Weekend Catch-Up, 6 Items

Here’s what’s left that I should have done this week:

1. Tidy needlework supplies and equipment.11:30 Saturday
2. Put away summer weight coats.7 p.m. Saturday
3. Deal with mail.7:30 p.m. Saturday
4. Work on the wood piles (also on the to do list).
5. Update grain storage: review/cull, clean containers, etc. A tiny piece of this was done as part of clearing the kitchen counter. Weds. 10 a.m. More of this was done Saturday evening, 7:45 p.m. The job is too involved to do really quickly.
6. Work on the house notebook. 11:00 a.m Saturday

I’m busy tomorrow, so these all have to happen today (Saturday).

Also on the list is the usual weekend chores: dump, laundry, etc.

I’m off!

J

 

 

 

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Friday’s Five, Actually, It’s 12!

Here’s my new list of things to do today:

1. Tidy needlework supplies and equipment.
2. Find a new home for the puzzles (displaced when the Hoosier was sent for sale). Done 6:00 p.m.
3. Put away summer weight coats. (It’s the first day of fall, yes?)
4. Dust a shelf in the office.10:47 a.m.
5. Box  yard sale items up for the last sale or put in the dump bin (to donate).11:30 a.m.

What’s left from earlier this week:

1. Deal with mail
2. Work on the wood piles (also on the to do list).
3. Update grain storage: review/cull, clean containers, etc. A tiny piece of this was done as part of clearing the kitchen counter. Weds. 10 a.m.
4. Prep for the Christmas ornaments I’m making. Finished Friday. Now all I have to do is finalize the assembly!
5. Dust the stained glass. Done 11:40 Friday
6. Finish the salsa started Thursday.It was finished, except a small amount needed a container. Done! Friday 11:14
7. Work on the house notebook.

 

 

 

 

Thursday’s Five, no Eleven

Here’s what’s outstanding from earlier in the week: (I had forgotten the last two when I made this list, but did the vacuuming and couldn’t find it on the list, and searched til I tracked it down. I had dropped two items from Monday’s list, the last two just below.)

1. Deal with mail
2. Work on the wood piles (also on the to do list).
3. Update grain storage: review/cull, clean containers, etc. A tiny piece of this was done as part of clearing the kitchen counter. Weds. 10 a.m.
4. Prep for the Christmas ornaments I’m making. Started Friday 10:15, requires more work than I thought!
5. Finish the cull/storage of food from last week’s farm trip.  Finished: onions and tomatoes Wednesday. Peppers and tomatillos finished Thursday a.m.
6. Vac. under the bed. Done Thursday 8:11 p.m.
7. Dust the stained glass.

Of these, the most time-sensitive is dealing with the food. If I start a large batch of green salsa, that will take care of most of it. Three small bowls of tomatillos salted, first step for salsa as of 10:30 a.m. 

The fastest will be do deal with the mail. There’s not a lot hanging around, as I tend to do it as soon as it comes in the door. What I do have is the backlog from days gone by. . . .

Here’s Thursdays’ new five, well four. (There’s a reason this isn’t a cheat, but I’m not going to explain just now.)

1. Clear/clean a dish cabinet shelf Friday 9:40 a.m.
2. Clear/clean a freezer shelf  Done! 9:40 a.m.
3. Work on the house notebook
4. Clear/clean a silverware tray or drawer Friday 9:50 a.m.

Hopefully, this will give me a chance to get maybe one more of the back items finished.

My experience earlier this week has affected how I designated today’s work. Instead of mandating that I clean the dish cabinet, I’ve limited it to one shelf. Same with the freezer and silverware trays/drawers. Hopefully, this will cut the chore time to the 15 minutes or less it’s supposed to be, instead of starting chores which require hours to finish, as I did at the beginning of the week!

That said, this is farm day. The farm is 1.75 hours away. The work there takes about 2 hours, and it’s 1.75 hours back. In other words, farm day from start to finish (the cloth bags I use are in the laundry now) takes about 8 hours: prepping, transportation, food gather and storage. And of course, none of it includes cleaning shelves, drawers or working on a notebook!

So, I expect to be even more behind, even with only 4 items to do tonight, because farm day wipes me out.

Other news: the book rack sold — hurrah! On the not so great side: they’re working on the street in front of the antique store, my sales will be accordingly much smaller — rats!

 

 

Wednesday’s Five

Because I’ve gotten so far behind, I was easy on myself today and mostly decided to do things I would likely have done anyway:

1. Deal with the cardboard and other recycles (it’s dump day).
2. Work on freezer foods for winter (also on the to do list – put foods away for winter)
3. Deal with mail (it’s dump day).
4. Deal with recycling (it’s dump day).
5. Work on the wood piles (also on the to do list).

Hopefully, this doubling up will enable me to CATCH UP!

What I have outstanding from Monday – Tuesday:

• Finish clearing the kitchen counters. The big counter is cleared and cleaned. Weds. 10 a.m.  I have yet to deal with the pile o’ stuff: jars, food, etc. which came off of it!
• Update grain storage: review/cull, clean containers, etc. A tiny piece of this was done as part of clearing the kitchen counter. Weds. 10 a.m.
• Prep for the Christmas ornaments I’m making.
• Finish the cull/storage of food from last week’s farm trip. (Next one is TOMORROW!) Finished: onions and tomatoes. Undone: peppers and tomatillos.

The veggie cull/storage and counter clean up are linked. The excess veggies are on the big counter. I deal with the veggies? The counter will be mostly clear. The prep for making ornaments mostly is seeing if the pattern I want to use will fit the materials I have in mind. If so, I need to figure out if I need any other materials to finish the work and then start on them. The grain storage is just going through the canisters on the bottom, etc. where I hardly ever remember to go for food and see what we’ve got and how old it is. Ideally, that and the food cull will happen BEFORE I go to the dump.

Not on this list? Going to the antique store, because I didn’t yesterday due to my back.

To Do List, Revised 9/19

 

Get at least one piece of one item off of the long-term list!

SHORT TERM:

• Replace the north/south doors. (They’ve been ordered, will be delivered tomorrow.)
• Work on the websites. In process
• Prime & paint the removed clapboards from the laundry wall where the new door is installed.Backs have been primed. Fronts along with new, preprimed clapboards will be painted all at once
• Paint the rest of the exterior of the house next to the porch.
• Get the clapboards reinstalled. Started Sunday will probably be finished Friday.
• Finish filling in the holes caused by the construction. Wednesday
• Finish edging the “rain garden”.
• Fill the bagster There’d an unexpected problem. . . .
• Order gravel.
• Order wood.
• Get sanding sealer on inside of new slider.
• Finish verathane on porch posts.
• Primer other unprotected wood on porch which needs it.
• Get the triangles sealed up.

MEDIUM TERM: (in the next 2-3 weeks)

• Empty the old coffee table full o’ stuff in the hallway.
• Resolve the “too many” coffee tables dilemma.
• Remove the “island” of boxes of stuff from the attic. Sell, donate, or trash enough that the floor can stay cleared.
• Put food away for winter. In process
• The fridge freezer needs to be organized and purged. Started Monday
• Clean the fridge’s shelves.
• Paint the laundry room, inside and out.
• Paint the bathroom.
• Get the new shower curtain liner painted and installed.
• Get through more of the accounting backlog.
• Get last year’s unfinished clean up done in the entry/living room/hall.
• Get the marble table out of the kitchen and to the antique booth. [Called the person who had indicated he’d help me get it to the shop.] It has been cleaned off, needs its base cleaned and for DH to take a pic.
• Get wood stacked and ready for winter. First 1/2 of the wood has been ordered.
• Get kindling boxes made up for winter. 2/4 are made up.

LONG TERM & ONGOING:

• Get a job.
• Pay off the equity line.
• Continue to use up the stored foods: grains, beans, pasta, etc. (The canned goods purge the end of last year beginning of this year worked.) In process
• Rebuild the winter pantry. In process
• Writing Projects: Memoir, 1st 3rd of retype complete 8/30
• Writing Projects: Article In process
• Writing Projects: Kitchen Book
• Writing Projects: Novel
• Get the small dressers cleaned up so that they can replace the big one, so it can be cleaned up and sent to an antique store or to auction. In process

Tuesday’s Five

I decided that yes, I need to continue with the kitchen counter effort, but the 10′ counter on one side, 7′ on the other is a bit (ha!) more involved than this list of “things I can do around and between regular cleaning.”

So…. I haven’t finished Monday’s list. I’ll keep whacking away at it this week and note it when it gets done, but it’s time to MOVE ON! There are 3 items outstanding: the 10′ counter clear, cull, clean, using the vac under the bed, and dusting the stained glass.

Today I will

1. Desmudge door knobs.
2. Update the grain storage I haven’t looked at lately.
3. Pick up the laundry room.
4. Get the prep complete for the Christmas ornaments I intend to make.
5. Finish the final culling, keeping, and storage of last week’s vegetables.

Some of these are really, really quick and can easily be fit between other work, the door knobs and laundry room, for example. The craft prep is a bit more involved. The vegetables and grains will take some time.

Also, it’s Tuesday, that means a regular job is to go thru the fridge for trash donations. (Trash day is tomorrow.)

So, I have 6 items to do on top of the usual laundry (first load started), dishes (had caught up last night, there’s not much there), cooking, writing, etc.

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The unfinished items were unfinished due to the fact that I soft threw my back out while doing something NOT on this list: getting the 2nd new dresser from the shed’s porch area. It got its drawers removed, everything got cleaned and it was moved inside. Somewhere in there, I did something that nearly threw my back out. So, my progress on the remainder of my day’s chores was not huge!

I’m beginning to think that the wisdom of not having lists on the weekend is so that I can catch up!

Monday’s Six

Here’s my list of what I’ll do today, other than the regular maintenance:

1. Clean the wine cabinet.1 thing in out pile, 4 items relocated into new home, 2 items “put away” which had been floating.
2. Clean a canister. Cleaned two and the counter under/between them. Culled 2 or 3 items, found 1 piece to sell, and one small bag of food put where it should have been to begin with!
3. Writing implement storage #1) cleaned, #2) cleaned, 5 pieces tossed, 7 for swap shop, 6 out of place pieces put away,#3-#5) cleaned and culled, 3 pieces put away, 2 more pieces culled
4. Kitchen counters… partially done with the canisters (See #2 above.) Cleaned the right/middle sides. (The left side is the BIG one, 10′ long!) About 1/2 done Weds. 10 a.m.
5. Vac. under the bed.
6. Dust the stained glass.

Additionally, I have other longer term cleaning things to do:

• Finish cleaning the marble table so it can be photographed.
• Load my car with things to be donated or sold.
• Work on household improvement projects: last two post surfaces, interior of sliding door, stone path and grading.

Phoning and other chores:

• Wood order/left message ORDERED
• Pest spraying left message
• Shed cleanout
• Get 2nd small dresser clean.

Monday is my “6” day, that is the day I try and do six things instead of the usual 5, which I try and do Tuesday – Friday. Mondays start with me being really ambitious about how much I’ll get done and charged up. The idea is to take advantage of my optimism and energy.

We’ll see how much of this I actually get done! You’ll notice if you look that the six numbered tasks are set, defined, where almost all the others are long-term whittling away at it type of jobs. I’ve been working on the stone path for about a month now, for example.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

What I accomplished today:

• Work on the household notebook

Let’s hope this isn’t so organized that the PTSD has a fit and I get like

done?

J

(image: billdaviswords.wordpress.com )