Five-Minute Friday

Starting the day. I realized that I've successfully crammed parts of my morning routine into a five-minute time span. There was a time when I could walk out of the house with a bare face and look respectable. Thos days are pretty much gone. Makeup is a requirement. I avoided it for years because I used to watch my mom take 30 minutes to apply her face, and I just don't have that much time.

I can do it in less than five. I figured out what products are necessary for me to feel like a human being, and I stick with those. All-in-one foundation, undereye concealer, blush, and gloss. With haircombing, that takes 2.5 minutes. Today, I felt jazzy and added liner and mascara. Total time, 3:13. Check it out - I may not be ready for the Oscars, but I think I look pretty good.










Night-time cleanup. My five-year-old daughter is a creative soul, and the products of her imagination pepper our family room with paper folded into unknown contraptions, Barbie shoes, and colored pencils. I make her put things away at bedtime, but the room still looks messy. While she was using the potty, I put away TV trays, tossed broken crayons and old papers, and threw a few dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Total time - 4:47. That means I may get time to do my nails before bed. If I can figure out a five-minute manicure, I'll let you know.

Oh, this blog did take more than five minutes; I wrote part of it this morning while my husband drove me to work. I'm going to work on being more timely with the writing.

A Clean Microwave

My microwave looked like one you might see at your job. You know, the one everybody uses but no one cleans. The insides were covered with grease and food particles. I keep a set of plate covers on top of the microwave, but apparently none of us use them.

I heated a bowl of water and baking soda in the microwave for four minutes. While the chamber was still hot from the steam, I sprayed in my favorite cleaner (Awesome!). It looks respectable again.

I forgot to time this, so I'm not sure how I did on time, but a minute or two extra was worth it.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Changing my world, five minutes at a time

Life is becoming more complicated by the minute. More often than not, life gets in the way of living life, if that makes sense at all. I have a full-time job, a part-time job, a family, and a long-ago abandoned list of hobbies. Sometimes I feel as if I'm running in circles. There are mornings that I'm lucky to leave the house with my hair combed.

I've got a list of things that I want to do, but I can't get to them for one reason or another. Cleaning my oven, reorganizing my closet, finishing my daughter's baby book. So I've decided to tackle these things, one project at a time, five minutes at a time.

Five minutes? I know, it might sound crazy, but sometimes five minutes is all I've got. Plus, I'm a little like a crocodile (or is it an alligator?). I have short bursts of focused energy, and if I put them to good use, I think I could get a lot done.

To keep me honest, I'm going to try to revive my blog and document my progress. I hope you'll follow along.

Oh - I almost forgot - I gave myself a few rules.

1. Five minutes only. For the first few weeks, I'm going to time myself when I start a task, just to see how much I get done in the alloted time. I don't want to write about how I cleaned my refrigerator in no time when it was really an hour and a half.

2. Multiple fives are allowed. I might try to do a couple of things a day, but I'll limit each task to five minutes.

3. Five-minute blog. The writing should take five minutes too. The purpose of this is for me to get organized and feel like I have some time back - I can't spend the whole night writing a blog. To help with that, I did invest $2.99 in BlogPress for my iPhone. I won't be able to spend more than five minutes typing on that little keyboard.

So, wish me luck, and I'll stay in touch.

Onward and Upward

Happy Thanksgiving! Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy MLK Day! Happy Inauguration Day! It's been a while, and if you know me, even a little bit, you shouldn't be surprised. So let's not spend too much time harping on how long it's been since I last posted...

New year. New year's resolutions. I used to be pretty skeptical about the whole thing, because like many, I would start off the year with the best of intentions and fall off before the end of the month. I realized a couple of years ago that I could set myself up for success by outlining a couple of reasonable goals. If the year could start over, I could start a few things over too. Like the year I decided to get up everyday at 6 a.m. I consider this a moderate success. Two years later, I still wake up at 6 a.m. Unfortunately, I doze off within seconds and often oversleep. At least it's progress.

But 2009 snuck up on me. I lost track of time amidst the holiday madness. It was January 5 before I knew it, and I had made not a single resolution. Fortunately for me, a group of colleagues at the office vowed to get in shape. They committed to climbing the stairs (8 flights) twice a day. I had done this with them a while ago, and we all fell off the bandwagon. As I was sans resolutions, I figured this one was as good as any. This was sure to decrease my RealAge (Yes, I'm still on that kick), and my wedding date is rapidly approaching. As an added bonus, I have a support group that will help make sure I do the work.

So, it's been three weeks now, and how am I doing? Here's a recap.

Week 1 - Ouch! The first day up the stairs, I was heaving and praying for a paramedic by the 15th floor (we start on 12). By week's end, I was so sore that I could barely walk. When I tried to go into the basement to do some laundry, my legs gave out and I ran into a chair at the bottom of the stairs.

Week 2 - Ouch! My legs didn't hurt as bad when I did everyday walking, but they felt heavy as lead when I tried to lift them up the stairs. For some reason, we decided that we would use this time to train for the 42-flight stair marathon in 2010, so we increased the number of stairs to 10 flights. This was pure insanity. One lady was breathing so hard that I thought we really were going to need to call 911.

Week 3 - This #%#@ still hurts! The rest of the team was out of town for an event, and I had to climb the stairs by myself. Misery loves company, so it wasn't easy going it alone. Plus, it was really cold last week, and the stairwells aren't heated. Not to mention, the climb is still hard. My legs wobbled for another 30 minutes after each set.

Week 4 -#$%^&*()_!!!!!!!!!! This nonsense hurts as much today as it did 3 1/2 weeks ago. Today, I noticed that I could breath a little easier, but I was so tired that I couldn't bend down to change shoes. Fashion note: White sneakers don't look good with dark grey cropped pants and black tights.

I'll try to keep you posted, especially if we do that marathon in 2010. Can you imagine what my RealAge would be by then?