30 January 2018

I got some laundry done after work, but the biggest success was during lunch with specific items being donated to a no kill shelter, Goodwill and Deseret Industries.

Tomorrow I will take my never used boxes of feminine products to A New Leaf in Tempe, a non profit group who is currently taking these items in for donation.  It’s a great way to eliminate the clutter of stuff I no longer use and it goes to people who need it the most.

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 30 - Giveaway Now Closed

Congratulations!  Give yourself a well deserved pat on the back if you've made it this far!

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 29

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 28

Peter Walsh Days 24-27

Ugh.

I slept 12 hours last night.  I feel like I could sleep another 12.

I’m not sure how much I’m actually going to get done today.

I hope everyone else has a wonderful weekend.

Clutter Overwhelm & Paper Monsters

This is from a channel on YouTube I've just discovered called "How To ADHD".  While I'm not someone who is diagnosed with ADHD, I found a lot of great information on this channel that is helpful for me and might be for you too.

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 27

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 26

Compromises

This morning saw the HVAC people come today for an audit of the unit.  The verdict:  the motor for the fan died.  Which would explain why the temperature in this home hasn’t gone above 70 degrees since the last visit.

I hoping next Thursday, after a pre-scheduled doctor appointment, it will get fixed.

Meanwhile I did get a load of dishes run and mopped up the kitchen floor while the man worked on the HVAC.

This evening I took cardboard, plastics and metal to recycling and cleaned out my sink.  Don’t worry, this won’t last long.  I skipped the HOA meeting this evening.  Now for dinner and laundry.

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 25

24 January 2018

This evening after the class I took, I just wasn’t feeling the cleaning vibe.  At all.

I did get some groceries picked up and ran a load of dishes.

Tomorrow the HVAC people will be here in the morning, then work, then an HOA meeting.  We’ll see how many times I nod off. LOL.

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 24

2018 - Day 23

Yesterday I posted on Facebook:

So tired, but I attended a fun class after work, gassed up the car and picked up a few necessities at Costco before coming home.


Today:

After work I went to meet with the rep for the mortuary I have made my funeral arrangements with to get some paperwork taken care of, but he was running late, so I had him email me the paperwork.

I stopped off at Jimmy John's and picked up a turkey sub for dinner.  Yum.

When I got home, I ate, fed the cats, then started on some of the cleaning needed around the house. 

I bagged up a full bag of recycling - it was already full when I filled it even more with recycling out of cleaning the master bathroom vanity.

I took the bathroom trash out, it was completely full.

I ran a load of dishes - cat food bowls.

I took the kitchen trash to the bedroom so I could fill it up with a bag of kitty litter - changing the litter box - and then taking the bag out to the dumpster.

All this while transferring the load of laundry from last night from the washer to the dryer and running a new load of laundry in the washer.

I put the pet stuff I'm keeping on the pantry shelving where I keep the bowls for feeding the cats and removed a few more items off the dining room table.  It's slowly getting cleared off.

I took breaks in between the major stuff and watched some cleaning videos on YouTube.

Tomorrow I have a class after work and then I need to come home so I can do more cleaning around the house.  I have HVAC people coming Thursday morning to do an audit of the system and an HOA meeting Thursday night.  Friday night?  I will probably crash into bed once everyone gets fed. 

My life is so exciting, huh?  LOL.

Peter Walsh - Day 23

Angela's Budget Bookcamp - Day 23

Peter Walsh - Day 22

How To ADHD

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 22

Angela's Budget Bootcamp - Day 21

Peter Walsh - Day 21

Under The Sink - Master Bath

I didn’t take before pictures, but here is the after.  I need to do something with the first aid, I have 3 stations in my home where I only need two.

Strangest find:  the rods that used to be on the walls (for towels).  These were the ones that the walls would not hold up, even with anchors.  They are metal, so they are now in the recycling bin.

Peter Walsh - Days 5-20 of Organzing

Angela's Budget Bootcamp Days 6-20

Recuperating

This weekend’s word is recuperation.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had some work done on the house, meanwhile I continued to do some spot cleaning here and there when I could.

On the 9th of January I had a new hot water heater installed.

On the 17th I had a new HVAC system installed.  After a few no-heat nights, the furnace was fixed (aka turned on) from the installers so now things are working good here.

In the midst of all of this, I awoke this past Thursday morning feeling like I had been hit by a truck.  My inability to sleep well at nights right now, coupled with sinus issues and (I guess) coughing issues not only had me with a completely blocked nasal passages, but also what appears to be bruised ribs.  I’ve been in considerable pain the last few days, so this weekend will be recuperation weekend.  Laundry and dishes will probably be the extent of any cleaning.

I’m also going to need to do some recuperation financially, as I used up pretty much all of my home improvement sinking fund, so a spending freeze except for necessities is also now going.

The good news out of all of this was some much needed phone calls and emails on unrelated personal matters has been taken care of.

A few photos:

My First Grove Order!

I’ve heard about Grove Collaborative and decided to give it a try.  I happened to be home getting a new HVAC system installed (HVAC = Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning) when the shipment arrived.  I haven’t had time to actually use any of it yet, but I’m looking forward to it!

My Latest Gadget

I love it.  It folds up when not in use and is not  permanently mounted to anything.

Link:  Bed Bath And Beyond

The LDS Section

The LDS section is an entire section (rather than a folder) on religious based apps.  Some are from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, others are from companies that specialize in areas of interest by the LDS population:  genealogy  or family history.  Some are used at Church, some are used outside of Church, all of which are great.

Entertainment

The Entertainment folder is for the specific apps for specific companies providing news and entertainment viewing.  The only generic app here is the Apple TV remote, which doesn’t get used that often on the iPad Pro.

One More Item Off My To Do List

Over the course of his past week, I made little bits of progress in moving the stuff that was left in the extra storage unit moved over to the main storage unit I’ve used for Mom’s stuff.  I’m hoping, with planning, purging and home improvements, I will be able to clear all of that out, scan what I want to keep, recycle what I don’t want and find new homes for the items placed in the main unit.

This morning I was able to empty out the final filing cabinet that was in the extra unit, and after boxing up the contents and moving those boxes to the main storage unit, I was able to move and lift the filing cabinet into the back end of my car, even being able to close the hatchback lid all the way down.

I now have everything together, a receipt showing I closed the extra storage unit, and a little more sanity to what was a crazy year last year.

This part, at least, is finished.

Shopping

The Shopping folder contains the apps for the stores I use most, interior design (Houzz) and the apps for delivery companies.  Many of these apps assist in also tracking any kind of reward amounts as well.

Writing

The Writing section contains not only the apps used for writing, but also the apps containing tools used in writing.  iCard Sort is basically the equivalent of using 3X5 cards to organize the series of events and plot points.  Writer’s App is the app used in previous versions of iOS to write scenes as well as writing out the biographies of characters and basic overviews of plots.  Files is the Apple file folder holding documents or other media written and created by the user.  Dictionary is just that, a dictionary app for word usage.  The one I haven’t used yet, but recently purchased, is Scrivener, and from what I understand it combines some of these other apps into one.

Reading Apps

The Reading folder contains the apps I use for reading all kinds of digital media, whether it’s books or PDF’s (iBooks, Kindle Nook), eMagazines (Oprah, iCreate, Money) News and Information (NPR, News, Wikipedia, Pocket).

Outside of the LDS section of Apps, this is where I store most kind of reading materials.

Productivity

The Productivity section consists of most of the apps I use to handle my schedule, to do lists, notes and contacts.

For To Do Lists:  Reminders is good, Planner Plus, Home Routines, Focus Matrix & Be Focused Pro are the ones destined for To Do Lists.

Planner Plus works with your Apple Calendar to better schedule your day, while Focus Matrix and Be Focused Pro help to prioritize what needs to be done to make sure the most important stuff is getting done first.  Home Routines I have for basic to do lists (which home improvements I need to make and what order to get them done) as well as my lists for Walmart Shopping, Costco Shopping, and held my grocery lists for Mom.  I also used it to handle the to do list for Mom’s probate to make sure everything got done that needed to be done.

Day One is great for journaling and Trello is for larger scale projects.

Social Media

Social Media, for me is media that allows for conversations online.  I’ve also added some non-social internet sources as well.

The basics:  Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Twitter are found.  Also found is Goodreads, Pinterest and Instagram for crafts, hobbies and self education.  Along with that, I’ve added Wolfram Alpha (STEM meets Google Search Engine) and Weebly (one of the products I use for web page design) to the mix.

What’s On My iPad Pro?

I’ve talked about YouTube and some of my selections for YouTube.  The same holds true with apps I put on my iPad Pro.  Let me cover a few, but here are the main screens:

I utilize a lot of the folders with the exception of a few items that are used frequently.  On the bottom is the “dock” similar to the ones used on Mac computers.  The three apps to the right are the last 3 opened, but others are ones used frequently, and you can easily change the dock.  The other space that is all it’s own is my LDS screen, which has some (not all) of the LDS and genealogy apps.

The other folders of apps are pretty much defined by the title to the folder.  I have a Social Media, Reading, Writing, Shopping and Entertainment (including News) folders, among others.  Within those I have the apps I use the most.  I’ll cover more in future posts.

Games

Games are my sanity check.  When the stress reaches a certain point and my brain needs a time out, this is where I go.  Solitaire is the game of choice when I need to just take a break.

House Hunt is another sanity break, it requires a little brain work involving memory use.

Sudoku, Wood Puzzle, Maijong, Pipe Free and Sugar Sugar are games requiring different levels of strategy.  These require problem solving and force your brain to focus on what you are doing in the game.

Wixie is a web based app that is for drawing and graphics creation used in schools.

Recycling Is Done For The Week

I didn’t get to it as much last week, plus with the decluttering I’ve been doing I had quite a haul!  There will be more to come!

January 9, 2018

It was a dark, stormy night...

But, given the start to my day, I did take a little bit of time to clear a little bit of clutter off the dining room table.  It’s not finished yet, but I did spend a good 20 minutes on it.

And today:

Slow Progress

Sunday was a day for some rest before going back to work.

Monday was work, then going over to the extra storage unit to move the boxed stuff to the main storage unit.

Tuesday (today) was spent getting the hot water heater replaced before finishing the day at work.

Then I took a brand new microwave oven from the extra storage unit and donated it.

Now I’m at Culver’s enjoying a burger, shake and concrete mixer for dessert.  Yum.

A Few More Bins From IKEA Used

These were all on sale!  The white bin for cough medication, the small green one for my keys and such.

I Guess It’s Been Six Weeks

My pilgrimage to JC Penny continues, along with a 70% off after Christmas haul.

From The Penny Hoarder

Companies who will give you free coupons.  This doesn’t mean the products are free, but at least you don’t need to buy a newspaper if you want access to coupons from these companies.

Click here for the article.

Day 5 - 31 Days To Organize

I didn’t take before pictures but this is what I came up with.  I will need to go through and decide what to donate tomorrow.  Funny, I’ve already done a purge of socks, so this isn’t all. Some I wear for work, others I wear for Church.  I have thicker socks I use for hiking, camping and sleeping in a larger bin that is going in the closet.  I’m glad I picked up the organization tools at IKEA today.

Update 1 - Charging Station

I thought I’d try to put this together, but I couldn’t get the base back on.  It still looks good, though!

I Knew It Wouldn’t Last The Month

I have to laugh at myself.  No spend January?  With everything I need to get done in January?  Really?

Yeah, I spent today.  LOL.

The closing probate papers came in the mail last night, so I went this morning to the credit union so that my signatures would be notarized.  I had already prepared them, plus the annual payment for my life insurance policy, to be mailed, I just didn’t seal the envelope with the papers inside.  Once I went to the credit union (I went the Phoenix branch just up the road from the main post office), I went to the post office and sent everything off.

Then I drove to Deseret Industries and dropped off a bag of donations.  I’ve already started on the next bag.

Afterwards I went to Costco and got the cat food and groceries I needed without having to set foot in Walmart.

I went home and put things away.

Then I loaded part of the recycling in the car, took it over and then went to IKEA.  The original goal was to get one of those sets of drawer dividing boxes, but once there, I saw they had a bunch of stuff on clearance.  By the time I got out of there, I had a bag full of stuff (which I know I will be able to use at some point) totalling $35.00. Not bad.  I won’t go into how much I spent at Costco, given the new vacuum cost over $100.

Some of the stuff I’ve ordered in December is also starting to come in as well!  I still have to go pick up my order at Best Buy that I ordered last month and had it shipped to the store.

I’ve also emailed the HVAC people to re-schedule my appointment for next Wednesday to the week after.

I still have not done the socks today for the 31 days of organization, I need to feed the cats and myself first, then I’ll get to work.

Pictures:

Costco Haul:

In an effort to be more eco-friendly, I now plan to use stainless steel straws.

Yes, I have this on ebook, but I wanted a hard copy to highlight and mark up.  Also, if you haven’t see the movie I ordered along with it, you haven’t lived.  :-)

IKEA Haul: