Unmotivated Today

Not like I'm wonderfully motivated most days.  Let's be honest.

But lately I've been re-arranging the house.  The two oldest kids are gone, and that gives me ... time.  It's weird.  So I've been de-cluttering, re-arranging, etc., etc.

Painting

First order of business was to finish painting the living room.  If you remember, it's been half-painted since April.  For a while I thought of keeping it that way.  It was like a Stress Time Line.  Our stress levels went up and on April 15th (or so), it was finally too much for me.  The painting stopped. 

People offered to help me finish painting the room.  I refused their help.  Not because I was trying to be ungrateful, but because, as a symbolic gesture, I needed Rob to help me finish the job.  ...  Maybe other people don't routinely make simple tasks symbolic statements.  ...  So this last weekend Rob helped me paint the living room.  He's had his new job for 2 weeks.  Not coincidental timing.

It's only all-white.  No need to get excited.

Re-arranging and De-cluttering

Then we re-arranged the living room.  Gone is the massive, falling-apart entertainment center.  We put the TV on top of the old fish tank table, and put the whole unit in the corner.  The piano sits where the entertainment center used to.  Then the computer desk went downstairs, into the cat's room.  ...  Our computer is dead anyway, and I'm using a laptop.  Laptops don't need a set station.  So the rocking chair and a bookshelf are sitting where the desk used to.  (A small ikea bookshelf that matches the awesome corner bookshelf is now on our to-be-purchased list.  And a piano bench is also on that list.)

Miciah told me I needed to send her pictures so she could get used to things.  So here are some pictures.

The living room, from the corner between the 2 couches:

(The white stuff in plastic under the piano ... that's 2 shelves that will be mounted in our kitchen, to finally complete it.)

From the front door:

And the computer desk downstairs:

The toy room got re-arranged, too, and toys were donated to Salvation Army.  Hurray!

In the last few weeks we've even de-cluttered the garage!  It's been great.  (You don't need pictures of our garage.  I mean, seriously.)

I am now on a new quest:  To own only things that are Valuable to us.  Not just things that are nice.  Things that are Valuable.  And there's a huge difference.  We could halve our movie collection, for starters.  Own a few less books, too.  And I've already gone through about half of the toys.  The other half awaits.

So, after re-arranging and painting all weekend, going to bed exhausted, I'm feeling very unmotivated today.  Though I did do the dishes.  And I'm cleaning out the fridge intermittently because I realized that I haven't cleaned it since fall 2008 and, oh yeah, it smells gross. 

Hurray for the Motivated-Unmotivated Cycle that is alive and well in Tamra's life!