Cleaning up my act

I had coffee with a friend yesterday. The time with my friend was nice. The coffee was sub-par.

We both mentioned the need and desire to "spring clean"...going through EV-ERY-THING and weeding down our possessions, getting rid of excess stuff that is hiding away in our closets, and throwing junk away! We decided to make it our summer challenge...and to keep each other accountable.

Clearly our discussion lit a fire in my pants because after lunch with the family, I went home and cleaned for over three hours. I took one big trunk and cleaned it out completely so that it can be used to store the "give-away" items. I cleaned out my hope chest moving a box of items into the "give away" trunk, that I've been carting around for at least 8 years...and filled the hope chest up with the items that I really truly want to hang onto.

I then grabbed all those photo envelopes...you know, back in the days of film photography...those countless bulky envelopes with the negatives. I went threw Every.Single.Photo(!) and threw out the ones I could care less about or were awful to begin with and kept about a third for memento-sake, adding them into my hope chest.

Next, I have this brown dresser, that needs some tender-loving-care (but from the next owner), that I use for bills and other such documents that one should hang onto. I took out the drawers, went into the living room, and filed all my bills by company. I DID NOT file them by date...that, my friends, is another project for another day (maybe). I figured I could easily grab the entire company stack, and sort through them, if I ever have a need for referencing an old bill.

I ended up throwing out a large stack of papers, throwing away a small heap of trash, and my trunk is half filled with "give-aways." Hooray! I feel so good about this. Somehow, having things neat and tidy makes me feel more "grown-up." Aah...maybe I'm maturing a bit! :)

The end is near and other thoughts

I've been wanting to write but not sure what to actually say. If this was my journal, I'd write down whatever just to put down my thoughts. But since this is a blog, I feel there must be a point to my writings and not just the random musings of Mindy.

Mi Apartamento

There was notice waiting for me, from my apartment complex, when I arrived home last night. As I've mentioend, I'll be moving apartments soon within the same complex. However, the notice that I received yesterday stated that at some point on Thursday, the maintenence people will be coming to inspect my apartment for the pre-moving-out inspection. They want to be prepared for when I do move out, to be able to quickly replace anything that is needed. My thoughts are "oh crap."

Thursday!

That means I had last night, today, and Wednesday to clean my apartment or at least make it managable
since they will be walking through it all. Eek! Not to mention that Monday and Wednesday night are "homework nights" and Tuesday night is "youth group". **Sigh** I worked on homework for a little bit yesterday but then felt my energy drain out of me at 7:30pm!! I was seriously ready to go to bed at 7:30pm last night. Needless to say, no cleaning happened yesterday. Maybe I'll tackle a little bit after youth group tonight.

Other than cleanliness, the only other thing I would rather "fix" before they came is an attempt to take care of nail holes of where I had pictures hanging. But I probably won't get to that. Que sera, sera!

Mi Frustracion

I've been feeling frustrated over the last month or so. I can list a whole list of frustrations but when it comes down to it, I know that my frustration is at God and His timing in several areas of my life. I am continuing to rely on His truths and His faithfulness. He has been faithful through the past 30 years...He won't fail me now.

Mis Estudios

My Teaching English as a Second Language course is almost over. There are 20 lessons and I am on lesson 16. My goal is wrap it up early next week. So happy! I will definitely do a happy dance when this is over. I only took this course becuase I thought it might be helpful one day maybe. A useful tool to have in my belt. And maybe it will be. But what I really want is to focus on my thesis paper. I have a month and half until my next Master's degree class starts so I need/want to take advantage of this time.

I suppose this ended up as the random musings of Mindy after all. That's okay.
Happy Tuesday.

I'm having me a party

No, I'm not listening to Shania Twain's silly song (if you haven't heard it, you're not missing much!)

I'm having Mindy's "first annual" Christmas brunch. Well, actually, I always think of brunch being more 10 or 11am...and this one is at 9am...so maybe it's a breakfast. Whatever...

Anyhow, I decided to do this because I have this week off of school and thought it would be a good time to socialize, entertain, cook, and be forced to clean my apartment.

My apartment is pretty tiny and my table only seats four. So I've invited three church ladies over for breakfast and I'm looking forward to it. These three ladies are the easiest people to talk to. Seriously, when you are with them, they all make you feel like they care, want to know more, and desire to help in any way they can. I love them all! This is my chance to love on them!

So what is on the menu?
--Pioneer Woman's Quiche
--diced potatos with onions
--canned peaches, which I canned in August but apparently didn't blog about.
--orange juice and coffee

Yummy food...or at least I hope it will be.
Good conversation...probably lots of laughter.
Clean apartment...my apartment is celebrating that people are coming over...it looks so good!

Sounds like a good party to me!

A good couple days

Okay, so my weepiness passed from Friday. The last couple days have been more emotionally stable! Always a plus for the people around me.

I successfully finished my class on Saturday at 3pm. I think my ending time is a new record. I usually have until midnight to submit my homework and I am usually wrapping my classes up around 5pm or 6pm. I had the whole Saturday night to relax, which was wonderful. However I made myself clean my consistently neglected apartment first since I was running on adrenaline of having just completed my paper/class. So when the adrenaline wore off about an hour into my cleaning, I plopped down on my couch, satisfied with my class and satisfied with a clean(er) apartment. I rewarded myself with a movie, Northanger Abbey, and starting my novel for the week, Jane Eyre. The jury is out on the book still. (I hate the movie Jane Eyre but a good friend told me the book was better...so I told her I'd trust her and read the stupid story. I'll let you know come next week how I felt about the book.)

Another good thing that happened yesterday is that I bought my plane ticket to visit my grandparents in California. Alaska Airlines was having a sale and to fly round trip from Seattle to California is only costing me $120, which is unheard of these days. I think the "normal" rate is somewhere between $200-300. So excited. It has unfortunately been two years since I've seen my grandparents and I really want to see them! So next February, here I come! I love visiting my grandparents (and hopefully it will be warm down there...I'm sure I'll need to thaw out a bit) but whenever I visit them, I find my life a bit skewed since suddenly there is a lack of internet and coffee. It's always an odd feeling being both disconnected and hazy. Good times.

Catching Up

I've got some catching up to do...

I was home sick with the flu last week. Okay, actually, I only felt bad the first 48 hours but doctor's orders kept me home for another 4 days. A week off work? I'll take it. Four days in which I could do my homework without thinking about anything else? I'll take it...and I did!

But now, I've got some catching up to do...

Work: There's a stack of invoices that I need to go through at work (why is it that heaps of invoices always seem to arrive when I'm gone?). There are requests for paperwork that are just sitting waiting for attention. Problem orders and filing to take care of.

Exercise: Yesterday was the first time I've exercised since October 10th...over two weeks! Eek. Since I'm still coughing, I didn't push myself yesterday but just enjoyed a 30 minute walk. But I need to re-focus on healthy living and exercise. However, I won't have another free night at home until next Monday, November 2nd, which mean I probably won't exercise until then. Sigh...

Homework: This is the one area I'm doing fine in...mainly because I'm only at week 2 and week 1 I was home with the flu.

Apartment: Oh dear! I have been a bum for several weeks, even before the flu came visiting. I am living in a "no-visitors-allowed-to-witness-how-lazy-I've-been" status. I need to be bitten by the cleaning bug. Maybe that will happen next week...

It gets worse before it gets better!

So on my school break "wish list" I mentioned the state of desperation that my apartment is in or maybe it's the state of desperation that I am in about my apartment...

Anyways, I decided to get started yesterday. Before work, I went through my bookshelf and took out a number of books I didn't want or knew I wouldn't read. (I have a number of school books that I don't want either but common sense told me I should probably hang onto them until I'm done with school.) Then, last night I pulled out a 55-gallon tote full of junk and who knows what and started sorting that. I made a pile to recycle, a pile to keep, and a pile to get rid off. My goal is to fill that tote back up with stuff to give away.

My apartment is messy! It was messy before I started and now that I have unloaded a 55-gallon tote, it's even more messy. But I fully anticipated that my apartment would get worse before it gets better. Maybe I should take photos to track my progress. At any rate, now is not the time for me to have guests OR maybe having guests would make me clean faster...

I think next I'll tackle my clothes which I anticipate will be an easy and quick job. Then comes the 2nd 55-gallon tote...which is loaded with a bunch of stuff from Germany. Not sure how much I can get rid of. That tote will be a slow job probably due to walks down memory lane.

Why am I doing all this (beside just cleaning up)? I still have stuff sitting at my parents house...I have so much stuff! My parents are retired and plan to eventually move so it would be great if I could minimize my belongings and free up their house of my stuff in the process. If you don't hear from me a few days, it may be that I got buried alive under all my stuff...sigh...

Switching topics...last night I made Chicken Pot Pie for dinner...a great way to use up turkey leftovers, if there is still some hanging around. I always tweak this recipe by adding potatos and a bit more salt because of the pototoes but the recipe is pretty good! Also tonight I'm going to start making the Nanaimo Bars that I mentioned below.