A short one

I am going to Augsburg! In August. Hooray. By bus and I will stay in an apartment. That should be exiting.. :)
NOW I can improve my plans on traveling and exploring Augsburg..

Rainy Saturday

So. Great Britain is leaving the EU. A sad day. Angela Merkel said though, that this process of leaving is regulated and will take some years. Therefore it does not seem so very bad, that David Cameron isn't resigning before October 2016.
Since the process will take years, rather than months, he does not seem to hold anything up. BUT: it still makes me sad. However: I am not british and so I don't feel, that I can give any judgement. I am entitled to an oppinion and I voiced that.

Let's come to the "important" stuff therefore: my life. Of course, my life is mainly important to me and not to you, but since it is vice versa with your life, I'll survive and we all live on happily ever after.

Lately I have been doing some massive KonMari-Style decluttering and now I can almost say, that my flat at least - don't look into my cellar though - is free of stuff, that I don't need. Well, there are still three boxes, a bag and the headboard of my bed (that I screwed off, because it messed with the line of my bed-covering), that have to go to the cellar, but otherwise it is light and relieved. Light in the sense of weight off my soul and more sun in my flat. I love it.

On Tuesday my oldes nephew and his friend were kind enough to schlepp all the unneeded furniture to the curb to be picked up (by appointment) and when I got home from work on Wednesday, it really was all gone. I felt very free and easy.

Since I did my bit of schlepping as well, I was too tired to do much cleaning after the removal and so contented myself with sweeping my rooms. Today however I hoovered and did some wet cleaning as well and so now it looks very loveley everywhere.

So you have first my bed made (without headboard) and then my hall. There is just one piece of furniture now. The rack is for guest coats and such.

There was to the left opposite the small cupboard a bookshelf, to the right of the cupboard was a CD-cupboard, or however you call it. To the left of it where one small cupboard, a sideboard and some small closet for shoes, plus about 8 big sacks of discarded books.

This is my bookshelf now:

And you can see the boxes and part of the bag.

Anyway, as to my bed making, I did sort of stay with the habit-changing system suggested by Leo Babauto and that's how I came to making my bed every morning. Next up will be stretching myself from lying down to touch my tows.

Are those situps? I call them situps for now. Anyway, I will do them. One every morning, until I actually manage to reach my toes. Then I will up them to two.

I also try to get up really early, you already know, that I am not an early riser by nature, but I do sometimes manage to get up early, as I did today. And so I did yesterdays dishes and sorted the wasching, unscrewed the headboard, had breakfast and cleaned and dressed myself (duh) and then I went shopping at about 7 am, because one of the two shops not so far away that I can't walk there, started opening at 7.00 am. I love that. So I got some fruit and some other stuff.

When I was well and safely home, it started to rain very heavily, so I was glad, that I did go so early. It was surprisingly well frequented for such an early time.

The hoovering and other things I did do after 9.00 am, because I didn't want to rush my neighbours out of bed too early. I did however get the washing in by about 8.30 am. We do have a communal washing room in the cellar and there are people living right above that room, so I do not do any washing before 8.00 am.

Since they had their own machine running by then already, there was no worry to wake them up. Part of my washing I put in the washer, the rest I hung up on my balcony. As I did with my woolen socks, that I handwashed for the first time since I got them. I was aware, that it is better for the socks, but I was too lazy. But now that I am free of clutter, I even have time to handwash my woolen socks. Yeah.. :)  (Clutter includes clothing)

About 12.00 am I made some pancakes and had an Espresso and an orange for dessert. I am currently re-reading the Madame Chic books by Jennifer L. Scott and she wrote, that at Madame Chic's the best wasn't kept for special moments, so I decided to use my best on a daily basis. This became easier, because I chucked out a lot of obsolete dishes and mostly kept the best.

One of those is an espresso-cup and today I actually used it and didn't just dust it.

Nice, huh?

So that's it for today, thanks for your patience, have a happy weekend!

Another week ahead

... and I am inclined to take it as a chance to further imrove myself. Must be a midlife-crisis. Well, not  a crisis really. Just some "half 90" thing perhaps. And that should have been started last year, when I turned 45. This year, right now, I am closer to 46, then 45 and that's it about me.... (good joke?)

At any rate. My plans are made for the coming week, I am excited to see, how they will turn out. Will I do all of them? Some of them? None of them? Already I had an idea of cancelling one of my plans, but I think, I will stick with the original.

By the way, I am trying to not write in so big blocks. Gets hard on the eyes of the reader (you) and that's not very kind or is it?

Anyhow, here goes:

Monday:

 Morning Routine (get up, when awake or when the alarm goes - whichever is first

pack bag, make bed, air flat

get showered, dressed, fed, made up, gone)

work from 6.07 am to 2.30 pm

go to the recycling centre to finally get rid of my trash. IF my street is free to drive on

carry my book sacks into the free space in my cellar

prepare food for Tuesday

Evening Routine (get cleaned, lay out clothes, straighten up my place)

Tuesday:

Morning Routine

change the leave off time from 2.30 to 4.30 or 4.45 pm

go to my optometrist and have my glasses checked

get home, get into comfy clothes, have tea, read

prepare food for Wednesday

Evening Routine

Wednesday:

Morning Routine

work from 6.07 am- 4.30 pm

This is the first day of the return of my boss from maternity love. I am very glad, she's back

fill basket with clothing for the first load of washing the next day

prepare food for Thursday

Evening Routine

Thursday:

Morning Routine

Work from 6.07 am to 3.30 pm

get the first load into the machine

prepare food for Friday

change clothing to dryer (I'll have to explain something here, later)

get clothing up, start ironing part of it.

Evening Routine.

Friday:

Morning Routine

work from 6.07 am to 2.30 pm

get the next load into the machine

hoover flat, dust, clean windows, clean floors

fill in next load, hang up second load (Thursday was first load)

clean kitchen

fill third load in dryer (bedlinen, towels, dish-towels)

get Hall empty

Evening Routine

Saturday:

Morning Routine, except that I don't get gone, since I only work a five day week)

do paper stuff

unhook shower curtains

clean bath

rehang curtains

relax and enjoy having cleaned everything

check wether balcony clothes are dry, if not, in dryer for 1 hour.

get on with the ironing (with a good movie or audiobook)

Evening Routine

Sunday:

Morning Routine

more paper stuff

prepare Food for Monday

do the dishes

play, do computer stuff

read, relax

Evening Routine.

Now as to putting the first load of clothing into the dryer:

I only wanted to dry the bedlinen and other things in the dryer, as my drying rack can't take such big pieces and the drying cellar in my house can be pretty yucky, as one of my neighbour leaves his stuff there for weeks.

Anyway, I somehow manouvered myself into a corner, where I might not have enough clothes to get me through to Friday fully dressed... :-) I'd like to avoid that. I could of course wash earlier, but that would collide with another plan of mine:

Yeah! Another Plan.... :-)

First weekend of the month: do the shopping (groceries) and freeze or cook, what can be prepared

Second weekend of month:  do the washing

Third weekend of the month: social time, where I give up my people free weekend to friends and family.

Fourth weekend of month: MINE!  No people, not work, not stress, pure bliss.

Of course I will hoover in between and clean after me, do the dishes, when I have cooked, so there will not be so much need to clean all weekend, but I will do the heavy cleaning on the second weekend. I can also check, wether I need cleaning supplies (in the future, I have enough for years) and buy the stuff in the next month. And I can see, if anything has to go be repaired and get that to the proper places on the next first weekend of a month.

Since I know, that I'll be meeting people the next weekend, I can also use the second, to make sure, my clothes are in good order. 

I have reduced my clothes considerably and that is part of the reason, I do not have so many clothes at the end of the month. I had since to buy two pairs of pants and bought three tops, as well as ten pairs of longer socks, but now I am set. Everything I have got, I like and I came to the conclusion, that I can actually wear things twice as a rule. Unless of course it was very hot and a lot of sweat was involved. In that case I might have to wash inbetween. BUT: a plan is only good, if it is flexible.

Just as I will buy more milk in the middle of the month. I buy it in bottles and it can only be used for two weeks, so I will stock up on that. All the rest (veggies and fruit) I mostly freeze and the rest I use up in the first two weeks. That's why I bought a super efficient fridge after all. 

My one free weekend I will most probably spend in my pjs or my comfy clothes, but I will not dress to go out. So that saves on clothes as well. Also I can review where I have to make changes in the next month, what I need to stock up and what I have to add to use up stuff I have in store.

For instance: I now have a new kitchen applience, a steamer. So I can buy some veggies to fit with the fish I've got and steam them together. I also have a rice cooker, so I can prepare all three components in one go... :) I also have a lot of rice. And some stock is in glasses. Today I fried wax-beans, tomorrow I'll cook them and maybe cook a sweet potatoe. I don't know yet. What I do know: 

I have a clip about potatoes that will end this post. I do not own it of course, but I will try and add the owner of the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0F_QmfkEuny7t72SejvARg

I copied that from the channel, that I got it from. And I linked the line. So when I tried it, it worked.

Hey, I am getter better with this technical stuff. O.k., I am pretty sure, my 8 year old niece already knows how to do that. BUT: she grew up with all this technical stuff... I didn't. We didn't have computers, when I was eight. And I can't regret that. Though I do not regret having them now.

It both has its good sides... 

Cheerio and a happy week ahead!