Sunday 7 & Resolutions

[neadods]

Last year, I printed a big retrospective on What I Accomplished In A Year. This year, you can use the "resolutions" tag if you care. Me, I'm... enduring.

Having four days off - truly off, no proposal work or any other take-home stuff - is amazingly helpful. Yesterday I did grocery shopping and wrapped presents (the gang here has the present exchange early January instead of at/before Christmas). Since I'd done all my present shopping in Italy, that made things easy. No furoshiki this year, but I have plenty of wrapping paper, and most of the things were small anyway, as they'd been schlepped in the Barbie Memorial horror for a week.

I also started the house deep cleaning, and that progresses into "scrub day" today - I'm going to declutter and seriously wash down my bedroom, the downstairs bathroom, and the kitchen. The hope is to get all the big sweaty stuff out of the way today so that I can relax for the next couple of days balling yarn, knitting, updating Team TARDIS and putting it on Teaspoon, and spamming my resume across the various local sites.

There is a Sunday 7 (I think I'm going to keep up that weekly posting, although I am no longer going to promise to have specifically seven things.) I'm freecycling a set of earrings, the VHS versions of some Christmas movies, some china bowls with lids (they turned out not to be watertight, and thus not good for bento), a watch that was a giveaway from some store, and a couple of those recipe holders where you slide in index cards. (While I have the subscription to Fine Cooking, I want to use a binder, so I can rip articles right out, punch, and bind them.)

This week, M & I will be reducing the cardboard rubble to just a couple of boxes. (We save boxes, mostly Amazon ones, all year long so they're there for mailing and boxing presents. Everything is sent, so all the remainder boxes get recycled.)

I've canceled the newspaper subscription as of the first. It's one less piece of clutter, and anything I miss I can probably find online. Besides, considering the number of promotions they're running at any one time, I can probably restart it much cheaper if I want.

I've also canceled getting up early to walk and shower before work. The endorphins of exercise were not compensating for the resultant lack of sleep. So I have to figure out where to fit that back into the day, but the morning yoga/evening strength exercises remain.

Oh, and thanks to M, I've accomplished the ultimate declutter. My library was originally a dining room, with a chandelier at face-level smack in the middle of it. Until now, I'd had a very cluttered table under it. She figured out how to loop up the chandelier so that it's secure but overhead, and we cleared off the table to put the tree on it. When the tree comes down, the table goes in the basement... and the room that had been so cluttered for two years that there were only pathways through it will have *nothing* in it except the bookshelves and their contents and one basket of stuff to go on eBay. Huzzah!

Oh, and one last random comment. Turkey curry with the Christmas leftovers? Fab idea!

One more last random comment: considering how stressful things have been, I wonder if I can work a "weekly pamper" into my schedule somehow to help destress. Something inexpensive (or better yet free) but that is just for me. An hour set aside for a bubble bath, or a trip to The Book Thing or some such other treat. Trying to find 52 things of that ilk will be something soothing to plot about.

STUFF I DID
RtE Book Reviews published:
- Lye in Wait
- The Bloody Tower
- A Tisket, A Tasket, A Fancy Stolen Casket
Wrote
- The Amazing Team TARDIS
Knitalong status: 18 out of 55 blocks done
Homekeeping:
- Completed Sunday 7*

*Technically, I still have parts of the basement to clear and there will continue to be things that I can get rid of every week. But I have done such massive purging of the areas that are commonly used that I think it is time to turn my attention towards renovating and reorganizing them, rather then dealing with every last corner of the basement.


STUFF I GOTTA DO in 2008
1 - Shift old VHS programs onto DVD
2 - Clothing renovation
- 2a - Remake working and daily wardrobe
- 2b - Sew new rennie garb and embroider/tailor what needs tailored
3 - Repair garage door
4 - Rearrange/reorganize/repaint/redecorate house*
- 4a - Office
- 4b - Living Room
- 4c - Library
- 4d - Bedroom
- 4e - Basement (declutter and reorganize)
5 - Complete one large knitting project (Nea Knitalong blanket)
6 - Empty mending basket (Spring) (Fall)
7 - Plan and budget for next trip to England
8 - Shift old vinyl and cassettes to .mp3
9 - Get house painted (at least the two outside walls that really need it)
10 - Renovate bathroom
11 - Organize and clear hard drive


*Because this is such a big job - at least for me; M is a wiz at it - I'm going to break it down into a room a month, so I don't feel I need to do it ALL all at once.

STUFF I'M THINKING ABOUT DOING
- Knit godmother lace for renfaire chemises
- Soapmaking
- Cheesemaking
- Make "Doctor Clue" game
- Write Time War fic
- Write Jack-POV 9/R/J OT3 fic
- Write 10/M/J fic
- Write "Joan agrees to join Team TARDIS" fic
- write Martha and Sarah Jane team up fic
- write Jack & Estelle knitting fic
- write Jack brings Jack through time fic
- write Doctor discovers the "free hug" campaign fic
- Ianto or Jack/Ianto fanmix (or both)
- Martha fanmix

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*tries not to bounce too hard at the thought of all the lovely fic you might write*

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've been adding and adding to the list to make sure that I don't forget. Sooner or later things *are* going to calm down, and I'll be able to put all the stuff that's in my head down on phosper.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*Starts sending out good vibes to the universe for calmness for you...*

That would be good - very good - fantastic ! :D

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

it will have *nothing* in it except the bookshelves and their contents

Huzzah!

Turkey curry with the Christmas leftovers? Fab idea!

And a great British tradition. :-D

[neadods.livejournal.com]

And a great British tradition

*is clueless American* Seriously?

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Dude, curry is our national dish. You can buy curry sandwiches in the supermarket (although not called that). We'd curry mince pies if it was possible.

Brits have traditionally had smaller poultry than USians, and more people have traditionally eaten other roast meats, but since HUGE turkeys became popular the rule has become: roast dinner then cold leftovers in sandwiches then curry. The end. :-)

[lagilman]

Dude, curry is our national dish.

Also known as "Indians arrived in London, were bored by the bland meats available, said 'here, try these spices' and an entire people groveled in culinary gratitude and then went out and overdid it."

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

British Asian curry manufacturers export their products to India. No, rly!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

!!!!!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

We'd curry mince pies if it was possible.

You could always dump a little curry powder in. Ew, but you could do it. :>

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Actually... if we went back to the old recipe which had real minced meat in it... it'd be interesting to try because you'd mostly end up with curry + chutney pies. ::plots experiment::

[neadods.livejournal.com]

That sounds... kind of interesting, actually.

[mevennen.livejournal.com]

Spiralsheep speaks verily. The national dish is Chicken Tikka Masala, which I think is an Anglo-British dish, i.e. invented in Bradford rather than Mumbai.
We have now done the trad turkey curry and are now sick of that, as well, hence last night's desperate excursion to the local Chinese takeaway.

Some friends of mine, OTOH, dispensed with the turkey altogether at Xmas and just cooked a curry instead.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Some friends of mine, OTOH, dispensed with the turkey altogether at Xmas and just cooked a curry instead

My father's salt issues won't let us get away with that, but it was a very nice change from regular cold turkey. (Although as soon as I got back home, I swiped some of my roomie's ham for a change.)

[lagilman]

Trying to find 52 things of that ilk will be something soothing to plot about.


Not only do I think that is a fabulous idea, I think it's a noble goal for us all, and I am borderline tempted to turn it into a comm. 52_indulgences, anyone?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Oh, hell yes! Because right now I can only think of three: Book Thing, bubble bath, redeeming AmEx points. There *must* be more out there, and more useful ones.

I'll let you run the comm, but if you start it, I'll advertise it.

[lagilman]

I should warn you, I run comms the same way I raise houseplants -- benign neglect and a total lack of surprise when they die....

(okay, that's maligning my modest green thumb. But you get the idea)

[neadods.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, so?" says the person with two dead comms on her credit, and one moribund one - that's why I want *you* to start it!

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Hey, that does sound interesting! And I could use some non-food-style ideas for indulgences; my idea of "giving myself a treat" tends to default to chocolate more often than not.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Food is way too often a treat for me as well, and it will probably stay so... but I'm hoping to find ways of treating myself that don't require a lot of money, and as little as $5 a week adds up quickly.

[lagilman]

All right all right. I'll do it. But it's going to have to pretty much run itself...

http://community.livejournal.com/52_indulgences/profile

[neadods.livejournal.com]

YAY!

[lagilman]

now go shill it, damn it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've put in a plug in my latest spam, but I'm noticing the numbers climb without it!

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I would totally love to see the "Doctor Clue" game!

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I've been sitting on that one for a couple of years. I need to find myself a very cheap game of Clue that I can remake.

You'll know when I get around to making it, because I'll be tapping the f-list for inspiration. I can only think of two rooms on the TARDIS...

[aligoestonz.livejournal.com]

write Doctor discovers the "free hug" campaign fic

Oh man, I can just imagine. I would love to see that. (this is not meant to imply any attempt at duress on my part)

[tchwrtr.livejournal.com]

1. A library needs two more things: a comfortable chair and a decent reading lamp. And somewhere to put that cup of tea--the shelf next to the chair will work for that.

2. I want *on* that pampering list! That said, here's a few more ideas:
Self-done spa pedicure--cost you all of nail polish, and a possible outlay for salts, lotion, pumice stone. All of which will have more than one session's worth of use. Could also translate to a manicure another day.
Doing *nothing* for an afternoon. (THAT is luxury for me these days!)
Take a nap. There's an art to resting...we should all take some time to practice it.
Learn self-massage of hands and feet. Or make that a big seasonal splurge to get one from someone else.

If I think of others, I'll send them your way...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

There is a chair in there, although the light is bad - it's more a place to corral the books for reading elsewhere.

It's looking like Suri's going to suggest that one of us pop up a post a week. When you put up yours, can you tell *how* to do your own pedi? Because yoga or not, I'm kinda sucking at that kind of flexibility. I can't even manage to give myself a mani, and that is a skill I would very much like to learn.

[fyrdrakken]

Got my first ever spa pedicure (with manicure thrown in as an afterthought) last summer when I was visiting a friend in Houston, got another couple here at home before concluding that I really did have better things to spend $30-40 on and that I've had enough practice doing my own nails over the years that the results I get on my own are as good or better. (Because I actually take time to shape my fingernails neatly, whereas the women at the salons were rushing right through them -- and in some cases actually filing rough edges onto nails I'd already shaped myself.) The advantage of having a DIY mother -- been experimenting with her nail polish since I was in elementary school, and was pretty good at it by high school. It's a comes-with-practice kind of thing. (Though I guess there are a few hints, like trying to cover a nail with three strokes of the brush, or giving 2-5 minutes between coats, or realizing that you need to spend the next half hour or so after the final coat being super careful where you put your hands because it takes that long for the polish to dry all the way down. Oh, and do your feet first, then your dominant hand, then the non-dominant hand. Because it's easier to use the dominant hand to polish the other one without smudging the fresh coat on the dominant hand, than the other way round.)

Mmm -- maybe look into yoga poses that really stretch out your legs, and practice being able to bend right down over your legs, too? I'm used to basically bending the knee up, heel against rear, and wrapping an arm around the bent leg to get to the foot I'm working on.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

basically bending the knee up, heel against rear, and wrapping an arm around the bent leg

That may work - I've been tending to try to come at things sideways, which is doing pedicure and posture no favors!

I can ask you what I was going to ask the rest of LJ then - what tools have you been using? Because I'd like to go back to the weekly manicures at least, but after a month of *that* even at the cheap place by me, I might as well invest in a set of tools and learn the job myself.

[fyrdrakken]

Oh, let's see. I tend not to bother with my cuticles (one can push them back with an orangewood stick), and I'm prone to dealing with hangnails by nibbling them off (instead of using a cuticle scissor), but I do a lot of nail-filing. (It's how I broke myself of biting my nails -- I got given a little mani/pedi set when I was ten or twelve or something, and from then on I'd use the file to deal with snags and chips instead of trying to nibble them smooth, which had invariably led to me ripping the nail off down to the quick. Once I switched to filing I was able to start growing them long.)

Emery boards are supposedly best for the nail, but I've got a few metal files I use for quick-and-dirty shaping and then I use the smooth side of the emery board to finish up the edge. (Emery boards wear out -- the grit comes off, the layers peel apart -- but I think I've still got that metal file from that first manicure kit. But emery boards are cheap, and you can carry one in your purse and not worry about airport security -- I've had to trash a file at a security checkpoint once.) I've heard it recommended both to only ever move the file in a single direction (not back-and-forth), and to file from the edges towards the center. Also, when I'm trying to actually shorten my nails, I use a nail scissors and then shape them with a file or emery board, rather than trying to grind them down short. (In fact, I use the scissors every few weeks, when my nails are reaching the point of being too long to be convenient, or when I've broken one or two off and want to shorten the others to match, or when one nail has gotten sufficiently mangled -- broken off jaggedly or peeling at the edges -- that I want to trim a lot away.) I do filing as an ongoing maintenance thing -- whenever one gets broken, or I've got rough edges snagging my yarn when I'm knitting. It's only when I trim my nails (like I did this morning) or am making sure they all look good for an impending polish that I sit down and work my way through all ten nails. (Toenails I barely bother with -- I've never really bothered with the clippers, I use the scissors and cut them as close to the quick as I can because I'm trying to keep them from snagging my socks or hose. And there was a painful learning curve in terms of how far back not to cut on my big toes to keep them from getting ingrown. I used to file on my toenails, too, but nowadays I don't bother.)

If I'm being really swank about it, I don't just trim and shape but actually use a buffer on the fingernails. They sell 3-in-1 buffers for cheap -- start with the roughest to smooth away the ridges, and by the time you're down to the slick side you wind up with shiny nails. Not always necessary, but sometimes a nail will be ridged enough that you see irregularities when the polish goes on.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

*takes lots and lots of notes, because I'm really very poor at the whole mani-pedi thing*

[fyrdrakken]

It would probably be a good thing to go ahead and ask the rest of your friends list, anyway -- I have some degree of competence in polishing my own nails but I'm by no means an expert.

[fyrdrakken]

Once you get down to the polish, it's honestly down to practice -- learning the properties of nail enamel, and how to get it to go where you want it to be, not too thick or too thin. Like I said, toenails then dominant hand then non-dominant, and give a little drying time between layers and a lot when you're done. Nail polish stays gloopy for a surprisingly long time -- it's kind of disheartening when you mess up a stroke on the third layer and see your brush leaving streaks of bare nail showing, but worse to get through an entire manicure and then wind up with smudging or fingerprint embossing on a finished-but-not-yet-dry nail. Keep a bottle of nail polish remover and some cotton balls on hand.

Oh, and polish winds up on the skin bordering the nails, too. You can carefully clean up the worst of the splatter with a Q-tip dunked in remover -- or a special manicure tool that's like a pointy Q-tip on one end and an orangewood stick on the other, but I wouldn't bother with buying those when I have Q-tips on hand -- but since dried polish comes right off skin when you wash your hands (and maybe scrape a wee bit with your fingernails, once the polish is good and dry of course) I tend to be very careful about how close I let that Q-tip get to my finished nails.

Lots of recommendations for base coats to strengthen the nails and topcoats to help prevent smudging and chipping of the polish. I haven't found any that seem to really work as promised, though I still try base coats on occasion when my nails aren't happy about being polished too frequently.

Last time I rummaged through a nail products aisle (right about the point I decided to skip the salon and save my money) I got some wee decals and some French manicure guide stickers. I enjoyed the decals when I used a pair on my big toes in my last manicure (lo these many months ago -- actually, I'm tempted to do my nails again this coming weekend), but found out the hard way that I needed to give my main color more time to dry before trying to put removable stickers across them. (When I peeled the guides away, bits of polish came away on a few nails, and I had to spackle over the bare spots with more of the main color.)

[fyrdrakken]

Oh, and you can have some fun trying to find brands of nail polish you really like. My favorite is apparently no longer made, but I've had some fair results with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails. Really, I'm prone to buying based on color, and then finding out whether the kind I'm trying is long-lasting or chips on the first day.

Reading the ingredients label might be good -- there are some delightfully toxic compounds commonly used in nail polish. Use in a well-ventilated area -- if nothing else, they tend to have a smell you'd rather not be living with.