Week 3 - Water Aerobics Again or My Bum Knee

Between stopping for my surgery and the winter break, it had been 5-1/2 weeks since I’d been in the pool and it felt like my body had turned to mush. It felt SO good to be back in the pool! My plan was to go as much as possible and I had already done two days in a row and felt fine to keep going. Until Wednesday morning that is. I don’t know what I did in the pool Tuesday but I woke up Wednesday to a dead knee. It hurt to put any weight at all on it. Aging sucks! I started sucking down 800 mg ibuprofens and decided to skip Wednesday night since it was shallow and the impact would hurt. But I went back to the pool Thursday, figuring being in the deep end wouldn’t hurt my knee more and the moving might actually help. Class was nearly over when I discovered the move (a hopscotch for those in the know) that had trashed my knee. The second I did it I gasped in pain. Needless to say I skipped Friday and then had 3 more days off due to the MLK weekend. My knee was much better by the end of the weekend and I plan to be back in the deep end, moving carefully on Tuesday. Wish me luck!

Week 2 - My New TV

The last time I bought a decent sized TV was in 1983 while living with Carolyn on Wisdom Avenue. That TV bit the dust a couple of years ago and I have been using a hand me down from my friend Layton ever since. It was a couple of years newer than my old one and its one improvement was that it had a remote. I was very happy with my jury rigged set up complete with RF converter, DVD, VCR and rabbit ears, all daisy chained and connected to the TV purely through the little hooky things that went under the antenna screws. The reception was lacking but I'd put up with it for so long that I barely noticed. I even got a converter box last summer thinking I'd just attach one more thing and keep using it. But when I got the box, the directions boggled the mind. Even after searching the web, I could not figure out where the converter box should go in the chain of things I had attached to the TV. Up until this week I'd just been ignoring the constant barrage of TV announcements and count downs on the digital conversion, knowing I'd have to do something but putting off deciding what. Until Tuesday night that is.

I was watching an episode of SVU and it had an obnoxious orange crawl at the top of the screen telling me that because I could see it, my TV wasn't ready for digital. I kept expecting it to go away but it never did. After 30 minutes of it distracting me, I turned the TV off, knowing it was time to buy a new TV. I knew I wanted a SONY and a big one so I did some web browsing and decided on the 32" flat screen LCD Bravia. It was cheapest at Wal-Mart so I headed there after work and bought the sucker. One new antenna later and it’s all set up and getting beautiful, digital reception. I’ve made a great leap forward in TV technology, just in time to watch Obama’s inauguration. : )

Week 1 - The Purge Begins

Despite not being fully recovered from my whirlwind Christmas trip to RI and having no energy, I forced myself to begin the Great Purge of '09 on New Year's Day. My first order of business was to reclaim the spare bedroom, which had become a dumping ground for all and sundry. The bed was covered with laundry baskets, my container of choice, plus bags and piles of downright crap as well as all my scrapbooking stuff. Once I got going, it wasn't too bad. I reclaimed the spare room, going through baskets, drawers and finally the closet. From there I headed to my bedroom where I did the same. The next day I tackled the front room closet and was finally able to put the vacuum in it, which will save schlepping it up and down the stairs. Here's a picture of the Goodwill pile that was the result of all this purging, While I didn't actually take it to Goodwill until the following Saturday (it doesn't count as purged until it's gone from my property), it sure felt good to get rid of so much stuff.

My First Post

The new year seems like a logical time to start a blog but I want it on the record that this has nothing to do with a New Year's resolution, which I don't normally bother with. The credit for this blog has to go to my new friend Mary Cody, whom I met at the scrapbooking weekend in Colorado this past fall. She has a fun blog (see the links at the side), which I enjoy and that first planted the seed that maybe I should do one. I recently read and loved 2 books that were based on blogs - Julie and Julia and Bitter is the New Black, which is based on jennsylvania . I couldn't help but think, "I could do that." I also batted around some ideas with friends, especially Maria, for 2009 that also helped get me here. For instance, Nora and I discussed, from a scrapbooking standpoint, taking a picture every day of 2009. Talk about setting yourself up to fail! I was three days behind before I even started. Clearly that wouldn't work. I gave it some more thought and was ready to bag the idea when I saw something that gave me hope. This weekend I caught a segment on Good Morning America called "Your Week in 3 Words." How perfect! I could use this as a template for my blog. Even I can commit to writing one post a week, summing up my week in 3 words, plus maybe including a picture and a paragraph or two on the subject. That said, here's my first entry, which starts not with 3 words but just one. Enjoy.

Credit for this first post goes to Mary Cody too. She inspired me again with her "one little word" for 2009. I gave my word quite a bit of thought on New Year's Day and even discussed it with friends I crafted with on the 2nd. After discarding a few I found the perfect word to focus on in 2009. Drumroll please! My word for 2009 is....

Enough

For those who know me well, you know I struggle with having too much stuff. Ironically, when I did the Clifton Strenghts Finder test, the results showed Input, which includes collecting stuff, as a strength - go figure. Strength or not, too much stuff has been a problem my whole life, exacerbated by my propensity to procrastinate when there's anything more fun than cleaning/organizing on the horizon, which is almost always. I made great progess in 2005 with my New Year's resolution that year to stop shopping in thrift stores, which I've stuck to diligently, and the very cathartic Purge of '05. Between spending that winter going through all my stuff and donating car loads (I'm not exagerating) of stuff to Goodwill, I got things a bit more organized and felt more in control of things.

Now with my word for 2009, I've begun phase 2. I'm now going through all the stuff that made it through the first purge, deciding how much is enough and getting rid of everything else. There is a part of me that resists getting rid of things that are still usable but I've been fighting to overcome that and just delivered my first Goodwill load on Saturday. I no longer have so many clothes that some live in laundry baskets. I also went through things as I put my Christmas presents away. For instance, when I put away the cute notecards Carolyn put in my stocking, I went through the drawer I keep that kind of thing in and got rid of about half, some of which was writing paper I'd bought in the 80's. Considering I only use 5 or 6 cards a year, I probably kept more than "enough" but at least the drawer closes easily now. I plan to keep up this culling process all through the winter and will blog my progress.

But that's not all! The beauty of "enough" is that it works both ways. Like, am I eating enough fruit? No but I'm working on it. Have I had my old TV long enough? Yes, which is why I finally retired my 1985 model and bought a new one. See? It's SUCH a good word for me.

That said, I'm loving "enough" as my word for the year. It should help me attack my stuff, help me make decisions and, hopefully, this blog will help keep me accountable for writing about my progress. Time will tell. : )