Lightening the load

First, I guess I'm a little more OCD than I thought I was if I could use the word "fail" and "100 calories over the target" in the same post. That's not a fail (thank you, Jen), and it was made even more clear to me when I looked at each week's stats and saw that I was well under the target goal for each of the previous weeks. Let's just say I REALLY confused my metabolism by having two consecutive rest days AND a couple extra calories. (I'm referring to calorie cycling here.)

I haven't mentioned the ongoing declutterification project lately. The inspiration for today's post goes to Pinterest, where I found and pinned the image you see on the left. A little bit of thinking about what I've done so far assures me that there is much more to do. But I'm making progress.

I have emptied and organized six of the seven dresser drawers. The untouched seventh drawer contains non-clothing items – mostly costume jewelry – and I don't feel compelled to clean it out at this point. The others resulted in a huge bag for the trash and an equally huge bag to donate. Everything I kept fits neatly and is now folded and organized. I have a lifetime supply of handknit wool socks (and yet I continue to buy sock yarn!).

I have also organized my closet. I have one of those extra closet rods that hooks onto the upper rod, doubling hanging space for shirts. Most of the warm-weather stuff is now on the lower rod. I still have too many clothes I don't wear, but I managed to create a little bit of breathing room, especially on the floor. The shoe rack didn't hold all the shoes, and so – feeling quite ruthless – I tossed half a dozen pairs into either the pitch or give bag.

The heaviest load was from the bookshelves. I donated a very large box of old scrapbooking magazines to Goodwill. Someone else – perhaps someone without internet access – will be inspired by them. I read them when they were delivered and tucked them away "for future reference." And then never looked at them again. I don't scrapbook any more, and if I want to start up again I can find plenty of ideas online.

I've unsubscribed from A LOT of free e-mail newsletters. (A tip I saw yesterday which would have been helpful a couple weeks ago is to filter your e-mails by the word "unsubscribe.") I did it the old-fashioned way. Heh. Every day I went through the new e-mails and unsubbed from the ones I was no longer interested in, or the ones that were a duplication of effort.

By that I mean this: Do I already receive this information on Facebook? If yes, unsub. If no, decide whether to subscribe to a Facebook page or keep the e-mail version. If the e-mail in question was political, I opted to stay up to date on Facebook.

I have always used FB mostly for political stuff. When I post something, it usually goes to a custom list which excludes most of my family, who already know I'm a Democrat and who were getting pretty annoyed by my FB shares. This keeps everyone happy. Or happier, maybe. (If you're a FB friend and would like to be added to my restricted list, speak now. You won't hurt my feelings.)

If my post is appropriate for general consumption, I can easily go in and change the setting for that particular message. There are some things that are JUST TOO GOOD not to share with everyone. Heh.

I'm down to about 40 new e-mails daily, instead of more than a hundred, saving me lots of screen time.

Next project is the secretary, a lovely piece of furniture with a door that folds up, hiding a tangled mess of bits and bobs of paper that I think I need to save. (You saw a corner of the secretary a couple days ago.) Once I go through everything in there, I plan to move the laptop into it. I use the computer at the dining room table. The dining room chairs are somewhat more comfortable than the little chair in front of the secretary. I think I'll be able to trim my screen time even more when I park myself there instead of here. (Maybe when I lose 50 pounds my ass will match the little chair. But that's a problem I'm happy to deal with.)

So there you have it. You're as caught up on my tidying-up projects as I am. I can't believe you've read this far. THANK YOU!

There was no outdoor walking in the Middle of Nowhere yesterday because it was too damned cold and windy. Instead, I watched all of Monday night's DVR'd Biggest Loser from the elliptical. (A two-hour program = 80 minutes when you fast-forward through the commercials.) EIGHTY ELLIPTICAL MINUTES! Today will probably be a repeat performance (with different video entertainment), as the high temperature is predicted to be 23 and the wind chill will make it feel like – wait for it – ZERO.

Oh, Winter, go away. I'm tired of you already.