My daily dumpster fire

This week has simultaneously blown by, and felt like it lasted 6 months. So my dumpster has been burning, but I have not captured it for posterity. But, fear not I am rectifying it, with this image (taken before the rain today made it so much worse) of another dumpster fire that resulted from a good thing. AEP sent the tree removal team to remove a dead tree in our front yard. The carnage from this however looks like the orcs were slaughtering Fangorn Forest on my driveway! I don't even know how I am going to clean it up after the rain has made it into a layer of mulch. #DailyDumpster

I'm super giddy about my #SundayChaser this week, and I don't do giddy. That is how fabulous it is. My work space is finally coming together, and I adore it. I still need a new desk chair among other parts of phase 2 that should occur next month, but it is almost there! This is where the magic will happen. #DailyDumpster

This may not look like a dumpster fire to most, and I guess it really isn't, but it does make me absolutely crazy. Apparently I have house elves and just don't know it. Because certain members of my family (my spouse *cough, cough*) leave things literally wherever they are done with them. These sleep pants stayed on the middle of the floor, and he walked around them all day (which aggravated me far more than the actually initial leaving them there) till I finally snapped and put them up. When he went looking for them later he didn't even notice they were no longer in the middle of the floor where they left them and had been properly put up. So I guess he really believes in house elves. My frustration is my #DailyDumpster

It's been a difficult week, after an amazing long weekend. I've been focused on putting out small fires some of my own, and some not of my own. As such other things have fallen to the side, including, today's #DailyDumpser a bag of clothing I gathered from others to donate to a clothing drive, which has been sitting here for two weeks now....But I am going to focus on the good it will do someone when I finally am able to get it there tomorrow. And not on the perceived failure to keep up with all the To Dos I give myself. Perspective is everything.

So I'm super proud of my #SundayChaser. I cleaned up and put away everything in my infamous pile on the counter. And my goal for the week is not to let anything else pile up, and I'm totally celebrating the fact that I got it cleared out! #Smallmoves #Bigcelebrations #DailyDumpster

Sometimes I tell time by my laundry pile. Certainly strange I will admit, but it is a very good reminder to me of how many days go by without me really registering their passing, lost in the constant influx of job and life. Suddenly I look up and I have dumpster fire of overflowing laundry hamper, that I keep 'meaning to get to' for at least five days before I finally can. It is a constant reminder to me when I go to the bathroom of how I am failing. Or at least failing to keep up to the unattainable standard I have set for myself. The real truth is we can't keep up with all that we do, and we are rock stars for doing what we do. So I'm going to ignore the laundry pile telling me I am a failure and instead focus on all I have done in life. On all the friendships I have. On the memory I will leave. I really hope what is remembered of me isn't - she never got behind on her laundry. I hope to be remembered for being kind, for being always there when needed, for being a...

It's still there just slightly different items, as new items came in, and I dealt with others. But I have been making a concerted effort to put experiences over working on the never ending house work. So I am trying to be okay with this. Trying to remember life is so very, very short. So here's to a new year and a new decade of putting dinner with friends before doing all the dishes. To working out instead of errands. To embrace life, and remembering that life is not a dress rehearsal. This is it, make it count. #DailyDumpster

[Insert Mel Gibson as William Wallace screaming 'They'll never take our freedom'!] This is how I feel today knowing I take my car to the dealer in the morning to have the long awaited part put in so I can actually drive it and have my FREEDOM!! I have already loaded it up with all the stuff for errands that has been piling up. I'm actually looking forward to errands. So Freedom is my #SundayChaser from my week of #DailyDumpster

My house looks like I'm either moving or having a going out of business sale. See my ever growing pile of recycling, donations, and trash. I am creating a dumpster fire, by trying to organize and clean my dumpster fire. But it looks worse right before it looks better, right? I certainly hope so. But I am uncharacteristically calm about. See my #SundayChaser to find out why. #DailyDumpster

I have decided that I have too much of an influx of stuff that I need to deal with. Hence this pile (albeit nicely piled pile) of stuff that has accumulated on my counter all week that I haven't had time to deal with on top of the normal day-to-day stuff. Which makes me ask, why do I have so much stuff, and why do I keep getting more? I believe it was George Carlin who said (and I'm paraphrasing) your house is the place you keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. So here's to 2020 and getting way less stuff, and making my house a home, not a storage space. #dailydumpster

Today's fire is an ongoing issue I have. I want to clean, organize, donate, reduce, reuse, and recycle. But I always want to donate things to their best home, like I'm finding a forever home for a pet. So I hold on to things till I can get them to good owners. Now I have a pile of stuff, including a chair that can be fixed, other odds and ends, and a pile of items to put in the memory boxes clogging up my entry way. I realize my biggest issues is I plan way too big, to the point of unattainability and then feel like I am a failure because I didn't obtain the unattainable. I have to ask myself what am I trying to prove with these castles in the sky I continually build and then mourn the loss of when the crumble. So for 2020, I set a goal of setting more reasonable goals. We will have to see if that is a goal I can meet. #dailydumpster

(Insert screaming/sobbing) today's fire is really all about my Volkswagen lease, and the fact a broken part that is recalled is keeping me from being able to drive my car, and I have no good options for getting to work and such every day, and now I get to spend my evening fighting and trying to get them to do something about it. #dailydumpster 

It's been a difficult week, and despite having over two weeks off work for the holiday, I still feel like I'm nowhere. So I am again back to perspective. I had a wonderful holiday with my spouse, children, and their significant others, and my amazing friends and family. I am nearly done with my library facelift. And I read (insert listened to audio books) of some fabulous books. So to readjust my focus to see the good in the chaos. Here is my #SundayChaser  - my dishwasher is installed, and currently chugging away on its first load! Cheers to the chaos, and to a new week. #dailydumpster

My Sunday disaster brought to you by Volkswagen. Well not really, but I am blaming them. This is a weeks worth of recycling that is just sitting there because I can't take to recycle yard because the part for my car is still not in so I can't drive it. And yes, I am a large part of the white claw shortage issue. #dailydumpster

The Christmas I have been working on putting up for about a week now, and keep getting side tracked by the million other things I feel like I need to do before my holiday is officially over and I go back to work on Monday. Though the older I get I realize that most of my "must do" list are things I put on myself that are unnecessary. So here's to a new year, and a new decade, and a focus on what matters and lasts. #dailydumpster

On my birthday this year I will celebrate one of the best birthday gifts I have ever received - moving into this house. We will have been here seven years. I love my home, and enjoy getting to make it more “home” with projects. However, and it’s a big however, home ownership is its own unique dumpster fire. Yesterday, I had   a delivery of the THIRD dishwasher I have purchased since moving in nearly 7 years ago. And, because nothing is ever simple, the delivery guys took the water supply line with them when the hauled away the old dishwasher, so the installation this morning has to wait. And while we wait, I have no hot water in my sink. So here is the quickly growing pile of dirty dishes as we wait till we to purchase supply line and it (fingers crossed) can be installed. #dailydumpster

I’ve always loved taking photographs. Something so soothing about capturing your perspective from a moment in time to have for always. To me photos always reminded me that in life your perspective is everything. How we chose to look at something changes the way we feel about what surrounds us. I always found it a reminder to see the good and the beauty in the worst of times and in the ugliest places. It was a way to remember that in life you need the darkest night to see the stars shine at their finest. In our society today photographs are easy and quick and usually thoughtless. They are banal. But more than that they have become insidious, filtering perspective to project perfection that does not exist. They scream to the world I have it all figured out - I am winning. Hence everyone else must be losing if their life doesn’t reflect the happiness and perfection carefully curated for social media. I see so many friends and strangers who feel like failures. They...