MONDAY 1.10.22

Apartment Therapy January Declutter: Day Something.

Today’s post started with “Humans are designed to become desensitized to things they see most frequently.” YES. And I don’t think that’s limited to “seeing,” but that’s another topic.

But…haven’t we all walked past piles of junk, sinks full of dirty dishes, chairs heaped with clothes…for days, weeks, months, years? Or is that just me?? You get so used to seeing it…that you no longer SEE IT.

Sometimes it’s only when I know someone ELSE is going to see my space that I’m able to see it through THEIR eyes…and go…oh. Crap. It must look like a crazy person lives here.

But that “mess blindness” is how it’s able to get So Bad. It’s just occurring to me now that maybe people have different “bars of blindness”? Like…I think I’m REALLY blend to it…maybe cuz I was raised in a house with piles (and piles). Maybe some people SEE it sooner, so do something about it…and it never gets bad.

Like, maybe it’s not just a case of a messy vs neat person. Or lazy vs. non-lazy. Cuz I don’t honestly consider myself a LAZY person. But there are things I just don’t SEE…or THINK OF…so they don’t get done.

Just something to think about…if you ever feel bad about yourself for living in a mess.

Today’s assignment is to look at your space from a new perspective…and see if you can SEE it differently. Sit in a different chair than usual or stand in a corner and look. Spend 10minutes (or however long) with no phone, no music or tv…just “meditating” and observing a spot that you want to work on. Envision how you can make it better – cleaner, more functional, prettier, whatever it is you’re wanting for it. Then figure out what you need to do to make that happen.

The exercise is a little more involved but…THAT ^ piece of it is manageable for me, so I’m leaving it at that.

Other than staring at a pile of stuff, today was just work, grocery store, picture/video-taking, jump-roping, ridiculous dance-attempting, blog-posting, TEFL work, Korean study, chicken marinating…then finally, mercifully, couch-sitting and drama-watching. Phew.

TUESDAY 1.11.22

I did stare at a corner yesterday. The corner of the living room where I sit, eat, study, watch tv, read…so it’s got all the necessities of corner life…and it’s always a mess.

But then I hit the wall. I’d already done my 30 minutes of TEFLing (watched a SCINTILLATING video of a practice lesson teaching about gerunds and present participles) and blog work, but I let myself off the hook for Korean (I HAD practiced vocabulary at lunch) and jumping rope. Well, I jumped to like 5 and was like yeah, no, I got nuthin. I can’t do this today.

And you know WHY I had nuthin?? CUZ I DIDN’T START THE DAY WITH MEAT PROTEIN. It doesn’t seem to matter what I eat later…for lunch or dinner…once I hit the “poor morning eating hypoglycemia” I just can’t get past it. I went and got a quarter pounder with cheese for lunch, spending more money than I wanted…and it helped only briefly. I have to START the day right to get THROUGH the day right. This is what I have learned for myself over the past 3 years.

Today (a la Apartment Therapy) I’m supposed to spend 30 minutes de-cluttering a closet. 30 minutes won’t get me too far in ANY of my closets, but I think I will focus on the shelves in the clothes closet, and if, Miracle of Miracles, I have time left over, I’ll start on the closet floor.

Oh, WHY didn’t I start yesterday (or today) with meat protein? If I understand how IMPORTANT it is, why don’t I do it Every Damn Day? Cuz I’m lazy and hate food prep and going to the grocery store. That’s just being A Poor Human. I have no one to blame but myself.

WEDNESDAY 1.12.22

Apartment Therapy Day 8: Kick-off a living room reset.

Basically, taking everything away…living “clean” like that for awhile (til the end of the month)…then deciding what you want to put back.

Oh yeah. I’m so in for this one. Cuz it’s The Easy Part: Putting everything in a box…without The Hard Part: figuring where to put or how to get rid of stuff.

The above paragraph is EXACTLY why I have lived surrounded by boxes for the past…34 years, ha. Funny not funny.

Katie’s sick 🙁 Fevery, achey, ucky. Her at home test said negative for covid but she’ll take another in 24 hours. She COULD just have a bad cold. People do still get colds. I’ve advised soup and tylenol and pudding and ice cream and toast and sleep AND TAKE A DAY OFF FROM WORK. The kid NEVER takes a day off!

I just discovered yesterday that the language schools have NINE WEEKS OF VACATION every year. There are four 10-week semesters, with 2-2.25 week breaks between each. OOFAH! I haven’t had that much time off since…high school? I’M GONNA GO ALL THE PLACES! All around S Korea! Japan! Thailand!

I hope my real life can live up to my dreams 🙂

I watched an IG live by one of the people from GoGoHanguk.com, the company that assists foreigners who want to take Korean language in Korea and someone asked about age limits…and while the guy I emailed with awhile back said there was no upper age limit, THIS fellow said some of the schools DO have age limits. Ack. So I have to check to see if my top two school choices have age limits (please, no).

THURSDAY 1.13.22

Okay, here’s a weird thing. Twice this week I have won $4 in a lottery game…With No Correct Numbers. Zero Numbers. Whaat?? I looked it up and yes, in this particular game (Pick 10), that costs $1 to play…you can win $4 with NO matched numbers…as long as at least one other person has gotten 6 or more (out of 10) numbers correct. WHAATT?? I don’t even understand how that makes sense. But cool, I’m up $6 (net) for having, essentially, lost twice.

I’m not happy with the table in the living room with nothing on it. It looks stupid. It’s depressing. That stuff didn’t feel like clutter to me. It felt like a collection of favorite objects. Ha. I’m putting them back. At least I cleaned off the tabletop.

FRIDAY 1.14.22

THIS. WAS. A. DAY. By 7am I had three pieces of information dropped on me like bombs BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! All affecting the future of Bettye’s Big Adventure in Korea. I literally felt nauseous all day. I thought…IT’S NOT HAPPENING. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. Some things are just outside of my control and THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. NAUSEOUS.

I got through the work day and decided to just…not think about it that night. There was nothing I could do then anyway, so…I hid on the sofa under the blankets and started a new show as a distraction. But I vowed to get up the next morning and FIGURE THINGS OUT.

PS: Katie, not covid.

SATURDAY 1.15.22

Okay. I survived the night (melodramatic? ME???)…and DURING the night I started remembering/realizing things…”well, you have this resource over here,” and “don’t forget, this is gonna happen,” and “by then, you’ll have_____,” And things started falling into place and….

IT’S GONNA BE OKAY.

One thing that washed over me last night was…ALL I CAN DO IS ALL I CAN DO. I can just…do what I can and it will either work out or it won’t…but at a certain point, there’s just no more I can do. So.

BUT. The PROSPECT of this NOT happening…was so devastating to me…I thought THERE IS NOT ENOUGH WELLBUTRIN IN THE WORLD. We would be entering Bettye’s Grand Funk era.

I quickly tried to think of SOMETHING to…give myself to look forward to in case the bottom dropped out of this plan. And the only thing I could come up with was a puppy. Don’t know where I would be living that I could have a puppy (maybe my car), but…I’ll cross that bridge if/when I need to.

But now I have notes and lists and calculations and charts and timelines…and they always make things better.

It’s Gonna Be Okay.

SUNDAY 1.16.22

Feeling calmer, I was able to meet NO ONE IN PARTICULAR this morning for coffee and then we just sat in the car by the water and caught up on stuff.

We saw lots of dogs in coats…and a woman in a full-on fox costume.

I went to the market, did some food prep, got lost in the Social Security website (somehow my “My SSI” webpage has my name spelled wrong so I gotta sort THAT out before I need anything).

I’ve been listing stuff on ebay if you wanna look… https://www.ebay.com/usr/dragonflyvintageclothing

Had a bit of GOOD news (TG)…oh, it won’t make sense til I tell you this. I THINK I told you (I’m getting confused with blogs I’ve written and posted, blogs I’ve written and have NOT yet posted, blogs I’m still writing, blogs I’ve written and saved for fuuuuuture posting), about how I was having a hard time deciding between going to a university in Seoul vs Busan. I feel like my heart wants Seoul, BUT…the tuition is more expensive and apartments can be more expensive. The school in Busan is cheaper AND it has the beach…but I’ve just been getting more of a “shiny new” feel from things I see there…and I prefer some grunge, age, some cracks…and I see more of that in Seoul. But…cost is a big factor. So I decided that I’d wait til it was time to apply to wherever…and if I didn’t have enough money for Seoul…Decision Made, I’d go to Busan.

But…come to find out the university in Busan I was interested in (there’s like 5 criteria that I’ve used to compare and decide which are my top choice schools) has an AGE LIMIT on students. And it’s FORTY!!! Whaaaat??? I can’t even. I’ve got too many other things I need to overthink about, I don’t have time for that. But…now my lower cost option is no longer an option. Which means greater pressure to come up with MO MONEY!!!

Oh wait, I was telling you GOOD NEWS, ha ha. So, I ALSO learned that the tuition I’ve been looking at is for 24 months…so I thought the program was for two years…and the student visa is even for two years so…it made sense to think the PROGRAM was two years…but it’s not. It’s 18 months…the visa just gives you time to repeat a session if you don’t pass it the first time, which, how thoughtful of them 🙂 ANYWAY, what this means is I only need to come with the 18-month tuition, which is $3,000 less than the 24-month tuition. PHEW. And I’ll just make damn sure I pass everything the first time around! And then I’ll have PLAY TIME at the end! A little mini-retirement before I come back and have to figure out a way to support myself for the rest of my life in the United States.

Well, me and my puppy 🙂 Now that THAT’S in my head I don’t want to let it go. I can’t wait too long. I don’t believe in old people getting young pets…with the high likelihood that they will die before the animal and then the poor animal has to be rehomed when IT’S older…and I just…I hate those stories. And I know, I know, we could all go anytime…but the likelihood gets greater the older we get. So. I feel like I’m just about at that age where I’ll too old to get a puppy. And I would dearly love another puppy. I feel emotionally ready. This May will be 4 years since I lost Caleb…and I’ve never once in all that time thought about getting another dog.

Til yesterday.

And on that note, I will stop.

Chin up, young people.