Follow Up Post

Before beginning every task on my to-do list, I set the timer for 10 minutes. My goal was to see if I could get the jobs done in 10 minute increments. If for some reason I couldn't, I just finished it up before going on to the next job.

I guess I could've neglected the project altogether and gone on to the next thing -- you know, sort of a "punishment" for not getting the job done fast enough.

Then, I would've been left with several almost-finished projects and perhaps that could've been good incentive to work really fast from now on. But I knew if I did that, I would never succeed... punishment or not.

With the bathroom, I finished it in just above 10 minutes but included in this task was filling the little dresser between the tub and the dryer with all our winter stuff.

Finally, our hats, mittens and other winter apparel has a place to go. When our bathroom is clean, it makes alot of other things easier and more orderly because our bathroom also functions as a laundry room.

The dining room took just under 10 minutes. That included sweeping the floor as well as the general pick-up of the room.

I always enjoy fixing the dining room up and making it appealing and ready for the next meal. It makes it easy to think about and prepare for a nice, well prepared meal.

I recently purchased those place mats from TJ Maxx on clearance for 4/$5. The table cloth came from a consignment/thrift store.
The candelabras were a recent buy from Goodwill for $0.99 each. I still need to get candles for them but wanted to look for homemade rolled beeswax candles.

The kitchen on the other hand, took 130 minutes -- I set the timer 13 times and boy was I glad to see the end of that project! Considering the kitchen needed everything done, I wasn't surprised it took that long. I had made several mental notes of what I wanted to get done in there and was thankful it all fell into place. With the recent purchase of 2 kitchen islands on a major clearance sale at Shopko, I finally had room to put a lot of my kitchen stuff. I wanted to make a baking center for one of the islands so that everything would be within easy reach.

It's amazing what happens when you put your children down for naps, light a candle, set the timer 13 times and buzz around your workspace. At last my kitchen is a functional, easy-to-work-in place. I'm so glad and inspired to concoct all kinds of goodies and time consuming meals.

You'll see the functions of the above picture displaying the islands. The little dresser in the bathroom that now hold our winter stuff, used to sit where the island on the right (above) now sits. The new set-up works a lot better.
Here are some of the details of the decor in my kitchen. The little candle on the left is a factory reject Yankee candle I found at Goodwill. The "Ginger bread spice" scent smells up the whole house and is a good invigorater for me when I don't feel like cooking or cleaning. Candles seem to really motivate me for some reason!

The picture of the dried apples was a project I did a couple weeks ago. We had a bag of grainy apples that were not good eating apples so I cored them with my handy Pampered Chef corer (that thing is awesome!) and sliced and dehydrated what used to be rather mushy apples. They look so pretty sitting on the counter in my apple kitchen so they serve two purposes: eating and decorating.

That marks the end of the first day of working off of my world wide web to-do list. I'll keep my blog updated with further achievements and aspirations.