Happy Easter, a fun way to track things and my never-ending house to-do list
#14
I bought a little timer so that I’m not distracted by my phone when I inevitably reset my timer there. I have now set it for 25 minutes (#write25in2025 following on the success of #write24in2024) because my house is chaotic and I need to go work, but more on that later.
Happy Easter!
First, Happy Easter to you if you celebrate.
I do. I must say that it is really not as much fun to celebrate holidays with teens as with little kids. First of all, they sleep so late and secondly, they don’t really want lots of… things.
Oh well. An Easter miracle is that we managed to rouse all of us in time to actually attend church today.
Nail polish musings
These days I feel like I’m the only South African who still does her nails the old-fashioned way, i.e. by myself, not in a nail salon with gel or acrylic.
I know Olive and June has taken the US by storm (ha!) for a good few years now and people are painting their own nails. This is very lovely for me because I can look at other people’s beautiful nails and get inspired.
I like tracking things (books read, gym visits, friend dates, goals, etc.) and I like a way to work through my nail polish colours.
(Aside - the other day on the Happier podcast, Gretchen and Elizabeth posed a question: do possessions have feelings? It’s the 9 April episode if you haven’t heard it yet. Long story short but I am definitely in the camp where I think that all my clothes, bags and nail polishes want a turn to be used :))
Therefore I rotate them within the container I use so that all the colours I’ve used so far this year are on the top of the acrylic organiser and the ones still to be used are at the bottom.
But… EliseJoy, one of my favourite creators and the writer of one of my favourite goals books, Big Dreams, Daily Joys, recently sent out a newsletter where she showed the Olive and June colours she’s using and a lightbulb went off. I could do the same. Genius - you can see at a glance what you’re drawn to and which ones you may have forgotten.
So I immediately started tracking the colours from March and I’m so happy to see all the colours in an easy way. I’m going to also be happy to see the colours go darker as we go deeper into autumn and winter.
My house to-do list
Long story short but we have just had all the work done from our top floor flooding on the 28 Feb/ 1 March night.
My floors were replaced with another colour of wood which is beautiful even though it is lighter than I would have preferred. I haven’t even taken a photo yet because there’s so much stuff out of place.
Good news - I gave away a TV, some side tables and magazine racks and blankets.
The kids’ bathroom vanity was also damaged and so was my linen closet and bottom shelving in my study (all the contractors called it an office though). I’ve just googled and apparently it is an office as it is “primarily a place for work” and not where much of anything else happens since 2020.
Those cupboards were installed on Thursday and it was chaos. I can’t explain it any other way - absolute chaos. Do you have any idea how much stuff you can put on one shelf in an organised way? A LOT. Multiply that by about 10 shelves and you’ll understand why I needed to sort some of it out so I could sleep.
I worked until midnight on Thursday to restore some order in the linen closet, did a quick stint in the kids’ bathroom on Friday and yesterday, I spent many hours in the “office”. More good news - I have a whole large recycling bag full of paper and another bag full of files to donate. Fun fact - our “programme fee” for IVF cost R14 000 in 2008. An entire cycle cost about R35 000 - R40 000 so imagine all those meds and procedures!
What’s left? One shelf of “memories” and if I feel up to it, some other stationery.
The point is that I looked at my house to-do list and sadly, I am not yet done. This stuff is neverending.
Tomorrow I have someone coming to seal the two windows on one side of the house. These leak when the rain approaches from a certain direction.
Aren’t you glad you’re not me?!
What’s on your house to-do list?
Tomorrow I also need to pack for our holiday but I am already armed with a good packing list so hopefully it’s a painless exercise of just 45 mins.
If you have a day off tomorrow, may you find rest and relaxation. I am starting off my Family Day with a Zumba class (I feel secretly thrilled whenever I can attend this 9am class on a Monday because I’m usually in a meeting at that time but… am on LEAVE!) and then home to shower and pack.
Have a wonderful week!
With love
Marcia