(no subject)

I was vastly amused to see that Target now has an aisle in the cosmetics department for stuff from "Boots, Britain's Health and Beauty Expert." Do Tesco's or Boots have anything from the exotic American "CVS chain"? Or Target - naturally pronounced to rhyme with Hyacinth Bucket?

On Conventions

General questions about conventions:

What did you wish you knew before you went to your first conventions? What was helpful that people told you, what mistakes did you make, what jargon didn't you understand? If you're on your way to your first con, what do you wonder or worry about?

Tell Auntie Nea so she can mine it for an article she's working on answer your questions.

Sunday 7, a few hours early

I've been beavering away in the library (that sounds so much smuttier than it really was) and have cleared off the table, the chair next to it, and 1/2 of the stacks under the table. After dinner, I'm going to deal with the rest of the area around the table. This does *amazing* things to the clutter in the library, actually, reducing it to an already half-cleared chair by the wall, a milk crate overflowing with stuff, and some miscellaney in a corner. I'm taking part of tomorrow off to play with the lifeonmartha drabble challenge again, but if I apply myself, I might even have the whole library done by the time I leave for ChicagoTARDIS.

Which means not only will I not have to come *back* to more library clearing, I'll only have the basement to do and I will be done with the major decluttering of the whole house!

WHOO HOOOO!

Oh, I'm expecting to have more crap to get rid of in the organizing stage, but the mounds and mounds of clearing? Will be done. And I'm going to try to apply an internal house version of the Broken Window law, so that I'm nipping stuff in the bud with a routine similar to the one I had before the maids:

Monday - quick dust, all rooms downstairs
Tuesday - sweep bedroom, bathroom, & kitchen
Wednesday - water plants (and compile soniclipstick)
Thursday - market run, wipe down bathroom surfaces
Friday - odd jobs*
Saturday - grocery run, vacuum living room and library
Sunday - pick up a room and/or clear out a basket**

*The little things that add up - binders that need to be brought up to date, filing, mending, clipping articles out of set-aside newspapers and tossing the rest, etc. I figure if I do them regularly, I won't be eating up whole weekends with an accumulation of daunting TASKS that HAVE to be DONE NOW. Even if I only do one part of one thing per week, that's progress.

**I've been trying to shove a basket in any area that routinely gets cluttered, with the idea of at least containing the mess until I can pull it out and cope with it. And picking up a room, when I'm not in the middle of huge projects or distracted with other things, usually doesn't take that long. Because once again, if I catch the piles small, they aren't a big deal to clear up. It's like the homekeeping version of the broken window laws - nip small things in the bud and big things don't happen as often.

If I'm doing something else that night - going out, at a con, whatever - then that area gets skipped until the next week. Nothing will die of that, not even the plants. But at the same time, this is enough to keep the house clean and going, while leaving me time enough for *my* fantasy, which is to be able to make time to go out, or play online, or pick up a bigger project to do for fun.

Laundry isn't on the list because it gets done when it needs to be done, and that's flexible.

But anyway - on to the Sunday7:

TOSSED:
1 - two bags of trash from library

FREECYCLED:
2 - Christmas ornament
3 - wooden in-box
4 - note holders
5 - scarf
6 - ipod case
7 - universal remote