Category: my one word

Decluttering

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, Marriage, my one word, Pantry Project, relationships, shopping

In the March 2012 issue of her magazine, Oprah says, “Identifying the cause of your clutter is the first step to getting it under control,” p.31.

Ya think?

Just in case that’s true…I thought about it in relation to my pantry, because food clutter is one of the areas with which I struggle (read: argue about with my husband). I look in my overflowing pantry and see safety, security, love. My husband looks in and sees clutter, chaos, disarray.

It’s a problem.

He is to the point now where he won’t even look in there to see if we have the can of tomato sauce, box of spaghetti, or whatever he needs to make supper that night. He would rather go to the store and buy what he needs, thereby completely avoiding the pantry and hopefully (but not usually) a fight.

Well, Oprah, let’s see if you and Peter Walsh can help us out. I’ll read the article and see if I can be helped. Peter’s idea in a nutshell is to pare down your belongings to basically nothing so they don’t have to be stored, dusted, arranged, etc.

Don’t think so.

My idea is this: get a bigger pantry. Just sayin’.

Time to write

by Karen, posted in books, my one word, writing

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I don’t have any books checked out from the library. None. Zero. Usually have a large pile or two of library books stacked next to the bed and/or couch, waiting to be read.

The time constraints imposed by the library (read: due dates) helped keep the pile(s)  manageable.  No matter how busy I am, I always seem to find time to read.

Writing? That’s trickier. If you write on a laptop, as I (now) do, it can be very difficult. Laptops are supposed to be portable, but if you have one with a crappy battery life (like, an hour?) and if you have trouble seeing the screen outside in the daylight like I do, you end up having packed up your laptop for nothing, because you can’t write a damn word under those conditions.

Here’s the funny thing though: Now that I have no library books staring me down, I suddenly do have time to write. Sure, I still have piles of my own as yet unread books, but they don’t have to be finished by any particular date.

They can wait.

Note to self: having a deadline, it turns out, can be very helpful.

Go figure.

Losing my mind

by Karen, posted in Midlife Crisis, my one word

Here is just a small sampling of the fruits of my distraction over the past couple of weeks.

  1. Went to my hair appointment, got out of the car, looked for my pocketbook, realized I’d left it at home. I could clearly see it in my mind’s eye hanging over the back of the kitchen chair. I was sure I’d taken it off the chair and brought it with me to the car. I had not.
  2. Got up early, got dressed in my gym clothes, got to Planet Fitness, got out of the car…and realized that I was wearing my winter boots and had not brought my sneakers. Fail.
  3. Ran the dryer for 45 minutes, went to remove the clothes, and discovered that they weren’t in there. I’d never taken them out of the washer and put them in the dryer in the first place. Even though (once again) I clearly remember doing so.
  4. Told my daughter, “Go get the rest of the bags out of the trash,” after I returned from food shopping. Oh, didn’t I say “trunk”? I was sure I’d said “trunk”…

And these are just the things that I remember. Needless to say, I’m not making great progress with “my one word” for 2012.

Scary.

Pajama Day!

by Karen, posted in books, health, Midlife Crisis, movies, my one word, no fear

I recently read a magazine article about Valerie Bertinelli  ( Woman’s Day, I think; she was on the cover, if that helps) in which she describes a day that she spent in bed. Her husband was away travelling (I think), and of course she’s had an empty nest now for years, so there weren’t too many arrangements for her to make in advance. She gets a stack of magazines, books she has been wanting to read, movies she’s been wanting to see…then takes to her bed, staying in her jammies (duh) and even brings any meals right there to the bed for consumption.
I immediately started wondering how the heck to arrange a Pajama Day for me.

I found a day in March that looks promising.

“Now,  if there were only closer opportunity for a mental health–I mean, pajama–day!” Then a funny thing happened…I got sick.

My stack of magazines is already assembled. My stack of books is already next to the bed (and the couch, and my desk) and currently I have not one, but two books that I am actively reading and loving. My movie list is already compiled on Netflix (not to mention my DVR queue that at this point is looking longer than my life). In fact, a movie that I have been dying to see for weeks had just (finally! finally!) arrived from Netflix and was there waiting for me.

I never get sick. Here was my perfect opportunity to take a pajama day, handed to me on a silver platter, and what did I do?

I went to work.

Stupid.

It’s hard to not be afraid to just focus on oneself.

Oh, I did use the fact that I was sick as a ‘get out of (going to the) gym free’ card. Just sayin’…

Finishing my (first) book

by Karen, posted in books, education, my one word, no fear, writing

My One Word (aka New Year’s Resolution) for 2011 was to finish my book.

Instead, I wrote a second one.

What’s that about? Well, what I told myself at the time was that I was following a strategy that Stephen King advocated in On Writing, where you put your “finished” manuscript into a drawer and basically ignore it for a few months.

My gut tells me that it was really about procrastination.

So there I was, in December of 2011, and I had only reached Chapter 2 (of 50+) chapters in my book since I’ve been editing the typos and such out of it. My husband, once again, took pity on me. He suggested that I get a room with a view to work on my edits, freer from housework, mail, mommy (and wife!) roles, and other distractions, since this had been so effective (I’m ashamed to admit this) almost one year ago, when I was getting the printed out copy ready to become a proof copy.

And so I did. I got about one-third of the way through the proof that day. I set a goal to reach page 100, which I accomplished. I estimate the book is a little over 300 pages at this point (since I neglected to add them in the proof copy, I don’t know for sure!) so that’s not a bad day’s work.

The good news is that the manuscript for the second book is much less of a mess than was/is the first. I figured out that I needed to put in the chapter breaks and blank pages as I go, because they do not magically appear at the end when you finish, as I had previously thought. I also know how to paginate the darn thing, which I didn’t know for manuscript #1.

Maybe it was really all part of the writing process?

Here’s hopin’.

My one word, 2012

by Karen, posted in friends, Holidays, my one word

Last year I was inspired by My One Word to choose one word as my New Year’s Resolution.  I chose “Edit”, which soon morphed into two words, “Focus”. I optimistically wrote my words on an index card (one on each side, so I was still looking at just one word at a time!) and put it on my desk.

As you can see, it soon became surrounded by other words…is that wrong?

This year I chose “focus” again (guess why!) and added “balance” as my second word, after attending a yoga class taught by my favorite yoga teacher (and friend), Kristen, on New Year’s Eve.

Soon thereafter, however, I came across a Facebook post by another friend, Jody, that mentioned the word “hope” in connection with 2012. Then today, another image depicting the word “hope” showed up in my email inbox.

I can take a hint; I’m figuring out that I need to add “hope” to that mix.  Therefore, I’m officially adopting “hope”  as my third word for 2012.  Hey, three is my favorite number anyway!

Thoughts on writing

by Karen, posted in books, family, friends, my one word, no fear, Work from Home, writing
My first book written during NaNoWriMo 2010

Okay, I was going to entitle this post “On Writing” but didn’t want to piss Stephen King off. This is my second year participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge. For those of you that wonder what that alphabet soup of letters stands for, it’s National Novel Writing Month and it takes place annually in November. Basically, we commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Seriously.

Why did I participate this year when the book I wrote last year is still languishing on the shelf, so to speak? When I asked not only my husband but my Angels (at the Clay Hill Farm Angel Reading in October) if I should do it and they said, in a word, “No”?

I don’t know. But here’s something that I do know: as I sat here on November 27, and I typed my 50,000th word….it felt freakin’ fantastic!!!

So now I’m going to borrow one of  Oprah’s favorite sayings: “What I know for sure” on the evening that I finished my second NaNoWriMo and my second book (draft):

  1. Writing flourishes when you have deadlines.
  2. Writing is prolific when you stop editing yourself and just write.
  3. Writing gets done when you commit to doing it publicly (to me, NaNoWriMo is sort of the writer’s equivalent of Weight Watchers).
  4. Writing begets writing. The more I write, the more I write.

I also wonder if the fact that thousands of other writers are taking part in their own personal NaNoWriMo Vision Quest somehow results in a metaphysical momentum (you know, being part of something larger than yourself?)  that carries us all forward to reach the finish line.

Clearing clutter (continued)

by Karen, posted in Life in the cube, my one word, Work from Home, writing

I decided to take two days off from the computer and surprise! When I logged into my email today there were 97 messages.

Ninety. Seven. Messages.

I blame myself. I have subscribed to so many food blogs (for recipe purposes) and department stores and restaurants (for coupon and discount purposes) and writers and agents blogs (for writing tips and hey, maybe someone will publish my book!) that I have no time to actually read, and thereby potentially benefit from, them.

I have created a monster. With 97 legs. Now what?

Here’s my plan: If I receive an email and don’t have the time or the desire to read it at first glance, I shall just delete it. If I notice this happens more than once or twice, I shall unsubscribe.

That’s my story and I”m (hopefully going to) stick to it.

Addendum: The email count morphed up further to 102 in the time it took to write this post. Heavy sigh.

The Clutter of Days

by Karen, posted in (it's all about the) food, health, Karen's Kitchen, Midlife Crisis, my one word, Pantry Project

I’m reminded, as the new year looms, that I haven’t done an update about My One Word in a few months. You remember… my New Year’s Resolution? Redolent in its simplicity… the purity of one word (“Edit”) that morphed into the clutter of two words (I added “Focus” one month in to make my resolution double in size).

I have been focusing and editing. My bookcase is still looking pretty good. For the most part, when I’ve gotten a new book I’ve removed one (or more) from the shelves to make room (or to compensate…). I’ve done a pretty good job of making meals using what we have already in the pantry or the freezer (although I think my husband would not agree with me on this).

I remember when I was a teenager and in my twenties, I went out of my way to fill my days…every minute of my days…with work or school or time out with friends. I never had a day off. Never. I worked 6 or 7 days per week, sometimes double shifts, and went to school full-time. I wanted it that way. I was happy to have every minute programmed in.

Now, in (okay, at the end of) my forties, I am completely the opposite. I want to have all of my time unscheduled, unplanned. I am thrilled when I can arrange for a day to be completely empty, versus completely filled.

Not that it stays empty and uncluttered, usually, but knowing that there is no where I have to go and no one expecting me to do something or be somewhere at a certain time is a wonderful feeling.

Those days are few and far between.

Clear the clutter: get real

by Karen, posted in family, Midlife Crisis, my one word, no fear, relationships, writing

I’m still thinking about my New Year’s Resolution: my one word that morphed into two words: Edit and Focus. After beginning the process of setting up a home office and the necessary decluttering that has come along with that, I am thinking it makes sense to continue the momentum that I’ve got built up and “take it on the road”…er, to the other rooms in the house. (Was that an original thought or did my husband plant it in my subconscious mind? Hmmmmm…..).

At the moment, the clutter that spilled over into my bedroom is reduced but still remains. What I have left to go through includes, but (unfortunately) is not limited to:

  1. Knitting supplies: Patterns, yarn stash, needles and other sundries
  2. A filing cabinet with warranties, extra office supplies, vital records, and infinite other minutiae
  3. DVD’s, and (OMG!) video cassette tapes
  4. All of my writing files, notebooks, journals, project ideas

I’m reading a book that mentions a resource that I was following about five years ago but forgot about: The FlyLady.  Ready to get real and get rid of clutter but don’t know where to start? The FlyLady is your gal. Her BabySteps will take you right from square one to the finish line, presumably eradicating your clutter along the way.

My other decluttering activities this month: still parting with some books (one at a time, gifting them to friends), still unsubscribing from automatic emails (this month mostly from foodie ones…yes, it hurts). I’m also trying to bring less clutter into the house in the first place (yes, that’s Bill’s idea).  I’m also looking at the clutter surrounding finances (mostly paper files that I’m afraid to part with).

P.S. Yes, I admit it: After I went through the house and retrieved every single book I owned…I found more books. 😦 Sad but true.