Midyear Melee

Alright.  So let's beat this blog into submission, shall we?

It's so nice to put my fingers on the dashboard of this little log of mine, even if I haven't logged in much here of late.  Like I said here, it's been busy.  I kind of think our default setting is "busy", at least during the summer, even in the midst of intentional slowing down.  It's interesting how the joy over the potential for lazing about that comes with summer sort of starts to give way around this time each year and I think we all start to sort of crave the routine of a school year.  There's definitely some comfort in a degree of boundaries.

I thought I would take a post (or two or ten or a half) and look back on winnowing efforts made thus far into Twenty10.  How'm I doin'?  What's the current status?  I'm not going to lie about the fact that I would like to lie. I don't even have to look back to know that all I have set out to do this year isn't happening.  But I also can look around and see that efforts are paying off and we've even slipped into some good patterns that no one even planned for.

I started out this epoch of becoming winnowingwoman on January 5th, 2010.  At one point I described the goal like this: "I want to systematically and radically clean out all the non-functional, under-used 'stuff' in my life."  So enough delaying the inevitable.  Let's get on with it.  Maybe I'll give myself a grade on each item or topic.  I don't know, maybe not.  It's 11:32pm and will likely cross over into tomorrow before I finish writing, so it's entirely possible that I start to ramble in stream of consciousness and write nothing coherent or cohesive from this point on, or maybe I'll fall asleep with my hand on the keyboard like this ffrrrraaaaaaaaafffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff. . .

We'll see.

These are the goals I started out with.  Let's check in on the first one:

Go through our house room by room and consider the intended function of the room, what items help that function, and get rid of the superfluous stuff. (This doesn't mean there won't be pictures on the walls or decorations when I get through with the place, but I am truly reducing what we own…winnowing.)  ***AS OF 7.22.10 ...I'm feeling good about this one.  This has taken place in the kitchen (and been maintained, HALLELUJAH!), Little Big Man's room, the girls' room, the living room, the kids' bathroom (pictures to come for all of those), and of course the GARAGE.  Our bedroom and bathroom are truly The Last Holdout, but I remain optimistic (I just totally blanked on whether a "b" or "p" came after the "o" in "optimistic".  See, I am tired.)  I guess I'll give myself a B- on this goal.  And if you ask me to defend or explain my reasoning for that grade, I got nothin'.***

I'm going to stop here because I know the next goal is going to be a beast to update.  I'll do that one next.

But how about a few parting shots of my hair?  You know it's what you've always wanted, pictures of my shampoo-free hair.  That's right, baby, I have been poo-less for 3 months now and I still love it.  Even my friend PostmodernPescatarianPrettyMama (P.S. she would NEVER give herself that moniker) has embarked on winnowing the poo, and she's added some really great tweaks and additions so check her link out.

Behold the hair.

This is right after I started (or stopped. . .whatever) in April.

With my homeslices at the beach in May.

A couple of weeks ago (don't I look contemplative...or something?)

 Tonight.

COMING UP NEXT IN BLOGDOM . . .
An update on this goal - Come up with efficient, workable systems of organization for everything from laundry to paperwork to dvds to dry goods, using the resources we already own (baskets, plastic bins, cabinet space, containers, etc.)