10 tips to beat clutter in less than five minutes

I just saw this on unclutterer.com. It is too good not to share:

10 tips to beat clutter in less than five minutes

1. Make your bed each morning.
2. Throw away the newspaper each night, even if you haven’t read it yet.
3. Follow the “one-minute rule” – push yourself to do any chore that takes less than one minute. Throw away the junk mail, close the cabinet door, put your dirty socks in the hamper, hang up your wet towel.
4. Identify an organization or person to whom you can give things you no longer need – it’s much easier to get rid of unneeded stuff if you can envision someone else getting good use from them. Also, figure out a place to store those things until you hand them over. We have a special shelf for books that we’re taking to the Housing Works thrift store. When the shelf is full, we drop off the books.
5. Pause for a moment before you “store” something. Storing something means you don’t intend to use it much. Other than holiday decorations and seasonal clothes, you should strive to “store” as little as possible.
6. Beware of freebies. Never accept anything free, unless you’re thrilled with it. A mug, a tote bag, a hand-me-down toy, the lamp from your mother-in-law—if you don’t need it, don’t take it.
7. Get rid of things if they break. When I went through our apartment, I was astonished by how many things I’d kept even though they didn’t work.
8. Don’t keep any piece of paper unless you know that you actually need it. I have a friend who, for years, carefully filed away the stubs when she paid her gas bill. “Why?” I asked, mystified. “I have no idea,” she said. Along the same lines, don’t keep anything that would quickly become dated—like travel information. Remember the internet! If you can easily find information online, you don’t need to keep a hard copy.
9. Hang up your coat.
10. Before you go to bed, take five minutes to do an “evening tidy-up.” Don’t tackle anything ambitious, but just stack up the magazines, put your shoes away, shove the chairs into place, etc. Just a few minutes of tidying can make your house look a lot better, and it’s a calming thing to do before going to sleep. Plus it makes the morning nicer.

Birthdays and Misc.

Katie got her staples taken out yesterday. Even though they said it wouldn't hurt, it did. Poor girl!

I know I am such a slacker. There have been so many things that have happened, but I didn't want to post without pictures, so I put it off. I finally got the pictures downloaded, so brace yourself for the longest post in history. Ok, not really. I think I'll just post a few things now, then come back later for a few more.

Two of my children recently had birthdays. Tiffany turned 8 on August 12, and Katie turned 5 on August 20. First off, Tiffany's birthday. We had watermelon at the park with some of her friends. She loves reading mystery novels, so we had a "clue" scavenger hunt. It may have been a little advanced for them, but they had fun.



Then there was Katie's birthday. Again, we used our local park. It's so much easier than cleaning a house after a party! Katie wanted cupcakes. We found cute little party toothpick candles from the dollar store to use. Here are a few pictures from that:

Ever Wonder How Much It Costs to Go to the Fair?

The answer is about $420. That may seem like a lot of money for some of you. Well, it really does to me, too. Sometimes things don't go as we planned.

Corwin took the day off work so we could go to the fair during the day when it was less crowded. We showed up about noon, when the carnival opened. We paid admission and Corwin and the older two girls got wristbands for unlimited rides.

I took Emily through the exhibits while the others were off to the carnival. They had a blast. Later, Katie joined me, while Corwin and Tiffany rode rides that Katie wasn't tall enough for. We also bought a little food there. I had brought apples, bananas, and nuts, but apparently, that wasn't quite enough for everybody, so we bought fries and a burrito to share.

We heard about this great show called Splash Dogs. We tried to find it, but to no avail. Instead, we passed this tent where they were doing a CSI show. I thought it sounded interesting. Corwin didn't, so he and Tiffany took off for more rides. Katie, Emily, and I sat on the bleachers at the back of the tent to watch the show. It was kind of interesting, but also hard to follow because for me, it's hard to listen to those funky echoing microphones. The girls didn't sit real still, but they weren't loud. Emily got up a couple times to get her backpack off the stroller and to put it back for her snack (nuts). Katie adjusted herself on the bleachers, then slipped down to where her bottom hit the foot area and her head hit the seat. Of course, she let out a cry. I took her in my arms, and Emily by the hand out of the tent, so she could calm down. Then I noticed blood on her shirt collar. I looked through her hair, and sure enough, there was a gash about 3/4" long. It looked fairly deep, too. I went back in the tent for the stroller, put Emily in it, and took Katie by the hand across the fairgrounds to the first aid station. They looked at it, put a bandage on, and told us to take her to a clinic for stitches. I texted Corwin. He met us at the first aid station, and carried Katie to the car.

Now, how hard should it be to find a quick care clinic open in the evening? All of them I knew of in our town closed by 6. And guess what? It was 5:55. So, the only thing we could come up with was to drive to the next town over to get her in. She got two staples put in the back of her head, and a pair of nitrile gloves to calm her. Oh yeah, and stickers and popsicles for herself and her sisters.

So, for a little more than $420, we got a fun afternoon at the fair with a little food, three staples, a pair of gloves, a few stickers, and three popsicles.

Going through the pictures on my camera, I found this video of the girls playing in the rain a couple weeks ago.

Free lawn mower

As I was on my way home from work yesterday, I noticed a lawn mower pushed to the curb for the garbage man. I asked permission to take it and got my first free lawn mower!

It had obviously sat for a few years, so I disassembled it to clean the carburetor and free up the frozen butterflies and linkages. (Lemontree lent a hand too.) One of the throttle shaft seals disintegrated when I attempted to clean it, so I cut some foam from Tiffany's "eggcrate" mattress pad and made a new one. Sharpened the blade, put in some fresh oil and gas and... it started up on the first pull! Not bad for free garbage.

There is a broken throttle control lever, so I'm going to hit up some local lawn mower junkyards and see if I can get a better one. Other than slapping some paint on the rust, this "garbage" is ready to cut a few more lawns for somebody. If I value my labor, I'll be selling it at a loss, but it's still fun to divert something from the landfill. The best form of recycling, in my opinion. :)

Painting!

This is what we've been up to just about every Saturday for the last month or so, and every day during the whole week Corwin had off work. Painting our house! It didn't quite work out as planned. For one, the prep work takes some time. We had some peeling paint, so we did some scraping and applied primer. We thought we could do a side of the house each weekend. We also thought our spraygun worked. But apparently it is broken, so we did it the old fashioned way, which in a way is probably better, because we can get into the crevices better than I think a sprayer would have done. Also, we didn't count on it getting so hot so soon, so every day we've been able to work on it, it's only been a few hours.



I wish I could show you a finished picture, but alas, we are destined to work at it for a while longer. Most of the main color is finally applied, and I've started on the trim (a reddey-orangey color). For your enjoyment, I attach a photo of Corwin painting where I couldn't reach. The color on the slat below where he is painting is the dried finish color. I know it's not a huge difference from the original color, but now I can say our house is light gray, and not some tannish wierd color.

What's That Bug?

We were spending the evening watering our various plants in the backyard. I checked my compost bin and saw that it was very dry. While I was doing this, the girls joined me. Tiffany looked in and saw several little bugs running around. Of course, you know that compost bins are full of bugs of all sorts. I know this, too. Lately, I've seen a lot of ants, but it's not uncommon to see pill bugs and earwigs, so that's what I expected when she asked, "What's that bug?" Well, it obviously wasn't any of those afore mentioned bugs, but it was really hard to get a good look at. They liked the dark, so if I moved a piece of compost, I saw maybe a hundred of them, but they scattered and disappeared deeper into the compost, that it was so hard to get a good look at them. Finally one of them got caught in an eggshell. Despite their speed, it couldn't climb up the smooth sides of the shell, so I caught one!


It's really dusty. The picture really doesn't look like I remember it looking. Funny thing about pictures. I remember it being blacker and skinnier. Of course it was moving really fast. It was tough to get it to sit still for a picture.

Anyhow, I went searching on the web for this strange creature. I knew it was some sort of larvae, so that helped. But what really helped was running into a wonderful website called What's That Bug? I'm not sure I've figured out what it is, but I think it is the larvae of a carpet beetle. I sent the picture to the administrator of that site to ask, so I may yet find out definitively what the bugs are. I then spent 2 hours looking at bugs on the website. It was way cool.

Teardown begins

Our VW Fox has served faithfully as the family car for several years, but it's a little on the small side for a growing family and the paint... well, Volkswagen picked a bad formulation for their red paint in 1988 and the result is not pretty. The VW Jetta is larger than the Fox both in legroom as well as trunk space, so we purchased one a while ago and it's been sleeping in the garage until I had time to get to it. Last week, I finally had time.

I've removed most of the front end to expose the now nearly naked gasoline engine. The gas engine will be replaced with a turbodiesel engine from a local junkyard that has been bored out and will be rebuilt with new pistons and bearings, so we will essentially have a new engine ready to go 300,000 miles or more (VWs and diesels both last a very long time -- some VW diesels have passed 500,000 miles without a rebuild). Yes, yes, diesel fuel is currently more expensive than gasoline, but at 45 to 50MPG, it still ends up being cheaper per mile than a 30MPG gasoline car. Plus, you have the option of burning waste vegetable oil in a diesel engine... free fuel!

I'm also going to be replacing all of the wear items. Once the Jetta is done, we will sell the Fox so the Jetta has to be reliable enough to go on interstate trips -- any part that might leave us stranded is going to be replaced now while it's all in pieces anyway. The cost of replacing the engine and various parts will be high up front, but will still be less than new car payments over the long term... and because it is an older car, it will be cheaper to insure and less likely to be stolen. Plus, it's kind of cool to build your own car... kind of the ultimate Lego toy.

Fishing

I finally gave in, after much youth persuasion, to buy a fishing license. My girls wanted to go fishing. It probably had nothing to do with the fact that fish and game officials were at the park teaching kids how to tie knots and giving them a chance at casting. Or the fact that my brothers and parents regularly go fishing. I'm kind of a cheap skate. I didn't really want to fork over $25 for a license when I know for a fact I probably won't catch anything. What can I say? I'm a bad fisherman. Or maybe I'm not dedicated enough. Nah. I'm just lousy at it. I could go fishing with a group of people and be the only one who didn't catch anything. This is probably the reason I haven't had a fishing license in the past ten years.

I couldn't find any of my old poles. It seems I most likely left them at my parents' house where they got commandeered by my brothers. For some strange reason, I couldn't find my tackle box either. I don't really think I would have given it away. I'm sure it's around here somewhere. Happily my family had given my two oldest each a pole, which they have never used. These were old poles, so I looked at them, and found the reel on one was actually broken, so I had to throw that one out. The other was in great condition. That is, until somebody stepped on it and broke the reel. So, we went to Walmart, where we bought new poles, and a few essential tackle supplies. I even got a little pole for Emily. She was so happy about it, she carried it through the store, gave it up only to check out and allow the checker to cut it off the packaging, then she proudly marched out of the store, carrying her new pole over her shoulder (it was a small teaching moment for her to no longer drag it on the ground).

For our first attempt, we went to fish in the river. We parked, then walked through the brush (Emily proudly carrying her pole all the way) and sat under a tree in a nice shady spot, because I'm crazy I didn't want a sunburn. Emily wanted to get in the water, so I kept pulling her back. I helped Tiffany get her pole ready first. Then I let her cast. She stood and threw her line out. She promptly caught the tree overhead. I showed her how to pull the line from the tree without breaking her pole. It took a while, but I finally got Katie set up, and helped her cast her line. Meanwhile, Tiffany reeled hers back in and cast again. This girl caught the tree at least half a dozen times. Not to mention that Katie and Tiffany tangled their lines together several times. All this before I even got Emily's line set up. Emily was very possessive of her pole. She didn't want me to touch it. She let me cast the line once for her, and I think she even got a bite. She wanted to hold her own pole, by herself. And practice swordplay with it. After I helped her reel it in, she didn't want the line back in the water. It took me a while to realize I needed to remove the hook from her line. After she impaled Katie's pantleg. Katie was really good and sat still most of the time. Tiffany learned to sit down to cast, so eventually she (mostly) avoided the tree. We only stayed about 45 minutes, but it was an exercise in frustration patience.

Next time, I think I'll choose a nice, quiet pond with no trees.

Tiffany asked if we could go fishing every day.

How I spent my Saturday

Today I made a bike-cam mounting bracket out of an M5 x 0.8 screw and nut, a random chunk of spare metal drilled, heated, bent, and ground, and a 1/4"-20 bolt and nut. The little screw goes where the front reflector threads on, and the bigger bolt fits the tripod mount for a camera. Here it is mounted below my left turn signal (click for a slightly bigger view):



The metal was left over from a failed attempt to build a tool to work on my VW Rabbit so it was nearly free.

I was a little worried that the spot-welded nut that the reflector threads into would snap off the first bump I went over due to the weight of the bracket and camera, but the 'Yamaha' sheet metal badge it's attached to has some give to it for shock and vibration absorption. It also means the video ends up being a little wiggly but not too bad (you can just barely see my fender at the bottom right of the below video as a reference point for the wiggle). If you want to watch it, you may want to skip ahead to 15 seconds in as the first bit is really boring:

Clicky: http://tinypic.com/player.php?v=21j3y4z&s=3

I don't have a really cool video yet, unfortunately... this was just a proof of concept. :)

The project turned out ok, and really, half of my desire to make it was just to give me a reason to play with power tools, torches, and a sledgehammer... and it succeeded in that respect. The other half is, I thought it would be a cool thing to do after I watched a bunch of motorcycle videos on YouTube. One thing that you really notice on videos like that is that motorcycles are like airplanes when turning -- they really bank or lean. The interesting thing is that the lean seems much more radical on video than in real life. In the video, the corner was taken a fair bit faster than the recommended 10MPH (but still within the posted speed limit, I promise!), but it looks like I'm practically dragging a footpeg.

Variation on an old theme

I don't know about the extended Thueson clan, but we all love "Yummy Potatoes" or "Funeral Potatoes" or "Wedding Potatoes" or any of the other dozen names it's known by. The other week we tried something a little bit different: "Easy Cheesy Salsa Potatoes", and they actually turned out quite good. No, this isn't a food blog but since Yummy Potatoes is a popular dish with just about everyone I know, I thought it wouldn't hurt to kick things up a notch.

Here's where we got the recipe: http://www.bettycrocker.com/Recipes/Recipe.aspx?recipeId=18970

Rainbow Clouds

This was yesterday. There was a circle rainbow around the sun, and a second upside down rainbow in the clouds underneath. Unfortunately, I don't have a wide enough angle on my camera to get the circle, but I think I still got some pretty good pictures.

Tuesday

Corwin's birthday was Tuesday. I made a cake and wrapped his gifts (just what he asked for, a twirl a tie and a few new ties). The girls lost the birthday cards we bought for him, so they each took a sheet of printer paper and colored their own cards for him.

Tiffany set up the play room table in the living room and put his gifts on it. It looked very nice. Emily then opened the gifts about three times, and spilled a glass of water on the table, completely soaking one of them.

I started making a cake. I borrowed my mom's old McCall's cookbook for a few recipes (wonderful cookbook, by the way). So, I found a white cake recipe and proceeded to start making the cake. I got the shortening out and found that it was rancid. The girls wanted to smell it, so I let them. They were sitting at the counter. I mistakenly left it on the counter in front of them. I went to get a new can out of the linen closet (yep, I keep food in the linen closet). When I returned, I saw that they each had handfuls of shortening. I told them to clean it off themselves. I even gave them some paper towels. So, I start mixing up the cake. Understand, I am not 2 feet from them. I am standing at the same counter even. Well, I glance over, and they now have shortening up to their armpits! The paper towels I gave them were unrecognizable shortening blobs. I had to actually, physically clean each child myself (not just hand them a paper towel) and take the shortening out to the outside garbage. What amazes me the most is what a one track mind I have.

To finish the cake (a layer cake with strawberry jelly between the layers), I had to make some frosting. While I think it's kind of fun to decorate cakes, I hate making frosting. So, I looked through the frosting recipes in the book, most of which were to be cooked on a double boiler. I found a wonderfully simple frosting, I just hoped it would taste ok on a cake. Actually, it is called "sour cream topping." The recipe calls for 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, a one tablespoon grated orange peel. I put 1 cup of sour cream, 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar, 1 tsp vanilla flavor and a drop or two of almond flavor in a bowl, and Katie mixed them (I guess I just have a hard time following a recipe). I put it on the cake, it didn't cover very well, so we mixed up another recipe of it, and it covered the cake well. The girls enjoyed licking out the containers. They thought it tasted great. And actually the frosted cake tasted great as well. It was much more refreshing than the usual gag-me shortening & powdered sugar frosting. The downside, of course, is that you can't do real decorating with it. I bet it would taste really good with strawberries.

One birthday card was found before Corwin came home, the one from the girls. The card from me wasn't found until the next day.

Life and Death Ramblings

It's been a lot longer since my last post than I've wanted it to be. So much has happened and so much on my mind, but I didn't know how to put any of it down in words.

First off, there have been a couple of deaths of people I know. My sister-in-law's step-dad died a few weeks ago. I remember Vern as a kind and happy man who always had a smile for me. He accepted myself and my siblings as his own family, even when he went through rough times of his own.

Another of my sister-in-laws lost her step-dad just the following week. Her mom and step-dad were riding a motorcycle, which was struck by a car turning onto their path. Her step-dad died at the scene of the crash. Her mom has been in the hospital since, with very serious injuries. It's been a couple of days since I talked to my brother, but I believe she has finally left the ICU, but due to her injuries and operations needed to repair some of the damage, she will be in and out of the ICU a few times.

Corwin has been excited to have his motorcycle running and has been riding it to work. Some people would say that in light of my sister-in-law's family, I should forbid my husband from riding. Of course, that would be my gut reaction, but if I did so, where would it stop? He could then forbid me from riding my bicycle, or walking along a busy street, because of there is a chance an inattentive motorist hit me. The only thing I can do is remind people to watch out for each other. Motorcycles are everywhere on the road, especially during the summer, as are bicyclists, and to a lesser extent, pedestrians. Just remember to look for all those who share the road with us.

A celebration is in order for my cousin, Patti Jo. She has been fighting cancer with chemo treatments, and the last scan showed no remaining sign of the cancer! Heavenly Father has given her a great blessing and answered our many prayers in her behalf.

With all these events, and more I have been thinking about, I have been pondering life a bit more. When so many people I know have been affected because of the fragility of the human body, I can't help but think of my own existence. I've been pondering what preparations I should make if something were to happen to me tomorrow. I'm thinking more of the value of a will, living will, and the power of attorney.

On a brighter note, the girls and I visited a local greenhouse yesterday and purchased some plants for our gardens. I planted some onions in Emily's garden. Katie planted tomatoes. Tiffany planted bell peppers and onions around her rose. I put in a few petunias and other flowers on the side of the house and a sandwort in the front where I had moved the rose from earlier this year.