Monday… again.

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I can’t believe it’s Monday. I was right that I was going to be “off” a day this week. I kept thinking it was Tuesday!

Today I once again attempted my hour of forced productivity. I shut down the computer, set the kitchen timer for an hour, and worked. It was nice! I cleaned the kitchen again (no dirty dishes!), vacuumed, cleaned out the vacuum cleaner, washed a load of laundry, folded clothes, cleaned off the bar counter, filed some paperwork, and started organizing my recipe book.

Remember this lovely binder I found for creating a recipe book? That blog post is from June. My recipes are in that binder, but they are not organized. I don’t use the book much for that exact reason. Today I decided it was time to change that.

I spent a full hour today trying to find the correct template for these tabs and then trying to figure out how to get them to print so that the labels would display on both sides. But they’re so pretty! I ran out of time to actually start sorting the recipes, but it’s a good start. I have tabs for This Week’s Recipes, Breads, Breakfast, Desserts, Entrees, and Salads. I’m not sure those will be the final labels, but I’ll change things around as I figure out what works best.

Tomorrow’s project – Sort through all of the recipes currently in my binder and toss the ones we don’t like or no longer eat. Put the remaining recipes behind the correct tab. Eventually I’ll get them all typed out in OneNote so that they are consistent from one recipe to the next instead of printed from various websites.

It’s amazing how much I can accomplish once I kick myself off the internet.

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Spare Room Progress

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I have been spending all of my time cleaning and sorting through JUNK in the spare room. I am determined that the room will be clean and organized by the end of next Tuesday. I have 4 working days. Instead of keeping up with the dishes, vacuuming, etc., I have done nothing but cook and clean the spare bedroom. I’m resorting to using the dishwasher during the week. *gasp*

Here is what our spare bedroom looked like on Sunday morning:

And this is not the worst it has ever looked… Here is our spare bedroom at the end of today:

Much better, but it is still ugly. Here is what our “dining room” looked like a couple hours ago:

This is how much stuff has to still get moved out of our apartment and I’m not even done in the spare bedroom. We’ve already dropped off four boxes of books, several boxes of clothes, and hubby took out three boxes of trash right before I snapped this photo. It really is disgusting! Every time a box of books or clothes or JUNK leaves the house, I feel a little bit more relief. That is less JUNK I have to pack up and move someday. That is less JUNK that I have to organize or clean. That is less JUNK that I have to rummage through to find what I’m looking for. If it’s been boxed up or stored away for the past four years, we obviously didn’t need it.

So I am making a lot of progress. I’ve been keeping a running tally of how much JUNK has been carried out of here and I will post it once I’ve finished with the spare bedroom. All of that money wasted. All of that time we’ve already spent carting it from one residence to another. All of that eyesore. And I still have to tackle the spare bedroom closet. Ugh.

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Books, books, and more books

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I love to read. I’m addicted to books. If we could afford it, I’d get a job at Barnes and Noble just so I could reinvest in their store by cashing my paycheck and then shopping for books. 😉 That’s how much I love to read.

Unfortunately, my budget does not support my book habit. I love libraries, but the two nearest us have a very minimal selection. They don’t carry 95% of the books that I’ve looked for. Earlier this week, hubby and I decided to visit the public library in the next town over. We signed up for library cards and came home with a huge stack of books.

I have developed a system to organize my future reading lists. Whenever I read a book recommendation on a blog, I visit Amazon’s website or the author’s website. If the book looks like one I will enjoy, I add it to my Amazon wish list. On Monday, I printed off my wish list and then searched the library’s website to find the call letters for each book. When we visited the library, I just had to go through the rows and pick up each book. Simple!

I’ve thought about requesting the library to pull the books for me, but I enjoy browsing. That way, I can pull any additional books that look promising. This last trip, I only allowed myself a couple extra books, as my reading list was already quite long. As I continue reading blogs and receiving recommendations, I’ll add titles to my library wish list on Amazon. This way I’ll always have a list of highly recommended books to read!

This is the stack of books we brought home this week. The pile on the left is mine and the right stack is hubby’s. The book standing upright is the one I’m currently reading. Have I mentioned that I love books?

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