For the month of March I set up some simple weekly aims for my pleasure mostly. I do better if I make a list even though I rarely follow it totally. Sometimes life get in the way of my intentions and sometimes I just don't feel like doing nonessential things. This is what did and did not happen with my list of mostly self indulgences.
1. Either go to or rent a movie to watch by myself
Week 1: The Favourite
Week 2: Can You Ever Forgive Me
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Fail (mainly because I found a new to me Netflix series The Last Kingdom and I am binge watching/listening to it. I have found if I run it from the laptop to the Echo via bluetooth I can turn it up very loud and do my routine things in any room on the main level while I listen to it. Any time I pass the breakfast table I can watch it for a minute or two. For me it is a great way to enjoy it without spending too much time on my butt watching it.
2. Listen to a new album (thanks Spotify)
Never happened. I wound up just listening to my personal playlists. Why?
3. Read a book
Week 1: The Color of Water (decent read)
Week 2: The Waiting Booth (so-so but it was a free download so it was ok)
Week 3: Birthright (so-so, another free download)
Week 4: Educated (Very interesting but sometimes painful to read)
4. FaceTime with Pip
Week 1: Done!
Week 2: Done
Week 3: She was home with the flu, sick and bored. We FaceTimed multi times each day. (The whole family was sick. I could entertain her for 30 minutes at a time so Mom and Dad could rest)
Week 4: Done
5. Talk to each son and/or DIL
Week 1: Done
Week 2: Done
Week 3: Done
Week 4: Done
6. Create something
Week 1: Re-formed a seriously ugly lamp into something I really like
Week 2: Made a St. Patrick's table decoration
Week 3: fail
Week 4: fail
7. Rearrange a room (Can be full furniture re-arranging or just changing a few things)
Week 1: Rearranged all living room furniture with the exception of the piano. It has nowhere else to live. I still need to rearrange the artwork, but that is for another day and time.
Week 2: Cleaned (ugh) and repositioned furniture in the guest room. Had overnight guests so it was a good time to do it.
Week 3: More overnight guests (different ones) so I gussied up the guest bath. New shower curtain, different towels, different vanity accessories (The towels and accessories were not new but were lurkers I found while decluttering)
Week 4: Fail
8. Get rid of one item each day
Nice month of decluttering, well over 31 items for donation
9. Meet up with a friend/friends for fellowship (at least coffee but not excluding a meal)
Week 1: Met Flo, Martha and Judy for lunch
Week 2: Fail
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Bookclub dinner, and Ball game dinner
10. Have a home cooked ethnic meals
Week 1: Chicken Korma
Week 2: I am counting the pizza as ethnic, even though it was a casserole on a cauliflower "crust"
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Pizza again
11. Use the "good" stuff (china, crystal, silverware)
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: Done
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Fail
12. Burn candles daily
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: some days
Week 3: some days
Week 4: Fail
13. Spa Day (really means spa hour for some self indulgent "treatment")
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: At home facial
Week 3: At home facial
Week 4: Long foot soak (sandal season is near)
14. Fingernail polish.
Worn all month including a couple of color changes and several re-polishes (for some of you this might be completely routine, but for me this is an effort)
I plan on keeping this same weekly list for April, with the following additions:
15: Contact someone I have recently been out of touch with either by phone, email, or text
16. Take Mom somewhere just to get her out of her house. Right now even the grocery store could be considered an outing.
17: Try something different. The door is wide open on this one!
Now the clock is ticking and one day has already passed in this new week. I guess it is up to me to make this happen, but I need to do seriously better than I did yesterday. I think the only thing I accomplished was lighting a candle in the evening. Yes, I can be really lame!
1. Either go to or rent a movie to watch by myself
Week 1: The Favourite
Week 2: Can You Ever Forgive Me
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Fail (mainly because I found a new to me Netflix series The Last Kingdom and I am binge watching/listening to it. I have found if I run it from the laptop to the Echo via bluetooth I can turn it up very loud and do my routine things in any room on the main level while I listen to it. Any time I pass the breakfast table I can watch it for a minute or two. For me it is a great way to enjoy it without spending too much time on my butt watching it.
2. Listen to a new album (thanks Spotify)
Never happened. I wound up just listening to my personal playlists. Why?
3. Read a book
Week 1: The Color of Water (decent read)
Week 2: The Waiting Booth (so-so but it was a free download so it was ok)
Week 3: Birthright (so-so, another free download)
Week 4: Educated (Very interesting but sometimes painful to read)
4. FaceTime with Pip
Week 1: Done!
Week 2: Done
Week 3: She was home with the flu, sick and bored. We FaceTimed multi times each day. (The whole family was sick. I could entertain her for 30 minutes at a time so Mom and Dad could rest)
Week 4: Done
5. Talk to each son and/or DIL
Week 1: Done
Week 2: Done
Week 3: Done
Week 4: Done
6. Create something
Week 1: Re-formed a seriously ugly lamp into something I really like
Week 2: Made a St. Patrick's table decoration
Week 3: fail
Week 4: fail
7. Rearrange a room (Can be full furniture re-arranging or just changing a few things)
Week 1: Rearranged all living room furniture with the exception of the piano. It has nowhere else to live. I still need to rearrange the artwork, but that is for another day and time.
Week 2: Cleaned (ugh) and repositioned furniture in the guest room. Had overnight guests so it was a good time to do it.
Week 3: More overnight guests (different ones) so I gussied up the guest bath. New shower curtain, different towels, different vanity accessories (The towels and accessories were not new but were lurkers I found while decluttering)
Week 4: Fail
8. Get rid of one item each day
Nice month of decluttering, well over 31 items for donation
9. Meet up with a friend/friends for fellowship (at least coffee but not excluding a meal)
Week 1: Met Flo, Martha and Judy for lunch
Week 2: Fail
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Bookclub dinner, and Ball game dinner
10. Have a home cooked ethnic meals
Week 1: Chicken Korma
Week 2: I am counting the pizza as ethnic, even though it was a casserole on a cauliflower "crust"
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Pizza again
11. Use the "good" stuff (china, crystal, silverware)
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: Done
Week 3: Fail
Week 4: Fail
12. Burn candles daily
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: some days
Week 3: some days
Week 4: Fail
13. Spa Day (really means spa hour for some self indulgent "treatment")
Week 1: Fail
Week 2: At home facial
Week 3: At home facial
Week 4: Long foot soak (sandal season is near)
14. Fingernail polish.
Worn all month including a couple of color changes and several re-polishes (for some of you this might be completely routine, but for me this is an effort)
I plan on keeping this same weekly list for April, with the following additions:
15: Contact someone I have recently been out of touch with either by phone, email, or text
16. Take Mom somewhere just to get her out of her house. Right now even the grocery store could be considered an outing.
17: Try something different. The door is wide open on this one!
Now the clock is ticking and one day has already passed in this new week. I guess it is up to me to make this happen, but I need to do seriously better than I did yesterday. I think the only thing I accomplished was lighting a candle in the evening. Yes, I can be really lame!
I think you had a great month. You can't do everything you know. Just because I do.....
ReplyDeleteI bow to your greatness and stamina! You leave me in the dust!
DeleteGood for you to schedule in some self care. Your "fails" appear to happen on the weeks that your days ended up sideways, so no surprise there. I think you did all right, and as long as you listened to favourite pieces of music that soothe, that's okay too. It is a great idea to take your mom out of the house while she is still able to enjoy the diversion. The day will come when you will no longer be able to change her surroundings at all without causing both of you great distress.
ReplyDeleteYes those sideways weeks can be a little exasperating. I do need to get her out of the house a little just to see that the world is bigger than her little confines. I wish she and Dad had moved before he died, so she would not attach such sentiment to staying there.
DeleteYou did MUCH better than I would have done. On almost every front except reading where I, as usual, binged.
ReplyDeleteNail polish? A rarity here. And usually chipped quickly.
That is why I put nail polish on my indulgence list. I use my hands and don't treat them kindly so nail polish and manicures (not professional at all) are rare. I am trying to make myself a little more presentable or at least make my old arthritic monkey paws not so horrid looking.
DeleteYou did really well! If you achieved all of your goals, you know you set the bar too low. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI still have no idea why I chose to not listen to different music. I crank it up every single day and there is no excuse for listening to the same stuff over and over when new music is literally a finger click away.
DeleteI think you did pretty well with your list, don't be too hard on yourself.
ReplyDeleteIt is what it is. I am just keeping it honest.
DeleteAs to rearranging the furniture, did the furniture in those rooms never quite fit or do you just like to mix things up then and again? It seems that once I get the furniture to fit well, there it stays.
ReplyDeleteI like to mix things up and really do love change. I will walk into a room one day and just not be able to stand the way it looks or lives anymore. Then I dig out the furniture sliders and start to move things around.. I do have a couple of rooms and the big pieces of furniture will only work in one spot but anything smaller or accessories is fair game and likely to be moved to a different position or room. I am one of those weird people who change bedding and curtains seasonally so things are continually in flux.
DeleteI do like to plan, and make at least mental lists for a lot of things. Often don't follow those lists at all -- don't feel like doing what I planned; or think of something I'd rather do -- but planning opens your eyes to possibilities, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteYes it does! Planning also lets me know if I really want to do something I planned. If I start inventing excuses then I realize the plan only looked good on paper and not in reality.
DeleteMy mother, too, liked to rearrange the furniture! "Change is good", she used to say. I am a stick in the mud and happy with one arrangement, for the most part.
ReplyDeleteI think you did quite well with your list, considering what else was going on at the same time. At least you listened to music, even if not new music. And you kept in touch with your children and Pip. AND you decluttered! Well done!
I think I could actually find 30 items per week to toss if I were really diligent about decluttering.
DeleteI am with your Mom. I start to feel caged in and smothered without some kind of physical change in my surroundings.
What a neat chart, Anne. I think I would enjoy getting rid of one thing each day, I'm sure I could do that. THanks for the idea and the great list.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how much I have kept that has no use in my life anymore. I am really enjoying getting rid of the excess. I think in May I might institute a 2 things per day policy.
DeleteI went to see both of those movies - I'm trying to make it a "thing" to go see all the Oscar nominated movies. I think I missed one but not sure which one it was now. AND I binge-watched "The Last Kingdom" also - wasn't it just the best?!?! Utred, son of Utred, is very yummy :)
ReplyDelete