September Challenges

Alright, it’s time for September’s challenges for my 52 Weeks Challenge. Some of my challenges from last month will be carried over, but I will be adding four new ones to balance it all out. First up the carried over challenges:
→Declutter apartment room by room
→Give away TV
→Give away/sale oversized desk in living room
→Use up pre-packaged items in apartment
These are now my “on-going” challenges. Declutter the apartment speaks for itself. Remember the motto is “less is more” and I’m gonna learn this lesson if it kills me. The only thing that I’ve gotten rid of and actually gone looking for are my herbal heat wraps. In truth they are too heavy when I’m in pain, so I’m looking into finding some hot water bottles via Freecycle to help with my cramps and when I’m cold. The TV is still earmarked for my sister to come get, though I may put it up on Craig’s List if she doesn’t get it in the next two weeks. I can use my desktop as my movie playing station. The desk will go up on Craig’s List once I finish cleaning it off. And finally pre-packaged items are slowly disappearing, the end of the dish washing soap is in sight, I just keep using the dish washer less and less.

EDIT: Just as I was typing this all up my sister called me out of the blue and wanted to pick up the TV. She just happened to be in the area (which never happens) and I drove home for my lunch break and let her and her boyfriend, with five kids in toe, pick it up. Yeah! Another one down. Although I had to explain to her way I had no toilet paper as the kids where asking for it and she wanted some too. She thought it was weird, but shrugged it off as me just being her weird little sister.

Now for the new challenges. Challenge #1 this month is to turn down the AC and keep it down. I’ve been getting better about this one, but when it’s 90+ degrees in my apartment I cave after 1 day. So hopefully the cool weather is moving in, and I can keep the AC down all weekend (which is really the only time it gets turned up, unless I forget to turn it back down).

Challenge #2 this month is to get my body moving. I’ve been feeling a bit blah lately and haven’t been doing much of anything. For this I’m going to start doing the Five Tibetan Rites every morning. It will only take me a few minutes to do, and it will give me a (hopefully) burst of energy in the mornings.

Challenge #3 is DivaCup mastery, or at the very least an attempt. This will be a two-month challenge where I will use my DivaCup for at least 48-hours of my cycle.

Challenge #4 shutting down the desktop and laptop when not in use and unplugging any electric appliances not on switches or power strips when not in use.

I think these are good challenges for September. And hey, it’s already off to a good start with my sister picking up the TV right?

August update for 52 Weeks

Well August is almost up so I'd thought I'd give an update on my August challenges.


I have given up using handicap parking spaces about 90% of the time (including at work).  If I can find another park I'm using that instead of the handicap park.  My only concessions has been at the movies last night, only once at the grocery store, once on my Fast and Furious Road Trip when there were no other parks.  At work I try not to park in the handicap spaces and I've even had someone ask me about it.  They thought I might have lost the handicap privilege because I hadn't been using it, but once I explained I was trying to save the spaces for other people on days I was feeling up to it.  At least people are noticing this change.


I switched to an eco-friendly laundry detergent and I'm loving it.  It smells wonderful and the little bottle is still going strong.  I'm definitely happy about this change.


I've made several trips to the Salvation Army, and my decluttering has slowed down tremendously because I've done the bulk of it.  There is still a good bit left to do, but it's no where near as much as when I started off at the beginning of the summer.  Freecycle and Craig's list seem to be a little more difficult to get results from, but I haven't completely counted them out.  I give them a go and no luck they go to the Salvation Army.


The flat iron is gone, and this week was the first time that I wanted it back.  But that was only because I was sick and didn't want to mess with my hair.  I wanted to quick and easy solution of straightening my bangs one more when I didn't wake up in time to shower before work.


Now for the challenges I didn't complete this month:
→Declutter apartment room by room
→Give away TV
→Give away/sale oversized desk in living room
→Use up pre-packaged items in apartment
→Walk or bike to cafe to use WiFi


The decluttering is still on going.  I hit a down period where I felt like I just wasn't accomplishing anything, but since I've finally (after a month of badgering) gotten my dad to come take my hutch and chest of drawers away I feel like some breathe has been breathed into my efforts.


My sister has get to come get my TV.  Her car broke down, so they've been trying to get that fixed and find time when she and her boyfriend are off work. Hopefully she will be able to come pick it up soon.


I've still got to finish cleaning off my desk in the living room before I can give it away.  I'm hoping that I can finish it some time in September.  I've got to do some rearranging in order to get this one done.  But again with the illness and stalling in the decluttering effort I don't feel too bad that it hasn't be completed because I did make a huge dent in the massive piles of junk that once lived on my desk.


I'm slowly using up the prepackaged items in the apartment.  This is going to be an on going project, but progress is progress and I'm feeling happy about this one.


As for as biking or walking to the VRE station to use the WiFi didn't happen.  I'm going to blame the heat on this one and then my health.  I will put this one the back burner for now and make a smaller exercise commitment for September.

This week...

I'm alive, but haven't been feeling too grand lately. I'm still not feeling too good today, but I finally got some much needed sleep last night which will hopefully help me kick whatever has infected my body. Due to my illness I feel like I've fallen off the Buy Nothing Challenge bandwagon with my over consumption of fast food this week.  I had manage to go the entire Buy Nothing Challenge without my beloved fast food breakfast, but said illness made me crumble and I bought breakfast two or three times this week, plus fast food for diner/lunch at least another three times, and then there was my pizza extravaganza on Friday night.  The only non food purchase I made this week was a trip to the movie theatre last night after I gave my cat Oscar to my parents for good.  I was very upset because Oscar is my first cat, but since the last time he spent a week at my parents' house he's been peeing on my furniture.  So he is the first of my cats to be rehomed before I hear about a new job.  I am confident that I'm going to hear something soon, it just sucks not hearing.  I really would like to hear soon, but I've got around 40 applications in so something got to come up sooner or later.

I Declare War on Junk Mail

How many people dread going to the mailbox and finding it full of junk mail? I know junk mail has become as evil as bills. The amount of junk mail received in one week via my mailbox is ridiculous and I am declaring ware on it. Every piece of unsolicited mail will have the sender contacted to remove me from their mailing list! My first victim today was the nasty mailer that’s got all the store ads but no coupons from Valassis (I only found this after I looked where the address was and found the name in tiny print). I located their website and discovered they have an opt-in/opt-out request form located here. Lets see how this works.

Neti Pot

I have had some major congestion for the last week or so. My poor sinus ache and I’ve got a hacking cough thanks to that lovely post nasal drip. After a week of suffering, I finally plucked up the courage to purchase a neti pot on my grocery run yesterday. The neti pot is used to clean the nasal passages by rinsing them out with warm salt water. It’s like saline nose spays except that it runs out the other nostril instead of just wetting everything to drip down the back of your throat. My first attempt wasn’t the greatest, and I quickly had to add more water to keep it from burning. Hopefully after a few more days I’ll become a little more adept at the process and start to reap the benefits of clear nasal passages.