MY HORSE THREW A SHOE, PART 2

I don’t advertise this a lot, but I have bad knees.  Generally I will just tough through an uncomfortable day, but since I took a couple of spills this last winter one knee in particular gives me a lot of trouble when I am very active.

My darling husband was concerned about the walking at Silver Dollar City for two full days and what it might do to my knees.  

For those of you who have never been to Silver Dollar City to say there are a few hills there would be an understatement.  Everything in that park is uphill both ways and we aren’t talking a slight grade we are talking 7% or more grades.  In my younger years the park gave me no trouble at all. 

In fact our very first trip nearly 40 years ago we had a 3 year old in the backpack and a 6 month old in a stroller and we even went into Marvel Cave, which is gorgeous, carrying both kids and the stroller!  Anyone that has ever been in Marvel Cave will tell you we must have been insane to consider doing that because it is a very strenuous cave to visit, but I digress.

We like Silver Dollar City due to its good clean Christian atmosphere, lively entertainment, demonstrations, cleanliness, and decent amusement park style food.  We didn’t want that dampened by me being in pain. 

Dh suggested we take my grandmother’s electric wheel chair out of our storage trailer there on the property and see if the batteries were still good on it.  He did this on Wednesday evening, and due to some minor mishaps that happened he barely got it on the charger to check it out before it was bedtime.  In fact we discovered the next morning the charger had not been completely connected.  So we decided to take the chair with us anyway and chance it.

 

Once we had parked our rig, see part 1, he hooked the chair up again to charge over night.  We were delighted the next morning to find that it was fully charged, even though the gauge on the arm rest suggested differently.

He suggested I drive it around the campground a bit, because I had never used it, but I only did so for a very short time because I didn’t want to run the batteries down. 

We headed up to the shuttle in plenty of time and I boarded it easily with the assistance of the cheerful bus driver.  As we rode over to the park we noticed we had tracked a little “mud” into the bus with the rear tires. We apologized to the driver as we exited the bus.

We had discovered on our way to the campground the day before that dh had left his annual pass at home, but luckily I had two free 1 day tickets with me, along with my annual pass, so we used those to enter the gate and start up the hill toward the entrance when we heard a man behind me going “lady, lady your tires are falling apart!”  

Quick inspection showed my horse was indeed throwing a shoe!  The 15+ year old anti-tip rear tires were crumbling as I rolled along.  Diligently behind me a Silver Dollar City employee was sweeping up the crumbs as we went, not saying a word, just sweeping quietly.  I told you it was a clean and friendly park.

Apparently being stored in the metal trailer in last summer’s heat had caused the solid rubber tires to disintegrate.  We sat there a moment trying to figure out what to do.  The shuttle had left, we had no transportation back to the campground to put the scooter into the camper or truck and we had already used our pass for the day.  The employee suggested we go to guest relations to see if they could help us.

I apologized for leaving a trail as I went and he just smiled and said, “I’ll follow you.”

Back at the base of the hill dh thought the disintegration had stopped because it appeared no more was falling off so he suggested I do a few donuts in the chair to see if it was going to start again or if perhaps we could go back up the hill and try it again.  After a few loops it was apparent the self destruction was going to continue. So we went to Guest Relations back outside the gate telling the gate keeper where we were going and why.  She said she would let us back in, so that solved that problem.

Somewhere along the way we lost our sweeper.  Perhaps he was still cutting donuts on the other side of the gate.

While my husband was in guest relations I set in the chair outside and after a bit I heard the familiar swish of the street sweeper slowly coming down the walkway.  I again apologized to him and he laughed and said “I thought I had lost you.”

I replied “Well I left you a bread crumb trail, I knew you would find me.”  Then we both laughed.

Guest relations allowed us to park our scooter in the safety of their building and suggested we get a rental, however, no discount was offered on the rental.  Dh convinced me to pay the $36 for the one day rental, calling it my anniversary gift.

We had a good time in the park, despite 2/3’s of the shops and shows being closed until after April 5.  The weather was perfect, the three shows we saw were good and the staff was helpful everywhere we went.  Our annual pass discounts for food were 10% on everything we purchased over $4 and let me say the strawberries and ice cream were divine for our afternoon treat on that warm spring afternoon.

On our way out we picked up my lame horse and went to wait for the 6 pm shuttle that finally arrived at nearly 6:30 pm.  

While our cable connection was good at the campground the wi-fi was horrible and we both gave up trying to find scooter replacement wheels early on because we could not stay connected.

Saturday I chanced my knees and walked the park, very slowly.  We were careful with the routes we took, did some minor window shopping repeated watching one show, Mike…can’t remember his last name.  Who did a variety show that included unicycle riding, juggling, comedy and magic.  We had seen him on America’s Got Talent a few years ago and knew the show would be a little hokey, but fun.  We had seen his show on Friday, but decided it was worth seeing again on Saturday.  It was the same show, but it changes ever so slightly because he does audience participation and you never know what a four year old is going to say or do.  Both times watching it was fun.

That day I had one of their “skillets” for lunch.  Fried taters, both white and sweet, veggies, and smoked sausage, very good. 

A word about their refillable mugs.  They are definitely worth the price.  Our refills for our 32 ounce mugs we purchased years ago, were $1.93 each, far cheaper than the cost of a new drink every time. The cups are good indefinitely, we in fact have glass ones from our first trip in 1975 they will still honor, although we opted to purchase new lighter weight insulated ones many years ago.  We use them once maybe twice each day we are in the park so they have more than paid for themselves.

 We took carry straps in with us and so the cups were not the least bit inconvenient to tote.  Especially the first day when we had the scooter, which had a basket on it. 

Many people ask about food prices at amusement parks and we find they run close to the same at various parks across the nation.  However, we found the food at Silver Dollar City this year to be slightly higher than the food costs we had been shopping for a trip later this year to Walt Disney World.While we love SDC, we have found that is in actuality more expensive to go to when all things are considered than Walt Disney World.  I thought I had done how I calculated this cost comparison before for the blogs, but I can't seem to find it.  Thus a subject for another post in the near future. 

The shuttle back to the campground arrived about 6:05 pm the second day, for which we were thankful, because the cold front was arriving nearly a full day early.

Back at the campsite we were glad we had already packed our lame horse in the trailer and went to get fuel.  For those of you going to the area we have found, over the years, that the cheapest fuel is at West Branson, our diesel there was $3.79 per gallon, and nearly $4 elsewhere. 

A quick bite at Taco Bell there in West Branson, then back to the camper to get ready to leave on Sunday morning.

Sunday morning started with a rather lively discussion with me wanting to stay until the next day because a steady rain had fallen all night and the temperatures were plummeting.  Remember I am fearful of sliding off a mountain.  Dh wanted to leave immediately because they were predicting 3-4 inches of snow in the area by nightfall and he needed to be back to work the next day.  Even though it was predicted to be 50 by mid afternoon on Monday at Branson and he had more vacation time he could have taken. There was a project he was working on that he needed to complete.  He felt that if we left shortly the roads would be fine due to the two previous days of 70 degrees.

It took us less than 30 minutes to eat a cold breakfast and pack up. 

 My poor husband got soaked to the skin as the wintery mix started to fall as he was dumping the sewer and disconnecting as I sat in the warmth of the truck.

To say the next few hours were pleasant would be a lie.  Before we were out of Branson large wet snowflakes were hitting our windshield and the temperature was down to 31 from the 70 the day before.  

The constant fear of the “low coolant light” nagged at us as well.  One quick note here, it turned out to be a true concern because after we had replaced the water pump and hoses on the truck that caused pressure to build up and show up problems elsewhere.  Unbeknown to us the head gasket had blown.  We are lucky the whole engine did not lock up on us.  I am certainly thankful we made it home safely.

By the time we reached the Joplin area we were looking for a campsite because we were hitting near white out conditions.  We finally decided we would ride it out at the Flying J at exit 11A there in Joplin because we knew we could camp there free of charge and there was no guarantee we would find an open campground anywhere nearby. It is after all just mid March, hardly peak camping season.

We decided to fuel up before we parked because the pump area was clear at that point. If you travel with an RV I recommend getting the Pilot/Flying J FREE RV loyalty card.  It gets you discounts on your fuel, and you accumulate points for free items. You can get one at any Fly J or Pilot travel plaza. This trip we saved roughly $2 every time we filled up.

 While paying for the fuel I asked if anyone was coming in from the Tulsa area and how the road conditions were.

A kindly trucker informed me that this was the worst of the storm coming through right now and that the turnpike to Tulsa was in good shape.  I repeated this to my husband and then he went to change out of his wet clothes while I called our son to see what the weather was like at home.  

Clear, windy and cold, no snow, no ice was his report.  He said later that right after we got off the phone there had been some light snow, but nothing serious.

Gary and I decided that we needed to have lunch and decide what to do next.  We went into the Denny’s there at the Flying J knowing that the service would be slow because they cook your meal after you order it. We took advantage of this delay to use it to our benefit.

We both pulled out our cell phones and started checking various weather reports, they all agreed with what the trucker had told me.  In fact the minute by minute said the snow would cease in 39 minutes.  

We ordered what turned out to be the best meal, in our opinions, we had the entire weekend.  I ordered their senior’s turkey club sandwich with seasonal fruit and dh had their chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes, gravy, toast and corn.

We both were delighted with our meals.  My seasonal fruit turned out to be red grapes, sliced bananas and blueberries (red, white and blue—just like the current theme at Silver Dollar City). The fruit was the perfect ripeness and blended well with each other.  The sandwich was probably the best turkey club I had eaten in years.  

Dh said there was no toughness at all in his chicken fried steak and the seasoning on the corn was extremely good.  We would both recommend the meals we got at this Denny’s.  

The service was great, and we were given a discount on top of my senior meal by our wonderful server.  The only drawback to the meal was they need a better ventilation system over their smoking area because you could definitely still smell the cigarette smoke in the non-smoking section.  

We understand that many truckers smoke and that is why they need a smoking section there, but they do need to improve that a bit.  Other than that the meal was exactly what we needed I would give this Denny’s an A+ for the food and service we got there on Sunday. With a slight downgrade because we do not care for the smell of cigarette smoke. 

Relaxed from our meal we checked all our sources again and decided to chance it on for home rather than sleep in an unheated camper at 29 degrees or lower over night.  I don’t care to be cold either.  Did I mention I am spoiled?—See the intro to my Princess Plan blog if you have any doubts.

By the time we left the snow was nearly stopped and the roads were drying quickly.  By the time we hit the Oklahoma border the lack of sleep the night before and stress of the earlier driving combined with my full tummy and the warmth of the truck soon had me drowsy.  Luckily dh was not.  I napped most of the rest of the way home.

As soon as we were parked at home and unpacking was started we realized the three of us were very hungry so it was out for pizza to finish celebrating our anniversary.

So both our horses all pulled up lame this trip.  The repair on the dually is going to run close to $5,000 for everything, but considering the overall good condition of the truck, and the fact we just put $2,200 in it for other repairs  it is still much cheaper than trying to replace the truck with one of equal accessories in this day and age.   The scooter repair should be under $100, so our simple little cheap getaway ended up costing us a bundle, but now we will be all in good shape before our big trip later in the year to Walt Disney World.  

Being the Pollyanna I am, I feel that it was a good thing we took this trip now rather than making the WDW trip our only trip for the year.  What if we didn’t find out about any of these problems until we were part way to Florida?  Far better now, so we can adjust budget and work it all out, than to get high centered hundreds of miles from home.

Jan who enjoyed herself despite it all in OK

MY LIFE ON 3 X 5 CARDS

Feb 10, 2011

Back in the late 1970’s I was striving to organize my home and life, much like now. While at the local bookstore I stumbled across a book titled SIDETRACKED HOME EXECUTIVES ™: from Pigpen to Paradise written by Pam Young and Peggy Jones. It’s been re-published since then, but the concept is still the same. S.H.E. was about to become part of my life.

I took this bright blue book home and read it cover to cover. Highlighting the ideas as I went. The entire concept made a lot of sense to me. Everyone has certain chores they need done daily, weekly, monthly and annually so why not be organized about them. But we all get sidetracked.

You know the old joke/story you probably live it at least occasionally in your life—me it tends to be a nearly everyday occurrence.

You get up in the morning fully planning to getting a certain chore done and at the end of the day, although you have worked hard all day it’s still not done. Some people call it the “but first” syndrome.

Here’s an example for you: Today is laundry day, I’m going to get all the laundry done. As I sort the laundry I see a button about to come off of a shirt. Granny taught me “a stitch in time, saves nine.” So I decide to sew the button on before it gets lost.

I go to the living room for my sewing kit to take care of it. Once in the living room I see bills that need to be mailed that day. It’s 9:30 am and my mail carrier runs at 10:30 am. The mailbox is 2/10 of a mile down the drive. It’s a pretty day and I need exercise.

So I decide to walk down to the mailbox to mail the bills. I grab the camera “just in case”. Whistling for the dogs I head for the mailbox. Stopping along the way to snap photos for the greeting card business and throw sticks for the dogs.

The mail carrier arrives just as I got to the mail box. We chat and exchange envelopes. On the way back I realize I’ve not fed the dogs and other animals yet.

As I feed the dogs the geese honk at me wanting “treats”, I know the garden needs some weeding and they love weeds. I find ripe produce in the garden and decide to pick it… and thus goes the day. By the time I remember the laundry it’s too late in the day to hang them on the line.

All were things that needed done, but the scheduled laundry didn’t happen. Then I felt guilty for not getting it done. Guilt does not look good on anyone.

The two ladies who wrote S.H.E. broke all these much needed chores down into 3 x 5 color coded cards. The system was quite easy. Certain chores on certain days, on easy to spot colored cards. There are days scheduled for relaxing, for bill paying and much more. Each day includes “me time.”

It also talked about how to get help doing those chores. After all why can’t your kids empty all the trash cans in the house? How to organize storage and much more.

The most important part was it was as flexible as you wanted it to be. Little Johnny comes in and needs three dozen cookies for in the morning and baking day isn’t for three days no problem. You simply move your 3 x 5’s around and work out what works best for you at the time. NOTHING is set in stone. You just rearrange the cards. The card is kept in the queue until it’s done and then it’s moved to its next scheduled time.

I’m not sure why we quit using the S.H.E. but as time went on we moved away from it. Over the years we tried other organizational systems and some worked, others didn’t.

I tried the flylady system, which works well for some people. For me it did not, too structured, too unflexible. Quite frankly, those dogs need me to throw sticks for them more than I need to make sure my sink is absolutely shiny every second of the day. Once a day is plenty if something important like LIFE comes up. Nor do I want all the emails that come in from the flylady group nagging me to do certain things at certain times each day. I never did well being nagged at.

Slowly I developed the Princess Plan for my complete decluttering of this ranch. You can read about the basics of it at: http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/12/princess-plan-basics.html

I had just got it going good when the two men lost their job and was making real progress. Then we hit the road. We’ve been home for several months now and I’m having trouble being sidetracked again.

As some of you have read I’ve been working on getting our menus and foodstuffs organized. I decided to do this on 3 x 5 cards. Doing this I remembered I still had that big 3 x 5 storage box in the closet upstairs. Imagine my surprise to find the complete S.H.E. system still inside it, all these years later.

As I looked through the cards I enjoyed memories of my kids school days because of the cards for different events in the box. Suddenly it dawned on me. Part of my problem around here is I have more irons in the fire than a blacksmith. I was tackling each section of my life in a separate way. Lack of organization was undermining my efforts to get organized.

Digging through that 3 x 5 box an idea started forming. Many of the cards were no longer appropriate for our lifestyle or home, but most were.

First step was to sort through those cards and get them set up for the proper days, weeks, months and year.

Next I worked on plans for the Walt Disney World trip this next winter. Because I’m having trouble finding an assortment of different colored cards I’ve been using 3 x 5 different colored cardstock cut to the right size. Luckily I have a greeting card business ( webfoottubdesigns.com) so cardstock is easy for me to find.

WDW is bright pink. On these cards I broke down all that needs to be done to be entirely ready for an easy getaway when the time is right, including fund raising ideas to make it a cash only trip. These cards were divided up between the months between now and then. Viola’ no last minute rushing to pack, make reservations and more importantly no sheer exhaustion that leaves me in tears on the day we leave.

Once I put the things that needed to be done before the trip on those simple 3 x 5 cards the planning didn’t seem so overwhelming.

Garden Planning on bright green cardstock came next. We want to go to a year round gardening system. Again I broke it down, divided it up, including daily and annual for these cards. Again, simplicity.

Menu planning, became white cards with divider cards for the main protein ingredients of my menu plans. Recipe cards in another section alphabetized for easy locating.

Working my way down through the Princess Plan on lavender cardstock I broke the year down exactly the way I had it on the Princess Plan, tying it to the original S.H.E. plan where it fit, adding cards in each time frame where needed.

Mystery shopping and merchandising schedules went on daily cards.

Continuing on through other aspects of our ranch life I added more and more cards. It’s a big card file. But the number of daily cards is not overwhelming, because it’s all broke down and simplified.

I’ve only been back to setting this up during the last month, but I am seeing progress already, of course I still get sidetracked, but when I move the current cards to the next day I don’t feel guilty. I know that all things will come together eventually. I keep finding more things to add to the 3 x 5 system, a few I’ve decided we don’t really need.

My husband smiled when he saw the big file box and realized what I was doing. He knows what’s coming is a return to an organized and clutter free home.

Combining systems is working well for me, maybe it will for you too.

Jan who says for further reading check out not only the book Sidetracked Home Executives but the following websites:

http://www.shesintouch.com/

http://www.thebratfactor.com/

http://www.flylady.net/

http://cjpattersonontheranch.blogspot.com/2009/12/princess-plan-basics.html

LONG RANGE PLANNING AND A CHALLENGE

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Anyone that has ever been me around very long knows I am a planner and a list maker. I’m big on planning things out. I’m not always great at following the plan, but generally I’m within the neighborhood of it by the time a project is finished.

For the last month or so I’ve been drifting. Simply mystery shopping and merchandising, letting others steer my path in this sea of life. As a result Thanksgiving was okay, but not the meal I wanted and my timing was way off on it. Let’s just say not everything finished at once like it normally does and cold mashed potatoes are not a big hit.

I could give the excuse I had a horrible head cold, but that would simply be an excuse. Granted I spent all of Friday in bed trying to kick the worst part of it and still managed to sleep almost until noon today. But it’s still just an excuse. It was lack of on organization on my part.

Well, I didn’t really sleep that late, the last hour or so I laid there thinking rather than getting up. What I was thinking was I needed a plan, a goal, something to get me back in gear on everything.

While I’ve been working hard at working I’ve let other areas slide. Areas we can’t afford to slide. I had fallen slack on cooking, keeping the budget up to date, cleaning the house and have not been carrying my share of opening the new business.

So as I laid there mulling it all over I decided it was time to get back to a plan, but what plan would spur me on the most. After all a plan has to be a goal you really want to achieve. Everyone plans on doing chores, but because they really don’t want to do them they often don’t get done if something better comes along.

I’ve got the Princess Plan and it’s good, but I needed more. I needed to have a carrot dangling in front of me, something I REALLY wanted. Then I realized that one year from today we want to be in Walt Disney World for a 2-3 week vacation. Only there were several barriers (mainly bills) in our way for this. So that is when my plan started forming. How to make that goal become a reality. So…

This next year you will be receiving reports on the goal and how we as a family are going to achieve it.

First I need a title, hmmm something catchy, but not to silly. Since the Princess Plan is included in this goal I think I will call it. “The Royal Getaway” or RG for short.

Now I need to decide what I want in the plan, what must be achieved to make this vacation not only possible, but relaxed and enjoyable. So sticking with the format of the Princess Plan I broke it down to 12 categories.

I. Finances, after all this is to be a cash basis only trip, that’s the number one rule.

II. Incorporate the Princess Plan

III. Actual Vacation Planning

IV. Menus, for the year and the trip (also part of the Princess Plan), but it needs its own category for this plan.

V. Sticking with the budget (I know this falls under finances too, but you’ll see why it gets its own Roman Numeral as time goes on.

VI. Mystery Shopping and Merchandising

VII. Getting our business up and running, as well as keeping it going while we are gone.

VIII. Gardening, a day to day plan. You’ll see why this is important for the coming year.

IX. Weight loss. If you have EVER been to Walt Disney World you will know why being in good physical shape is a major plus going there. That place is HUGE!

X. Wardrobe, ours is starting to look pretty ratty and a new one requires cash only. Plus if we lose weight…

XI. Animals, we have a lot of plans for them for the coming year. Plus there are two to go with us and the rest will remain home and all sorts of plans and actions have to be made for this.

XII. Miscellaneous needs prior to the trip. In other words, everything else I forgot to list.

This all sounds pretty general I know, but that is the way a good plan starts. You start with the general categories and then develop the sub-categories right down to the daily plan as you go.

Take #VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising. After doing it for around five years what planning should I need for that right? Actually a lot of planning needs done.

Sean and I have been taking it on a day to day basis and as a result we have ended up working weird hours, rushing to finish jobs, overbooking ourselves, wasting gas and then having days where we have no work. Trust me the reason Sean and I were both so sick for Thanksgiving was because we let ourselves get run down because we didn’t plan.

Plus now we have this business we are opening up and we need to allow time for it or it will never get off the ground. The problem is mystery shopping and merchandising are guaranteed money, the business is a maybe. So MS/M must be the priority of the two at this time. This could easily change in the near future, but for now we must get in as much of the first two as we can and squeeze opening the business in around the edges. That takes planning.

So on the overall plan it would look like this:

VI. Mystery shopping and merchandising.

A. Locate jobs to do

a. Check daily on the self assign websites for mystery shopping

b. Try to contract for as many weekly/monthly/quarterly merchandising jobs as possible.

c. Always take the higher dollar jobs first

B. Print the week’s paperwork as much as possible on Sunday

a. Print additional paperwork as soon as available

C. Try to stack jobs when scheduling as close as possible on locations, preferably in the same building.

a. Limit out of town trips

i. Only do out of town trips when there are numerous jobs for both parties to do and make a full day of it.

ii. Incorporate household and business errands into the daily ms/m schedule to save time and fuel.

D. Study all paperwork the night before so there are no surprises (this has been a big problem for us lately—too many surprises)

a. Gather any necessary tools or supplies the night before

i. Make a ditty bag of tools used often and leave it in the truck.

E. File paperwork immediately upon arriving home, no late nights allowed.

F. Store documentation immediately.

a. Assign a set place each set of paperwork must go as soon as it is filed.

G. Cull old documentation when the need to keep it has expired.

H. Keep a calendar up to date as to any long range jobs to avoid double booking.

I. Arrange for merchandising jobs to be done while we are gone on the trip ahead of time.

J. Set as many accounts up as possible for direct deposit or paypal.(This one is pretty much done)

K. Wash our work wardrobe as soon as we have worn it for the week in preparation for the next time it is needed. (Too many late nights of doing a hurry up load for the next day’s job).

So you can see that by the time I do this full list of 12 this is going to be a very long plan. Then I will take that list and turn it into a monthly, weekly and daily list like I did the Princess Plan.

Making a plan is pretty simple. AND once you have a plan it’s easy to follow.

So I challenge each and every one of you to make a plan and let’s work on our plans together. Why wait until New Year’s Day, why not start now? I’ve got my plan started, what’s yours?

Jan who says if we work together we can accomplish anything in OK

THE PRINCESS PLAN BASICS

Changing all aspects of our lives from living like paupers to becoming royalty.
December 31, 2009


Occasionally I have mentioned that I am working on the Princess Plan. Some of you are very familiar with my Princess Plan, but others have never heard of it. Since it is the beginning of a new year everyone is making plans for what they want to accomplish in the New Year. Myself included. I’ve drug out the Princess Plan and dusted it off. I had started it this time last year and was doing so very well on it until we got the BIG HIT from Murphy in late February, I think it’s still a good plan. So here are the basics of it.

The premise of the Princess Plan came from my realizing that clutter in all avenues of our lives was making us live like paupers. Think about it. If your home is in a mess you can’t find things, so you purchase another item to replace the one you can’t find because it’s easier. You can’t find a bill, you clutter your finances with late fees. How often has clutter caused an item to be ruined?

No menu plan, you tend to eat out and clutter your finances more.

Financial clutter aka: debt causes you to have cluttered emotions, which will clutter your relationships with friends and family it’s all connected and as a result you live like a pauper in at least one area of your life. I’m tired of being a pauper, I want to be the princess my Papa always called me. So I developed this plan and as long as I stick to it I find that we are slowly working our way toward living like royalty in all aspects of our lives.

When I set it up I used the Royal theme to help title and give substances to each aspect. You can use different titles or whatever. This is my personal plan and how I set it up.

I tend to work in twelves when making lists so I started with twelve basic goals. As always in my life this is NOT a to do list, but a goal list. I am not a person who works well with demands, a list that is titled “TO DO” sounds like a demand to my brain, so I set goals. The world will not end if I don’t get a goal done, but I will be very proud if I do.

I am a list person, meaning I work better if I have a list to follow. Some people hate lists, so they would just forget setting up the outline as I have it. And just work in general, but for those of us who need a list Here’s how it goes.

Twelve works well for the Princess Plan because then I can work some on each of the 12 main goals a month.

So I took those original twelve goals and broke it down to a certain amount to do each month for 12 months. In my example I will take the goal I have to “totally clean and organize the whole house.” That is an overall goal and looking at it in that HUGE lump is pretty daunting. But when I break the house down to twelve areas to work on solid one area a month it becomes a little more manageable. So the CASTLE segment was born.

Once you have determined the 12 segments for your house then break those 12 segments into four parts per segment—one for each week of the month.

Those four parts get broken into seven goals, one for each day. With details on EXACTLY how I want to do that day’s jobs. It sounds hard but if you set it all down to paper in an outline format you’ll see it’s “just a little” each day. Like I said I’m a list person, so I include EVERYTHING in my overall master goal list, right down to how I will dispose of the clutter I find as I go DAILY. As each of the sections is completed then it’s just a matter of keeping it picked up daily after that segment is completed to get to my goal. Being the S.H.E. (Sidetracked Home Executive) that I am I know that I will tend to put up just a few things in other areas daily too so by the time I get to the last area it will be fairly simple to do.

Just as Dave Ramsey suggests starting with the smallest debt and snowballing up to the largest to keep giving yourself a reward of seeing accomplishment to encourage you to move on to the next one I suggest starting with the easiest area to fix first, say your cleanest or smallest room and then trying to take care of removing 5-10 items daily from the remaining areas of the original 12 so by the time you get to the room from HELL there will be so little left in it you will find it a snap (after all you will have removed permanently 240-480 minimum items from that room already).

Here’s the outline I mentioned I use.

THE ROYAL CASTLE: goal to totally clean and organize it by year’s end.

I. Kitchen by the week

A.-D Break the kitchen into four segments to do one segment a week

1-7 Break the week segments into 7 parts (One part for each day)

a. Break it down into EXACT steps of how you will do that day’s goals, remember to include taking 10 items PERMANENTLY out of each of the remaining areas.

II. Master bedroom by the week

III. Repeat with the other segments for the year in this category. So you will complete one area a month.

Now go down your original list and do a similar outline for each of the other eleven areas. So you will actually be doing 12 different small type segments a day. The 12 items might be finances, exercise, cleaning various buildings, preparing for Christmas/birthdays whatever the “clutter is in your life.

My annual list? It’s below. If we do #7 like we want then my outline will need to be adjusted accordingly because it’s a little hard to clean at home when you are three states away. #12 is going to be the hardest to do with our current state of employment, but remember this is a goal list. The world will not end if it doesn’t happen. It would simply be a wonderful reward to work toward, we all LOVE Walt Disney World and haven’t been in four years, we miss it deeply.

It will of course not happen if our finances do not improve, it is a reward goal. The apple hanging from the string so to speak. We all need a reward to work toward. It will get the exact same type of monthly, weekly, daily breakdown the other areas will get, but they will be appropriate for it. Money will only be put back for the trip AFTER we are actually doing great on our finances again. The only money in the beginning that will be put back will be the change from our pockets once a week. If we see we are not going to be able to make the December 2010 trip we all desire all the put back money will make a great snowball payment. (which is what will most likely happen).

Annual goals:

1. Totally clean and organized the house—THE ROYALS CASTLE

2. Sell off all excess items, vehicles, critters, etc. THE ROYAL TREASURERY

3. Garden year round successfully HER MAJESTY’S GARDEN

4. Preserve all excess foods, get to the point that we only grocery shop for the very basics we cannot produce ourselves.THE ROYAL PANTRY

5. Clean, organize, repair, and paint the garage THE OUTER KINGDOM BUILDINGS

6. Clean, organize, repair, and paint all out buildings, pens, and porches THE OUTER KINGDOM POULTRY

7. Mystery shop five days a week, traveling whenever we can. THE ROYAL TREASURERY

8. Take all excess weight off of all three of us THE ROYALS

9. Lay in two years worth of firewood HEAT FOR THE QUEEN/DRAGON’S BREATH

10. Reduce our debt by at least one half THE ROYAL TREASURERY PART II

11. Go to entirely scratch cooking THE PANTRY OF THE ROYALS

12. Go to Walt Disney World on a cash basis PARTY TIME!—THE ROYAL BALL!

So that’s the basics of the Princess Plan, will we accomplish it all? Not if Murphy has anything to say about it, but then Murphy can be defeated it just takes an “I can” attitude. I am realistic about this, finances being our biggest problem right now, but as I tell myself and the guys “this too shall pass”. After all we are so much better off than others we have blessings galore and most important, we have each other.

So, now I challenge you to make your own Princess/Prince plan. What are your goals, what will you achieve in 2010.

Jan whose family is so much closer after the BIG Murphy visit and who wishes you a Happy New Year in OK

LIKE FALLING DOMINOES, MURPHY KEEPS ON KEEPING ON

Part 2 of the hot water tank saga.

November 8, 2009

It’s now 8 days later and visits from Murphy keep popping up, bless his little pea pickin’ heart.

Prior to the discovery of the wet carpet I had been working my way back into my Princess Plan. For those of you who aren’t on de-cluttering lists with me I’ll give you a quick explanation of the Princes Plan.

It’s a system I’m developing to help people come from being paupers enslaved by clutter and debt in their all aspects of their life to being the royalty they truly are. I plan on finally being the princess my Papa always called me.

I had started the plan on January 1, 2009 and was doing pretty good on it with the help of Dave Ramsey and with working out a system that was greatly improving the look and feel of my home and ranch.

Then the surprise unemployment hit and I hit the road, things not only backslid as far as the clutter department went they had worsened. Only our basic finances had continued to improve, albeit slowly and not the gazelle intense like I had planned, but we were current on all our bills and had even paid off four small ones in the last eight months.

Then this series of Murphy’s visits started hitting and things went from bad to worse real quick.

When last I left you it was Halloween and the day after. We were starting to empty the utility room. Now what comes out of a room in any home has to go into another one somewhere in the house.

Remember the “Uninvited Guest” story, well we still have all the dining room stuff in the living room. Now the utility room items needed a place to park. Some went to the overstuffed sunroom, more went to the living room and some went to my bedroom. The clutter was deepening. Small paths were starting to form through the lower level.

My kitchen cabinets are now covered in small appliances, which in turn makes it FUN to try and cook in there.

So let’s flash back to last Saturday.

As soon as he could Gary turned off the hot water tank because the leaking was pretty bad. Not only was it making a mess it was the hot water that was leaking so the electric meter was doing a boogie dance on the back porch while the water meter readers were rubbing their hands together with glee as the meter spun gallon by gallon.

This meant no hot water in the house until the floor dried. You know the one that was absolutely sodden. As Gary labored to get the tank drained I continued to fold the laundry I had done earlier that day.

Sean has a lot of allergies, dust and mold being two biggies so pulling up wet starting to mildew carpet was something he could not do without risking a severe asthma attack, so he took over farm chores when it came to that job and Gary pulled the carpet up by himself Sean helped drag the dripping carpet and pad to the “non-burn” area for things that will go to the dump on the next run there. He of course started wheezing.

While they did this I cooked dinner.

This brought up a slight problem. Dishes, no hot water—oops! Gary cheerfully loaded the dishes in the dishwasher and assured me by the next afternoon the hot water would be back on and we’d be fine. Does that man live here? Has anything ever gone as planned on this ranch?

The next morning I went to the camper and brought in a large supply of paper plates, plastic cups and silverware. I am the more realistic of the two of us on things like this. I KNOW how things happen around here. It’s called life and it happens to everyone.

We seldom use paper and plastic when camping so this was an unusual thing for the guys and I so we periodically forgot and still grabbed dishes out of the cupboards and drawers out of habit. So we added a Murphy expense by using paper and plastic instead of the usual wash and reuse.

All day Sunday Gary and Sean worked on getting the floor dried out, while I ran and did a single mystery shop and picked up more supplies for the project.

When I got back home I discovered the two of them had used every single towel in the house trying to soak up water so the floor would dry quicker. EVERY single one, including my cream colored ones!!! I was not amused, but hollering would not have solved anything. They were trying to fix the problem. They had drug the dripping towels across the carpet that was still down in the bathroom and placed them in the shower stall. Gary promised he’d put them on the line the next day while I was gone so they’d at least dry and not sour.

They had made some progress, there was no longer standing water from the hot water tank, and the mildewed sheet rock no longer existed. A large hole in the wall, with a small one a now nearly 10 week old kitten could have easily gone down under the house through had taken its place. Thankfully Gypsy was locked securely in my bedroom.

I pointed out that Lizzie B was only slightly bigger and she might just take a trip (or an opossum come in) through that gaping wound so they blocked it temporarily at night with heavy plywood to prevent this. During the day there was always someone in there working so the board was removed to aid in the drying out of the lower wall studs and insulation. Yep all my interior walls are insulated, luckily the mildew had been limited to the outside of the sheet rock, there was none on the interior of the walls. .

I suggested fans and a small heater to speed up the drying process as Sunday passed into Monday, still no hot water.

Gary had already winterized the camper since we knew we’d be home for a month or two and now he had to un-winterize it because for some strange reason Sean and I thought we might need showers before going to work on Monday. Luckily they had forgot the towels in the camper when they were mopping water up. So we were all blessed with nice hot showers and the world was a safer place for it.

Dishes were starting to be more than the dishwasher would hold. Enter the boiling teapot into the daily scenario. I’ve done many a dish by heating water on a campfire at rendezvous (pre-1840 Fur Trade Era re-enactments), so this was no biggie.

Monday I mystery shopped, picked up more materials, did a few returns while Gary stayed home and took things down off the wall to prepare to paint the room. Sean went to work of course.

While I was out I picked up paint chips for both the utility room walls and the dining room wall that would need painted when we got back to it

Tuesday, still no hot water, but the wall studs were finally dry so Gary put up the new piece of sheet rock, and then had to take it back down because he forgot to put the mouse/rat poison down the conveniently open wall and under the house. Luckily I reminded him before he taped and mudded the wall or Murphy would have gotten a giggle I’m certain.

When you live in the country you take all the precautions you can to head off rodents. I cannot tell you how much money we’ve spent due to rodents over the years everything from fifth wheel and vehicle repairs to a whole new re-wiring of the landlines in our home, so we are very cautious about them. We have mousers inside and out of the house. We put Just One Bite (a vet recommended mouse and rat poison) any where we can that we know for CERTAIN our animals can’t get to it and if we notice a mouse dropping we set traps. Again where the pets can’t get to them.

That evening the guys thankfully slid the new hot water tank into its place. Only the connectors and plumbing didn’t match! Murphy snickered.

While I was out the next day doing mystery I picked up the right parts. That night we all did a jig, and then the water line started leaking!! Dang it Murphy I needed to do dishes!

While I was doing the mystery shops I checked the discounted returns and mis-mixed paints at all the stores. At the very last one I found the exact colors I wanted at half price!!! That’s one for the good guys, finally.

Jan who will post this and move on to part three of the saga in OK