Thursday, May 7, 2015

Spring Cleaning

Last weekend, DH completely emptied both a small storage room we have, and the shed. Everything out of both places meant stuff all over the backyard. We found two boxes DS the Elder left behind, but five boxes DD#2 left behind. DD#3, who currently lives with us, reboxed her stuff, and got rid of a bunch. We donated enough stuff, that the seats had to be put down in the van to get it all in. Some stuff ended up in the trash, victims of mice or bugs. Outdoor storage has it's down side :-( At any rate, after a full day of working, only DH has stuff in the shed, and now he can finally call it his own, and work on his scooters and such in there. The little storage room has DD#3's stuff, along with stuff the twins have outgrown that I want to save for future grandbabies.

I think I still have one box I need to go through, that is mostly old paperwork. I'm thinking most if not all of it will end up recycled.

I repurposed a set of shelves that were in the shed, and I finally got my walk-in pantry cleaned up and organized. I've been working on it a little along, but now it really looks much better. All that organizing is incredibly time consuming, but worth it when it's finished.

I did quilt one quilt this week, not one of mine, just one I was finishing as a favor to someone else. It was made by their grandmother, who passed away a few months ago. It needed to be finished, so I did. I didn't even take a photo of the finished quilt. It was a tricky quilt to finish, as it didn't lay flat, but I pretty much quilted it into submission. I hope to start quilting Mamaw's quilt tomorrow.

I love to read, and I love quilting. The only problem with that is they are both sedentary hobbies. I've been trying to clean up my act as well as the house. I bought a treadmill, and my goal is to walk 45 minutes per day, at least on the days DH works. We often are pretty busy on his days off, but he usually works four days per week, so I am on the treadmill more days than I'm not. Because we are usually running errands on his days off, I tend to be pretty active those days anyway.

My phone has a health app built into it. It tracks my number of steps, and minutes of activity. My phone even takes my pulse.


This was a screen shot of my phone today. My phone evidently thinks that walking 2 mph is running, because believe me, I was not running for 38 minutes today. Still, 91 minutes of activity, and 12,000 steps is hopefully a good start towards improving my health. I get about 6,000 steps while on the treadmill, and today the other 6,000 were from shopping. Neither DD#3 nor I are big shoppers, but she really needed clothes, so we went clothes hunting for her. I had hoped to get some sewing time in today, but that didn't happen.

Taking the time to exercise definitely cuts into my quilting time. I used to shower at night, before bed, but now I am exercising in the morning, then showering, so by the time I get some housework done after all that, it's usually lunch time or close to it. I used to spend a lot of my morning quilting, on days I don't have to watch the twins, and now I don't. I'm sure it will have an impact on my quilting productivity, but my goal is, I'll be healthier and able to quilt more years if I take better care of myself now. I don't expect things to change overnight, but you have to start somewhere, so I'm starting on my treadmill.

2 comments:

phxquilt said...

I applaud your efforts. I too need to do more moving than sitting. My average on the phone is about 5K steps unless I'm shopping. Thankfully one of my volunteer jobs is at the airport so on those days I usually come much closer to my 10K goal. Breaking my leg in January has really put a crimp in my eercising, but as you say you must start somewhere. Good Luck to us both!

Katie M. said...

Sounds like you're getting quite a bit accomplished all around. Organizing, quilting and health wise. Good for you and wishing you success on each front!