Self improvement, part infinity

Exercise and housekeeping are two areas of my life where my ambitions and intentions are always overcome by my complacency.  One day, I hope to have routines that work so well I can accomplish them as naturally as now I breathe, or help myself to ice cream after dinner.

I let my membership to Curves expire, and I have to say I finished with a “whimper and not with a bang,” as Eliot would say.  In other words, I quit attending long before my pre-paid months were up.  However, I made sure to practice relationship etiquitte; I made some attempts to go through the motions even after the love had cooled in my heart, and even in our final weeks of complete separation, I did not exercise at any other facility until I was sure that my contract was officially over.  However, I have since moved on, and time will tell if this is a transitional relationship or if I have found The One.

The Summit is a much earthier exercise venue than Curves.  It is run by the city, so it is inexpensive and therefore attended by an unusual variety of patrons.  All of the weight and cardio machines are in one room, so I as I walk on the treadmill and look at the mirror-covered walls I can see Terminators-in-training in T-shirts with the sleeves cut off bench pressing 350 pounds.  Ten feet away, a spry 80-year old sits at the weight machine doing bicep curls with 10 pound resistance.  On the treadmills, to my right might be a high school athlete, and on my left might be a very overweight person trying, like me, to get a handle on personal fitness before things get any more out of hand.

The general atmosphere does not even try to be cheery, as Curves did, with little logic puzzles posted on the walls and encouraging slogans on a bulletin board.  It’s crowded and usually smells sweaty.  But for $20 a month, Stephen and I can go and get our exercise, and it’s do-able because it’s not far from our house.  Outside, we have access to a pool and tennis courts if we choose to ever take advantage of them. And honestly, I like the low-maintenance aspect of this gym.  I can come and do my thing, and as long as I don’t try to move the fans or change the TV channel without assistance, no one will bother me. So we’ll see how it goes.

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My other latest quest has been to get a handle on my housekeeping.  We had fallen into a bad habit of neglecting all chores during the week, which meant that by Saturday morning it looked like a frat house–clothes strewn around the bedroom, scum on the bathroom sink, and dishes piling up in the kitchen.  Half of the weekend was devoted to restoring my home to its usual comfortable neatness, and the other half was spent coming up with excuses not to get anything dirty now that it was clean.

I hate this cycle, and I could forsee it getting even worse during the summer, when my lazy side gets indulged.  Even worse, I worried that the arrival of TH in August would result in not much housework getting accomplished on a regular basis during the week, and even less on the weekend.  So I decided to whip myself into shape before my procrastinating habits became any more ingrained.

I made myself a schedule that divides chores into three categories:  must be done every day, must be done every week, must be done once a month.  Then I divided up the chores among the days so that I have two little tiny projects to do each day.  Since I am the wife, and the member of the family with only one job instead of two, these are primarily my responsibility, although Stephen is gracious to pitch in whenever he is home.  So far it’s been two weeks and the schedule is working swimmingly.  Here’s what it looks like:

Every day chores (for Lindsey and Stephen):

-hang up/fold clean clothes
-put dirty clothes in hamper
-wipe down bathroom sink after use
-wipe down kitchen counters
-put away personal clutter

Weekly chores:

Monday:  dust, Swiffer hard floors
Tuesday: no chores due to Bible study group
Wednesday: laundry, Clorox wipe bathroom surfaces
Thursday:  Vacuum carpets, wipe down bathroom floor
Friday: no chores due to weekend
Saturday: laundry, weekend project
Sunday:  laundry, clean out refrigerator

Monthly chores:

Weekend 1: mop floors
Weekend 2:  launder dog pillow, blanket, towels, etc.
Weekend 3: mop floors again
Weekend 4:  deep clean bathrooms
Weekend 5: clean windows

 

Summer for Dinner

I wore a new sundress to church, opened the windows in the house for the afternoon, and had an almost irresistible urge to forget all of my school work and spend the day reading my book on the back porch instead, soaking up the sunshine.

It’s time for summer to get here!  Since I can’t speed up time, I decided to cook a yummy fresh dinner and serve it on the back porch.

For dinner:

Mexican Pizza (from this month’s Good Housekeeping) and fresh salsa (from America’s Test Kitchen)

Pizza- a “homemade” crust topped with refried black beans, cheese, lettuce, avocados, tomatoes, and lime juice.

Salsa- tomatoes, red onion, jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice, garlic, salt, pepper

By the time we ate dessert, it was dark, so we stayed inside, but it was still summery goodness:

Vanilla ice cream and fresh peaches!

 

Top 10 Reasons Why I Love My Country

As much fun as traveling is, there’s nothing like coming home.  I’ve been back for a week now, and I’ve been especially thankful for:

1.  Free ice water.  I hate drinking water, but I have never had a hard time getting it when I wanted/needed it.  Overseas, drinking water is like liquid gold!  I’d taken for granted how easy (and cheap!) it is to get nice, cold, icy water to drink with my meals, and how easily water is to be found anywhere.  In Germany, we’d look at a restaurant menu to find these drink options:  beer- 2 Euros; Coke- 3 Euros; water- 6 Euros.  Even then, they usually meant carbonated water.  How do people stay hydrated?

2.  Free Refills.  Very similar to before–I love the luxury of paying for a drink (or not, in the case of water) at a restaurant and getting to drink as much of it as I want.  Rationing 6 oz. of lukewarm Coke throughout a whole meal is no fun!

3.  Fresh Air.  Generally I resent government intrusion into private lifestyle choices, but I have to say–I did not even realize it, but I have grown accustomed to going throughout my daily life without ever breathing in secondhand smoke.  A person gets used to unlimited lungfuls of sweet air… and you don’t even notice what a treat it is until you get behind someone blowing their ciggies at you on the street.

4.  Space.  It’s everywhere!  In my kitchen, in my bathroom sink, in my car, on the side of the road, on the sidewalk… well, you get the idea.  Everything in Europe is tiny!  I literally sat on the toilet lid to spit into the sink in the bathroom of our rental apartment, and I got the impression that that was pretty much status quo.  It was like life in an IKEA demo flat.  I like walking three abreast down the sidewalk and not having someone fall into the oncoming traffic.  I like riding high in my roomy SUV.  I like walking through doorways that wouldn’t knock a hat off of my head.

5.  Home cooking.  I’ve never been an adventurous eater, and even traveling to a church potluck for lunch is a stretch for me.  So eating in a place with different normals is always an adventure!  Having TH in tow makes me even more sensitive to strange tastes and smells.  I’m embarrassed to remember how giddy and excited I got on the drive to Munich when we stopped to eat at a McDonald’s.  Chicken nuggets!  French fries!  Just like I remembered them!  It’s nice to be back in familiar territory.

6.  Parking spaces.  The exercise was great, but it’s also nice to be able to drive straight to my destination and park ten feet away from the front door.  Without worrying about getting a ticket or having to parallel park.

7.  The English Language.  It’s empowering to be able to read menus, road signs, advertisements, and instructions.

8.  Radio.  Sorry, Ace of Base is soooo 80’s.  That was the only sort of American music we could find to listen to on our car trips.  No wonder people still hate Americans.

9.  Not the metric system.  No more kilometers, meters, or liters!  Back to measurements that make sense to me!

10.  No Dogs Allowed.  As much as I love my two pooches, it’s nice to go shopping or eat at a restaurant without someone else’s pet underfoot.  While all of these shop dogs were very well behaved, it was weird to see them out and about like their human masters.

*Notice that my list does not include history, architecture, tradition, scenery, or recycling.  Those (minus the recycling) were the highlights of the trip for me, and even my dear old Waco, Texas can’t hold a candle to its German counterparts in those areas.  Maybe in 2000 years.

 

House Beautiful

Thanks to the tireless work of my FIL Wayne, the inside of our house is finished!  We’ve been in all of the rooms for about a month, and it’s wonderful!  Here’s your peek into Casa Watson:

Living Room- Before

Living Room- After!

Dining Room- Before

After- not a dining room any more, but the second living room.  It’s hard to visualize, because I took this picture from the opposite angle…but I’m taking the “after” picture from the living room, through the doorway that you see in the “before” picture.

The Wood Room- formerly our  only living space.  Now, it’s…

The New Dining Room!  The big windows overlook the back yard.

Thanks, Wayne!

 

Crap

I took advantage of a Saturday at home to attack the scary pile of half-unpacked boxes that have been cluttering up my living room.  Now, this is the still-unfinished part of the house, so it’s been easy to let these boxes blend in with the rest of the mess, but, like all neglected messes, it seems to be expanding like kudzu through formerly empty spaces.  The real problem is actually not spontaneous regeneration, but me–I’ve been digging through the boxes looking for random stuff like batteries and Tylenol, and so my things are getting unboxed and thrown around.

So anyway, I was cleaning out the junk today, trying to condense boxes and group like items, and I was struck by two things- one, how little storage we have in our little house.  In terms of square footage, the house is nicely sized.  But for all of our space, we only have two closets, one in our bedroom and one in the den.  Only our bathroom has under-cabinet storage, and it’s limited.  We have no coat closet or hall closet.  Yikes!  I am going to have to be creative with furniture-type storage like ottomans, dressers, and shelves.  

With this in mind, my second epiphany was pretty sobering.  We have a lot of junk that I don’t even care about.  We’re going to have to get rid of some stuff.  As I was sorting, I came across tons of totes, backpacks, and duffel bags (I use about three- and they were already in my closet).  A pair of shoes that matches a dress that doesn’t fit me any more.  Fourteen empty shoe boxes.  Six sets of sheets (I swap out with my two favorites).  A mediocre hair dryer that I had in college.  A faded yellow bathroom mat, also from my college apartment, with bleach spots.

WHY do I have these things?  I’m feeling a strong desire to simplify.  The fact that we’ve been living comfortably with most of our belongings in boxes or in our parents’ garages has been pretty eye-opening.  This is really revolutionary for this unrepentant packrat, but I’m going to have to purge.  ”Do I like it?  Do I need it?  Do I use it?”  This is my new motto.  Look out, junk.  (Before any of you dear friends get too excited, I’m pretty sure that my book stash is exempted from my purging.  They bring me enough happiness to justify their presence.)

As if to confirm my impulse, I came across an article in this month’s Reader’s Digest about a family who went for a whole month without spending money (exempting “necessary” costs- mortgage, electric, preschool tuition, and milk and fresh produce).  It was yet another reminder that almost everything we spend our money on is wasteful.  Yikes!  It’ll change the way you shop at Wal-Mart.

Anyway, I’ll have to keep you posted on my Quest for a DeCluttered Life.  Wish me luck!

 

Home Sweet Home

 

Outside view. It is now more cleaned up.

 

Kitchen, originally.

Kitchen, in progress.

 

The finished product!

The other view.  Ignore the messy room through the door.  DO notice the beautiful table, and the stool that will not be staying there.

Master bedroom, originally.

In progress.

Final product!  The floors were unsalvageable, unfortunately.

The “Wood Room,” which will ultimately be a second living room, is currently our only living room.

In progress.

It’s a tight squeeze, but a nice place to chill.

 

And, last but not least, our first houseguests!

(The kitchen wasn’t ready to cook in yet.  This is not our back porch.)

 

 

Do you want to hear

a stupid and pointless story?  Well, I didn’t want to be in one, either, but that’s how this turned out.

So a few weeks ago I found a really cute table at IKEA for my new kitchen.  So I noted the product number and went down to the warehouse section of the store, where it took me a while to find what I was looking for (the table base and tabletop were in separate sections).  So I bought it and took it home, where I stored the unassembled furniture in my temporary room. 

Cut to Saturday night, when I finally decided we were close enough to finished in the kitchen to warrant the table assembly.  I pulled all of the pieces out of the box, only to discover that the table legs looked way shorter than the table I remember picking out in the showroom.  Exasperated, I put all of the pieces back in their original packaging and scheduled a last-minute jaunt to Round Rock, which I was fortunately able to do because of the long Labor Day weekend. 

I arrived with my table base (I left the top at home, since it was right for both the tall and short versions of the table I wanted) to the IKEA returns center, which felt more like Ellis Island than an American retail outlet.  I had to take a number and find a place to sit on some really wide benches that were crowded with people and their Swedish-labeled merchandise.  I warily noted the strict exchange policy, which included the necessity of my original receipt, which I had lost (in my defense, I’m camping here…I can barely find my water bill).  I watched in rapt fascination as the returns clerk sustained a heated argument with a dissatisfied customer, who was refusing to leave the line until she fulfilled his request.  Finally she had to call security, and the security guard escorted the guy to a higher-ranking manager.  I think they said he had TB or something.  (Just kidding.  His return was not in the original packaging)

So after a long time, they finally called my number and I lugged my very heavy box to the counter.  “I hope you can help me.”  I began, confident yet submissive.  “I bought the wrong size of table and I would like to exchange this base for a taller one, but I do not have my receipt.”  Melissa, the helpful employee, was happy to inform me that IKEA has a one-time courtesy return policy, so she took the table and gave me a gift card for its value.

Happily, I hiked upstairs to re-check my table details before trying to find my desired table in the warehouse again.  This is where my story begins to get sticky.  One, the shorter table was actually the one that I had meant to buy.  Two, that particular model of table in both tall and short sizes was out of stock.  This would not do.  I needed a table immediately.  And I had the tabletop of THAT table at home in Temple, so I couldn’t just pick out another one.  (Besides the fact that I had chosen the most attractive table already, which must be why so many other people had purchased it too.)

After a while of agonizing and weighing my options, I humbly returned to the returns department.  I had already waited in line once, I reasoned, so I sneaked up to Melissa’s station and waited for her to finish with her current customer.  “Melissa,” I whispered, trying not to attract the attention of all of the people in line.  She turned toward me.  “I just returned a table to you and there are no more in stock.  Can I get my table back?”

Melissa fortunately remembered me, and was inclined to be helpful.  She went to the back and retrieved the table and rang it up for me again.  I handed her my store credit and she scanned it in…and I encountered yet another problem.  The price of the table had changed from the time of my original purchase.  Now it would cost me ten extra dollars to retrieve my table from the returns desk.  I groaned but reached for my wallet (Stupidity fee, I figured), and that’s when Melissa earned her Employee of the Year award in my eyes.  She got on the phone and spent ten minutes trying to figure out how to override the transaction and return the table that had been mine just thirty minutes ago without an extra charge.

She was finally successful, and I left the store, two hours later, with the exact table I had come in with.  Now, it sits, fully assembled, in my new kitchen, and it looks awesome.  So there you have it…my stupid and pointless story.  And if you think reading about it felt like forever, you should have been there.

 

Shorts

We’re still in the process of moving.  We have vacated our duplex and now our stuff is in two garages, one not-lived-in house, and one room that looks like a laundry volcano explosion.  I’m have to admit, it felt like a major step in the wrong direction to be carting my worldly goods back into dear old Mom and Dad’s.  However, I can’t say there’s much to complain about when I get home from work to find a home-cooked meal on the table, or when Leslie plays beauty shop on my hair every time I need it straightened or styled.  I’m getting pretty spoiled, in some ways.  It will be very ideal when I live in my own sweet casa, but have my take-home chef and personal beautician a mere minutes away.

I’ve had a policy of not watching any movies that star my favorite peeps from The Office.  Life is so simple  when Jim is Jim and Pam is Pam, without any confusing other characters and stories interfering with the world of Dunder Mifflin, Scranton (for instance, me watching Juno: “Wait, why is Dwight working at a convenience store?”)  Anyway, I was getting my nails done the other day (hip, hooray!) and I picked up an OK! magazine to read while I let them dry.  Argh!  I accidentally read a feature on Jenna Fisher about her split with her husband.  Also, it revealed that she is actually five years older than John Krasinski/Jim.  The world of Scranton is all conflicted for me now!  You may laugh, but it is truly harder for me to suspend disbelief now.  Grr, I was right all along.

From all of our house work, I’ve realized that there are two ways to approach home improvement.  There are those who see a something broken and think, “I can fix that.”  Then, there’s others who see something broken and think, “I guess I need to buy another one.”  I’m definitely in the latter category.  It’s kind of embarrassing, because it makes me feel a little bit like I lack tenacity.  But I have to admit, when I’ve been scraping a door for two hours (or, two days) and the paint is still not all gone, I start thinking to myself, “How much could a door cost?  Fifty bucks?  One hundred?  It would be so worth it.”  True story: one time in college I went to Lowe’s and priced stove drip pans because mine had black gunk on it and I didn’t want to wash them.  This is not the way of the Watsons.  I’ve scraped along side my mother-in-law, and even when I’m about to cry in despair, she’s still plugging along as if the thought of complaining hasn’t even occurred to her.  It’s been a good exercise in perseverance for me.

In other news, in case God is needing some new methods for eternal punishment, I have some new ideas.  One, scraping stubborn paint off of a complicated, ridged surface.  Two, painting white paint over white primer.  I’ve been sympathizing a lot with Sisyphus lately.

So, now you know what I’ve been doing lately instead of blogging.  Stick around- either life will settle back to normal and I can tell you some great stories from my new batch of fourth graders, or I’ll have gone crazy and I can tell you about some of my new neighbors in the asylum.

 

Tips for the Home

As we’ve been slaving away at the new house, it’s been interesting to get a glimpse into the decorating/home improvement/maintenance life of the previous occupants.  We’ve appreciated much of the work that was done before we got there- new roof, new electrical wiring, new hot water heater… but many of the choices that have been made in the past have made our lives exceedingly difficult.  I’m sure that no one wants to be judged by those that come after you in your dwelling, so for the sake of all of you fellow transients out there, I’m compiling a list of the advice I wish I could have given these folks.

1.  Remove nails from the wall before you vacate.  This is especially thoughtful if you have used nails to display various collections of knickknacks across vast stretches of open walls, and if you like use nails to secure garlands across the top of every doorway.  If you want to really be nice, go ahead and putty the holes.

2.  If you begin a painting project and realize that the original layer of paint is oil-based, do not continue to paint without using an appropriate primer or sander.  SOMEONE will have to scrape off all that paint, and it’s a mean project to leave for someone else.

3.  If you insist on using your Fry Daddy in the kitchen near your white-painted windows, go ahead and clean up after yourself.  It’s sanitary, and besides, it’s not like grease gets easier to scrape off the paint the longer it is left there.  Furthermore, make sure to take your Fry Daddy with you.

4.  Don’t let your kids affix stickers to the hardwood floors.

5.  (Especially for you dudes)  When you shave in the bathroom, go ahead and wipe up the spare whiskers.  If you are living in your house, your wife doesn’t want to have to clean those up.  If you are moving out, cleaning up your own whiskers is really a must.  Leaving them for future occupants is in bad taste.

6.  If you don’t want that wooden mallard, chances are the next person won’t either.  Go ahead and toss it, don’t hide it in the laundry room to become someone else’s problem.  Ditto for the faded curtains.

7.  If you have a nice wooden floor in the kitchen, don’t cover if up with laminate stick-on tiles.  Hardly anyone uses cheap laminate flooring unless they have to.  If you have wood floors, you do not belong in that category.

8.  Almost everyone understands if you have to put cheap countertops in the kitchen- hey, renovating is expensive!  However, fewer people will understand if you choose to pick out the brightest green  shade fo the cheap countertops.  Not everyone is into decorating kitchens in a leprechaun theme, and such a bold choice can be hard to work around.

In other news, if anyone is interested in a wooden mallard, a Fry Daddy, or some pale curtains, let me know.  I can give you a great deal.

 

How Now, Brown Cow?

I have a vivid memory of a friend of mine, many years ago, lamenting her plain coloring and describing her eyes as being “poo-poo brown.”  This made a strong impression on me because we have the same color of eyes, and, up to that moment, I had always liked my eye color.  Now “poo-poo” is the first adjective I think of when describing my own eyes or hair.

“Lindsey,” you may be asking.  “I thought you said all you were thinking about these days was the new house.  Why the digression?”  Well, I’m actually leading up to a house-related point.  If you read the comments here, you already know that I decided that I want to pick a shade of brown to be the  main color that I use throughout the new house.  The collection of paint chips in my purse (and spilled all over the floorboards of my car) is ever growing, and I have yet to find a beautiful shade of brown that I feel confident with for my new walls.  The thing is, there’s a fine yet incredibly important difference between an appealing “chocolate” brown and a less-than-appetizing “poo-poo” brown.  It’s as elusive/essential as the line between “inexpensive” and “cheap” or “outgoing” and “obnoxious.”

Now, I’m not dealing with chocolate browns, but poo-poo is still part of my concern.  The problem is that all light browns have strong color undertones, and it’s hard to really see the true color until you have invested in paint and brushed it all over the wall.  Then it becomes all too apparent that the color that you thought would be tan is actually quite olive, and now it looks like a diaper disaster all over the wall.  Or, you get a tan on the wall and it turns out to be very pink, and then there’s no fixing it except to buy southwestern desert prints and decorate like a Motel 6. 

Tomorrow is D-Day.  I have to go back to Lowe’s and make my final decisions.  Fingers crossed!