Riffday: pop, scheduling, and boxes

I realized the other day that I never updated you on my January goals at the end of January.  Not much changed-- the menu planning was a no-go, but I did make it through the entire month without drinking a diet Dr. Pepper (caffeine free or otherwise).  And since that's the only soft drink I ever drink, that means I had no soft drinks for the entire month.  It was harder than I thought it would be.  On February 1st, I had not one but two DDPs.  But since then, I've noticed a definite decrease in how often I want one.  I've had about one a week, which seems reasonable to me.  So I'm glad I did that one, it was worth it.

My February goals were going to be to start exercising by 9 a.m. (on days that I'm exercising), and to wait to get on the internet until after 4 p.m.  Then we moved on January 28th, and there was no way to maintain any schedule at all.  So I'm going to pick those back up, and will probably keep them into March, because those are good ones for me.  On the days I'm home alone, I can putter around in the morning until suddenly it's 11 a.m. and I haven't even started exercising, let alone getting ready to go out and about.  And on some days that's fine, but I think in general I'd like to get an earlier start.  I doubt I have to explain the point of waiting till 4 to get on the internet.  Otherwise I waste way too much time just poking around, and then I do it again in the evening anyway.

The unpacking continues.  I've discovered that I am not good at it.  I open a box, and then I start ruminating about where the things should go.  Then I decide on a spot, but first it has to be cleared out (a bunch of things were just shoved in random spots in the first couple of days), and then the shelf needs to be cleaned, which reminds me that I forgot to wipe down the mirror in the closet, and the back of the toilet in the bathroom where they were drywalling, and then I have to go to Target to see if there is some sort of shelf organizer that will enable me to fit two shelves worth of stuff into the space of one, and before you know it, I've spent the afternoon unpacking one box.

Dean, on the other hand, is an unpacking god.  He was out of town last week (caught a ton of very big fish, by the way), and then he had to work Monday and Tuesday.  But he had the day off Wednesday and in one day he did about three times more unpacking than I had managed all last week.  It was astonishing.  We now have access to our dining room table again-- which is in its very own room.  We lost all those other rooms I told you about but we gained a dining room!  first time we've ever had one.  And our bedroom is almost box free.  I walked back in at the end of the afternoon and gaped.  How did he do that in one day?

On the other hand, I realized Wednesday that the freshly painted shelves in our closet were going to get white dust all over my clothes, so I went out and got shelf liner (normally I am not a big fan of shelf liner), cut it to fit, figured out that it didn't quite fit and had to decide whether to cut it again, or wrap the excess over the edge and tape it in place, which would look really nice because then the edge of the shelf would be covered.  And then I had to decide which clothes went on shelves and which ones should hang up, and which ones could just go straight to the Salvo.  And by mid-afternoon, I had unloaded one box.  It was a big one, though.

You're wondering why he puts up with me, right?  I know.  Sometimes I'm mystified myself.  I think I'm kind of entertaining, at least.

Tomorrow some friends are coming over to help me figure out where our furniture should go.  It didn't occur to me until I after I invited them that the house isn't nearly in any condition for having people over.  Fortunately they will understand.  And at least we now have.... TA DA....

....one fully functioning bathroom.  The plumber came this afternoon and installed the faucet in the sink.  There are no towel bars and the toilet paper is just sitting on the back of the toilet, but those are details.  There is a working shower, toilet, and sink.  Yay.