes - the whole pot of hot oil has always been a little intimidating to me. I was looking forward to learning from a pro). I also invited two more women from church to join us, so we would be five. Good thing our kitchen is big enough to accomodate that many butts. Unfortunately, our experienced rosette maker had to cancel. We'll reschedule some time in January, so I'll still get practice with the cookie making. I thought I might make krumkaker on my own today, but never got that far.

After the plan for the day was derailed I ended up riding whatever whim took hold... Got a lot done in the project room, though it's still in that "it always gets worse before it gets better" stage. I remain hopeful.

Tomorrow will find me in the office, trying to cram as much work as possible into a single work day. I'm hoping I can plan the work and then work the plan. Happy 5th day of Christmas!

An organizational adventure

I had a whole day to myself today to do exactly as I wanted. That doesn't happen very often, really... And of course while I would have loved to get into "The Project Room" (our bonus room above the garage) to play, the state of the project room made that impossible. It is a disaster. And the disaster is my fault. During this relatively slow week between Christmas and New Year I am hoping to make some serious headway in the home and life organizing departments. I cleaned out our pantry and refrigerator this morning (we had nearly a dozen random zip-top plastic bags floating around the pantry shelves. Why? I have no idea). That felt good. Managed a few other routine household chores, and drew thick lines through them on the day's to-do list. Then I ran a few errands: picked up some "fabric drawers," which I think is a fancy way of saying collapsible cloth baskets - to corral the jumble of hats, gloves and scarves in our hall closet; got some yarn on sale - hopeful about getting a prayer shawl ministry up and going at church; got a few cute cookie tins at 60% off, which will come in handy for gifts next year; and various other necessary things, like milk. The late afternoon and evening found me working on thank you notes and Christmas card, and finally, the project room. It will be an ongoing project, but that's okay. There are still multiple boxes in there which we haven't touched since we moved up here from Phoenix, they've waited this long, they can wait a little longer. Part of my hope for getting slightly more organized is management of time. I excel at creating monster to-do lists, unfortunately I rarely succeed at getting everything done. During my library adventure last week I picked up a copy of Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern. She advocates using a Time Map, which is something I've sort of been doing for the last few months, even before I got her book. I get out of whack a lot, though, and I think I've discovered the two primary reasons why: I am lousy at estimating how long tasks will take, and I am really good at letting myself get interrupted - by others and by myself. I have created a map for tomorrow. I'll let you know how off track I end up. :)