So since I’ll be forty-three this year I’ve decided that it’s time for me to actually become an adult (for some things).

There are two areas of my life that I need to grow up about:

My finances - which I’ve started on. I’ve never really had a savings account (I had one as a child but not for very long so not sure it counts). During the first few days of this year I kept seeing posts about The 52 Challenge. After some research about it, I decided to do The Reverse 52 Challenge: start with fifty-two dollars and work down to one dollar. What I like about it is if I should need the money, there’s more available sooner. I’ve decided to do this every year because I’m going to want to retire in about twenty years.

Housekeeping - I’ve discovered that I’m a level one hoarder and don’t want to be. Plus I will be living in a really nice apartment someday and want to be able to invite people over. Because of this, and the fact that I just can’t get my ass in gear on the weekends, I’ve decided to do the cleaning one room at a time after work. The schedule I’ve settled on is:

Monday - pick up all the trash (for someone living alone I create a lot of trash)
Tuesday - clean the kitchen
Wednesday - clean the living room
Thursday - clean my bedroom and bathroom
Friday - laundry

This week I’ll be doing the dishes when I do the kitchen but I’ll be keeping the dishwasher empty so I can load it as I go and then run it once full. I’ll change the sheets every Thursday when I do my room. And I’ll put the laundry away as soon as I get home on Fridays.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. All of this has been just to ask if any of my followers are willing to hold me accountable to this. If you are willing, please email me at melissashelton73 at gmail dot com.

Please, someone, help me with this. I’ve learned over the years that unless I’m being held accountable to someone I’ll stop doing this before it can become a habit and I really want this to become a habit. I’m tired of living in this mess.

Vic just gave me the list of DVDs in her room and the number is now three hundred and thirteen. She had thirty-five on her room, and I realized I'd missed two in the living room. Hopefully Friday I can go through the boxes in my room and then start watching the movies I've yet to see.

Of the thirty-five from Vic's room, there are fourteen I've only seen once, eighteen I've seen more than once and three I've never seen (two I've never heard of).

ETA: Just (sorta) went through one box and found twenty-one more DVDs. But still not two that I know I have, maybe they're at the bottom or in the other box.

I've just finished listing all the movies in the living room and I have two hundred seventy-seven. The break down is: two hundred thirty-nine DVDs, twenty-one burned copies (actually twenty-two but one is a duplicate copy), fifteen blu-rays and five that I have two copies of. If you've added that and come up with two hundred eighty-two instead of two hundred seventy-seven it's because I didn't count the duplicate copies more than once. While doing this, I discovered something interesting: one movie (Where the Heart Is (Natalie Portman version)) is not only a duplicate copy but also a burned copy. Of my nearly three hundred movies there are only five that I've yet to see, one hundred eighty-four I've seen more than once and eighty-eight that I've only seen once.

Now, keep in mind that this is only the movies that are in the living room. Vic has several in her room and I know there are some (not very many, but some) in two boxes in my room (the last two boxes from The Flood of 2008). Once I add those to my list, I'll update with the new number(s).