The organising is going slowly, but progress has been made, and will continue to be made, but, sigh, at nowhere near the pace that I had hoped.

I always seem to have to learn the lesson that when a task is big, break it into smaller, more manageable pieces. You would think this would be my “go to” rule of thumb by now in this life. Nope. I must not be the brightest bulb on the tree! I haven’t yet reached to point of entering things into my “Spreadsheet of Life”! Neil has gone through most of the papers that had accumulated, and he’s filed things in their proper folders. He’s been taking a break this week, because more papers have arrived, and the new papers remain stashed in my cookbook-holder-upper in the kitchen. Neil has a couple of favourite places to stash things, and that thingy that I keep in the kitchen that holds a cookbook open and upright and protects it from splashes is a new fave. He likes the top of the microwave, too, and he likes the top of the old RCA radio, which is just near the front door. If I had my stupid fear under control, I’d go along and just take those papers myself and do the filing, and I have attempted this in the past, only to find myself shocked at the disarray downstairs in our little office. Maybe I could try this today, since the office is much neater?

So, definitely, I have not yet conquered my fear, but I haven’t given up. I’ve just reframed the time table.

Not that the above is the down side, so starting the next sentence…”On the plus side…” as I was going to do, implies that it is, and I want to remain positive. How about…. I exercised every day at work this week, which I think is a first. Usually I take Friday’s off. I’ve been doing the elliptical mostly. I get my heart rate up to between 155-161 for 30 minutes. I’m doing 1.8 - 1.9 miles, according to the machine, and again, according to the machine, this burns about 360-390 calories. I certainly sweat profusely. I have found that if I wear my little iPod shuffle that Caroline gave me for my birthday and loaded with my favourite music, and I close my eyes and do not look too often at the machine displays, the time goes by relatively fast. Here’s something nice….as each new song starts, it’s like a little gift. I get so happy to hear my faves. Sometimes I’ll press the little dial to move on to a faster song, though, and I like to regulate my speed to the song. So far, I haven’t humiliated myself and burst into song in front of the other exercisers! On Tuesday or Wednesday, instead of doing the machines, my boss and I went for a very very brisk 2 mile walk around our office campus, and in between did 4 stair climbs inside up to the fourth floor. You can feel your heart start to pound on these stair climbs! I would like to get in some pilates, just for the sake of varying things, and I’m planning to take a class on Wednesday at lunch time.

Eating is also going fairly well, but I am still finding it hard to track my points. I don’t like tracking money, so maybe this is the same thing? I also don’t like following recipes - even though I do have that holder-upper thingy in the kitchen. I’ll follow something to the letter once, maaaaybeee twice, and then all bets are off! My friend Jacqui is the total opposite, and is usually disapproving of my penchant to do things this way. Now Jacqui is very successful in all areas of her life, so maybe I should pay attention! On the other hand, just the thought of being like that strikes a chord of resistance in me. Perhaps being afraid of money and not liking to follow “rules” aren’t quite the same thing, but maybe they are related. My dad was a dreadful one for not following rules, and in the limited time I spent with him as a kid and a teen, I used to be perpetually embarrassed when he’d blatantly ignore rules.