Long Weekend- yay!

Woohoo. A long weekend. And I've started an ambitious to-do list. Mostly involving cleaning and de-cluttering. Which have been on my mind for months. So that will be really good. Today, I have an outing with a friend I have neglected too much (that could be just about anyone, but oh well, I can only get to one of you at a time, sorry, if you know me, you know I suck like that, and it's really nothing personal.) I am going to bike over to a nearby museum, then we will tour whatever part we feel like seeing, and then we will have lunch. Very civilized. Then I will hopefully be full of energy and get started chipping away at said list.

Mostly, I am determined to redeem myself in the eyes of relatives coming to visit next weekend, who have seen the Mess of Summer. And also, deal with the cat smell coming from strange places the cat decided to mark/pee on post-visit from another cat earlier in the summer, in hopes that the next cat visit will not see an escalation of the turf wars. Not that this will dispel our reputation as the family slobs, but it will make the place nicer for us all, in any case. Here's to beating back the squalor, and happy, cozy, somewhat clean living!

Projects include basic cleaning, clearing and wiping of hard surfaces, laundry, vacuuming, detoxing of the fridge, and also dismantling of an old sofa, with an attempt to wash any removable parts, and figuring out what to do with the rest, then reassembling of the washed parts, if they haven't shrunk past that point. It will take a while. And then I may need to figure out what to do with the sofa if it isn't salvageable. So it will certainly be a big project, one way or the other. Wish me luck!

I've also started acupuncture, to deal with a number of things, mainly neck and back pain, and migraines, and will continue with that this weekend. And I can say to any of you contemplating it: really NOT scary! Which surprised me. People aren't joshing when they say you really can't feel much at all when those needles go in. But also? Damn. Pretty expensive. And no help from the insurance. So part of today's list is to figure out if at least I can put this on the FSA card, and thus pay in pre-tax dollars. Because the treatment for chronic type things apparently takes a while, and quite a few sessions.

In other fascinating news, I will also be tackling our budget to get us back on track with new savings goals, clearing out some boxes left from materials we received months ago, which are sitting stacked in the LR corner, right where we opened them, and finding a couple of piddly little bills that are certainly lying around somewhere close by, under a stack of Very Important Papers Which Must Not Be Thrown Out. And pay them.

I've been reading folks lists of 101 things to do in 1001 days. I really like lists. But I don't think this kind of set-up would work for me. And I wonder how the publication of such a list might skew people's choice of items for it. And I wonder how the hell people who have put "learn X language, learn Y language, learn to knit, etc. times 4" think they are going to do that in a couple of years, if they have to also check off all the little chore-like repetitive stuff that is on some of those lists, and also go to the gym 5 times a week for 5 months.

It cracks me up that things as small as "eat a vegetarian meal" take up as much space as "learn X language" on a list like this. I have seen people break up their fitness goals into somewhat smaller chunks, but nobody seems to break up some of the other HUGE learning projects into smaller, spread over time, do-able chunks. It's not going to happen by osmosis, folks.

Also, who puts "buy X number of fancy panties" on a public list? Really? I don't need to know that. And what kind of goal is that, anyway? Do you really need to plan ahead to work that into your schedule? Are you worried that you might actually forget to buy panties sometime in the next two years? Or that you might forget, once you are in the store, and buy plain white granny panties by mistake, when you really wanted something sexier? Oh well, list away, if it makes you feel good. I know I like my lists, too, so whatever works for ya. Cheers.