Tag: organizing

What’s New

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings11 Comments

I haven’t posted in a few days so I thought I should take a minute to share what’s up on this end.  I apologize for the lack of graphics. My allergies are bugging me and the decongestant is making it difficult to even type, much less attempt to look for graphics.

My new job is going well. I’m enjoying it and am thankful every day that I no longer have to work with the public! Some days are busier than others. Some days I don’t have that much to do and some days I’m swamped, but that’s the nature of being at the mercy of when items are delivered. I’m learning to pace myself on the swamped days and appreciate the slower days.

I’m still working on my room, but I’m getting closer to being done. I’ve set the end of September as my goal for being done. I took a 5-day weekend around the 30th/1st and plan to use those days to shift furniture and do the final touches. I’ve done well sifting through books I own and getting rid of some that I’m just never going to use/read again. Ditto with some of my art supplies. There are some resale shops around here that will take art supplies so I’ve been getting some together to donate. Those are the two things that take up the most space in my room so working on paring those down to manageable levels feels really great. I’m not done, by any means, but I’ve got a huge chunk done.

This past weekend was a long weekend here in the United States as we celebrated Labor Day. I worked in my room part of the time, but on Saturday, I took my dad to the Thunder Over Michigan air show with the Blue Angels as his belated Father’s Day present. I’ve been taking him for a few years now. We had a great time and hopefully later in the week or this weekend, I’ll have my pictures ready to put up. Some need a little help with shading and color since the cloud cover came in and made everything in the picture go grey.

A few weeks ago, my doctor put me on steroids to deal with an allergic reaction. That will be the last time I ever voluntarily take steroids. It basically made my psych meds inactive so even tho’ I was taking them, I felt like I hadn’t had psych meds in days. NOT a good place for me. It’s taken me almost two weeks to feel better again after stopping the steroids. That was definitely a lesson learned.

What’s going on with all of you? If you’re in the US, did you do anything special for the holiday weekend? If you’re not in the US, did you do anything fun on your weekend?

 

New beginnings

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings8 Comments

As we start a new year as Americans, I’m also starting a few new things in my life. Some of it I started last month, but I’m counting those as still new enough to include in this post.

I’m actually starting to feel like I’m finally getting used to and flourishing as an adult. I’m a little slow on the uptake being that I’m already 41, but it’s still a good feeling!

In the last month, I’ve started cleaning out clutter and reorganizing my room, creating an art/photography workspace in the basement, working with a financial counselor to get my finances in better shape, and finally getting a combination of medications to really help with my mental illnesses (it’s difficult to find the right combination because you have to try each med and they can take a minimum of 4-6 weeks to really work and then you have to hope you can tolerate the side effects).  My room is coming along slowly but surely. I didn’t get much done this past weekend, but I plan on tackling it this coming weekend and trying to work through another section.

The biggest news is that I’m getting a NEW JOB!!! 😀 😀  I’m super, super excited about it. I’m still working at Ann Arbor District Library, but I’ll be taking a position in the Acquisitions/Cataloging department instead of on the public desks. Right now (through the end of July), I’m training during the first half of my day and then after lunch/dinner, I’m working on one of the public desks. August 1st, I will take over in the position. It is a lateral move in the company as far as pay is concerned so I won’t be getting a raise, but it will hopefully mean a lot less stress.

I’m really excited because my concentration in library school was cataloging. While I may not be doing a lot of original cataloging (creating records from scratch), there’s lots of copy cataloging to do (downloading catalog records from reputable sources) and cleaning up records. I’ll also be putting in the orders for items and processing them when we receive them. I’m not the person choosing what gets purchased, I’m just the one making the purchase orders and actually ordering/receiving the materials. 🙂

While I will miss some aspects of working at the public desk, I’m looking forward to having less stress in my life. Working with the public makes me so exhausted that I can’t really do much of anything else. By working in an area that doesn’t have to deal with the public, I’m hoping that I’ll be able to “have a life” outside of work, or at the very least have the energy to enjoy painting ceramics and taking nature walks again!

Little bits of organizing and progression

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings11 Comments

I decided that since I’m trying to organize my life better in other areas, that should include here too. I’ve gone through and made sure all of my reviews have the same formatting and look “the same”, which was a really good thing to get done and it did take a couple of weeks to do all that. However, it dawned on me about a week or so ago, that while I worked hard at the beginning of my blogging to move all of my reviews from Goodreads, Amazon, my library’s catalog, etc. here to my blog, I did not work as hard to make sure that the reviews were posted on all the other appropriate sites.

So that’s what I’m working on now, in little bits and pieces. I’m still reading and writing reviews (I should have one for Kate Carlisle’s newest book, Once Upon a Spine up tomorrow at some point), but I’m trying to get these little things taken care of so that publishers looking for my reviews can find them on the major websites and not just here on my blog.

Three bears - one with a vacuum, one with a mop and one dusting
©Cute Colors

Sometimes when one is working on re-organizing, it can feel like things aren’t moving along quickly enough. I mentioned that today to my current financial advisor who’s helping me find all the “leaks” in my spending so I can save more. He assured me that while it may not seem like it, I’m progressing practically perfectly. Small, steady progression that will be easy to maintain. That made me feel better.

My dad asked the other night if I was back sleeping in my own bed yet and I said no, feeling a little down that I haven’t progressed much beyond what I had done last weekend. But he actually responded with “Good! I want you to take your time on all this sorting and cleaning.”

Do you have ways to stop yourself from getting too discouraged that you’re not progressing “fast enough” when working on something? I’d love to hear other people’s suggestions!

Spring Cleaning – Take 2

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings2 Comments

Before I get into my update on my spring cleaning, I want to say welcome to all my new Facebook followers. I ran an ad to promote my page and therefore my blog and in just a little over 24 hours, I have 300 new “likes”! Hopefully that trend keeps going all week!

I got my room about half sorted this weekend. I did get the majority of the stuff in front of my desk sorted out, which means that over the next day or two, I can get all clothes put away. Woo hoo! That will really cut down on the amount of clutter in my room.  🙂

I did NOT get the area between my bed and bookcases done, but that’s okay. The stuff in front of the desk is 80-85% done. There’s still a little bit left there but I just ran out of energy and time. So, I simply moved the little bit that’s left away from the closet so I can put my clothes away in the closet. 🙂 🙂 That makes me happy.

One thing living with mental illness has taught me is that I have to be content with the limits that I have. Spoons/energy is very limited (for an explanation on “spoons”, visit The Spoon Theory over at “But You Don’t Look Sick” ), so consequently, I’ve had to learn to be satisfied with however much I can get done. I’m actually very pleased with how much I was able to get done this weekend. My stamina is getting better, which makes me happy.  For a long time, I had to stop after every 30-45 minutes for a break. This weekend I was able to work in 2 hour stretches before I needed a break. For me, that feels like tremendous progress and I’m thankful for it!

Of course, the down side is that as much as I love my job (and I really do love it), I kind of just want to stay home until I finish my room! But alas, I only took the 3-day weekend off, so I’m back to work today. I appreciate all the support I’ve been given from friends and family both here and on Facebook. It helps. 🙂

Here’s hoping that over the next week or two, I can get the rest sorted out and start moving furniture around.

Spring Cleaning

Valerie @ Valerie's Musings4 Comments

Okay, it’s almost summer so I’m a little late, but I took a 3-day weekend this weekend to clean my room or at least get a really good start on it.

My room is generally a disaster area. I’m trying to change that, just like I’m meeting with a financial adviser to get my budget on track so I can save more, put more towards retirement, etc.

It’s not an easy thing to change the way you do things after 41 years, but I’m trying.

Right now, I’m simply sorting things into bins and then I’ll figure out what to do from there. Like most bibliophiles, I have *TONS* of books. The ones that are on my floor are going into bins to be sorted into what I really want to keep and what I want to give away, either to the Friends of the Library or Salvation Army.

My two big goals for this weekend are to 1) clear out the area in front of my desk because we’re going to move my desk down to my art area in the basement (that’s also the largest pile of mess). 2) Get all laundry/clothes put away. I need to accomplish #1 to successfully complete #2 (my desk is next to my closet which I need access to in order to get clothes put away).

I’d LIKE to get the area between my bed and bookshelf cleaned out as well, but that might have to wait for another day. We’ll see. I’ve already been working for about 2.5 hrs this morning so taking a little break. 🙂

Sorting it all into bins will then let me work on stuff in managable chunks instead of looking at the whole thing and getting overwhelmed.

It’s making me feel good to be this productive too. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve had the right combination of meds so I can stay focused and be productive. It’s a nice feeling. 🙂

On top of the physical clutter, I’m trying to get rid of some of the emotional clutter too. Due to issues in my past, I have some pretty big issues with self-hatred and am often calling myself names. But 2 weeks ago I did kind of a ritual cleansing. I used some exfoiliating body wash and washed away all those names. Then, I used some goat milk soap I recently got that’s extra moisturizing and I washed in more positive words. Words my best friend and other friends and family would use to describe me.

I’m not naive. This won’t be the last time I’ll need to do that, but on most days, it helps to be able to stop myself and say, “Nope, I washed those words away.”

It’s a process, as is anything that’s worth doing. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither were my self-hatred issues. My room didn’t get this messy in one day and neither did my finances, but I’m determined to get at least some of it under control in 2017.

What are you working on changing right now?