:: The Memory Burns ::

:: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 ::

Where I'm At

So, I'm about a week into my two week plan and I am doing well. All of the furniture is moved, cleaned and fixed, not that much needed fixing. There are new overhead light fixtures installed in the entire apartment, the floors and wall boards have nearly all been washed, anything that needed to go has gone and now it is down to just the detail work.

I still have piles and piles of books to go through, and most of the ones I am not keeping will likely hang around until mid-June when my church has its annual yard sale. Seems like as good a place as any to dump them. I expect that the kitchen will be done tomorrow, with the living room and hallway done by Thursday.

There are still a couple of pieces of furniture waiting for my brother to come collect. But, in fairness, he is waiting for me to give him the go-ahead. One piece is a book shelf that I have to sort and empty before he cane come to get it.

My apartment is much more airy and light, and it makes me very happy. I think the over-all effect is much better than I had hoped for.

The final stage - the majority of the second week - will be spent in putting the 'writer's den' together. I have a little work done on that, but there are still a couple of more decisions to make before I can finalize things.

Then comes the real work; the actual writing. Egads, it seemed so much further away last week when I decided to do this! I don't think I really expected to make this much progress this quickly!

:: Greta 5/11/2010 10:43:00 PM [+] 0 comments

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The Clock is Ticking

I've set a two week plan for thinning out my apartment, getting rid of things I no longer need or want, rearranging all of the furniture and setting up a comfortable, usable 'writer's den'. Two weeks. 14 days. It seems line an eternity now, but the clock is running.

Stage one - revitalize an antique buffet that has been in the family for years, and has been in my living room, as a crafts or games chest, for a good long while. Since my mother passed away and I inherited her china I have wanted a safe place to store it. I've also wanted a nice side-board in the kitchen, so the buffet will serve both purposes. It needed a fair amount of work, and thanks to a friend who is a lot braver than I am, that has been accomplished.

Stage two - get rid of a few pieces of furniture, rearrange the apartment, clean and polish the floors (okay - I may be stretching the use of the word 'polish' here, but you get the hint...). On Thursday of this week I have invited my oldest brother and a friend to come help me with this task. By Thursday evening I am hoping that this is completely accomplished. Two pieces of furniture are leaving and going to the houses of other friends. A lot of the rest of the furniture will be rearranged, and possibly used for purposes that it is not being used for right now. The bad news - it sounds like a lot of work. The good news - I have a plan!

Stage three - Dump all CDs to my computer and to my back up hard drive. Take CDs to used CD store to sell them. Rearrange all DVDs and put them in smaller cases so that they are stored more easily. I have a ridiculous number of CDs and a decent number of DVDs. They take up a lot of space. It's time to thin out the herd. I really have no need of keeping the CDs. I run most of my music off of my netbook or BlackBerry now, anyway, using a pair of speakers my nephew gave me, so the CDs are just taking up space. This project is about halfway complete.

Stage four - rearrange and thin out my books. This will be the most painful part of the project. I am shamefully attached to my books. The idea of getting rid of any of them causes me great distress. And yet I know that there are many that can easily go. It's just getting used to the idea...

Stage five - thin out pots and pans. Get rid of duplicate or unnecessary stuff from the kitchen. I have a ton of cabinet space in my kitchen and it is all filled to overflowing. There's a lot of stuff I don't need and don't use. Guilt makes me keep most of it, because most of it was given to me as gifts from various people. Sorry, folks. It's time for this crap to go. The difficulty is that I do love to cook, so I need to approach this project wisely and cautiously. I don't want to regret it later.

Stage six - The Writer's Den! I have a reading and meditation nook that has been in use in my apartment for years. I go through periods where I don't use it very much, but when I do I get a great sense of peace and accomplishment from the time I spend there. I have put this back into use, and I intend to model the 'writer's den' after the reading/meditation corner. I want there to be a sense of peace in this area. I want there to be a sense of order and a sense of fun. I want there to be useful books on writing, etc, and I want there to be silly toys that I can play with, that may seem like a distraction, but that will help to keep me rooted there in those moments when I should be attending to my writing, even if I'm not actually writing. I have a Nerf basketball and hoop, I have my juggling stuff, I have a lot of notebooks with bits and pieces of writing projects in them.I have colorful pens and nifty notebooks that need to be filled. There will be free-hanging shelves along one slanted wall and there will be awesome bookends to adorn them. I will be using white boards to doodle on and to keep notes and time-lines on, and I may have a fish. Who knows? I will name him Bob. Or maybe Javier. It's all in the details. Key to this part of the plan is purchasing a new, comfortable and usable desk and chair. Hmmm. I don't know what I want. Shopping to commence after all of the other furniture is rearranged.

Stage 7 - and this is outside of the two week plan - tear down the wallpaper in the bedroom and paint the room blue. Hang attractive paintings, a big, glorious sun on one wall and very little else. I have no idea when I will get this done, but it is on the 'to-do' list for this year. It is the last room in the apartment that needs to be repainted. I hate painting and papering. Ick.

I lay this all down in my blog, so that you may be "witnesses" to my victory or my defeat. Honestly, after all of this is accomplished, what is there left to do write?

:: Greta 5/03/2010 09:47:00 PM [+] 2 comments

2 Comments:

Go, Greta, go! Victory is the only option.

By  Angie, at 2:23 PM  

My vote goes to Javier!

By  Mary Ellen Sanger, at 9:16 PM  

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