BulgingButtons

Not bad for a fat girl

Category Archives: Other Thoughts


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No More Cheap Puzzles for Me

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I like jigsaw puzzles.

I don’t do them all the time, but in the summer I often like to do a puzzle.

I prefer ones that feature a photo, rather than a painting. I don’t like teeny tiny pieces, and frankly I don’t like too many pieces either. Five hundred seems to be the right number for me.

I spend a couple of evenings on it, at the dining room table. There’s a certain satisfaction in snapping together the pieces after searching for them in the pile.

I also like that they make me slow down and notice details that I might not have otherwise.

I found a jigsaw puzzle at a massive discount store last week. It was on sale. It was a folk art painting of old time Boston. I liked it well enough (there were no photo puzzles available) so I bought it. I started it that evening and finished it the next day. I wanted more.

My travels took me to the dollar store for writing camp materials. While I was there I picked up another puzzle. This one featured a photo of a strawberry pie. The size of the pieces was good. It was only three hundred pieces, but hey, it was a dollar, so I bought it.

Well, it took three days, but I finished it. Here’s what I learned:

  1. the picture on the box had different coloration than the actual puzzle
  2. the cover of the box didn’t show the whole puzzle
  3. the pieces were printed on very thin cardboard
  4. many of the pieces fit in places where they don’t belong
  5. the whole thing was sort of warped and didn’t want to lay flat

Still, I finished it, and I’m satisfied with the result. Now I want to do another one, but I’m going to steer clear of the dollar store.


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Just This One More Thing

So I have this thing I have to do. Yes, Have To. I made a commitment. It’s not a bad thing. In fact it’s a thing that helps me in the long run, but it takes work. Actual, no two ways about it, work. So naturally, I’m putting it off.images.jpg

You see, I don’t want to do the work. Why? I’m not sure. It’s not that I can’t. I’m able to do it. It’s just that I don’t want to.

Will I? Of course. Like I said, I made a commitment. I don’t take my commitments lightly. It will get done. And it will get done on time. But right now, I’d rather do something else. Anything else. Like, oh, I don’t know… blog maybe?

My plan was to get up this morning, drop my son off at work, and then GET. IT. DONE.

I got up, took him to work, and decided I needed breakfast. Well, don’t we all? Most important meal of the day, and all that jazz. So, I had breakfast. And while I ate, I checked my email. That makes sense, right? Multi-tasking to save time?

Well, my email reminded me that I had to provide some feedback to Amazon, so I took care of that (because without my feedback they might fold). Then I realized that I needed to send a welcome email to my summer writing group (or their parents, to be exact).

It took me a while to trudge through the task of setting up a group. Don’t laugh at me, but I find Google and their email and docs and such kind of awkward. I know, I’m the one who’s awkward, but I’m okay with that. Finally I got it sorted out, the email written, and sent.

Okay, so NOW I’m ready to do that thing. But shouldn’t I at least get a load of laundry started? Or unload the dishwasher? Nah, I have to do the thing. But wait! What a brilliant blog post idea. Me, procrastinating, again! My readers will LOVE it!

Insert eye roll here.

Okay, so maybe not the most brilliant topic, but, to quote lots of people, “It is what it is.” What does that even mean?

So now, at long last, I’m going to wrap up the blog post, and get started on my task. Oh wait, it’s time for lunch. Okay, right after lunch I’m starting! Really.


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Eating an Elephant One Bite at a Time

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In Other Words, Cleaning Up My House

I’ve never claimed to be the world’s best housekeeper. I’m not. I do like a certain sense of order, though.

For example, the glasses in my kitchen cupboards are organized by type and are in precise locations. The wine glasses and crystal are in one cabinet, the everyday glasses are sorted by type and size in another.

It’s not just in the kitchen, though. My fabric collection is folded and stored on open shelves by color. The clothes in my closet hang on identical hangers (well, one type for pants, another for skirts, and a third for dresses and tops, but you get the idea). The tops progress from teal to green to white, then tan, brown, black, into red, pink, purple, and finally blue. There’s a system.

I don’t have systems for everything, though. Or if I do, they break down. Take books, for example. I’ve been trying to get most of my books from Overdrive, the online library app. It saves me money and storage space. Still, I like to support local authors, and the professional books that I use are valuable additions to my library. As a result, I have more books than my current system allows. There are books on the kitchen table, books on my nightstand, and books on the kitchen counter. And yes, there are books on the bookshelves too, but they’re a mess.

Purses are another issue for me. I don’t have nearly as many as lots of people I know, but I do have a few that I use routinely. Where do they end up? On the kitchen counter. There a small section to the left of the fridge that is a complete disaster. Mail, meds, purses, you name it, it might be there.

the-japanese-art-of-decluttering-and-organizin-2-638All of this extra stuff brings me down. It drains my energy. It doesn’t bring me joy, as Marie Kondo, of The Lifechanging Magic of Tidying Up would demand. But on the other hand, it’s stuff I use. Just not all at once. So what’s the solution? Put it away, of course.

Flylady, of Flylady.net often says, “You can’t organize clutter.” I agree. There comes a point where too much is simply too much, and no matter how clever I think I’m being, I need to scale back. It’s time to do that, but I can’t do it all at once.

Here’s where the eating the elephant comes in. They say it can only be done one bite at a time. Well, I’m starting to bite. For me it’s more like one area at a time. The kitchen island has been done, but that one keeps accumulating stuff. It’s what Flylady calls a hotspot.

My bathroom vanity has been done, and man, it’s so much more pleasant to get ready in that area. My brain knows this, and yet, I let it get cluttered over time. WHY?

There are, unfortunately, so many more of these areas to go, but if I keep at it one bite at a time, eventually I’ll eat that elephant. Today’s goal? The kitchen table. Where I’m writing at the moment. It’s not a second office, it’s a place for meals. This one should be simple, just a few notebooks and books, a laptop, and leftovers from someone’s birthday, last month. Yeesh. One bite at a time.

DISCLAIMER: I would never eat a real elephant. Just so you know.