Update

I'm sorry for the absence. I have tons of pictures of holiday fare to share and I want to get back on reporting a daily food diary via image, but currently my house is upside down. I am painting my kitchen and decluttering my house. Bad idea to try both projects at once. I have some before pictures and I intend to take some after pictures of the project, but the redecoration resulted in cramming my living room with so much stuff, I can't find my camera to computer cord at the mo'.

1st a discussion of decluttering: this is something I've needed to do for a long time. I have too much stuff and I've even moved unorganized stuff twice. I have several closets, yet I wasn't quite sure where all of my Christmas decorations were this year, so I just used candles and chargers to add a festive feel to the living room, but didn't put up the tree or even put lights on my hibiscus as a substiute. My goal is to know where the important things are and get rid of the unimportant. On the 1st day of my decluttering saga I produced FIVE bags of reclyable paper from old magazines, mail, school papers, etc. That wasn't even digging deep (my parents have offered use of their recycle bin to help me get it all out this week). I have two boxes of give away in my trunk which was just sitting between my living room and kitchen for like six months (thus, give away I meant to give away last summer!). I haven't even started the real dig yet--I just got rid of some surface clutter. So, decluttering is really a big project that I will engage in between the Western New Years and the Chinese New Years (my friend Ipsita, she's Indian, told me that the Chinese always try to sweep away the old and uncessary before their New Year, so I figure I can tweak that ancient custom and marry it to a New Year's Resolution: New Years day, declutter begins, January 26th (early this year), the Chinese New Year and the day my decluttering should be complete. I think that that is reasonable, but I'm going to have to really committ to recognizing that what I thought of as necessary in the past may really not be and its keeping me from having a more livable living space.

Kitchen Redocoration: So, this has been a project long in the making and I planned to do it over the break (I work at a University, so I'm lucky to actually get a 2 week break). Taking down all the wallpaper proved the hardest--gross, goopey, and difficult and when the final piece just over my sink was about to be scraped off, gawd I was tired. Honestly, it took my two full days. The painting is going much smoother, with the help of my tireless father, but taping off the cabinets and protecting the floor constitued most of yesterday; then the ceiling painted white; today we'll do another coat on the ceiling and we'll start on the walls, going up to about 6 inches of the ceiling because we'll have to tape of the ceiling when its dry to finish the top bits of the walls. Originally in the plan, I was going to get some char molding and go around the room with this white molding at about 36 inches from the floor to give it a fancy look. I'm not sure now. We'll see if I'm happy enough with the aqua color. Once I find the cord, I promise I'll share the before and after.

Now, again, lesson learned, never try to redocorate a room while at the same time decluttering! It made sense in a way (two weeks, two projects) but I think getting the kitchen done, then doing decluttering will be best in the end.

Exercise: I haven't done the treadmill, but 10 hours pulling wall paper is a hell of a lot of activity points. I'll be back on the treadmill Thursday, but between now and then I'm pretty sure I'm getting tons of exercise. Not quite moving levels of exercise, but quite enough.