March Take 3 Challenge

1. Decluttering

• I am really starting to see a difference in the amount of STUFF we have around this place (though let's not forget the 7 or 8 tote bins filled with stuff that my neighbour is holding for me.) I haven't missed anything so those will get a good clearing out eventually
• I tossed a couch cover that I had bought years ago to protect the couch from our cats' claws but now with 1 cat passed away and the other one 20 years old that's no longer an issue. I didn't give it away because it was in rough shape. It did it's job and for that I'm thankful.
• I will continue to get rid of things and then once this place is sold I'll make the final decision on what furniture to keep and what to donate or sell. 
• Another area that needs a major cleanout is all of the Christmas decorations collected over the years. I've tried over the past 2-3 years to downsize and I have, just not enough. 
• Main floor is all painted now - dining room, powder room, hallway and living room. Still have the trim and crown molding to do once my knees recover.

2. Financial

• No real issues here - I am saving as planned. I did have to pay an electrician $100 to fix an electrical outlet but I can live with that. Hopefully that's my only visit from Murphy this month. 
• I owe NOTHING on credit cards

3. Personal

• I have taught Kazi how to use the juicer so now she's made me a couple of concoctions. We are doing well in the area of fruits and veg. 
• Need to drink more water/less coffee and tea.
• Had a bit of a binge Friday night. I kept at the living room til it was all painted - finished around 7:30pm and felt like celebrating so I had a party for one! Picked up a bottle of wine, a pizza and a bag of  smarties and watched some Netflix. So today I'm getting back on the wagon and when I finish this post I am making soup to take for lunches this week and then making juice. 
• My goal was to juice twice a day at least which I've done. I just haven't given up all of the bad stuff. It sure is easy to get off track and tell myself I deserve to indulge since I've worked so hard. So easy to fall back into bad habits.

Ok, that's it, I'm off to make soup. It's very cold outside once again so soup will be welcome.  It's "back to school" tomorrow but only 105 days til retirement. I can do this!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

The Misadventures of Jane

My mother always wanted to be an interior decorator.  She was forever rearranging furniture and redesigned her kitchen herself which included raising the roof, moving a doorway, deciding where the cupboards should go and how many, where the appliances should go for maximum efficiency etc. She made the blueprints and a builder did the work for her. If only I  had half her skills I'd be in a better position than I am today.

You'd think though, after five children she could have done a better job on my droopy drawers!!

Speaking of drawers...

Last night I was going to sit down and write a post and it would have been a lot funnier than this one as I was giddy as a schoolgirl as Ebeneezer Scrooge once said. Every bone and muscle in my body ached, my knees were especially crunchy and things kept falling on my head!! But I got sidetracked (when do I not get sidetracked) and instead of sitting down with my laptop I decided to put cute paper in my kitchen drawers!! Lookee!!

I am in LOVE with it!! I got a HUGE roll of the sticky-backed stuff for half price at Winners - I think I paid $5.00. I didn't want to put the stuff back in the drawers it's so pretty! But I did...but I got rid of so much stuff (that'll count as my decluttering for this week Carla!)

You know that drawer(s) you call a JUNK drawer?? Well, as it turns out most of the stuff IS JUNK!! That's right, you heard me!

My junk drawer is now less than half full - I can see everything that's in there so I won't have to go digging anymore. My daughter wants to buy me a new mixer to replace the one I've had for almost 40 years - I said NO WAY sugarplum - it still works just fine!

I'm sick of paint. There's paint everywhere - in my hair, on my clothes, even on the....

kitchen scissors...don't ask me how that happened.

However, I have accomplished a lot. The dining room is done, the powder room is done, the hallway on the main floor is done and I have primed the living room. Today it gets a coat of paint but I thought I'd slowly work my way up to it. I need to be gentle with my old bones today. I've also painted the bathroom vanity and will put the new handles on today and reinstall...

The paint colour is called "Silver Screen" I think though this picture doesn't really do it justice. Along with the walls I've been painting trim and doors in white - the front door is done and the bathroom door and I'll be doing the 2nd coat of the closet and door to the basement today. I hope. I may not be able to get out of my chair!!

First I have to decide what shade of white or beige to use in the living room!! There are several more cans of paint on the floor and 5 more to tint. I still have the basement and the 2nd floor to do, but that will be for another day.....er...month!

My "plan" is to keep working my way down my chore list til the end of June, RETIRE, spend a few months in PEI, come back and finish up the house over the winter, list it for sale in early 2015 and then move east. I am also mulling over buying a trailer in the Bayfield area but that remains on the "wish list" for now.

My Inspiration

And there you have it.

BIG Mistake!!

OK, not that big. Just seems like it this morning. I made the mistake of drinking a coffee after dinner last night. My rule is: NO COFFEE AFTER 5PM!! Even though I was extremely tired I tossed and turned for hours...groan...

But I had to drink it you see. BIG NEWS BRACE YOURSELVES!! Kazi has reunited with former beau Steve. I've always had a soft spot for Steve and when Kazi broke up with him last year I invited him in for a long talk. I felt soooooooo bad for him. He was (is) so in love with her. Anyhoo Kazi has realized that the grass isn't always greener on the other side, realized what she had lost (her best friend!) and now they are back together! YAY!  So, to make a long story short Steve brought me a coffee yesterday when he came to visit Kazi. Ergo, drink coffee I must...

I was hard at the reno/redo yesterday but then hit a snag...literally. As I moved the stepladder around the dining room I banged into a loose electrical outlet - big spark - loss of some electricity.

I TELL YOU NOW, IF YOU ARE SINGLE, MARRY AN ELECTRICIAN!! 

Not only will you have a very handy man around the house but you won't have to pay him $100 to do a 5 minute job. I had actually thought of trying to fix it myself but I'm a little scared of electricity ever since I pushed tweezers into a socket when I was a kid. So that's where an electrician is worth his weight in gold!! They're not scared of poking around in sockets!! You're a fortunate woman Gill!!

After that little delay I finished painting the dining room, except for the trim. The powder room is ready to paint as is the hallway. Next will be prepping the living room and if I'm really lucky I'll get the foyer wallpapered.....but better not count my chickens before they hatch.

Here's a few pics:

Back from the paint store - I had 7 gallons of paint tinted. Lots of white and beige! The young woman who helped me was wonderful carrying the paint to and from my truck. You can see my gorgeous dark bamboo floors.

In order to paint the dining room I moved as much furniture into the living room as I could.

 More paint waiting to be tinted plus 1 gallon of primer sitting by itself waiting to be slopped onto Kazi's coral pink walls :(

 The view from my recliner! Cozy eh?

 The dining room - getting ready to paint.

 Three walls painted...then I had to stop to wait for the electrician - I didn't want to paint the wall that had the damaged socket. You can see one of the gorgeous area rugs I've purchased. Don't worry, it's covered when I'm painting!

 Finished painting! Now in the process of filling the dining room with as much as I can move from the living room. The colour for the dining room is called "Meeting Room" - I really like it. The dining room table is ground zero for tools, spackle, painting supplies etc. And LOOK - wonder of all wonders I had my window and patio doors open all day - it was +4c which felt like about +20c since I'm now acclimatized to -30c!!! The fresh air was simply glorious!

I'm going to relax for a bit with my coffee then pitter patter let's get atter!!

Messy House

HOLY CRAP Batman, this house is a MESS!  Thankfully it's not my house!! In fact, looking at that pigsty makes me feel really great about my own house.  As the third day of March Break 2014 draws to a close I am happy to report that I've made considerable progress in the reno/redo - I count this towards the DECLUTTERING portion of Carla's TAKE 3 challenge for March.

What have I done so far? Thought you'd never ask! Friday's tasks included cleaning out the air vents of the furnace and putting new filters in them to keep down the dust. And I washed all the vent covers too. Then I had "Fun with Spackling"!! Let this be a lesson to you (and me) that the more things you hang on your walls the more nail holes you have to fill when you repaint!! IF ONLY I didn't have a brother who's an artist! Every wall in my home had at least 1 of his paintings on it, sometimes 2 or 3!! Spackle spackle.....spackle spackle!! Oh yes, and move every piece of furniture at least 5 times so I get could around the walls with my stepladder.

Oh, the fun isn't done yet!! Because I am a glutton for punishment I decided I should start dealing with the wallpaper border I have in several rooms because it was in style 20 years ago when I bought this place and decorated it. Seemed like a good idea at the time...now not so much. I had to bring up another ladder from the basement because my stepladder wasn't high enough to comfortably reach the border. I was able to finish the dining room and the powder room before it was time to get ready to go to a movie with my friends Troy and Julie - hi Troy, hi Jules - they read my blog too:) We went to see "12 Years a Slave" and now I know why it won an oscar for Best Picture. WOW. The story of Solomon Northup was handled superbly - it was an amazing cinematic performance by everyone involved. WOW. Whenever I think of the movie as I go spackling along I just say "WOW."

Saturday I rested as my back was sore from tilting my head back as I removed the borders. Poo. It was supposed to be "sanding the spackling" day. Instead it was "drink a lot of coffee and read the newspaper" day. Which was ok. And then Kazi came home so we watched the next episode of "Downton Abbey" which we are hooked on. One episode and we were hooked! After that I felt guilty so I sanded the dining room's spackled spots. However I found a few little nicks and gouges lower down so did more spackling. (I love that word!!)

And I did some grocery shopping at my favorite Asian store - United. I'm sure THAT didn't do my back any favours either. For a mere $57.00 I filled many bags full of oranges, apples, pomegranates, grapes, cucumbers, beets, potatoes, lemons, tomatoes, pineapples, pears, carrots, beans, peppers, blueberries and I can't remember what all else. So this is my PERSONAL part of TAKE 3. I am juicing at least twice a day during March break. Right now I'm sipping a wonderful concoction of cucumber, celery, mustard greens, apple, yellow pepper and red grapes. It's amazingly good! This morning I had carrots, apple, orange, ginger and turmeric. A real eye-opener! However I've only got onto my bike twice in the past week - I was hoping for 3 times. BUT I count the endless trips up and down the stairs and up and down the ladder while scraping and sanding as exercise too.

Today's reno/redo tasks involved doing the rest of the sanding and beginning to wash the dust off of the walls plus LOTS of sweeping and LOTS of vacuuming up the dust. Dust - bleh!! Oh and washed floors too. So at this point I'm ready to paint the dining room, the powder room and the hallway. And I'm ready to wallpaper the foyer. So tomorrow it's off to Dulux to get a few cans of paint tinted. Yahoo!! Lots of beige and white!

The last category of the Take 3 challenge is FINANCIAL. That basically takes care of itself. I did my savings transfer on Feb. 28 and the next will occur this Friday, March 14th. Big whoop. My taxes are still awaiting Kazi's tuition amount and 1 more of her T4s. So we are in WAIT mode. Boo.

So I give myself a PASS for the first week of the challenge. I didn't really declutter - oh wait, yes I did. Kazi and I went through a big box of winter stuff to see if we wanted to keep anything. Then I garbaged the rest (yes, that is a word) because it consisted of salt ruined boots, raggedy-assed toques from yesteryear and single mitts and gloves. Hurrah - 1 more box dealt with.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be exaggerating to state that in the past year I've decreased my "stuff" by a 3rd at least. Countless bags to the dumpster, countless bags donated. After the yard sale last year everything that didn't sell went to Goodwill. And I've already got a date set for the next sale - hopefully it will warm up by then. May 31st. At my brother's house in Wortley Village. It's a neighbourhood sale so it should be busy. If it's warmed up. By then. Fingers crossed.

OK, I'm starting to get giddy...must be the mustard greens. I'm going to go park my butt downstairs in front of the TV and watch something stupid. OH I almost forgot - I watched "World War Z" last night in bed on my iPad - it's on Netflix! I. LOVE. ZOMBIE. MOVIES!! And this one was Brad Pitt's pet project and starred him too - it was soooooooooo good!

OK, going now. Over and out!

OK, funny story.....sort of.

So, once again the 7 EAs that work in and out of my classroom have polarized into 2 camps: 3 do nothing clock watching union calling lazybones and 3 do everything non-whining 110%ers and 1 neutral (the only man!) 

Well over a week ago my dep't head created an alternative schedule for today because there was a field trip involving 3 of my students. They are taking religion this semester and the field trip was to the local cinema to see the new movie "Son of God." One EA was going to go with the 3 students and the dep't head (Fil) left it up to 2 EAs to decide which one was going to go.

Still with me?  It starts to get really murky now....

After school yesterday Fil asks if they've decided which one of them is going to go. "Well, neither of us because it's a health and safety issue - what if one of them has to go to the washroom?" "You should send both of us...we called our union this week and they agreed with us!" 

Of course Fil was gobsmacked and explained that due to our Crisis Response Plan which requires 3 EAs to be close by to a certain aggressive student only 1 EA could be spared. "Well then neither of us are going." 

They waited for over a week to let this bomb drop. So the students, who have paid and have their tickets, aren't going to be able to go to the movie? Poor Fil didn't know what to say so she told them to go speak to the principal, he would have to decide.

Well, the principal really let them have it. He told them their union does not tell him what's safe or not safe in his school etc etc. He left it that he would discuss with the Admin team and let them know in the morning.

Well, I had an idea as I was a witness to this gross act of insubordination on the part of the EAs toward Fil, who is their supervisor. I quietly emailed the principal and said simply "send me, I have no safety concerns whatsoever with these 3 students." 

These 3 kids are good kids - one has ADHD, Tourettes AND CP (bless him) and walks with an awkward gait.  Another has neurofibromatosis but is just a really great kid, the other has a developmental disability and OCD but again she is an incredible young lady. 

So....the principal took me up on my offer. He booked a supply teacher for me and when the EAs asked me in the morning who was going to go with the students I simply said "ME." (I kind of enjoyed that moment, I'm not gonna lie."

Two of the three students had been to this theatre many times in the past and knew where the washrooms were and all could use them independently. The theatre was only open to our school's students and teachers. They sent us in a cab and then we went back to the school in a cab. I took a flashlight just in case but didn't need it. We got seats in the back row so we could go in and out if necessary. Again, not necessary. I brought snacks but the kids had money, lined up and bought their own at the concession stand. All it takes is a bit of planning and forethought. 

Needless to say we had a great time. They stuck to me like glue, rode the escalators like pros, were well-mannered and well-behaved and I enjoyed getting out of the classroom for a few hours. 

I love my kids, I really do. But I am so done with the politicking, the calls to the union every week about stupid stuff and putting the kids last. Alas, I cannot speak my mind because that would generate many more calls to the union and no doubt I'd once again get charged with bullying, racism and what have you. So I am keeping my lips zipped except when working with my kids, god bless them. They are a treat.

Meeeegraine!

Hello my friends - I wanted to write a post last night and catch up with you all but I left work early with a migraine. Yuck. When I got home I laid on the couch with my audio e-book and napped for a few hours. Got up feeling MUCH better but then had to get busy in the kitchen.

I had a number of ripening fruits and veggies that I needed to get creative with. So I popped a pepper squash in the oven to roast. Then I cut up a whole cauliflower that was starting to get a wee bit droopy and put it on the stove to steam. While that was cooking I started to sautee some onion, carrots, celery and peas to which I added some previously cooked brown rice and a couple of eggs. I also hardboiled some eggs to add to salads.

I pureed the cauliflower and added spices so now have lots of creamy yummy soup. I have a nice big container of veggie fried rice and 1/2 a squash left to eat as I couldn't resist last night and ate the first half.

Odds and Sods:

• still trying to figure out how to heat my house in PEI
• will post some juicing recipes soon, I promise LENA!
• will update the March challenge soon CARLA!
• and SAM - I will hold you to that visit this summer. I'm thrilled that you want to come!!!
• and best of all..................(drum roll please.....)..............

 

 

Meet the new Marketing and Communications Coordinator for Jones Packaging Inc.!!!

 

She starts this Monday!!! I'll be on March break so should I pack a little lunch for her first day?? I'm so proud my buttons are bursting off! 

March Challenge: Take 3!

Thank you Carla for setting up this challenge. The March Take 3 challenge involves deciding on a personal goal (in the area of health/fitness), a decluttering goal and a financial goal. To learn more about this challenge go HERE!

So...let's

Finance Goal:

• Get my taxes done and hopefully get my refund before the end of March. This money has to work hard for me. I am taking Living Rich on the Cheap's advice and buying a nice area rug for my living room that I can take with me to PEI. Sooner or later I will be putting my condo up for sale and a gorgeous area rug in the living room that will set off and protect the new dark bamboo floors will fit the bill. I also have my eye on a tabletop candelabra for the patio area to replace the one HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED took with him when he moved out. I saw one on Amazon that should do the trick. 
• Save $3500+ (rsp interest, part of my tax refund? and payday savings transfers from my paycheques). That will put me within $17,000 of reaching my savings goal by the end of August. I am very determined.

Personal Goal:

• I road my bike 3 times last week. I'm happy with 3 x weekly until such time as I can start riding to work everyday. Right now that seems impossible but I'm sure the snow will all melt by April...May? So I will continue to ride my stationary bike a minimum of 3 x weekly, more if possible.
• This Friday March break begins. I've only been juicing for breakfast due to working so over March break I am going to juice 2-3 x daily since I'll be at home. To help with this I'm going to pick a few new juice recipes and get the shopping done for that by Friday. I want to be in great shape for RETIREMENT!

Decluttering:

• I'm already on top of this one BUT I have a big job for March which is removing the laminate flooring in the basement. I will have to hire a junk removal service to haul it all away. Good riddance!! 
• Remove the wallpaper borders that still remain in 4 rooms during March break so that painting can begin!! 
• Believe it or not I have totally decluttered ALL rooms in my house! BUT when my sister told me how much it was going to cost to move her stuff to PEI I've decided to get rid of whatever I can't fit into my truck - maybe I'll pull a trailer too, haven't decided yet. Or maybe whoever buys my house (could be students since I'm close to both the college and the university) will want/need some furniture. So I'll be selling or giving away what's left and I'll buy new/used/antique once I'm in PEI. As it is I've been living in PEI for 2 months a year and have managed just fine with what I have there. The idea is to live a more simple life and the thought of reducing what I have doesn't bother me in the least.

So that sums up my March goals - we'll see how it goes. I may try to exceed what I've laid out here as an extra challenge to myself since these goals are what I planned to do anyways, challenge or not. 

Thanks Carla for inspiring me to think through my goals!