In my post, Lighten the Load Confessionals, I shared with you that I am challenging myself to rid myself of 11,500 units of household weight, personal weight and debt between now and the end of the year.

Example: Personally lose 3 lbs  + DH’s loss of 5lbs + $200 in debt reduce + 100 lbs of household items donated, sold, recycled, etc. =

a loss of 308 Units for one week!

With this kind of progress over 52 weeks that would result in a loss of 16,016 units.  Again this is just an example.

Understanding that reducing debt by $200 and reducing clutter by 100 lbs. each, and every, week are a lofty thoughts (I am avoiding the G— word here), I feel I have can reasonably assume that my chosen unit target is attainable.

I am challenging myself and announcing my 11,500 goal publicly so I can solicit your help in  motivating me to post my records for all the world to see.If you are interested in joining me in shedding unwanted, stress-causing, factors in your life….I welcome you with open arms. Set your own parameters to Lighten the Load in your life….everyone has their own concerns, stress buttons, etc. I just welcome having someone to share the challenges, exchange ideas and to celebrate the victories. If you would like, please feel free to grab the widget as small motivational reminder for yourself or as recognition for taking the first steps.  If we develop even a small group, I may just have to design some real badges of honor for completing different levels of the individual challenges. Did that make sense at all?

Stress has been ever present for me these past several months and has been building to a point of great frustration and anxiety. My house and my jeans are are bursting at the seems. I have struggled with weight my entire life, so that is nothing new…but this issue with my house has me to the point of nightmares.  I need help! I need help, but the house is so bad I could not let anyone step inside TO help. I would have to clean the house BEFORE the housekeeper came.

Everywhere I turn, there is more stuff. We really bit off more than we could handle when we purchased this 2 bedroom, one bath, 100 year old house. The bathroom is 6×6 with only a claw foot tub. We shower in a make-do stall in the middle of a partially finnished basement. I have only two very, VERY small closets….my daughter’s and the one where I store some Christmas items. I have an eBay room, that is overflowing with all of my teaching supplies (as is a storage area in the building behind the house), and odds and ends of this and that. I have another room that I would like to use as a large walk-in pantry, but it is full to the ceiling with boxes of stuff that we have not unpacked from partially moving in. Guess at this point I should point out that I actually have furniture in two separate houses…because I did not want all of my furniture here in the way while we were remodeling/restoring. For four years, I have lived out of Rubbermaid containers and used make-shift rods for hanging clothes. I don’t have a linen closet…well that is if you count the Rubbermaid container.

I feel as though this clutter/mess perpetuates itself with the stress and my total shut down of being able to function or to figure a way out of it. The mountain of clutter scattered throughout my house is so mind boggling that I absolutely do just shut down….and when I shut down…. nothing gets accomplished AND the clutter/mess gets worse…and so on and so on.  Sometimes I wonder if I am lazy and that is reason/excuse that I cannot seem to get motivated to get organized, but then I realize that my inability to cope is because the overall project is so overwhelming.

In addition to the craziness of my household, I have gained so much weight over these past two years. I am not confident enough to share exactly how much I weigh, but I will share that it is to the point that I am beginning to have medical problems. My family has a history of heart disease and my mother passed away before she turned 60…so turning 50 this past year has added even more to my stress levels.

Debt is another stressful issue at the moment. My two year hiatus is over in a couple of months…the funds have dwindled and unfortunately, we cannot live on one income. Hais’ college expenses are looming on the horizon. In my current mindset and physical condition, I cannot see myself going back to teaching. I either have to get 3/4 of my debt reduced within 6 months or find a way to make decent money working from home…or I will be back to teaching full time. (Just a bit of a disclaimer here…I LOVE teaching…I just do not like everything that goes with it.)

Around the world, people make their New Year’s goals– with weight loss and getting organized usually at or near the top of the list. The older I get, the more that making New Year’s Goals seems futile. I never seem to accomplish those goals, so why bother to set them?So, what am I going to do? Well, I have decided that I am NOT going to just throw my hands up in despair. I am going to take action…small steps toward a total goal of lessening my anxiety in the form of debt, weight and other crap in my life. (please excuse my language for a moment)

I wonder if there are others who struggle with these same issues…in part or whole. If so, I invite you to join me in my own challenge for this year…nope NOT a goal…but a challenge to “Lighten the Load in 2009″. To lighten my debt burden, lighten the weight causing excruciating pain on my back and knees….AND to lighten the weight of the crap (ooops that word again) in my house will be my challenge for these next 11 and one half months. I am challenging myself to Lighten the Load by 11,500 units. A unit is a pound or a dollar….and yes, I have some pretty heavy items in my household. In fact, I am going to knock 1500 off of the list almost immediately, because we just sold our little 1970 VW Beetle.

So here I am confessing my short-comings, fears, and general anxieties about life in hopes that it will motivate me to move forward in a positive, deliberate manner. Would you like to join me?

Normally, it is the grass in my “garden” that annoys me the most, but this season the weeds have taken over also. Every year DH suggests placing weed barrier down and planting in little holes, but I have refused. This year is different! Last week, I read an article about soil testing and ammendments that suggested if you live in an older house your soil most likely is contaminated with lead from paint chips falling from your house. YIKES!

If you have read any of my other blog entries about the house, you may already know that even our soil has a chemical odor to it….so this is yet another catostrophe for us. If money were no object living in this very old house would be no problem, but we are poor civil servants on moderate wages. Well, DH is on moderate wages….I am purposefully unemployed as you may also remember. Even if I WAS employed the money still would not be there to do what needs to be done to this house. If money grew on trees, I would have someone come in and remove the top several feet of soil around the house…lol…and replace it with totally organic compost. Since Donald Trump is definitely not interested in my small piece of real estate, nor the Rockefellers knocking on my door, I have to continue my cobbled life.

I decided to cover the ground surrounding my one raised bed with weed barrier. Sadly, I had to dig up the few perrenial herbs that I had established , in hopes to replant somehow, somewhere. I am not certain why I am sad…I never used the herbs in cooking for fear of what was in the soil, but they were lovely…well, that is until the grass and weeds were coming up through the clumps of herbs. It wouldn’t be difficult to radicate if the yuk was coming up around the plants, but grass was coming straight up the middle. Anyhow, because of the fear of what the soil my bring, I have decided to plant my tomatoes in buckets on top of the barrier.

Yesterday was a very windy day (Duh!….it IS Kansas….every day is windy), but we finally finished covering the larger portion of the small area. Placing the barrier down is not a difficult task, but we also had to dig a small trench to allow for proper water drainage. Originally, the plan was to construct a type of dry river bed that would allow proper drainage away from the house when the “monsoons” came. In the past, we have had a problem with water standing near the foundation of our home…not good when you have a basement.

I hope to get some photos posted soon, and I am kicking myself that I didn’t take photos prior to adding the weed barrier.  

Spring is in the Air!

Gosh, I have been so busy outdoors that I have not taken the time to sit down and write about our progress.  My backyard has always been a subject for embarrassment to me. Although it is in much better shape than what it was prior to us purchasing the house, it is still an eyesore.

A little history of our home. The best that we can tell it was built around 1912. Considered one of the finer homes at the time, it has suffered years and years of neglect and disrepair. In the 1940’s or 1950’s a basement was added and it served as a florist. A building was added to the backyard, which in my estimation, was built entirely too close to the house, which resulted in water flow problems in and around the house. We call this the PINK building…or that is what the town called it for years. We have since painted it white. Half of the building was originally used as a hair salon and the other as storage (I think). There are huge picture glass windows in the front of this other half, so the original use is debatable.  Currently, those windows are broken and boarded up, in hopes of eventually putting in a double garage door when I hit the lottery. Of course, I have a suspicion that you actually HAVE TO PLAY first before they give you all of that money. Back to the building…for a long while the grandson lived in the beauty shop portion of the building so that he could assist his grandfather.

The first time we saw the house, it was full to the top with boxes and boxes of family collections. Several auctions were held to clear it all out.  Neighbors have told us many times that the backyard was full of junker vehicles and machinery. The brush and vines were allowed to take over the yard and the Kansas winds brought everyone else’s trash to this lot. Until we get a fence built, I feel we will be dealing with the neighbors’ trash for a long while….just as we continue to deal with their dogs’ daily duty presents deposited in our front yard every day! ‘Nother subject for ‘nother day.

Now the house is filled to the brim with our junk.  The first spring after we moved in the house three years ago, I hired a painter to paint the exterior of the main home and the trim of the pink building. DH had boarded the windows and painted over to help camouflage the ugliness. The neighbors were deeply saddened to find that we were not going to tear down this hideous pink  monstrosity, so to appease we did all that we could afford to make it look a bit better…to the street side anyhow.

This last week, DH removed the boards from the back of the building and we got busy scraping and painting while he replaced glass panes. The result is not perfect, but progress can be seen. I am looking for alternate methods of repairing the bottom of the siding where it has chipped away, as we cannot afford the panels to replace them. I hope to hang colorful curtains or at least fabric inside, to hide the inside of the building.   We felt that the backdoor to the beauty shop was too large of an undertaking, so I will hang a fabric curtain between the storm door and the wood door for now.

We chose a lovely shade of gray to paint the trim to coordinate with the gray porch on the main house.  My thought was that mistakes wouldn’t be as glaring with a soft color. I must admit that my hand is not very steady when painting small areas.

I am almost embarrassed to show the photos of our backyard, but hopefully it will serve as a record of our progress this spring.