Happy Friday!
I feel like I need a few days off, preferably before the boys get done with school on May 26th. I’m going a bit nuts with a bunch of lingering “projects” that I just don’t seem to have time to get to.
Yes, I have some free time that maybe I could “use better”. I walk, I go to the gym, I read a little, I write here, etc. Obviously that all takes time. But those are really pretty small blocks of time.
I need TIME time. Like, a whole day+ type time. Or a week of time. (And, those above things are what keep me sane, so I wouldn’t trade those for these chores, anyway.)
Some things I need to do:
🔷 Clean out my email inbox!!!! I have fallen off from doing SHU’s weekly Friday reviews, which I was religious about during the pandemic/ when the kids were home. But lately, this just hasn’t been happening. I NEED to get back to a scheduled block for this. Currently have 548 emails in my personal inbox that need sorting….
🔷 Figure out some landscaping issues in our yard. We have areas that need to be re-seeded, some beds that need serious attention, a tree that needs to come down, and ideally some trees to be planted. I don’t feel like doing a single item of those. I don’t know much about landscaping, it overwhelms me, I don’t want to spend time figuring it out….but I also don’t like the yard as is, either. What to do. Hire someone? Ehh…. this seems small enough it should be do-able for us….(minus the tree cutting down part).
🔷Finish setting up storage and put things away in our newly remodeled garage. This was a “fall project” that got to an acceptable point pre-winter, and then has just sat untouched since. Well, now it’s spring. The remaining organization (buying and installing some additional wall slats for storage, unpacking some boxes and arranging items on shelves) needs to be dealt with at some point.
🔷Also in garage- we have this massive tool cabinet that looks like a bomb went off in it. Need to clean it out AND figure out some kind of storage solution for long term in there.
🔷My basement storage room! If you’ve been reading this blog from the beginning, you’ve heard periodic mentions of the infamous “storage room”. It’s been a mess since our kitchen remodel, like, 3 years ago now when we started chucking stuff in there. It has soooooo much work to be done to clean it out, reorganize, etc. This will take LOTS of time….hence why I never touch it. Can’t whip that out in an hour.
🔷 My clothing needs an overhaul. At a minimum, I need to do the good ‘ol “closet change-around” to bring my summer stuff upstairs/ store the winter sweaters away. Ideally, I need to weed out a bunch of clothes, too. I have a LOT of clothes, but I don’t love a lot of my clothes. Some items are super old. I’m also missing some very key wardrobe items that I keep procrastinating on just finding and buying. Shopping currently overwhelms me immensely. I hate in person shopping, I hate online shopping…. I just want items to magically appear, be cute, functional and fit perfectly, with zero effort on my part. Really, what needs to happen is a serious minimization of my wardrobe, followed up by some very intentional planning and purchasing of good, quality items. But again….time/ effort…..😫
🔷 I really want to keep working on my photo backup and organization project!!! This has stalled out a little lately. Need to pick back up.
🔷Finish writing trip recaps from our Europe trip?? I do really want to do this!! I made it almost halfway. It does take extra effort to sort and upload pics though and write these posts. If I want another blog book though, I’ll have to do it eventually. Ideally before the details get fuzzy….
🔷 Am I going to plant my garden this year?? Haven’t even thought about it yet. Our spring is so late, it’s not been an issue yet. But I always say I’m going to research/ learn more about gardening, to make mine a BETTER garden, but I never do. I don’t know. Not sure I really care. Maybe I’ll just plant some tomatoes and jalapenos and call it a day. The kids do have fun with it, though….hmmm.
Anyway, not sure if writing this down helped me or stressed me out more. Ha. Not likely going to do any of this this weekend, as we have like 3 volleyball games, a soccer tournament and my parents coming for Mother’s Day weekend. Oh well. Eventually???
Bonus- a couple macro friendly meals from yesterday:
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for paperclips! Very handy little guys.
GRATEFUL KAE 
I find doing a “brain dump” as they call them does ultimately help me feel less overwhelmed by my to-do’s. Sometimes it also causes mild panic when I see the list.
Landscaping is also overwhelming me. Our outside yard is a diaster and needs professional help…but our budget for house projects this year is going in to finishing some major exterior renos/re-doing our entryway. So…the landscaping will have to work. I’ve been doing a few little things by myself, but I’m woefully unskilled in this area.
Can I just say I wish you lived down the street and I could pop over to help you clean out your closet. Is that weird? My best friend spent a chunk of time helping a friend clear closet clutter and I was legit jealous. I just LOVE downsizing clothing – for myself or for others.
Hope you get some time to pick away at these tasks! The food pics look delish ❤
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I would greatly welcome your help with any cleaning out projects if you lived nearby!!! haha!! I hear you on the landscaping budget. We have other, more pressing projects around our house, too, which makes it tricky. I tend to forget about the landscaping during the winter, but once summer rolls around, I start seeing all the issues in the yard again, which then starts to stress me out a little….
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“Really, what needs to happen is a serious minimization of my wardrobe, followed up by some very intentional planning and purchasing of good, quality items.’ <– THIS 100x over! On my recent trip to Germany, I realized that I've been bringing the same items when I travel for at least 5 years!
I also relate on the garden issue… I haven't even thought about planting anything this year (maybe due to traveling in April), but just picked up two tiny tomato and strawberry plants. Not that I am having a lot of room to grow a lot of things anyways, but it's a start.
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YES- I totally notice my clothing issues more when I pack to travel!! Or when I look at my travel photos…I’m always like, Oh, that shirt again?? hehehe…..
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I used to hate making cloth switch every year when it’s changing season, fortunately I don’t have to do it anymore now that I live in tropical country, everyday is the same HOT!!! this is another one of those things that you wish you can delegate but is not delegate able.
your meals look so colorful. I notice that you are not a sweet breakfast person… most of your breakfast involve eggs… is that right? has it always been like that? what about the boys/
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Yes, I’m generally not a “sweet” breakfast person at all. Sometimes I’ll eat oatmeal with fruit and peanut butter, but maybe once a week only or less. I do tend to eat eggs quite often…I like “fattier” breakfasts, like things with eggs and cheese, for example. I really like things like an egg/cheese/ meat breakfast sandwich, or eggs with beans in spicy salsa with a corn tortilla, etc. I actually don’t love breakfast foods in general and could probably be happy just eating lunch/dinner foods for every meal though! But eggs are versatile (easy to mix with veggies, too) and I do like them, so I often choose them for breakfast. Because I still always feel like I “should” eat breakfast foods at breakfast time. haha.
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“I need TIME time” … ha ha . Really like that phrase. I also have a list of such chores in my head. I think I will take the first step of at least putting it all down on a paper today. Wishing us all to get some magical TIME time 😃
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Good luck to you on accomplishing your list, too!! haha! I’m glad I’m not the only one with this issue. 😉
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I would buy that salad in a restaurant K! Great job! Yes, there are vendors to cut trees – probably price out 2 or 3 of them. We ended up having a savvy friend come over with a chainsaw for ours.
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We had a company lined up to take our tree down last fall!! And then….he never showed up….we are still trying to figure out if he’s coming?! Probably going to just call some new companies instead… Our tree is BIG and right next to our house (and our roof solar panels), so definitely not a job for us to do on our own, unfortunately. Need someone with lots of skills and good insurance! 🙂
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If you have the vacation time available, I would try to take a day or two off while the boys are in school or both are at camp so you can focus on some projects on those days off. It’s hard to fit big projects like these into little pockets of time! Would Ivan take on some of the projects, like the garage tool one? I would have no idea how to organize something like that since I do not use those kind of things!
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Oh, Ivan will definitely be involved with a majority of these tasks!! I meant WE have to do this stuff (some is more geared toward just me, like my clothes, obviously) but all the yard stuff/ storage room/ garage work etc will require input and time from both of us- which is actually another complicating factor, because we need to find big chunks of time for us to BOTH be there, in some cases…. I do think that probably taking a couple days off at some point will be necessary! Ivan doesn’t have quite as much vacation time as I do, though, so it gets tricky bc we do travel quite a bit, which eats up his days…. My schedule is more flexible, too, so I could in theory work on a Saturday or something while he takes them to their sports, to have an uninterrupted weekday off to work on a project, for example.
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Yes having both people available to work on a project makes it much more complicated! I made a list of projects that I wanted to tackle in the house this year and have made zero progress on the ones that we need to work on together because we are so rarely both free. We both get Juneteenth off, though, and daycare is open so I am thinking that would be a good day to tackle some things… Not a great way to use a day off, but the projects will never get done otherwise!!
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