The kitchen, Day 3

Today is day 3 for the kitchen project. Day 2 was a wash - I spent the day at work and nothing got done in the kitchen. However, today I hit the project hard and early, and got both coats of primer done!

For priming, I used Zinnser's Bulleye 1-2-3, as recommended on several home design blogs and how to guides. It went on pretty easily. This wave of the project probably took 3 hours for the first coat and 2 for the second coat. I did not sand between coats - that may have been a mistake.

For now, I am focusing only on the top cabinets. After the top cabinets are done, I will do the bottom cabinets - likely this weekend. The doors will be a longer term project.

January Cure update: My outbox runs over - I think we have 8 bags now.

Running update: no additional miles today. I was exhausted from 2 coats of primer and skipped the workout.

The Kitchen - Day 1

Today I started the super crazy kitchen renovation. This will be my January Cure project, and is one of my big projects for the year. Here are the "before" pictures - taken during the clean-out process.

We will call the above " Day 0".

 The first day was spent getting the kitchen cleaned out and everything put away for the project to begin. I was making dinner while cleaning out the kitchen - hence the messy photos.

The kitchen at the end of Day 1 is shown below.The doors are off, the contact paper has been scraped out, everything has been degreased and then sanded. Day 2 will be the primer!

Other pressing updates: 6.46/842 miles.
Kitchen Cure moving right along.
Whole30 - traded for Body for Life

The January Cure & Kitchen Remodel, Day 1

Today is day 1 of the kitchen upgrade, and day 4 of the January Cure! I am behind on The Cure - tearing up the kitchen will do that. The floors are not done (this weekend? Next?). Today I made my project list for the house and it went like this:

Hallway: clean and scrub front and back of door
Clean stairs
Clean recycling corner
Fix loose screw

Living/Dining room
Do something about that rug.
New carpet
Clean out fireplace

Kitchen
Redo cabinets
Redo contact paper
Paint falls
Get containers to store dry goods in

Bedroom
Spray paint wicker chest
Close off that door
Organize husband's closet

Bathroom
Hang art
Fix the running toilet - actually going to do that one today
Touch up paint

Office
Hang art
Hang 100 Nos

For my Jan project, I will be doing the kitchen cabinets, contact paper, and painting.

Post tonight on Day 1 - I need to go to Lowe's for now.

New year, new goals

I am gearing up for the new year, and once again willing to try blogging. I think the reality is I really want to blog - but life gets in the way. Life gets in the way a lot. But, with my tenure portfolio due in the fall, this really is my last year on the tenure track. So let's set some goals and work on accountability!

Goal 1: Run 842 miles, including a half marathon. Note - I am counting field miles hiked in this category.

Goal 2: I need 4-6 more papers to have an out of the park tenure case. So I need to write those by mid-summer and get them submitted. 

Goal 3: Get the lab SOP and protocols revised and up to date. This is HUGE!

Goal 4: Reduce our debt. We have a lot of student loan debt, and I'd like to make $12,000 in headway. This is situated against my unemployed husband, so I am the sole breadwinner, and the fact that my contract forbids a second job. 

Goal 5: KonMari my house and renovate my kitchen!

Goal 6: Blog here minimum 2x week (100 posts, ugh!) and there once a month. 

Let's do this!

Simplify - Summer Capsule Wardrobe

After considerable debate, I decided to give a capsule wardrobe a try. There were two immediate options - Project 333 or Unfancy. Project 333 sounded a bit too restrictive for me, as it includes belts, jewelry, etc, whereas Unfancy allows for 37 items and does not include accessories or jewelry. Of course, as each website details, capsule wardrobes are a "Choose Your Own Adventure" and rule breaking is perfectly fine.

The capsule schedule from Unfancy runs July to September. I wish I had started a month earlier, in June, as my summer wardrobe tends to be much more relaxed than my school year wardrobe. I don't wear shorts on campus (except for weekends if I have to run in to prep or check on something), and I'm ideally only on campus a few days a week during the summer. For June and July, I've been in 4 days a week; for August the goal is once a week. I tend to get less writing done when I am on campus working on projects with students. For example, I got 2 papers and 2 grants out in May. But I have only submitted 2 papers since (6 weeks).

Assembling the capsule wardrobe therefore, required splitting clothes between casual summer wear and clothes appropriate for teaching come late August. The next capsule will also be off - October,  December, January. I'll be in the field for November and will be in field gear.

What did I end up with?

Five pairs of shoes. The recommended number was 9. I picked black flats, copper flats, and brown flats, chacos, and black heels. Not counted: running shoes, hiking boots, beach flip flops.

Five dresses. Two casual, two work, one that can go both ways.

Two skirts. One orange, one black.

Four pairs of pants. Two work, two casual. No jeans.

Three pairs of shorts: grey, beige, purple. The grey and beige are replacement shorts for shorts I had had since 2006. They are the only new items I purchased for the capsule.

Thirteen tops. Three sleeveless, 4 t-shirts, the rest nice tops for work.

Five cardigans. In blue, black, grey, white, and brown.

Not counted: running clothing, yoga pants, two pajama pants, and the torn clothes for painting.

I'm blogging the Kitchen Cure (sort of)

I've decided to live blog the Kitchen Cure (Fall 2015) from thekitchn.com. Well, mostly. The Kitchn Cure runs from 9/7 until late in September, and I do have some travel this month. So I will do the assignments when possible, and give myself some flexibility to the end of the month.

Part 1: Just be present/immediate reactions
I need to do dishes. I need to get up and do dishes. Why are there always dishes? I need to sweep and mop, the floor is filthy.  I need to scrub all the cabinets. Why are they two colors? Who thought that was a good idea? I need to put the pasta maker away. We really need some art and some color in here. The only color is my red owl timer. Why is the phone still up? Didn't we get that disconnected? Why are there dry walls pieces on the stove?

Part 2: Go deep. Open drawers.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.

Assignment #1 Make a list of likes and dislikes

Likes: It has a dishwasher. It has a fridge. The floor is pretty. I love my owl cookie jar, and the kitchen cart is pretty nice as well. I like that one of the bouquets from our wedding is in here.

Dislikes: The cabinets are yellow. The fridge is yellow while the stove is white. Everything looks worn and dingy. There is no rug. It is dirty. The layout is terrible. You can't really see the bouquet with the yellowy walls. The drawers are falling apart and are a chaotic mess. The brown and yellow cabinets look gross and dingy. There is no color. The room is soulless.

I need to give the room some soul.

Running update: Shoulder injury, so last week only 10 miles.
Total for August 76 miles!

Getting Things Done - New strategies for a better year

I'm still in recovery mode from last year. As part of that, I am looking for new ways to streamline and reduce stress. I've started with the typical places - work out, do yoga, eat healthy. But such practices need a framework if they are to survive the less than ideal conditions of the school year.

One practice that I have become particularly interested in is David Allen's "Getting Things Done" method. The target goal with this method is to reduce stress and increase productivity. I read the book last February with the intention of using it for the meetings. However, I think the meetings pretty much overwhelmed my feeble attempts at the GTD system. Perhaps if I had started sooner. Perhaps if I had done a thousand things differently, it would not have been so bad. But it was.

I'm re-reading GTD now, and actually taking the time to implement the practices, instead of try and sort things as they come. Earlier this summer I tried KonMari (some success) and a capsule wardrobe (great success) as methods for reducing the stress I felt at home. We still could declutter more. The 38 item wardrobe (I forgot a piece was at the dry cleaners and decided to leave it in the rotation) is working pretty well. More on this in the next post.

I'm pairing the GTD method with two systems - Trello (referral link) and You Need a Budget (YNAB).  Both are online and app based, and work across multiple platforms. I have each on my home computer, my travel laptop, and my android phone. Each handle a different part of my life - Trello captures, processes, and organizes everything except money, and YNAB handles money.

First YNAB. I had no idea how much I needed this until I had it. I'm a convert! I'm also enjoying the amount of plan aheadness it gives me and the perspective. I was so busy I let a lot of things go, and now, seeing what busyness cost me is shocking. I am still in the "this is stressful" early period of getting set up and in the habit, but we're seeing small positive changes already. Totally worth the $60 to sign up.

Trello. Trello is a cross platform software that functions like a series of boards, using the kanban technique. Lifehacker has a great review here. Basically, it shows the flow of production within each board. I've set it up so that each major facet has its own board (Home, Teaching, Major Research Project, Writing, Lab). Inside each board, cards are color coded to individual projects (for example each individual grant or manuscript on the "Writing" board. Things with deadlines (such as revisions) are assigned deadlines. Deadlines sync to my calendar. Within each board, I start with a "to do today" column - these are the pressing things that must get done today. I then have the subheadings as needed as groupings within: next, in progress, waiting for, done. It is set so that cards "age" that is, if I let things go for too long, the card starts to fade, the edges crumble etc, so I am visually reminded that I let something slide. Instead of my current system, which is to remember months later that I forgot to do something like write a chapter or review a book.

Hopefully, this system will withstand the chaos of a new semester and keep me GTD!