Not a Wasted Word

We interrupt our CDMX series for a quick recap on the weekend. It’s been a beautiful couple of days, and I’m sooooo glad I had them after our trip, and before returning to work.

Friday was a get some stuff done day and I did, indeed get some stuff done. I got everything from Friday’s post done except the work stuff. It is 11pm on Sunday night and I have still not opened my work browser. Oops! Oh well. I’ll have an hour before the kids come in tomorrow and I’m sure I’ll get through the day. I have my copies made at least! Woot! I’m a little annoyed at myself for not getting any work done, but it obviously wasn’t a priority for me so I’m going to accept that and move on.

But I did get to Costco, my husband and I talked about the coming weeks, I got one short and one long CDMX post published and I wrote most of Day 2’s post (I worked on it for almost an hour and it’s not done yet! – this project will definitely take longer than I initially expected), and I did my weight training. The weight training was so successful that I’ve barely been able to walk for the past 48 hours! I’m legs are so sore. I guess a 20 minute Lower Body class with 20lb weights was not the way to get back into it. Though the 10 minute chest and back, and 10 minute arms and shoulders didn’t take me out and they felt hard at the time. I’m really hoping my legs feel better tomorrow because hobbling around work will not be awesome.

Saturday I had to wake up at 6am to get my daughter to school for a robotics tournament. I tried to fall asleep after I got back at 7:15 but it didn’t happen. So I just got on with chores and stuff around the house. And I spent some time on my CDMX Day 2 post (which I hope will be up soon).

Then I went to the dojo. Luckily my legs weren’t hurting too badly yet, so I was able to participate in all the classes. The forms class was a little daunting because I realized that everyone else who is testing with me in April knows the form really well and I’ve only learned about 1/3 of it. It’s a really long form and I have a lot of work to do on it. I need to step up my efforts, considerably.

Saturday was a super beautiful day – sunny and the high was 70! I was a little bummed to be in the dojo for the best hours of it. My husband and son walked down to the dojo to get outside and we all walked home together. It was nice to be outside before the sun went down.

At home we played a game together and later that evening my son and I watched a movie. Oh and I got all the patches sewn on the gi’s. That was actually a lot of work and I’m so glad it’s done. My husband and I started a charmingly odd Italian movie on Friday night, but I was so zonked and had to wake up at the crack of dawn on Saturday so we stopped it early, and finished it Saturday night. All in all, Saturday was a super chill day.

Sunday I slept in until 10am! This was not the plan. I definitely woke up at 8am, when my husband got up to be with out son upstairs, but I must have passed out again because when I checked my phone again it was 9:57am. I guess I needed the sleep!

Sunday was supposed to be cloudy and a lot cooler than Saturday, but when I got up it was sunny and beautiful so I decided to take my son and a friend to the Great Highway again. Luckily the same friend was available, and this time I brought stuff to play in the sand afterward. My legs were very sore, but I could still run. It hurt, but less than walking. I’m hoping getting out on them will help them to feel better faster.

Being out in the sun and beautiful weather just felt so, so good. The kids had a great time and I was so happy to be running. I love when it works out for me to run while the kids bike on the weekend. It was awesome and I was so happy it worked out, that the weather held and the friend was available, and my sore legs were manageable. Also, my daughter had a friend over at home and VERY much appreciated me getting her brother out of the house. Hooray!

After the run/ride, we locked the bikes near the car and brought some sand toys down by the water. I realized all that sand would be a perfect spot to practice my form, which I worked on for over an hour. I REALLY needed the solo practice, and am SO glad I was doing it on a sunny beach, with the waves crashing around me, instead of in my backyard, where the sun still doesn’t reach the patio at this time of year. It was just a really amazing way to get something done I very much had to do, and to kill the time on the beach while the boys played.

And they did play! For almost two hours! Without any complaining! My son doesn’t really love sand so I expected he’d last a short time, but by 4pm I was telling them we had to leave. We packed everything up, got the bikes back on the car, and headed home.

The rest of the night was normal Sunday chore stuff. My son took a bath, I took a shower, the kids made their lunches, my son finished his math homework, my daughter read a book, my husband cooked dinner and I did the dishes. We finished it off watching a 40 minute documentary called Voyage of Time. It was pretty stunning, and our black cat was SUPER interested in all the sounds and images. We watched most of it like this:

And because I haven’t posted photos of these cats in a while, here are a few more. We really missed them on our trip and have been enjoying them a lot since we’ve been home.

It really was a nice weekend. Today (Sunday) especially was a really nice day. I love when it works out for me to take one kid out so another kid can have the house to themselves with a friend. I love when I can get what I need (a run) and my kid can get what they need (a ride and time with a friend). I love when the weather makes being outside feel amazing. I love when I’m in a space for the time I need to get something done I had to do anyway, and that the space and time make doing it that much more pleasant. I just love when it all comes together, and today it did.

Now it’s almost midnight and I NEED to get to sleep so I can have a decent first day back at work tomorrow. There is no way it will be as perfect as today, but it could be great. Or good at least. 😉

Getting to Mexico City was so easy. It was a non-stop flight that wasn’t delayed and was just a little over four hours long. We noticed, as we were leaving the plane that there was not one child on our flight. I can’t remember the last time I was on a flight with no kids!

Mexico City is two hours ahead of California so we got in around 7:30pm. We had no issues at Passport Control or Customs and we didn’t check luggage so our time in the airport was limited.

We took the Metro to our AirBnB. Evidently it should have been a short trip on just one line but that line is undergoing “obras” so we had to take a longer, more circuitous trip. It was still easy and pretty fast.

We got to our AirBnB around 9pm and immediately headed out for quick dinner. We went to Orinoco, which is basically the In-n-Out of Mexican food. The interior was all red and white. They have a limited menu and they get food out super fast. We started with just three tacos each and they were amazing.

After dinner we headed to our first of the three best bars in Mexico City. Our reservation was at 11:30pm and we weren’t sure we would make it, but since our travel was wrinkle free, we did!

Our reservation at Rayo started in a fancy elevator, where a waiter offered us a starter drink and explained a little about the bar.

Up in the bar, we were seated and another waiter brought us a light box, which he explained was the menu. The box held 10 small bottles with droppers and we were encouraged to tasted each of the drinks with the droppers, then order the ones we liked best. It was a very unique and amazing “menu.”

We each got three drinks, which were each amazing. We were so glad we had made it for this particular reservation.

We lingered at Rayo for quite a while, taking in the fact that we had made it to Mexico City and our five days had begun on the highest of high notes.

We finally made it back to our AirBnB around 2am. It was our only super late night out, and we had a really good time. It definitely set the stage for an amazing five days.

I’ve talked a lot about how, since our recent reorganization efforts, we’ve been able to keep the house tidy much longer than ever before. I think this is because I have been very pleasantly surprised to find some new solutions to old, persistent organizational problems recently. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve faced a problem and then just tackled it in the same way as always, only to find, after a while, that I’m failing at it again.

And maybe that does make sense, because some systems in my life serve me very well. My workout regimen generally works for me and I NEVER fall off the 4-5x a week workout regime I set myself. I don’t even have to think about it, it just happens (well I very much do have to think about it, I am always mentally taking note of when I’m going to work out and what I’ll do, but I don’t have to THINK about thinking about it, I just get it done.)

But the reality is that every big change I’ve made on the home front has required I try something radically different. The first big success was when we MarieKondo’ed the house. Taking all of everything in a category and going through it all at once was immensely helpful. We did that years ago and while the house always goes back to being messy and brimming with too much stuff, it’s never felt as hopeless as it did before that massive purge. That was definitely a turning point for us (and I still fold my clothes like she suggests!)

This time we didn’t do anything quite as drastic as a Marie Kondo purge, but we are tackling persistent problems in new ways, which makes me think maybe this time the affects will stick, or at least last longer.

The hallway closet is definitely one of those areas that I feel renewed hope about. Our house has very little built-in storage and one of the few closets is a very narrow space between the stairs and our daughter’s bedroom. Luckily the Billy basket shelves from IKEA fit in there, and I’ve repurposed some long, narrow boxes to better utilize the shelves, so we are able to use most of the space. But no matter how many times I’ve pulled it all out and reorganized it, it’s always ended up messy and it’s never been a space anyone else could really access. So if something was in there that someone else needed, I had to go find it.

Now, with the hanging door organizer, I can finally say, it’s in the closet; Look for the clear pouch that says “bandaids”. Because ALL THE POUCHES HAVE A LABEL! And even if what they want is in a drawer, now the drawers aren’t overflowing so they can see the extra toothpastes and the medicines. (The medicines actually got moved to the hall closet from the kitchen pantry, where they were DRIVING MY HUSBAND CRAZY for ten years. Just that simple move feels like a giant win.

But back to the labels. One of the things I purchased for this organizing attempt was a label maker. More than half of the professional organizers in Organized Living listed a label maker in their essential tool kit, and I found one on sale so I went for it. At first I used it quite sparringly, but then I realized that when I was forced to articulate what was in a box or drawer, I was much better at determining what should stay and what should go. Labeling also helps me return items to their spaces. And, in time, I hope it will help my family find what they need. So now I put labels on pretty much everything, even drawers that only I use and no one else really sees. The purpose is not so much to let other people know what is in a spot, but to remind myself.

There are more changes I want to make. I want to get a slat wall for the garage; the giant expanse at the back, where we pull the car in, has always felt under utilized and we have so many helmets and other bicycle accoutrements that could hang from one there. And guess I’m just newly inspired to think about different ways I can tackle old problems. I’m still at a loss in some spaces (laundry area in the garage – I’m looking at you!) but I finally feel hopeful that a different solution might be available if I keep looking (actually, I hung an accordion drying rack in the laundry area not too long ago and that was an absolute game changer).

These are some more the things I bought so we could tackle old problems in new ways. Most books about decluttering, including Organized Living (and Gill’s first book, Minimalista) urge you not to buy new storage containers, and at first I tried to follow that guidance. But when I despaired about reorganizing the tools or hall closet for the umpteenth time, I decided that trying something new was in order.

I will admit that I have been very extrinsically motivated to keep the house tidy this past month. I had so much on my plate without adding “re-organize everything you already worked on” to it. My desire to just keep moving forward, without needing to circle back, in my to-do lists was highly motivating. I was very good about completing tasks (not leaving items to put back later), and every time I walked through a room I identified stuff that didn’t belong and dealt with it immediately. Of course it is easy to identify items that need to be dealt with when the rest of the room is tidy, and it takes less time to put stuff away when I know where it goes.

I also found that I have been quicker to identify lingering issues and solve them, instead of just letting the problem persist. Little things like, I hate when my hair ties get tangles on them; I used to leave them all over and then finally gather up to cut the hair off a bunch at once, so I could put them into their little dish (a repurposed detergent measure). They were driving me crazy so I just got another little dish to keep the ones that needed attention until I was ready to give them that attention. Such a small fix, but I never thought to do it until now.

Maybe they had been the biggest change in mindset; the desire to keep everything neat has motivated me to just keep finding new ways to solve old problems. And having a tidy house as a baseline has helped me recognize which problems are persistent and need new solutions.

We left the house this morning ready for the cleaning person to come, and then our in-laws to stay. I have to say, it looks really nice. I have not felt so good about walking away from my house in a long while.

Thanks for taking this journey with me. I bet you’re all wondering what I’ll write about now that it’s over. 🤣 I definitely get fixated on a thing, that is for sure. At least this project has been, for the most part, a really positive one.

{Sorry if you get this twice. I had some posting issues (its original post date was January 12! When I started writing it.) I have never been a fan of the WordPress app, and today even less so. Boo.}

I’ve talked a lot about how, since our recent reorganization efforts, we’ve been able to keep the house tidy much longer than ever before. I think this is because I have been very pleasantly surprised to find some new solutions to old, persistent organizational problems recently. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve faced a problem and then just tackled it in the same way as always, only to find, after a while, that I’m failing at it again.

And maybe that does make sense, because some systems in my life serve me very well. My workout regimen generally works for me and I NEVER fall off the 4-5x a week workout regime I set myself. I don’t even have to think about it, it just happens (well I very much do have to think about it, I am always mentally taking note of when I’m going to work out and what I’ll do, but I don’t have to THINK about thinking about it, I just get it done.)

But the reality is that every big change I’ve made on the home front has required I try something radically different. The first big success was when we MarieKondo’ed the house. Taking all of everything in a category and going through it all at once was immensely helpful. We did that years ago and while the house always goes back to being messy and brimming with too much stuff, it’s never felt as hopeless as it did before that massive purge. That was definitely a turning point for us (and I still fold my clothes like she suggests!)

This time we didn’t do anything quite as drastic as a Marie Kondo purge, but we are tackling persistent problems in new ways, which makes me think maybe this time the affects will stick, or at least last longer.

The hallway closet is definitely one of those areas that I feel renewed hope about. Our house has very little built-in storage and one of the few closets is a very narrow space between the stairs and our daughter’s bedroom. Luckily the Billy basket shelves from IKEA fit in there, and I’ve repurposed some long, narrow boxes to better utilize the shelves, so we are able to use most of the space. But no matter how many times I’ve pulled it all out and reorganized it, it’s always ended up messy and it’s never been a space anyone else could really access. So if something was in there that someone else needed, I had to go find it.

Now, with the hanging door organizer, I can finally say, it’s in the closet; Look for the clear pouch that says “bandaids”. Because ALL THE POUCHES HAVE A LABEL! And even if what they want is in a drawer, now the drawers aren’t overflowing so they can see the extra toothpastes and the medicines. (The medicines actually got moved to the hall closet from the kitchen pantry, where they were DRIVING MY HUSBAND CRAZY for ten years. Just that simple move feels like a giant win.

But back to the labels. One of the things I purchased for this organizing attempt was a label maker. More than half of the professional organizers in Organized Living listed a label maker in their essential tool kit, and I found one on sale so I went for it. At first I used it quite sparringly, but then I realized that when I was forced to articulate what was in a box or drawer, I was much better at determining what should stay and what should go. Labeling also helps me return items to their spaces. And, in time, I hope it will help my family find what they need. So now I put labels on pretty much everything, even drawers that only I use and no one else really sees. The purpose is not so much to let other people know what is in a spot, but to remind myself.

There are more changes I want to make. I want to get a slat wall for the garage; the giant expanse at the back, where we pull the car in, has always felt under utilized and we have so many helmets and other bicycle accoutrements that could hang from one there. And guess I’m just newly inspired to think about different ways I can tackle old problems. I’m still at a loss in some spaces (laundry area in the garage – I’m looking at you!) but I finally feel hopeful that a different solution might be available if I keep looking (actually, I hung an accordion drying rack in the laundry area not too long ago and that was an absolute game changer).

These are some more the things I bought so we could tackle old problems in new ways. Most books about decluttering, including Organized Living (and Gill’s first book, Minimalista) urge you not to buy new storage containers, and at first I tried to follow that guidance. But when I despaired about reorganizing the tools or hall closet for the umpteenth time, I decided that trying something new was in order.

I will admit that I have been very extrinsically motivated to keep the house tidy this past month. I had so much on my plate without adding “re-organize everything you already worked on” to it. My desire to just keep moving forward, without needing to circle back, in my to-do lists was highly motivating. I was very good about completing tasks (not leaving items to put back later), and every time I walked through a room I identified stuff that didn’t belong and dealt with it immediately. Of course it is easy to identify items that need to be dealt with when the rest of the room is tidy, and it takes less time to put stuff away when I know where it goes.

I also found that I have been quicker to identify lingering issues and solve them, instead of just letting the problem persist. Little things like, I hate when my hair ties get tangles on them; I used to leave them all over and then finally gather up to cut the hair off a bunch at once, so I could put them into their little dish (a repurposed detergent measure). They were driving me crazy so I just got another little dish to keep the ones that needed attention until I was ready to give them that attention. Such a small fix, but I never thought to do it until now.

Maybe they had been the biggest change in mindset; the desire to keep everything neat has motivated me to just keep finding new ways to solve old problems. And having a tidy house as a baseline has helped me recognize which problems are persistent and need new solutions.

We left the house this morning ready for the cleaning person to come, and then our in-laws to stay. I have to say, it looks really nice. I have not felt so good about walking away from my house in a long while.

Thanks for taking this journey with me. I bet you’re all wondering what I’ll write about now that it’s over. 🤣 I definitely get fixated on a thing, that is for sure. At least this project has been, for the most part, a really positive one.

We don’t usually do anything for each other on Valentine’s Day, and we’re definitely not this year. We’re rain checking until our trip next week.

Which is fitting, because it’s quite a blustery day. So much rain this winter.

The good news is the weather in Mexico City is supposed to be beautiful next week. I haven’t been watching it too closely because our plans don’t require beautiful days, but I will happily enjoy them.

I’m certainly not sad to be missing out on this.

Meanwhile I keep trudging through my to-do lists. Clean the cat food mats. Clean the cat boxes. Do laundry and laundry and more laundry. Pack myself. Pack the kids. So many things to do and I am seriously losing steam. I think when I finally sit down on the plane I’m just going to a stare at the seat in front of me for a bit. Maybe the whole flight.

I’m actually pretty much packed now. I bought a few final toiletry items today and now I’m pretty much ready to go. It feels really good to be packed – it’s always stressful for me and this was exceptionally so because it’s such a different kind of trip. We’re going to nice restaurants and out for cocktails. I need to have “going out” clothes in my bag. I never have to pack going out clothes. Or at least I haven’t in probably a decade. So it’s nice to have it all in there, and to know it fits.

Last night I went to Sparring concepts and then stayed for Sparring afterward. It was one of those sparring sessions where I actually felt like I was getting better. It felt really good, and I hope I can hang on to that feeling after this trip and really dive back into my training. Tonight I’m going to High Belt class, which has never been a favorite. I know it won’t feel as good as sparring did but I hope I at least still feel like I’m making progress.

I promise to post about changes I’ve made to help me stay organized. I realized that I touted those changes as new systems when really they are new solutions to old problems. It’s not so much that I found different ways to stay organized on a daily basis, but that I created organized spaces that are easier for me to maintain. I just want to temper expectations, because the former would be amazing, but sadly I can only offer the latter.

I can’t believe I’m only at work one more day. As I expected, I’m not getting “all caught up” at work this week, but I am checking off a couple of festering to-do items, and I’ve made all the copies I need for the first few days of the week we get back (you may remember that I did NOT do that for the week after the Winter Break and I regretted it deeply). Tomorrow is my no-prep day so I plan to write my sub plans tonight. My good friend is taking my classes so I can just give her agenda slides to put up on the TV. That will help immensely.

Last night I slept very poorly. I was up every hour or so and I tossed and turned before falling back to sleep. I really hope tonight I get a decent amount of sleep, but I fear this is travel-stress-related and therefore here to stay. At least until I leave.

And my bus is about to arrive at the dojo, so I should stop and just put this up. I hope everyone felt loved this Valentine’s Day.

Last night I finished packing and when I texted my friends to tell them, they asked me what I was most looking forward to on my trip. And honestly, the only thing I could think was that I was looking forward to not having to do anything for five days, to just leave all my to-do lists behind. Of course, lately my to-do lists have been overflowing, as they would before any trip, but especially this one – the first one we’ve taken without our kids and the first where grandparents have had to stay them in our house (because the kids are in school). And of course, the state of our house required laundry lists of to-do lists over the past two months.

Keeping all that in mind, I am recognizing that lately my life feels like a series of to-do lists. And of course, to-do lists help me organize and prioritize my time and are important for me to keep from forgetting things. But if I’m not careful, I can lose myself in these lists. I can lose my life in these lists.

I remember during one break from school last year, I divided my goals into four areas (Home, Work, Self, Connection and seeing how short my lists were in “Self” and “Connection” helped me to prioritize self-care and time with friends and family. I believe I got a massage that week, and scheduled lunch with my husband and drinks with a friend so I could just write a couple things in those sections. Seeing how many tasks I had written in Home and Work and how few I had written in Self and Connection was a visual confirmation of how I was not prioritizing myself and my needs.

Coming out of these past two months of intensive work on the house, I think I need to go back to that four-pronged goal framework. I think doing it at a monthly level to start makes sense, and then eventually working toward weekly goals in each of the four areas. I have become very task oriented, and I have systems for writing those tasks for home and school that are working for me. I’m a kind of loathe to shake things up too much when I’ve found some executive functioning systems that make life manageable. But I also want to ensure I’m prioritizing my emotional and physical health and connections with others, the things that make life feel worth living.

So I think, starting in March, I’m going to write monthly goals in those four categories, and then I’ll try to also write them as weekly goals. If I can add one “self-care” and one “connections” task to my to-do list every week, that would be a big improvement. And then maybe, I can start adding more. I honestly think just articulating that I’m doing certain things for my emotional and physical well-being in this way will make them more meaningful to me.

In the meantime, I have five full days (plus two travel days) of self care and connection coming up, which I’ve paid for over the past two months with so much work at home and at school. I’m really looking forward to feeling a little more balanced after next week.