You'd think I would have a plan.....
but all I have is a humongous to do list, that's spanning the last 4 years of shit that needs taken care of and absolutely no fuckin' clue how to go about taking things off it.....
I collected all the "to do's" and combined them on one list.... You had the ovbious ones that kept resurfacing on practically every one of them, organize the house, clear the crap, plan the yard, decide where we wanna live in the States. And than there were the surprising ones, that surfaced on maybe 2..... Set time aside for writing, orgainze family tree research and write our story, put together photobook, check out "insert town or museum to go to". And that's when I realised that we've been doing things for ourselves when we could fit it in, so mostly...... Never.
That's when I made a decision, and started, another list. I know..... anOTHER one, but this one is not more of the same! This one with stuff NOT related to organizing the house, getting rid of stuff or trailing paperwork, but, perish the thought, FUNstuff. Stuff to do, and not being another chore, something "just because" Some, I won't be able to do until the bulk of the shitlist is done, like sitting down and organizing the familytree research, (you'd have to be able to find it all, first) or making the photobooks, (no patience with the house a mess and no deskspace) but I can put aside time for writing, I can do research and write the Stories behind the Stars, I can take a day and go up north to spend on the water, maybe stay the night somewhere in the middle of nowhere and go for an early morning walk on the heath...... I wanna "go somewhere" once a month. Plan it out good, pack a bag, just in case I wanna stay or I'm too tired to drive back, pack a picnicbasket and just go. I'm going to split the weekdays into 2 hour blocks. (go thru crap, clean house, do yardwork/car, indidental crap like scrubbing doors and windows and such, keep track of the finances/other paperwork, grocery-/week-/mealplan, walk (3 times a week), writing/research.... Start my day no later than 08.00 and hit "quittin' time" after dinner, around 19.00.
Picking a day to do one thing hasn't worked longer than a week, ever, so maybe this will get me to a point that the list gets shorter.... If I go away during the week, I do the work on Saturday and I'm keeping Sunday for funstuf. Most events are on Sunday, so that'll give me a "planned" unplanned outing. and Saturday morning 8AM will be groceryshopping, regardless of things that need doing.
There's one exception, though. When I'm packing up the (little) Christmas decorations I have actually sitting out, I will go thru every room, and collect anything that has to do with seasonal decorating, organize them by event, and put them in tubs, and shove them in the attic. That should take care of a good part of the loose breakable stuff, floating around.
Once every 2 weeks I'll make a dump-run including the recycleable stuff from around the house I've come accross, and maybe start putting stuff on Marktplaats... Although I'm not sure I want the hassle, some stuff is just wrong to put in the dump..... OH, and this summer, I'm going to sand down and maybe refinish the dining table and start using that again. Meaning, that part of the livingroom has to be clear before the weather gets nice :-) Have to decide if I want to oil it or shellac it, but that decision can keep until I'm done sanding
So
I'll start on that February 1st, because up to this part of January I've been down with the flue..... Boy, I thought I had bad dreams before... those fever dreams are W I C K E D!!!
So.... How've you been? 😆
That's it for me, for now. Hope you had a good beginning of 2026, are planning lots of fun stuff with people you care about and please, don't forget to hug them!!
Love and hugs,
Pauli
