0 for 0 in 0 (for now!)

Note: don’t start what’s hoped to be a new habit or project on a Monday. Just doesn’t work. Flat out and it will work better if I accept the limits of my current commitments. Paul and I go out together each Monday night while Rebecca babysits and between that and Trajan’s ISR lessons, I end up with negative time.

You might have deduced from this introduction that I have not made progress in the 10 in 10 for 10. Not only did Monday not work, but I ended up having to go back to the office for several hours the next couple of nights. However, this is not me giving up on the idea, but I’m going to delay the start of it until a time that I’m in better shape to actually meet this goal.

This will not be immediate, because I have my hands full with a different project for the next few days. Between my frustration with Vista, my “affair of the heart” with the iPhone and discovering that my Dell laptop is one of the models that people have worked to adapt to Ubuntu, we decided to go ahead and order a MacBook Pro for me. It’s on a Fedex plane somewhere between here and California. The tracking says it will be here tomorrow, but based on the rate other parts of my order shipped, I’m expecting Monday. So, I’m busy going through the Dell machine (it’s under a year old) and backing everything up to our NAS drives because Paul can’t really go to work at converting the hardware to Linux until I’m sure I have everything off of it.

Also, I expect to be near hopelessly distracted over the next few days beginning as soon as I can download the iPhone 2.0 software. I have iTunes 7.7 and so I’m in the ready position and am just waiting for the 2.0 software. I know I could get a copy through other means, but I think I’ll just wait till it’s done in the automated fashion. I’m a sissy as evidenced by the fact that I’ve never jailbroken my phone.

On a final note, first night of the Scramble was a happy success. Not too many dishes, tasty and really hit the spot. Trajan LOVED the green beans. It was actually kind of scary the degree to which he liked them. They were pretty basic. Steamed in a skillet with oil, garlic and some lemon juice.

10 for 10 in 10

I was thinking about how much the simple concept of the "clutter rule of 10" helps to get things cleaned up and moving and I came up with an idea of a challenge to present myself. I'm frankly terrified of the idea, but since I did think of it and it is possible, I feel I can't chicken out and skip it and still remain accountable to myself.

Eliminate 10 items in 10 areas over 10 days.

I was thinking about the clutter aspect of the Clutter Diet because I've really been emphasizing the organizational component of it along with the peripheral cleaning element. Therefore, the idea is to eliminate, via trash, donation or craigslist, 10 items at a time. 10 doesn't sound like much, but I've seen how much picking up 10 items can do, so I think this can have a real influence. The 10 areas component is to force me to do this process throughout the house. And then 10 days both forces me to keep moving on the project and serves the double purpose of helping to develop this idea as a habitual behavior.

I'm not going to define the areas as absolutes, but I do have some ideas. Kitchen, dining room, living room, garage, landing, master bedroom, master bath, guest room, Trajan's room, and office.

Since I am so terrified of this, I'm declaring that tonight is the first night to prevent myself from chickening out.