Nottage

Guidelines:

No new makeup purchases for as long as I can (giving myself 4 months)

I'll allow myself brushes on my birthday and Christmas

When I really want something, I'll note down how much and tally them somewhere. I'll also try to 'shop my stash' and figure out a dupe in my current collection.

Every month or so I'll round up a bunch of things to give away.

Will start with an inventory of all my make-up.

Other make-up related goals:

Be more diligent about skin care: wash makeup off every single night. Every. Single. Night.

Empty out handbag every two weeks. Lipsticks tend to accumulate.

Wash sponges every week.

Particularly stressful week (month?). I turned to co-worker Mr. Potato and said, very solemnly, "In case I go on vacation and end up not coming back... I want you to have all my plants. At least I know they'll be in a good home with you. Please take care of them."

He said, "That's funny, I was going to ask you the same thing."

Work is crazy. We houseplant owners just a little more so.

I gave him a Portulacaria afra (variegated) cutting last week, with vague instructions, because I've never done it myself, just read about it on Garden Web ('let it dry, pop it in some soil, don't water until it roots'). Curious to see how it will fare. I'm rooting for it. (Bad plant pun.)

My jade cuttings look settled in, and I will feel sad about leaving them, because the ones I bought from Tesco in M'sia all died. Might have been the bargain soil, and that I mixed it with aquarium gravel.

I am so-so about my Fittonias. I'll miss my Kalanchoe tomentosa though. That and the P. afra ("Stumpy") are probably my favorites. I think I got over Echeverias, maybe because they were too easy to cultivate. No challenge. Out of the original two mother plants I bought, I have 6 babies now. And I think they're pretty common. I saw some in photos of Cameron Highlands.

- box of old grapefruit juice in the fridge

- empty: Skinwhite lotion - not repurchasing. Don't like the smell and hard to work into skin.

- empty: Alishan oolong - it came in a set of 5. This packet has silver packaging and a label: 日出白芽 (rì chū - sunrise; bái - white; yá - bud, sprout)

giving away:

- inflatable neck pillow that has a tendency to slowly deflate. Love that it has a washable cover, unlike most styro-bead types, but I don't really use it that often anyway.

chores the battle against entropy:

- ironed four dress shirts (only 10 more to go!)

- filed bank statements

- light vacuuming and using that sticky roll that actually seems to pick up more stuff than the hand vacuum, and uses no electricity too and is kind of fun to use and has cheap refills at Daiso

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1 liter carton of Lactofree milk

He said if it did mean asshole it would be perfect. This is the guy who, this morning, shared that for Italians, the male parts (cazzo) are a slang for a really bad thing, but in Spanish (carajo?), it means a really good thing. [I'm looking it up and it has a negative meaning, like hell/shit, but maybe it evolved to mean like, "This is the shit!") Then a bad thing is a big [female part]. (Sorry if that sounds stilted, I am paraphrasing his charming Spanglish.)

This came up because other co-worker said Thank you to me im Deutsch and I replied with my rusty college stock phrases, and one thing led to another, something about gendered pronouns...

We have a lot of these cultural exchanges within the team. I suppose you could, in some light, regard them as educational, but for sure they're usually very entertaining.

I make him sound like a jerk but for all his occasional vulgarity, he can be rather sweet. Like how he noticed and complimented my fishtail braid today. And this afternoon he repotted my Panda succulents (Kalanchoe tomentosa) because he said they were getting too crowded. Aww. But then again this is the guy who once watered his houseplants with vodka.

Anyway, what with the stylized calligraphy effect, I wasn't sure what the first radical was, but it was either 侍 (shì - to serve, to attend upon) or 诗 (诗  shī - poem, poetry, verse). I thought the first would make more sense on a teacup, but he preferred the latter.

At this point our mild-mannered draftsman piped in to say that maybe, you know, it just spelled out "COFFEE".

I am falling behind with my work. I used to be able to stay on top of things, AND still have time for a leisurely cup of tea and chitchat with co-workers twice a day. Of my two original projects, one is ending (now spending only 2-3 hours of document control/clerical work on it weekly), but the other is starting the final stage, expected to last until February.

Next week we're supposed to wrap up the final submissions for Stage 3. My bosses have had IT install the bloaty InDesign on my already sluggish PC, and are expecting me to magically learn this new software within a week, to help edit the final report. My familiarity level with it: zero. So good luck with that.

Have two other minor projects newly dumped on my lap, both with a Project Engineer whom most secretaries regard as a bit of a problem child. It's a bit like having an annoying child/pet/Tamagotchi: he wants that report and he wants it NOW in two hours. I hate being given time deadlines.

I think I'm the one to have lasted the longest, but he's starting to get on my nerves. The tasks are easy enough. Back when my projects were in the baby stages and the workload still light, I didn't mind, and even welcomed having actual work to do.  However, now that I am up to my neck in paperwork, it is irritating whenever he pings for attention.

"Take the 12-12-12 Challenge. A simple task of locating 12 items to throw away, 12 items to donate, and 12 items to be returned to their proper home can be a really fun and exciting way to quickly organize 36 things in your house."

12 Things Thrown Away - [DONE]

A handful bobby pins - cheap (from a Japanese home store), but flimsy. They don't grip hair tight enough, and lose their shape easily, so they fall out often. I feel like Witch Hazel, shedding hairpins in my wake. Glad to see them go. If one counts towards the 27 fling, I'm pretty sure with these alone I've reached my quota.

Six envelopes (bank statements). Will file the contents somewhere, or better yet, scan them tomorrow so I can shred them too.

Empty 3L bottle of Persil laundry gel. Used this one up quickly because our flat's shared washing machine is crap and sometimes malfunctions by dumping out the soap you just fed it. >=(

Used makeup swab

A layer of adhesive from my carpet/floor adhesive roller

Price tags from my dresses (UAE shopping spree).

Used tissue

A drinking water bottle

Receipt for Koton skirt

Cotton pad used to remove makeup (trying out L'oreal micellar water)

Contents of handheld vacuum cleaner

Paper with my exit permit than I don't need anymore

Soda can tab

12 Items to Donate - TBD - will list out things I've placed in "To Send in Cargo Box"

12 5 Items to find a home for - [DONE]

Zenhabits: "Pick up 5 things, and find places for them. These should be things that you actually use, but that you just seem to put anywhere, because they don’t have good places. If you don’t know exactly where things belong, you have to designate a good spot. Take a minute to think it through — where would be a good spot? Then always put those things in those spots when you’re done using them. Do this for everything in your home, a few things at a time."

Hung up the damp laundry (does this count?)

Gathered hair ties and pins into one container

Put rogue pens in pen holder

Plastic bags for trash in a paper bag near the bin

Stowed groceries in the food bin

Belts hung back up on belt organizer

Lady pads into box in dresser