September 2018 – Person of Purpose

2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 3 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things

I reached my goal of getting rid of 1,000 things by clearing out another file drawer.

This particular drawer had all kinds of manuals. I thought, “When was the last time I referred to any of these?”

My husband said, “Just throw them all away.”

“What about this shower mixer for the upstairs apartment?”

“Oh yeah, keep that.”

Hmph. Most of them went to the garbage.

I did learn something though, just by thumbing through the dishwasher manual, and that is if you prewash your dishes (I do) that your glassware could become permanently cloudy. The reason is that detergent needs food soil to act upon. If it’s not acting on the food, then it’s acting on the dishes. Wow!

I worked in intervals of 20 minutes, playing my music mix on YouTube. This usually consisted of Live from Daryl’s House, an Internet TV show that features Daryl Hall performing with his band and various guest artists at his home, and now club in New York. Sigh. That guy is a genius. Everyone looks like they are having so much fun.

Which I was not. Having fun, that is.

At times I felt like I was in hand-to-hand combat. Which come to think about it, I was. My shredder was still broken, so I had to shred confidential papers by hand. I imagined that I could become a victim of identity theft if I didn’t shred these papers and mix them with coffee grounds and bacon grease.

This drawer was a mish-mash of stuff. Here’s what I found:

Paperwork for a mattress we purchased in 2000.
My son’s fourth-grade Lexile reading score was 370 above the grade mean.
The amount of garbage I threw away weighed 5lbs.
I collected another ream size amount of scrap paper. Go QUSP!

In conclusion, I wonder why it is so hard for me to do this. One blogger, Diane Henkler, decluttered her entire basement in three weeks.

I decluttered two file drawers in three weeks. Ugh!

The goal of getting rid of 1,000 things is done, but it is just one aspect of decluttering my entire office. I’ll continue the challenge and will conquer.

Struggles with Lawn Care Part 4 – Baby’s First Haircut

It’s been three months since I embarked on my journey to a beautiful front yard. The weather was unusually rainy, and the drought monitor shows that our area improved from severe drought to abnormally dry.

My husband mowed the lawn for the first time in three months. It was a lesson in patience, because the lawn had looked scruffy. But when I went to inspect it, it was quite lush in some spots. The smell and feel of the grass reminded me of my childhood, when I would I place my pink blanket down, lay face up, and look at the clouds.

Anyway, in advance of the picture, I was determinedly clipping grass with scissors when my neighbor, Debbie came over and said, “Hey, that’s monkey grass you’re clipping. You’re cheating!”

“Debbie, if I wanted to cheat, I would have sprayed the bare spots with green paint.” We both laughed.

Actually, that’s a thing—spraying dirt green, it’s called hydro spraying. You know, when you see the trucks spraying a green, foamy liquid on areas around highways to plant grass seed. There’s a home version, called Hydro Mousse, but every review you read says it doesn’t work. I’ll pass.

So, here are the before and after pictures:

June 19th front lawn

September 19^th front lawn

I think my “baby’s first haircut” looks fabulous.

I bought some variegated Hosta to plant around one of the trees. First, I dug out some monkey grass and transferred St. Augustine to bare spots. I have clover, called oxalis with pink flowers that some call a weed, but I like it. Really, a weed is just a plant that is growing where it is not wanted. I want them, just not in the lawn. So, I dug these up and placed them in pots around the tree.

Amazingly, an hour after I planted the Hosta I could already see growth.

My future posts about the front yard won’t have the word ‘struggles” in the title. I think I have contended and come off the victor.

Person of Purpose – The First 100 Days

The first three months of blogging have passed, and I want to give you an update on what it has been like for me. Technically, since my first post was on June 3^rd, the 100^th day was September 10^th. But you know, I like nice even numbers like 100, so I thought it would catch your attention. Right?

Being a newbie, I learned from other bloggers about how to write a blog that people will enjoy. Here are some things I gleaned:

What is the purpose of the blog? Experts say that to have an effective blog, you must, must have a specific purpose. Duh. That’s in my title. They say you shouldn’t have too many categories or that the categories can’t be too diverse. My six categories are CREATIVE, FOOD, HOME, MONEY, REFLECTIONS, and RELATIONSHIPS. So far, I have only posted in four areas.

Hi, I’m Nanci and this lifestyle blog is about inspiring and being inspired to live a more purposeful life.

What are some suggestions from professional writers? Set daily word counts. Okay, I set mine at 500 words. I started writing and The Art of the Open-Ended Question was written in a couple of hours. Cool!

Another suggestion. Only post excellent work. Starting out, I’m going to disagree with this one. If I waited until I felt a post was perfect, well, you get the idea, I wouldn’t have any posts. I will say that my first posts were a bit rough, but I think I have improved, and it is getting easier.

Another. Show your personality. At first, a friend said I was being too scholarly, and I wasn’t giving people much of my background. It could be all that home-schooling affected me, or maybe I just like academics. My son had six APA format essays with word counts of 1,000 to 1,500 words. It was an ordeal for him; for me it was fun.

How long should a blog post be? It depends. Some say posts can be as few as 100 words or as long as 2,000 words. My word counts varied between 188 and 1,148, but most were around 450 words. Don’t want readers to get antsy.

How do you write dialog? Stick to simple speech tags like “he said’ and ‘she said’ and avoid being descriptive like “I guffawed.” It sounds amateurish.

My first post was June 3, 2018. The title, Hey World, Here I Am! is an adapted line from the song Don’t Rain on My Parade, from the movie Funny Girl. This introduction outlined my desire to have a blog and what categories I planned to incorporate in my lifestyle blog. It was late at night and I finally posted it in the early morning hours. My reaction: Ecstatic!

For a rousing rendition of the song, listen to Linda Eder on YouTube.

I was so excited; my second post was the very next day! Called Peruvian Food – El Tesoro del Inca, it was a review of a down-home restaurant in Irving, TX.

Wow! There was a streak going on, and I published my third post the next day. Ah!! Called The Art of the Open-Ended Question, this was based on my need to improve my communication skills with my son.

Two weeks later, my fourth post in June was called My First-Time Homeowner Lawn Care Experience.

My fifth post, in June (amazingly) was called Struggles with Lawn Care Part 1. It was about my current home’s front lawn that had been woefully neglected and about my efforts to revive it.

Uh oh, something happened to my momentum, probably life, but I was only able to post once in July. My sixth post, called Struggles with Lawn Care Part 2 showed the progress of the lawn after one month of constant, loving, attention on my part.

My seventh post was called 10 Reasons Why I Love Lists, and it appeared from the comments that I am not the only one who loves lists.

My eight post called 100 Self-Care Activities for Body, Mind, and Spirit was born from my need to recover from burn out after home-schooling my son.

My ninth post called Struggles with Lawn Care Part 3 was a short update on the front lawn.

The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth posts were called Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge, 2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 1 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things, and 2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 2 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things.

I would like to thank all of you, dear friends and loved ones for patiently reading my ramblings. Your comments to me personally and on the blog have been so supportive. I hope to continue creating more content to inspire living a purposeful life. If you have suggestions for more topics, please reach out to me.

2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 2 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things

I started this challenge on Saturday, September 1^st with the goal of getting rid of 1,000 things, mostly papers.

My work for weeks one and two resulted in getting rid of a total of 725 things. That means I only have 275 things to go!

I was able to get one of the four drawers in the filing cabinet to open and close easily. Sort of. This drawer contains:

My stationery sorted into categories.
Vacation planning.
Medical information for each family member.
The last seven years of income tax information.

There are many things I have discovered and determined while going through the papers:

I made a pact with myself not to buy any more stationery until I use up what I have.
We had a great vacation in 2007 to the Smokey Mountains, but I don’t need the brochures anymore.
My son had a lot of teeth pulled when he was younger!
This year will be so much easier to handle the taxes with the new laws stating that our standard deduction will be $24,000 for married filers. No need for itemizing.

I have changed my preferences to receive statements in electronic form instead of receiving physical statements. I have also determined that I will schedule a time to download documents and purge things in the office once a week. I have dedicated a binder for my schedules and procedures to keep better organized.

Hopefully, by next week I will have gotten rid of the total 1,000 things.

2018 Fall Cleaning Challenge Week 1 Review – Getting Rid of 1,000 Things

I started this challenge on Saturday, September 1^st and disposed of 271 things.

My work for the week resulted in getting rid of a total of 569 things. Yay, yippee, only 431 items to go!

Actually, I’m a little bummed because I thought that with the momentum of the first day I was going to accomplish this goal in one week. But I have a lot of papers and it takes time to sort through them. I have 4 file drawers that are heavy, so I won’t stop until I can easily open and close them. Also, I have no picture to post because the office appearance hasn’t changed for the better. Sometimes when you are in the middle of a fight with clutter it gets uglier before it gets better.

I am slowly changing my procedures. The expression “Only Handle It Once” is the acronym OHIO. Who knew? Well, that is what I am transforming myself into. At least I hope I am.

Being the “Queen of Using Scratch Paper” or the acronym QUSP, okay, I made that up, I kept about a ream size amount of papers to be used again.

I have learned a number of things by going through my papers:

Our dogs have RABIES VACCINATION papers. I kept them in paper form just in case I need to produce these for animal control or anyone who asks for them.
Our 14-year old Golden Retriever, Lucy has her rabies shot due this December. Our city requires that adult dogs get a rabies shot every 3 years. Our puppy, Kumo, an Akita, has to get another shot in March, as his shot is only good for 1 year.
My husband’s last tetanus shot was in April 2007. Time for a shot!

This challenge is not just about getting rid of the 1,000 things:

It’s about changing patterns of behavior. OHIO!
It’s about creating a peaceful environment. When I have too many things around me I become paralyzed.
It’s about keeping the most important things and knowing where they are.

Let’s hear from you. Can you get rid of some things?

Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge

It’s September 1, 2018, and I invite you to join me in a Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge. There are many cleaning checklists on the Internet, so feel free to use any of them.

Some who know me think that I am a fairly organized person. The reality is that I just give the appearance of being organized. I have a serious clutter problem, mostly paper clutter.

I plan to get all my papers in order. I will scan and get rid of as many papers as possible. I plan to get rid of 1,000 things. That’s right! You read it: 1,000 things!

Today, I got rid of a total of 271 things. There was nothing very interesting or shocking about what I disposed of, but maybe later I will find something.

253 papers
1 scarf from a PetSmart puppy play date
1 bag of tie stays
15 old bottles of vitamins and herbs (some from 2014, yikes!)
1 school calendar binder from 2009.

So, you see, it will be very easy for me to get rid of 1,000 things.

My office is in my closet. I have an Elfa closet, but it doesn’t look like one of those beautiful catalogs from The Container Store. My goal is to get everything organized so that it looks like one of those catalogs.

Here is a photo of my cluttered office. I will post again when it is cleared up.

My cluttered office

In the photo, notice the guts hanging out of the heavy-duty shredder. It’s broken. I’m shattered!

Let’s hear from you. Will you join me in the Fall 2018 Cleaning Challenge? Let me know.