In which I fail miserably yet again

For a week that was supposed to be free of booze, last week was awfully boozy. I have come to realize that giving up booze for a week means locking myself in a closet. I'm afraid I will have to modify this part of the project a bit to: no booze when I'm home alone. Last week I drank the last of my wine on Sunday, drank the last two beers from the river trip on Monday, had dinner with Bob on Wednesday (wine) and Girls Night on Thursday (more wine). So I managed only two nights of the week with no booze. This will not do.

On the other hand, I had a great time both Wednesday and Thursday nights, particularly Thursday with a group of girlfriends, just shooting the shit at my friend Amber's house. So I'm going to hereby modify my second week and try it again: no drinking alone. Lets see how that flies.

This week's challenge is Housekeeping.

I'm not much of a housekeeper. I'm not terrible, I mean I'm in no danger of DHS coming in and removing my child or anything. But I have found that, since my divorce, housekeeping has tumbled quite a few points on my list of things to give a shit about. For one thing, the mess is my own, so it doesn't piss me off the way the mess did when I was married and it wasn't just mine. I was the only one cleaning it up. But it wasn't just mine. So now I look around at the mess and think "hm. I should probably clean this up," not "I am so tired of cleaning up after that slob." In fact, it's probably been me who was the slob all along, but now it doesn't matter so much.

Another thing: the house is small and it doesn't really take that long to clean it, so I always think I'll do it later. And one more thing: I don't like to be always picking up, wiping up, putting away: so even when I see a mess and have a natural urge to clean it up, I will sometimes suppress that urge in favor of sitting on my ass or doing something else I enjoy, like reading a book or futzing in the garden or going to the book store to buy more books to add to the clutter.

So, really the main thing I'm working against this week is inertia and complacence. Okay, and the big mess that needs to be cleaned up today. Today I'm the white tornado, and my task all week is to keep things spotless. Theoretically, it shouldn't be difficult to keep things clean. All you have to do is clean up after yourself, right? So this week I don't fight the urge to pick things up, and I make a routine for myself of making sure everything is battened down before I go to bed.

Part of my problem is books. Okay, books and magazines. From where I'm sitting this morning I can see 13 books, stacked up or lying on the tables. There is also a goodly stack of unread magazines, plus two full baskets of magazines that have been read, waiting for their next incarnation. I take old magazines to the museum, leave them in a box on the loading dock and send out an email blast to everyone to come get them if they want them. Usually when I come back a day later, they're all gone. That's my recycling program.

The books are a little more problematic. I have four bookcases in my home: two tall ones and two short ones. One short one is dedicated to cookbooks and oversized books. The other three are just jammed full. And I persist in bringing in more. Hence the stacks on the tables. Today, as part of my Project, I'm going to go to Target and purchase another cheap tall bookcase to put in the Odd Room alongside its sister. That should free up some space. Maybe even make room for some of the two or three boxes of books still in the garage.

Every so often I'm obliged to go through and purge books, but I don't like it. My friend Ben advocates the Kindle reader. Swears that it really is just as satisfying as reading a real book. But I just can't do it. I need that physical object in my hand. I like seeing them on my shelves. I like the feel of them, the satisfaction of turning the pages, and most of all the smell. The wonderful, promising smell of books. New books especially, but old books have a smell all their own. I'm not prepared to give that up yet. So, I stack them on the coffee table, jam them into the bookcase on top of other books, and pile them up next to my bed. (There are five there at present)

Right now I'm in Trashy Summer Reading mode. I picked up some used pulp fiction and I'm wallowing in the guilty pleasure of it. Currently involved in The Talisman by Steven King and Peter Straub. But I also plowed through several young adult novels and a cheesey monster-fantasy thing called Nightlife this week. It's good escapist fiction. I promised myself I'd read something more redeeming next week: Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress for my book club on the 29th. There are so many good books out there. I just can't resist adding them to my collection. Even when I don't have time to read them, or already have a dozen waiting to be read, there's always room for one more.

Anyway, as soon as I'm done here (no really, I promise), I'm going to go stack books and dust tables and scrub floors and vacuum up dog hair and wash rugs and dislodge the little black spider that makes her web in the corner of my bathroom between the edge of the shower curtain and the floor. I feel a little bad about this last, but I'm not planning on harming her, just sweeping away her web for a day and with it the dessicated carcasses of her latest victims. It must be click beetle season.

I have a number of house spiders, and I have a sort of policy of non-interference with them, for the most part. From where I sit I can see a perfect little orb web between the lamp and a large decorative basket on the end table. Can't see its denizen from here. Probably he or she only comes out to hunt at night. Sometimes I leave the lamp on to make for better hunting. I figure the spiders are doing me a service. And as long as we can abide by one another's rules, we can live in peace. My rule is that they don't walk on me or turn up in nasty unexpected places like my bed or my wadded up T-shirt on the floor. They do that and they're fair game. But if they stay in their place and just eat mosquitoes and flies, I'm cool with them.

But I'm going to have to break the treaty in the name of Housekeeping this week. All the webs must come down. I'm dismantling the settlements, rousting the squatters. I'm sure they'll be back, but for the sake of cleanliness, I'm going to evict them today.

Best hop to it.

GYST Project, Week Two

I am already backsliding. Last week was a whirlwind. I spent three days in a van with seven other tourism professionals from various institutions, "blitzing" the media outlets in western Texas and Oklahoma with information about what to see and do in central Oklahoma. We hit lots of radio stations, a TV station (at 5:30 a.m., tragically), and a bunch of newspapers along the way. Naturally, my budget went all to hell. I'll be reimbursed for my expenses, but the outlay will put a kink in my tracking system, to say the least.

Traveling with tourism folks is always entertaining. Even in West Texas. By nature, tourism professionals are interested in travel and always want to experience the local whatever in any place they go, so there are no chain restaurants (with the exception of the required stop for Blizzards at a DQ in some tiny Texas town... a cultural experience all its own), and we always seek out the local curiosities, if we can find them (which, in the case of the statue of Buddy Holly in Lubbock, we ultimately were unable to do, sadly). But also just because tourism people - public relations tourism people, are fun and energetic, positive people, and when you're trapped in a van with folks for up to 8 hours a day, that's important.

Here, for example, is a photo of my friend and colleague, Michael, trying to get comfortable in the back seat of the van.


I was home for only one day, however, before I was on the road again, this time for the second annual end-of-summer river float with Bob and the boys. We spent a lovely, lazy seven hours on the Illinois River on Saturday, just drifting along, enjoying the water and sunshine. No pictures yet, they were all on Grayson's little waterproof throwaway camera, and I haven't had the film developed yet.

Unfortunately, all that travel seems to have taken its toll. Today I'm definitely under the weather. An allergy cough has turned into a complete loss of voice, so I'm home today, trying to re-charge my battery for the week ahead.

Which brings me back around to my original subject: The Get Your Shit Together Project, Week Two:

Booze

This shouldn't be a problem this week, since my throat is so raw from coughing that wine feels like liquid sandpaper going down. Not buying wine should help with the budget planning, as well, assuming I can get the numbers straightened out enough to know where I stand. On the other hand, since wine is my primary source of entertainment in the evening, it may be more challenging than I currently anticipate. This is why I bought two pulp novels yesterday, one of which I have already finished (it was slim). So we'll see how I do. Onward, to week two...

The Get Your Shit Together Project

This week I embark upon a new project. The summer has been lovely, lazy and carefree. BUT, the school year approaches, with all its attendant requirements of schedule, discipline and vigilance. So in preparation, I take up the "Get Your Shit Together Project."

You may have heard of The Happiness Project, this book that has swept the middle-aged women's reading public. I haven't read it myself, though I've considered it, because I'm leery of another self-help guru who claims to have The Answer. But the upshot, as I understand it, is this woman decides she's going to consciously add more "happiness" to her life by systematically adding more things that make her feel happy, week by week, apparently based on tips for happiness she has gleaned from her research. I'm sure it's better than I make it out to be. It's a bestseller, and the woman is making a mint, so I shouldn't judge. ANYWAY... I am badly in need of ramping up my self-discipline and control before the school year hits, so I thought I would start a project of my own: systematically adding elements of control and structure to my life, one week at a time. Happiness may not be something you can construct, but discipline certainly is.

Here are the elements that need control:

Budget
Booze
Housekeeping
Meals
Television
Exercise
Dogs
Routines
Relationships

There are probably a dozen others, but I thought this was probably all I could handle.

This week, since Friday was payday: the focus is Budget. Mine is a mess. I owe a ton of money, post-divorce, and my spending habits have not quite come into harmony with my reduced circumstances (though I have made great strides in that direction, I have to say, and I think this project will help a lot). I'm also a terrible planner, financially. So yesterday I bought a little notebook ($1.97) and mapped out a plan. When you're budgeting, the key (so I've read) is to write down everything you spend, so you know where your money is going. I went through last month's bank statement and divided everything up into categories. Bills, Books, Booze, Rent, Gas, Groceries and ... Everything Else. Everything Else being things like lunches out, drinks with friends, haircuts, treats for Grayson, the expense of taking the boys to Turner Falls... I suppose you'd call it entertainment. The little luxuries of life.

Not surprisingly, I found that more than half of my income goes to rent and bills. So I sat down and mapped out a payoff plan that will allow me to roll the money I spend on each debt into the next one as it they are paid off. If I'm able to stick to it, I'll pare two years off my payoff time, meaning I could be debt free by this time 2012. Car and everything. Which is a good thing, considering my car has over 100,000 miles on it already.

Okay, so that's done. The next thing I noticed is that my grocery bill is way high. I have no idea why, except that I pay next to no attention to the price of my groceries, and I'm a rotten meal planner. I barely cook these days, and approach each evening meal time with trepidation and confusion. So, I have resolved to plan meals for each week and buy only what we need for those meals. This next week is more or less a wash, though, because I'll be out of town for three days on a media blitz to West Texas. So, meal planning starts NEXT week. I also need to learn what things cost so I can recognize a bargain when I see it. I honestly couldn't tell you right now how much a gallon of milk costs, though I buy one every single week. I have no idea what a good deal on a pound of hamburger meat is. So, a little research is required. Finally, I am going to attempt to clip coupons. Let me say this: I hate clipping coupons. It's tedious, slow and I've never been convinced of its value. My theory is that having coupons encourages you to buy something you wouldn't normally purchase, or to buy a brand name when you would normally spend less on a generic. But I have friends who swear by it, so I'm going to give it a try.

So there's the grocery solution, I hope. I also got fed up with my insurance company. Recently I received notice that my car insurance rate would be going up based on the one speeding ticket I received a year ago and, more annoyingly, on my credit score. That's right, they raised my rate because my debt to income ration is too high. Like that's going to help. This in spite of the fact that I haven't had a claim in seven years. So I gave them the finger and switched to Progressive. Made the purchase online and saved myself $50 a month. Woo hooo! Put that in the savings account.

Today I am going grocery shopping, for the few things I need to get me and Grayson through next week. G is staying with his dad for Tuesday and Wednesday nights, while I'm on the blitz, but he'll be home Tuesday morning and Thursday morning, so I need to be prepared with snacks and lunch items for him. While I'm shopping, I'll have my little notebook, to write down the prices of the staples and the usuals. Research.

Okay, so that's the boring stuff. Sorry to bore you, but I thought it would help my project if I publicize it... sort of hold myself accountable.

Last night Flower got in the pool. It was funny, once she got it, she didn't want to get out. She first swam in circles, and then gradually realized that she could stand. Once she realized that, she was content to just wade around, up to her neck in the pool, biting the water and enjoying the cool. I'll have the devil's own time straining the dog hair out of the pool, but it was fun to swim with her, and to see her smiling, having fun in the water. Roxy came and went: in over the side, swim a couple of laps, out again over the opposite side (Roxy hasn't figured out yet that she doesn't have to swim to keep her head above water. The pool's only about 2 1/2 feet deep). But Flower just stayed, smiling.

It makes me smile, too.