Waaaaahhhhh :(

Hey there. I'm in a crappy mood. You know, the one that hits you when you know vacation will soon be over and all the responsibility and rushing craziness begins again. Nevermind that I still have one week left. Like a true pessimist, my cup is half empty. School is supposed to begin tomorrow and I still haven't registered. My crazy advisor will be very unhappy with me when I ask her to put permission into the computer for the classes I need to take. Half the house is still a mess, and my papers are still unfinished. So, what the hell have I been doing? I'll tell you what. Cleaning and orgainzing. Ugh. However much I do it's never enough. I read a blog today called Stacks and Stacks Clutter Control Freak blog. Though inspirational, I'm still sitting on my ASS, messing with the computer. What will it take to get me moving? Ugh. Well, school is really getting me down. My schedule is tight, and I'm supposed to take three classes, more than I've taken in a while while I work full-time. What a horrible semester. The silver lining is that if (and I mean IF) I make it through this semester, I only have one class left in the spring to graduate.

While I'm being miserable and self-loathing, I should also talk about the standardized exams I took on Saturday. The first one was horrific. All the questions were situational. I knew what I would do, but is that what THEY wanted me to do? The essay was even worse than the multiple choice, instructing me to write an essay for educational professionals about the importance of communicating with students from diverse backgrounds. What the hell is that?! If I can't communicate, how can I teach? Someone please explain this to me. The second one was much better, and I finished in about an hour and a half, but still, some questions really stumped my and I could only take my best guess. It will be only through God's grace that I will pass these damn things. At least if I fail, I know I need to study. Ugh. Studying. The classes I am taking require that I remember a ton of information. I'm not good with classes like that. I'm really nervous that I will not make it through this semester without screwing up.

Lastly, I've been trying to clean up the apartment, and it's been coming along. All crafty stuff has migrated into the bedroom for the big craft room clean up. That will take at least a whole day. That day should be today, if I weren't procrastiblogging instead of finishing my papers that were due last spring. A vicious cycle has been formed: I have lots of work to do for school. It's stressing me out. I sit down to do it, but begin to look around at the crap that I live in. That stresses me out. I think that if I clean up the crap, I will be more calm and focused and able to complete my assignments. I start cleaning up. Things don't really have a place to go and there's too much crap. It begins to migrate to different parts of the house. The place never got cleaned up and now I'm too tired to bother with finishing my assignments. Daily reading, what's that? Due dates. What are those? Everything gets done at the last possible moment.

I've really been trying to accomplish my goal of cleaning out and organizing the apartment since February. The bathroom and living/dining room are good. The kitchen is coming along and the bedroom and craft room need some serious TLC-tough lovin' cleaning.

Blogging is something I do when I remember, and to keep me sane at moments like this. I've been grumpy and crappy to my DH because of this stress, the mysterious symptoms I had at the close of the spring semester have gradually been coming back after an absence during my stress-free summer. I just want to cry, but am too tired of everything to bother.

This is the end of the venting part of my blog.

Good morning everyone. Today is a new day and I am going to get shit done!!! First, I will make some breakfast and eat, since I have a habit of forgetting this when I'm really busy. Then I will do the dishes. Next, I will open the word document which contains my research paper on generalization and read it. Upon completion, I will reward myself by choosing a recipe to make for dessert later and purchasing the ingredients. This will give me time to reflect upon the ideas and concepts in my almost finished paper. When I come back, I will have something to contribute to my paper. When I finish messing with my paper for at least 1/2 hour, I will put the laundry away and make the bed. I don't know what I will do after that, but that's a start.

Sorry, ranting will begin again; it's just one of those days.

Yesterday, J and I began organizing our Christmas lists. Yes, I know we are crazy, but with a hectic semester at hand, I really need to focus on this now. You may already know that I don't really believe in buying presents for people. Everyone I know has everything they want because when they realize they want it, they go out and buy it. What's happened to us? I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I dread the day after Christmas. That is the day I look at the pile of unwrapped gifts on the living room floor and have to figure out where to put it all. Cooking gadgets I will use only once, four pairs of slippers, a dozen candles and bottles of bath wash, pajamas that don't fit, scarves that don't match anything I own. Lord help me! I want to reiterate that it's not that I am ungrateful. I know each gift was picked out lovingly by the giftor, tossed into a shopping cart with a knowing smile, "Yes, she'll love these pink furry bedsox!", wrapped carefully in tissue paper and placed in a festive gift bag with my name on the tag and a "Love, Santa." However, I wish the giftor would take more time to empathize with my situation. My whole family knows I am a slob with too much crap. I continually tell them I don't want anything that requires that I put it away unless I specifically ask for it. Is this mean? Am I wrong to have these gift requirements? I tell them I want things that are disposable, i.e. bath products, food items, gift certificates, yet somehow, I still have a pile of stuff I don't need on the morning of the 26th of December. Not to mention, many of the giftors don't really have the money to spend on all the stuff they buy, but feel pressured to "perform" after Christmas dinner, so they go further into debt. I know because I was once one of them. I'm sure I'm still paying for Christmas presents I gave 10 years ago. In any case, I've greatly reduced spending by making my own presents. Last year, J and I made soap and bath products, and this year, well, I can't divulge the details, but let's just say, they're still disposable presents, for the most part. We will begin collecting and making the necessary item to complete each gift starting this week. The list has already been drawn, and we're just ironing out the details.

Oh the plans of mice and men...

In another blog I read this morning, the author talks about creating a challenge for a specified amount of time. The only rules are that it must have a measurable goal and it should be specific. (It sounds like a program from work- "Cleaning the house means that the homemaker should 1. clean and put away the dishes, 2. vacuum the carpets in all rooms 3. clean the shower, sink and toilet, 4. wash the kitchen floor, 5. make the bed, 6. wash, fold and put away the laundry, 7. wipe the stove, counters and cabinets in the kitchen, etc. without manual or verbal prompts within the hours of the weekend) I think about what my challenge will be and it has to be the craft room. Only after cleaning out and organizing the craft room with the bedroom have any chance of being completed. Here it is:

My goal is to have a craft room with items easily accessible. All craft books shall fit on the bookshelf or in the magazine files on top of it. I should be able to walk through from one end to the other in a straight line and should be able to sit at my sewing table to sew (imagine that!) or do other work. It will be a place where I can be relaxed, inspired and challenged to do new things. (I'll make a project board to keep track of stuff that needs to be worked on.)

The craft room will be gutted of all contents, save furniture and fixtures, spread out in the bedroom, and only things that I have used within the last year will be put back first. Things that have not been used within the last year will be sorted according to if I anticipate using them in the next year, and if I do, individual goals will be made for each item. If I have not met the goals for these items by January, these items will be moved out immediately (i.e. terminated). This category of items is subject to storage issues during the clean up. Let me write a list of crafting categories in order of importance to simplify my task:

Soapmaking, Resin, Sewing, Knitting, Scrapbooking, Spinning,Wrapping, (need wrapping paper organizer bin) , Papermaking, Winemaking (temp. discontinued, but keeping items because of expense and rarity).  No. 1 on my list is to get rid of scrap fabric. I have a large bin and have hardly touched it in years. I will go through it and only keep fabric in a small bin. Any sewing UFOs will be put in project bags and given a due date. Any large amount of yardage needs a pattern assigned to it and will be completed before January, or else will be donated. Hopefully, once the craft room and bedroom are clean, I will have time that I will actually want to spend doing this stuff again.

When the craft room is done, then I can fully focus on finishing the bedroom. I have a lot of great ideas for the bedroom, but cannot work on them because there is too much stuff laying around. My biggest problem is papers from school. I don't know what to do with them. I guess I'll just make room over the closets and put them in cardboard storage boxes. Do I really need two punch bowls? Over and out.