I’m back on the diet again after taking about a month off to handle with stress and not logging while we had company in town.  But I’ve been logging again for 15 days now and my scale at home (that’s not terribly accurate) gave me a whole long line of 0’s on Saturday that made me very excited.  It’s gone back up a couple pounds, but that’s what happens when I sit down with a bag of M&Ms on one day and a big plate of Kung Pao chicken the next.  But I thoroughly intend for it to be back down again by Saturday.  I might not make it down the full 50 pounds before my doctor appointment at the beginning of September, but I’m going to be pretty darn close!

I don’t know exactly how much weight I’m going to end up losing in the end, but my goal right now is to get my body fat percentage down around 25%.  Wherever I land poundage-wise is where I’ll end up, but I want to get that percentage down there.  I started at 42.2%.  Right now I’m at 38.2%.  Once I get under 32%, I’ll no longer be considered “obese” and THAT will be a very happy day. 

The car thing is an end as far as I know.  I finally called the claims department on Friday to ask what the progress was on the file and they told me that they had denied the claim.  Wohoo!!  I mean, the woman didn’t have a leg to stand on but it’s still nice to have things work out the way that they’re SUPPOSED to work.  I didn’t hit her, I shouldn’t have to pay for it.  And I’m not!

As far as I’m concerned, the matter is now closed.  She can try to appeal the decision or take me to small claims court, but the insurance is going to back me up if she does that.  I’m going to assume that she’s not going to be quite that desperate and just stop thinking about the whole thing.  And now I can finally try to get the paint off my car, since I’ve been waiting until everything was resolved to try to work on that.  Before I was just being lazy.  But now I have more motivation to get it off.

There are things happening in the job front that I’m not comfortable talking about right now.  You know that feeling like if you talk about it, you might jinx the whole thing?  THAT.  But hopefully I’ll have news for you there in a while.

I am still going to be briefly unemployed while the whole place shuts down for a couple weeks, but I’m looking forward to the time away from work.  It’ll be nice.  I’m hoping to get a bunch of projects done around the house.  Because, you know, there’s nothing like a vacation to get some work done around the house.  What?  Relax?  I don’t have time to relax!

In more trivial news, I’ve developed an allergy to my face lotion.  I’ve been using it for a while and I’m about halfway through this bottle, but the last few times I tried to use it, I broke out in hives.  It wasn’t pleasant.  My only hypothesis is that there’s almond oil in the lotion.  Of my nut allergies, almonds were pretty low on the list of reactions, so I picked up a box of cranberry-pomegranate granola bars (with almonds) and was eating one of those a day.  And then I broke out in hives from my lotion.  So I’m not eating the bars any more and I’m using aloe vera to moisturize my face, since we didn’t have anything else in the house that would work.  Avoidance is effective and I’m doing just fine.  But it’s kind of a bummer because I was fond of that lotion.

And to end on a more UP tone, I have a trip coming up to visit several people and I’m SO EXCITED about it!  I’ve mentioned it here before, but I’m still just beyond thrilled to get to take this trip.  I didn’t expect to be able to spend time with my siblings and it’s going to be so much fun!  Lots of people know about it, too, because I can’t stop talking about it.  I’ve already started my packing list—I’ve been trying to figure out how to pack everything in a carry-on so we don’t have to check our luggage.

But mostly, I just think, “I get to see the kidlets!”  “I get to see my siblings!”  “I get to see Grandma!”  “I get to see the Barnetts!”  And try to figure out how I could fit seeing more people into the tiny amount of time that we’ll be in each place.  Like Sara!  And Gillian!  And Mom and Dad!!

But before that, I’ve got 3 projects that need to be completely finished up before the end of this week and 3 other documents that need to be released and mailed off for approval before next Tuesday, at the absolute latest.  I have a lot of work to finish up.

I mowed the lawn.  Grass grows differently here in the south, I think, than it does in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  It grows FAST.  And TALL.  I know it’s time to mow the lawn when I’m standing in the kitchen and I can see the tops of grass weeds over the back of the couch and the patio furniture.  So I mowed the lawn and put everything back into the storage closet like it was supposed to be organized.  After a week of pulling things out to go to the beach, the place was a wreck.  But now the patio is back to being a place of calm serenity.

I also took care of the kitchen.  I didn’t really intend to do that one, but I went down to scrounge up some dinner and, well, I had to fill up the dishwasher so I could find the sink.  And then I had to wipe down the counters.  Which meant pulling out the flowers from the vase to add fresh water.  And when I gagged because the rotting stems smelled so badly, I had to throw them into the trash and that bag had to go out to the bin, and what’s the use of throwing out a bag if I haven’t checked to make sure that there aren’t other things that I should throw out?  So I went through the fridge to find what had gone bad, like broccoli and peaches and leftover fish and fried okra.  Which meant that I organized the fridge while I was at it; and then I had to organize the pantry a little, too, because it just wasn’t balanced with one tidy and the other not.  And by the time that was done, the kitchen was pretty much clean.  I still need to do the floor, but I’ll get those all at once.

While I was taking care of that, Justin took care of the laundry, finding all the discarded clothes from the bathroom and bedroom and sorting everything out.  He washed the sheets so we had fresh, crisp sheets to sleep on.  And a couple more loads made it through before the end of the evening, but it’s going to take a little longer before we get all the way through our laundry.

But the house feels nice.  I got up this morning and looked out at the backyard and it looks wonderful.  The grass is trimmed.  The raccoons didn’t get back into the trash can again.  (They got into it the night before to find the watermelon that was tossed out, and they spread it all around the trash can in a fly-covered mess by the time I got there.  I put on latex gloves and a face mask and picked up the whole mess, and then filled a glass jug with water and put it over the top of the bin to keep it closed.  We’ll find out tonight if it kept out the day-time trash-raiders or not.)  The umbrella is up and the table is cleared.  Everything that should be out is out where it belongs and everything that should be tucked away is tucked where it belongs—with the exception of one chair from the table that’s out in the middle of the lawn holding a solar lamp off the ground so it can get some good light.

And I was able to make my lunch in the kitchen and feel like I knew what my options were for available food choices without running into mystery aluminum foil packages and Rubbermaid containers filled with what I think was Miracle Whip that got warm and liquefied.  (I confess, I’m a little confused why the foil-wrapped fish was left in the fridge but the watermelon was thrown away, along with, I assume, the Oreo cookies and the chocolate chip bars.  And 4 lonely M&Ms were left in the candy jar since last Tuesday.  Also, we’re missing a magnet.  Where’d that go?)

But the point is that the house is starting to feel less chaotic and it feels good.  Give us another day or two and we should have it back to normal again.

For a little while anyway.

I really don’t have much to say right now.  I’m thinking about the laundry that needs to get done and the floors that need to get vacuumed and the lawn that needs to get mowed.  I’m wondering what’s white and semi-liquid in that Rubbermaid container in the fridge.  And what happened to all the watermelon and the chocolate chip bars?  And what am I going to make with all these peaches and tangerines?

Hurricane season has officially started and I’m thinking of doing a workshop with a bunch of people to get kits put together and organized for the (unlikely) possibility of an evacuation.  It’s one of those things that everybody here knows that they ought to do, but not a whole lot of people actually spend time doing.  But maybe if I thought of a way to make it more interesting . . . .  It’s something I’d like to do, anyway.

And my head hurts.

If you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m waiting in line to get into the shower.  Six people.  One shower.

I don’t really know what their plans are while they’re in town.  There will be some time spent at the beach and some time doing the normal touristy things like bus tours and shopping.  There will be lots of time laying out by the pool.  But I don’t really know anything about what’s going on yet. All I really know is that they’re arriving sometime on Thursday.

So we spent several hours cleaning the house yesterday and we’ll be doing more of that over the next couple days.  Not that our house is terribly messy, but because it gives us the opportunity to go over everything and make sure it’s all dusted and cleaned out.  We had bedding that had been sitting in Justin’s office waiting to get bundled into vacuumed space-saver bags and into the antique trunk we bought.  So we took care of all that and now we have easy access to a complete bedding set for the sofa bed – complete with mattress pad, sheets, blanket, comforter, and pillow.  And a secondary set for the air mattress.

Justin moved the sofa, vacuumed under it, and put it all back together with the rug back in the right place and the whole thing lined up with the TV armoire.  He vacuumed the dust off fans.  I dusted everything below that.  We put the extra leaf in the dining room table so we can actually seat 6 people at the table.  Earlier, while he was helping do set-up at church, I pulled all the weeds from the front garden.

Tonight, he’ll tackle the bathrooms and I’ll take care of the kitchen, scrubbing everything down and getting things a little more organized.

I think a lot of what we’re doing is really just for us.  Will anyone other than me notice that I dusted all the games?  No one’s going to see the bedding that we packed up and organized.  And no matter how well I organize the kitchen cabinets, they’re going to be completely different by the end of next weekend after three different people put the dishes away.   But it feels nice after it’s cleaned.  It doesn’t even look all that different, but the fact that we’ve touched every single surface in that room, from the ceiling down to the floors, makes it feel clean.  It feels soft and inviting.  And I can’t wait to get the rest of the house as clean as the living room and dining room are right now.

I’m not an accountant and I’m not incredibly knowledgeable about all the different financial problems and circumstances that can happen with home finances and paperwork, but let me tell you about some of the things that I found to be useful and how I’ve organized it to work for me.  This is going to be a multi-post series because it’s a big, complicated concept.  But, hopefully, I’ll be able to keep it from being too boring and maybe even share some ideas that you’ll be able to use in your own home.

Now, let me say this first:  Everybody faces their finances differently and handles their organizing differently.  The system I’m going to describe works well for me, but it might need some major tweaking to work for you.  I’ll try to include options as I go through this so you can see other options that might work better for you.  But keep in mind that this is just an option and you can take from it what you like and leave the rest.  (And I did warn you ahead of time, so don’t get upset at me if you decide later on that you wish you hadn’t thrown away that thingamabob.)

In my opinion, after knowing what to keep and what to toss, the biggest problem with establishing and maintaining a filing system is that filing is boring.  It’s dull.  No one likes to file.  Some of us like to have a wonderful filing system, but no one likes to sit there and put papers into folders.  It’s DULL.  So it’s important to find a way to make it so you’ll actually sit down and file the papers that you need to keep.  For me, this means having a beautiful filing cabinet that’s organized in a way that works well for me and is located right in my office next to a comfortable chair.  Once I get a pile of things to file, I’ll sit on my comfortable chair, work my way through it, and be done.  But if I had to stand there and file things in a place that doesn’t make me as happy as my office, I doubt I’d ever do it.  I had to find a place that was comfortable and peaceful for me to keep my filing cabinet so I’d actually sit down and take care of things.

Next, for the most part, there are three different expiration dates for papers – 1 year, 7 years, and lifetime.  Things like bills, if you decide to keep them (and I’ll get to that soon-ish), you should keep for a year.  If the Auditors ever come a-calling, to my understanding, they’re interested in your finances back as far as 5-7 years, but, generally, not any further than that.  And then things like birth certificates, social security cards, and those things you should keep for the lifetime of whoever they’re for, and things like car titles and house deeds and major electronics receipts and paperwork, you should keep for the lifetime of the item.

And, of course, if there are items of significant sentimental value, you should feel comfortable to keep those as well – just so long as you understand the line between keeping sentimental items and hoarding everything.  There’s a huge line there and it crosses into mental illness so if you think you might have a hoarding problem, please seek psychological help.

Okay, I want to keep these from getting too long so that’s where I’m going to end it for today.  But let’s recap quickly:

• There are different theories about how to handle filing systems, but I’m going to try to sort through them and give you a straight-forward way to handle the whole thing.
• You should try to find a place to keep your filing that is comfortable and where you will actually sit (or stand) and take care of it.
• Generally, you should keep papers for 1 year, 7 years, or a lifetime.  We’ll get into what falls into what category in the following posts.

Your homework for today is to think about where you keep your current files (if you have any) or where you’d like to establish your filing and decide if that’s actually a place where you will go to take care of this.  If it isn’t, then try to brainstorm places where you’d feel more comfortable.  Don’t worry if the answer is “In front of the TV” because I can work with that!  Just hang onto your boots!  We’re going to get filing!

I've been baking!

My church is doing a ministry this month with Kairos Prison Ministry. We’re making cookies to give to the inmates.

Kairos Cookies

See?  They do cookies.  And hey!  I love to make cookies!  So I’m making a double batch of the easiest recipe for peanut butter cookies I could find.  There isn’t even any flour.  It’s just peanut butter, sugar, and eggs, really.  But OH.  GOOD.

Delicious cookie

I think I’m going to have about 5 dozen of these to send to the prison.

Wrapped up and ready to go

And I’ve only eaten . . . 3 of them.  But I’m on the 4th one of these:

20 oz each time

Edited to add:  Erica asked a question about the water bottle.

Close of the front

Pop the top

From the inside

No filter.  I got it at Target for $10, I think.  The metal ring around the top of the gray button on the front locks it shut so I can toss it into my purse and it won’t pop open.  There’s a seal along the top of the spout that holds the water in, too.  And there’s a ring that counts up to 6 so I can keep track of how many times I’ve filled it today.  I *love* it.  It’s the perfect size to get in and wash it with my sponge, too.  Dishwasher safe.  I’ve smacked it around a few times, too, and it’s got a few dents on the clear plastic top, but it hasn’t broken yet.  I.  Love.  It. 

Anyway, I’ve mentioned to several people that we’ve been doing yardwork.  So!  Since I’m still really tired, but I wanted to put up something here for Mom to see when she checks (I love you, Mom!), I figured I’d do a picture-heavy recap of what we’ve been doing to the yard.

The back of our yard butts up to a protected marchland, so we’re not supposed to do anything to it.  But the marshland was encroaching onto our yard.  This massive thicket of vines was slowly taking over the bushes and trees at the back of the property.  Last year, we cleared a section so we could actually see through to the marsh.  This year, we figured we’d try to get even further.

This is what it looked like before we started.

A broad view of the vines in the backyard, before trimming

A closer view of the vines problem

We spent a couple hours one afternoon pulling and piling and wrenching those things out of the ground.  Some of them are really nasty things with stickers a good 1/2 inch long.  I completely failed on planning and wore cropped pants, so I came away from the process with scratches all over my legs.  Justin walked away with a concussion, which was when we stopped for the day.  But that’s a story for another time….  Our friendly neighbor helped us the next day to pile them all into his pick-up truck and drop them off at the dump, even though it was raining.

This is what it looked like a few days ago:

A stunning lack of vines

Clear to the marsh

There’s still more to be done, obviously, but we’ve made some excellent progress!  We can see all the way through to the marsh!  To the coffee bin that someone dumped….

We noticed that a few of the vines climbing up the trees have died because we apparently cut them at the bottom.  So we have to go see if we can pull them down.  And there’s more to clear and rake up and clean up.  And then things like ferns will start to grow up and the trees will fill out more and it’s going to look amazing.  Much better than that awful thicket.

The other big project we did was to transform the landscaping along the side of the house.  This is what it used to look like:

Beside the house

And that’s the only picture I have of it.  It was pine straw mulch up to a trim of pine bark mulch that has a couple crepe myrtle trees and a couple evergreen trees that I don’t know how to explain.  It was awful.  Cats were using it as a sandbox.  Weeds were coming through.  The trees needed help.  The whole thing was a mess.

This is what it looked like a few days ago:

New and improved sideyard

Justin raked out all that awful mulch.  We brought the whole thing in about 6 inches closer to the house, the empty space will fill with grass before the end of the summer, and Justin dug a trench about 6-inches deep all the way along the side of the house to define that area and filled it in with stones.  One end is right at the end of a rain gutter, so it’s going to keep the rain from washing the mulch away as badly as it used to.   It took a lot more rocks that we expected and those rocks are REALLY heavy.  Justin was very tired from moving all those rocks.  Under the rocks is a weed-blocking material that should keep weeds from growing up in that area.  Justin put in edging while I planted some flowers and bushes.  And the whole thing is filled with cypress mulch.  Oh, and the myrtles got their spring trimming, so they’re much happier.

Bushes on the side yard

I think these are a phlox or something

I have no idea what these are called but I love the color

These are beautiful - I think they're columbines

A jasmine of some sort, I think

This tree was so crooked, but hopefully it'll do better now

View from the front

And there’s more that we did, but I’m really tired, so I’m going to wrap it up there and come back another time.  But what do you think so far?  Amazed at our landscaping prowess?  I know I am!  This place looks awesome! 

I have been up to things though.  I’ve been working on switching things around for spring.  Saturday afternoon I reorganized the porch closet so I could get to the gardening tools and the grill.   I reorganized the dining room closet to move the scarves and mittens into storage and the picnic supplies and bicycle helmets up front.  I reorganized the hamper drawer at the bottom of the steps, packing away the ice scraper and getting the sun screen, bug spray, and umbrellas up and accessible.  And while I was at it, I reorganized under the kitchen sink because it was just a mess and I wanted to be able to grab Windex without crawling all the way to the back of the cabinet.

Yesterday I organized 3 months of receipts, checking them against the categories they were marked as in my budgeting and finding out how many I’m still missing (about 5, for the whole 3 months).  It’s a long task, but rewarding in the end, when I’ve got envelope after envelope of receipts all organized and in rows.  It makes it really easy, come tax time.  I’ve got everything marked down in my finance program on my computer, so I can search for whatever I need, and then I can go to the envelope for that month and look for the physical receipt and read that.  If I need a receipt, I can find it in under 5 minutes.  It’s a system that requires constant maintenance, but one that can really pay off in the end.

I finished my book for March, but I’m not sure yet what I’d like to read for April.  I’ve got to go look through my bookshelf and see what I haven’t read yet, see if anything sparks any interest.  The last book wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as some of his others.  Maybe I should do a book review for each book I read?  It would be good for my LibraryThing account.  And my GoodReads account, too.  And if I decide to get rid of the book, it’d be good for my BookMooch account, too.

I have a lot of online book-related accounts . . . .

I lost 2 more pounds last week, bringing my current total weight loss to 16 pounds.  I’m very excited about that.

I’ve been playing Final Fantasy XIII for the last couple weeks, off and on.  It’s a BEAUTIFUL game and I’m having a really wonderful time playing it.  It is, so far, the only game we have for our PS3, but that’s because we bought it to play BluRay discs on, and not for playing video games.  But let me tell you, this game is AMAZINGLY beautiful.  I could sit there just looking at the pretty pictures for hours and be perfectly content.  But there’s also game play and that makes it even better!

I worked a full day again on Friday because they switched up the schedule on me and now I’m behind on a couple of projects.  It’s frustrating.  I keep hoping that I’ll finally catch up to everything, and then they go and move things on me.  I’m getting really frustrated with working more than 40 hours a week.

My allergies are starting to pick up. It’s about the same time as last year, so I’m not terribly surprised.  My eyes itch.  I sneeze a lot.  I’m tired.  I think the grass is out to get me.

And these are just a glimpse of the things that I’m ready to talk about.  There are other things, like improvements to our bedroom and the yard and my photo collection, that I’m not ready to talk about yet because I want to have everything finished before I talk about it.  But we’re making good progress on those things and I hope to have more news on those soon.

Until then, I just have this one last thing for today:

Two years ago today, I stood on shaking knees and pinched toes with sweat dripping down the middle of my back, between friends and family on one side and a gazebo on the other, with candles that kept being blown out by the wind, across from the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, who promised to support and protect me, and who slid a ring as far as it could go onto my stress-swollen finger.  We danced our first dance to music I can’t remember, and his grandfather cut in before the end of the song.  We celebrated and smiled and danced and ate and had a wonderful time with our most precious friends and family.  And then we cleaned up and went home before the rain started.

Since then, we’ve gone through sicknesses and job troubles, celebrations and parties, days when communication failed and days when we worked together in prefect synchronization, days when there wasn’t enough money and days when there was more money than we expected, days when the world in my head didn’t make sense, but he stuck beside me anyway, days when we didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, but we pulled and pushed each other up and stood on our feet and helped each other make it through the day.

People keep making comments about us being newlyweds and honeymooning and that the glow will eventually fade, but we believe that the honeymoon is the rest of the marriage and that we’re the ones actually doing it right.  He brings me flowers when he goes to the grocery store.  I wake him up in the morning with cuddles and kisses.  We call each other at noon and again when we leave work, and sometimes more than that just to hear each other talk.

I love you, Justin Barnett, and I am so happy to be your wife!  Let’s keep it going for another 80 years or so!

Today, we’re following up with typical March weather – it’s dark and rainy.  It is, on the upside, the kind of rain that smells like it’s going to make the grass grow.  It’s a refreshing change from rain that smells like winter, gets into my shoes and makes me cold all day long.

We’ve had an interesting couple of days around here.  Friday, I was at work from 7:30 until 6:00.  On a day where I would normally work only 4 hours, a 10-hour day is absurd.  I was really irritated by the whole thing.  I mean, sure, overtime pay.  But my Friday!  I had plans for that afternoon!  All of which are now just sitting on my list of things to do and hoping that I have time to do them this coming Friday.  It isn’t looking good for that list.

For dinner on Saturday, Justin and I made “Jade and Ivory Pasta,” which is a recipe that came with my wok and we’ve made a couple of times before.  It’s fettuccini, broccoli, and chicken stir-fried in a sauce with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, sherry (that we substituted with red wine vinegar), and a couple other things.  When we got to the end of the meal, Justin’s tongue went numb.  His throat swelled up a little and he felt about as miserable as a person with an allergic reaction could feel without needing to go to the emergency room.  And we sat there, waiting to see if we would have to go to the ER, because the last time this happened to him, he spent more than a week in the hospital.  He can’t take Benedryl because it reacts badly with his system, so all he could do was brush his teeth, rinse with Listerine, and wait.

We still have no idea what set him off, so I’m eating all the left-overs while he feels miserable.  His throat and tongue are still raw and sensitive, with the unfortunate side-effect of being completely unable to taste anything.  It makes me feel sorry for people who have ageusia and never taste anything, and their spouses, for whom it’s probably almost as frustrating.

But we’re very thankful that it wasn’t worse than it was.  Meals that don’t land one of us in the ER = success!

Anyway, that’s pretty much the excitement that’s been happening around here lately.  I’ll try to write about something more interesting soon-ish.

Someone finally came and towed away Justin’s old Infiniti, giving us $150 for it.  It would have been nice to get more money for it, but just having that parking space back is enough.

Beautifully sunny 50-something degree weather all weekend long with the windows open and fresh air blowing through the house.

Yoga class on Saturday morning.

Mail with boxes and cards and presents from my mom and brother.

Ordering my present and a few other fun things online and the excitement of anticipating all those wonderful boxes in the mail.

Going out to dinner for my birthday, even if it wasn’t exactly what Justin had planned, at a restaurant that I’ve wanted to explore for a long time, where we’re definitely going visit again.

Having such a great time singing at church that I almost sang my voice out and had to go home and sleep for an hour and a half to recover.

Watching a clever little squirrel perch on the top of the shepherd’s crook holding the bird feeder, climb halfway down, stretch across the space, push the top off the feeder, stick his whole upper body into the thing, and then go back up to the top to munch on what he had grabbed.

Watching that squirrel almost fall off his perch when a large bird shadow blocked out the sun, followed by a flailing leap into a nearby tree.

Justin fixing the laundry room light so we actually have full light in there for the first time in a year instead of this terrible flickering nonsense.

Watching a friend stand on the top of a ladder holding a broom with a dustpan duct-taped to the end trying to scrape sticky Halloween eyeball toys off their living room cathedral ceiling.

Chatting and laughing with my sister on the phone while her daughter hummed.

Curling up in bed and laughing with Justin until it hurt about funny things we saw on the internet.

And several other things, but I think I’ll leave it at that.