My husband has this sweater. It’s red with a black and white stripe across his chest and down his shoulders and arms. When we were dating he wore it pretty regularly. It looked good on him. Eventually, because it got a fair amount of use, it started to give out. A hole appeared by the stripe on one shoulder. It kept getting bigger and bigger. To be frank, it went from a sweater that looked good on him to a sweater than made him look like a bum. He wore it anyway, like a security blanket he couldn’t part with.

I did laundry for him on occasion during the first couple years of our marriage. One day, after the sweater came out of the dryer, I formulated a plan. I rolled it up the way you would if you were packing a suitcase, and I hid it in one of his storage tubs. I didn’t want to throw it out, I know how sentimental he can be, but I had to stop him from embarrassing me in public. It took him a while to miss it, but the day came when he asked if I had seen his red sweater.

I lied.

I just purged my closet of ill/non-fitting pants.  And a few terribly stained t-shirts. Seriously, I just threw out over half of the pants I owned. I’d have donated them if they were in wearable condition, but alas.

I’m going to make an effort to buy a new shirt every week or two for the next couple of months in order to improve my wardrobe slightly. I have no plans to become fashionable, but it would be nice to have more than a half dozen shirts that are appropriate for wearing in public, heh.

The majority of pants I threw out had holes in the thighs. That’s a problem I wish I didn’t have. It’s a problem I know I could do something about if I really focused. I’m so good at making excuses though. Going out to dinner with my husband gives us quality time together away from the slew of electronic devices we’d be drawn to at home. Cook at home is often stressful and unfulfilling because the kitchen is usually a mass of empty 12-pack cartons, dirty dishes, and ancient leftovers. Going to the gym on a regular basis would mean spending less time with family and friends. See? I’m great at excuses. I have lots more, trust me.

Balance is not something I excel at when it comes to my health. I need to find an approach that isn’t all-or-nothing.

I was doing a bit of cleaning this morning and ran across an old CD with this photo of my grandma on it. When I was in college I took a photoshop class and we had to do a restoration of an old picture. I chose the one above. Would you believe it used to have water spots and creases through it?

Anyway, it was a lot of fun restoring the photo. She was so beautiful when she was young! I wish I had been able to get to know her better. I think I would appreciate her a lot more now, as an adult. If I could go back to when she was 50yrs old or so, and have dinner with her, I bet I’d learn a lot about her life. I know it wasn’t an easy one.

Ahh, the guilt of procrastination. It freezes me at times. Take the past month, for instance. I see this endless list of things I’m ‘supposed’ to do, things I’ve brought upon myself, but I don’t do them. I don’t know why… surely I’d feel more free if I completed these things. But, I’m still here, stuck. The guilt causes me to avoid things I love as a sort of punishment – if I can’t honor my personal commitments, why should I allow myself to blog? Or take new photographs? I’m not sure there’s logic in it, but it’s the way my brain works sometimes.

I wish I could organize my personal life as easily as I can my work and school lives. I rarely fall behind when I am accountable to someone other than myself, when I have a manager or teacher to please. Why can’t I award myself the same respect and discipline? Why can’t I do the same for friends or family?

*sigh* Maybe admitting this will make me feel accountable. Maybe I’ll actually complete those commitments someday. It’d surely be better than wallowing in this guilt.

I don’t know what to do about my apartment. I don’t know where to start when it comes to organizing it, and I think I’m the only person who really cares what the place looks like anyway. We have limited space, too many possessions, and no desire to clean up or finish unpacking.  The real bummer is, Christmas is just 6 weeks away, and I don’t know if we’ll have anywhere to eventually put the tree! Our tree didn’t make it out last year partly because of a lack of space, and we have even less room at this new apartment.

It’s not like I have some big design plan, but it’s getting really depressing living this way. There are days when I’m not at all excited to go home after work. Maybe that’s part of why Jon and I go out to eat so often and go shopping so much, other places feel more comfortable and relaxing than our own ‘home’.

Renting storage space somewhere might help a little, but wouldn’t solve the overall disorganization or cleanliness problems. It’s a double edge sword for me… I’m upset and frustrated that the place is always a mess, but if I put in the work to clean it I end up resenting the other people who live here because I think to myself… “I really can’t have made more than 1/3 of the chaos, so why should I clean all of it?”  I know that’s not fair, they’re entitled to live their preferred lifestyle too. Their priorities are different than mine, and that should be perfectly fine.

I guess I should just focus on my half of my bedroom, where my desk is located. It’s not much better than the rest of the apartment at this point, and it’s the part of my 1/3 that I spend the most time in. *sigh* Why does being an adult include so much boring and tedius crap like housework?! (Don’t mind me, I may just need some sleep…)