109 By December 31

I was three tasks short of a perfect score. And now it's time to relax for New Year's Eve. Happy 2012 everyone!

Things Gotten Rid Of:
1. Box of dried out markers from Girl Scout stuff (garbage)
2. Stretched out and tired bra. My girls deserve to be perkier than that. (garbage)
3-5. 3 Tank tops that have seen better days. (garbage; they were too worn out to be donated)
4. Large wok with cover (Goodwill)
5. Small wok. I feel kind of guilty about the woks, because they were a requested birthday present from my grandma several years ago. But I never use them because I have an electric stove that just doesn't get the burners hot enough for a good stir-fry. They take up a ton of shelf/cupboard space. So they are going to Goodwill in hopes that someone will take them home and use them.
6-7. 2 pairs of curtains (Goodwill)
8-9. 2 brand new kitchen towels that don't go with my kitchen colors (Goodwill)
10. Purse I haven't used since 2 jobs ago (Goodwill)
11. Grocery bag full of stale or expired food from pantry (garbage)
12-13. 2 insulated coffee mugs that leak. No point in keeping them as they dribble coffee down my front every time I use them. (garbage)
14-15. 2 plastic beer mugs from summer beer festivals past (recycling)
16-17. Not 1 but 2 pleather portfolios/notepads embossed with shitty former company's name. Wanted to burn them, but figured just trashing them was enough. (garbage)
18. Travel pillow (Goodwill)
19-20. 2 tarnished silver picture frames. One with broken glass. Not worth the effort to clean them! (garbage)
Holy crap, just went through my closets and dressers and wow. One garbage bag of stuff to throw out. One of stuff to donate. A small pile to see if Mom wants or to consign. Discovery that I had 5 pairs of black or gray yoga pants.
21-23. Bathing suits, either too big, too old, or stretched out and ratty. And I still have 5 left. I am not allowed to buy any more bathing suits, no matter how good the deals are at the LLBean Outlet end of season sale. (garbage)
24-42. Shirts (12 to garbage, 7 to donate)
43-49. Shorts/pants/jeans (3 to garbage, 4 to donate)
50-51. Suits (donate)
52-58. More undergarments (garbage)
59-62. 3 pairs of shoes plus a set of Dr Scholls insoles (1 pair of shoes to donate, the rest to garbage)
63-64. Skirts (donate)
65-66. Sweaters (donate)
67. Dress (donate)
68. Blazer (donate)
69. Backpack (donate)
70-79. Gloves/hats/scarves (6 to donate, 4 to garbage)
80. Falling apart cheap macrame style purse (soooo getting trashed!)
81-83. Towels that no longer match my bathroom (donating to the animal shelter for bedding or cleanup duty!)
84. Tic tac toe puzzle book (donate)
85-87. Old textbooks from college (donated to the book drop at my church; they get sent to 3rd world libraries and schools)
88-90. Pastels, smudging tools, and drawing paper (sending to Maine for Artsy Niece)
91-92. Bathroom towel bars (sending to ME for Uncle EMS and Aunt Stet's house)
93. Anti-vibration pads for a washing machine on a concrete floor (ditto)
94. Toddler-sized UMO hockey jersey (for Sporty Niece who is obsessed with UMO to hang on her wall)
95. Doodle Dice game (for all the nieces and nephew)
96-98. Kitchen towels that have seen better days (animal shelter)
99. Trivet that I've never used (donate)
100. Warped, cracked and chipped wooden cutting board (garbage)

Random Tasks That Needed Doing:
1. Signed up for 401(k) at work.
2. Made a whole bunch of doctors appointments that I've been procrastinating on. I get to see the podiatrist in January, GYN in February, and dermatologist in March. What fun.
3. Took a HUGE load of recycling to the transfer station. I think that's the first time I've ever completely filled the back of the SUV with recyclables.
4. Deep cleaned both my bathrooms, including a double scrub of the tub AND de-gunking the upstairs sink drain.
5. Shoveled the ash out of the fireplace.
6. Washed my duvet cover and pillow shams, and fluffed the duvet.
7. Repotted the aloe plant.
8. Cleaned out the lower cupboards of the pantry and washed the shelves.
9. Submitted (most of) my FSA receipts for refund

112 Before 2012

There are 3 full days left before 2012. Can I get rid of 100 things from my house and complete another 12 random tasks between now and then? I don't know, but I'm gonna try! Anyone else want to join me?

If you don't mind strong language, I am finding Unfuck Your Habitat to be quite motivational.

Holiday Productivity

ATDL wrap-up! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanza, and Happy New Year. (No mention of Festivus because while I like the idea, I am the only Gen X-er who hates Seinfeld.)

-call furnace guy
-make sure neighbors will watch the cats, and give them their Christmas presents
-order pictures for holiday cards
-finish writing up holiday letter
-print letter
-print address labels - opted not to and just use non-holiday return labels
-find address book
-finish the damn holiday cards, which will wind up being new year's cards, but whatever
-wrap Auntie L's holiday gift and get it ready to mail
-take everything to the PO (and thank goodness for the 24-hour APC at my PO)
-make another batch of chocolate-dipped spoons
-make another batch of banana bread
-finish putting together goodie bags for work and Miss J's family
-drop off goodie bag for Miss J's family - still need to do this, but promised her I'd wait until this week until some of the cookies and holiday food had been eaten!
-consolidate Christmas presents to wrap and make sure nothing is forgotten
-change sheets on bed
-wash/dry/put away sheets and towels
-wash/dry/put away load of random laundry floating around bedroom
-pack clothes for trip to parents'
-vacuum first floor
-vacuum stairs
-vacuum upstairs
-clean upstairs bathroom
-mix up sugar cookie dough - checked with Mom, and they had plenty of cookies in ME already, so decided to wait until the week after to make some to have when R comes to visit

-bake off sugar cookies
-wrap Christmas presents, then box up
-load car
-clean cat box
-take out garbage
-stop at liquor store for nips and Baileys
-pack up Wii and games to take to parents' house - forgot this, but it was ok as I was only there for a couple of days anyway

So for the most part I was successful. Didn't quite get all the cleaning done before I left that I was hoping to do, but at least the house was pretty well straightened up before I left. It's always nice to come home and have empty surfaces to set down all of the gear I always seem to return with. Tomorrow is back to work time, but hopefully it'll be an easy week.

Ambitious To-Do List - Holiday Version

So much to do, so little time to do it. Let's make a list instead of actually doing anything productive, shall we?

-call furnace guy
-make sure neighbors will watch the cats, and give them their Christmas presents
-order pictures for holiday cards
-finish writing up holiday letter
-print letter
-print address labels
-find address book
-finish the damn holiday cards, which will wind up being new year's cards, but whatever
-wrap Auntie L's holiday gift and get it ready to mail
-take everything to the PO (and thank goodness for the 24-hour APC at my PO)
-make another batch of chocolate-dipped spoons
-make another batch of banana bread
-finish putting together goodie bags for work and Miss J's family
-drop off goodie bag for Miss J's family
-consolidate Christmas presents to wrap and make sure nothing is forgotten
-change sheets on bed
-wash/dry/put away sheets and towels
-wash/dry/put away load of random laundry floating around bedroom
-pack clothes for trip to parents'
-vacuum first floor
-vacuum stairs
-vacuum upstairs
-clean upstairs bathroom
-mix up sugar cookie dough
EITHER:
-bake off sugar cookies
-wrap Christmas presents, then box up
OR:
-box up unwrapped presents, wrapping supplies, etc to finish on Friday morning
-take cookie dough to parents' house to bake off
THEN:
-load car
-clean cat box
-take out garbage

Edited to add to the list:
-stop at liquor store for nips and Baileys
-pack up Wii and games to take to parents' house

Spiritual Flailing

I don't necessarily like to talk about religion a lot, especially in a public forum like my blog or the Book of Face. Partially because I feel that a person's religious or spiritual believes are his own private business; partially because I don't want to come off like I am proselytizing. I've been thinking a lot about things lately though, and I want to try to sort them out on paper, so to speak.

In the past year, I think I've gone to church once or maybe twice - Easter service with my mom, and I don't remember if I went at Christmas last year or not. I know I haven't taken Communion in well over a year, and that has only partially been due to not having been to church on the first Sunday of the month (Protestant over here). I've struggled with this a lot. I've wanted to go to church, but there have been certain aspects of my life over the last year that have left me feeling "not right" with God, and therefore feeling pretty awkward about walking into a sanctuary. It has been much easier to pull the covers up over my head (literally and figuratively) and sleep in on Sunday mornings. I don't feel right taking Communion, because I don't feel like I am in any kind of a state of Grace. I believe that God is forgiving, but I also believe that you have to ask Him for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness implies repenting and saying you're sorry - and I just can't.

I don't regret what happened. I don't regret my part in things, what I did. Given a second chance, I do believe that I would likely make the same choices. I walked all over one of the Big 10, and I'm not sorry about it, and that makes me feel like a complete hypocrite when I go to church. I believe in God, I consider myself a part of the Christian faith, but I think this may be the first time in my adult life that my personal life and spiritual life are at such odds with each other, and I'm lost. There were a lot of instances in the past year where I said "Maybe the universe (i.e. God) is trying to tell me/you/us something" and really did believe it. Part of me still thinks it is part of some bigger Plan, something I can't see yet, but what if it's just my brain convincing itself of that to assuage my guilt? My guilt that I don't actually believe in, but that I feel inside every time I think about church?

So where do I go from here? How do you reconnect with your beliefs and with God when you know you are a sinner, an intentional sinner, and don't want to take it back? Is that even possible? Probably not; I feel like I am being the typical, 21st century, Christian-when-it-suits-me spiritualist who wants the happy touchy-feely aspects of religion but doesn't want to do the hard work. I don't know how to get past this. It would almost be easier if I was questioning my beliefs - atheist/agnostic/I-believe-in-a-higher-power-but-not-the-trappings-of-a-Christian-God are all valid choices in our world. But the fact that I do believe in a Christian God narrows the scope and focus of my personal spiritual world, and I am at odds with that.

I am forcing (and yes, it really is "forcing") myself to attend church services during this Advent season. It's 4 weeks, plus Christmas Day service with my family. I don't have to take Communion next week, and if I sit in the back row, it is likely nobody will notice. I am reading a couple of books on the spiritual aspects of the Christmas season, and I plan on having some kind of nightly ritual during Advent (once I dig out my decorations and unpack the Advent candleholder). And mostly, I'm hoping that somehow I'll figure this out.

Deep thoughts for the end of a long weekend.

Thirsty Thursday

Perfect evening!

Leftover wine (and mac and cheese, almost escargot, and white chocolate bread pudding) from dinner at CM last night with Merrow, the first fire of the season in the fireplace, comfy pj pants and slippers (not shown).

I opted not to drive 20 miles out of my way in rainy rush hour traffic to have happy hour with former coworkers, and instead came home to this. Definitely the right decision!

Review Tuesday: Brain Origami

Ahem. There will be spoilers of the movie Primer. And probably of Memento and maybe even of The Sixth Sense. If you haven't seen these and want to at some point, it's on you if you read any further and get spoiled!

I would like to start by saying I normally have no problem with non-linear timelines. I read and enjoy books about time travel that skip back and forth between eras (Connie Willis's The Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog, and Blackout/All Clear; Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife). I had no problem understanding the "twist" to Memento - and given that the movie's website was www.otnemem.com, I didn't understand why everyone was so flabbergasted that (SPOILER ALERT) part of the movie is shown backwards!! (And I'm not trying to make those of you who didn't get Memento right off feel bad, I'm usually not very prescient. I didn't pick up on any of the clues and was therefore completely shocked by the ending of The Sixth Sense.) At any rate, I liked Memento and didn't have any problems following it at all. I like brain-teasers; I like things that make me think through them, I like puzzles.

And then I watched Primer. Which starts out as a time-traveling nerd/engineer indie, and then got really really weird, and my brain tied itself in knots trying to figure it out. The IMDB synopsis states "Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention." Which I guess is technically true, but really doesn't even come close to describing half the movie. The premise of Primer is a bunch of engineers designing a time travel device, and then traveling back (and forth!) in time to affect their futures. And their pasts. Basically, the movie made sense through the first half, and then started doubling back on itself so may times I lost track. Person A came back from the future to tell himself something to tell Person B so that Person B could discuss it with Person A (current) to enable the whole time travel thing so Person A (future) could come back in time? (And that was the part I understood!) There is an excellent diagram of movie timelines on XKCD, comparing Lord of the Rings, Jurassic Park, the original Star Wars Trilogy, 12 Angry Men, and Primer. Having seen all of those movies, I can honestly state that the following graphic is correct.

http://www.xkcd.com/657/

My brain is still trying to untangle itself from attempting to understand the full plotline of Primer.