Give a Little

I’m not the world’s most religious person, but we celebrate Christmas and Easter, I occasionally attend church, and I participate in Lent every year. No matter what religion you are, I think it’s good to challenge yourself now and then. This year, inspired by many cleaning and de-cluttering blogs, I am going to get rid of stuff every day for 40 days. I’ve read some various extremes of this idea ranging from letting go of one item a day to one trash bag a day. I will fall somewhere in the middle, with a goal of “At least one item per day.”

Today, I cleaned out our front closet and got rid of quite a few things! Shoes that have been at the bottom and anything that was generally garbage got thrown out. I think there were two pairs of his shoes, and three pairs of mine that went out the door! Things at the bottom of our closet were pretty dusty and hairy, and when you look at a pair of shoes and think about how much your feet hurt when you wear them, it’s pretty easy to see them out of your life forever (admittedly, this wasn't always so – there are still plenty of “cute” shoes lurking around here that kill my feet).

The other part of this Lenten challenge is to actually get the items out of my house. I can’t tell you how many times I've filled up bags to donate and then they just sit somewhere in my house still taking up space. So as items get eliminated, they are going straight to my car and then dropped off. The bag from the closet today is already gone! I hope you’ll follow along and share your own success at downsizing <3

Welcome Back?

Hello Friends!
You might have noticed I took an extended hiatus from blogging after posting incredibly infrequently in the first place. The thing is, I felt like every post was one big pity party, and bad things kept happening so I just gave up. 2014 was one big suckfest. I’ll probably post a couple of quick recaps just to catch people up on major changes in our lives, but for now I’d rather just skip right over it.

2015 isn’t shaping up to be much better, but I’m at least determined to have a better attitude about it. I have a few goals to accomplish to make that happen. Goal 1 is to write more, so you will definitely be seeing more blog entries. Goal 2 is to spend more time doing things I enjoy. Too often I get stuck in the cycle of sitting on the couch and watching TV all day, and nothing gets accomplished when I do that. I have projects that have been sitting around waiting for me to finish them, things I want to learn, and a house that isn’t going to clean itself. Plus a pack of dogs that don’t want to watch me nap all day. Goal 3 is the big depressing one: to get our finances in order. We do ok, but we could definitely do better. Basically after experiencing an emergency, I’ve realized the importance of creating an emergency fund. Goal 4 is of course to get more exercise. I’ve noticed how much better I feel, how much better I sleep, when I exercise even just 30 minutes a day. Hard to remind myself of that when it’s 5 degrees outside.

Otherwise, things are pretty good. We both currently have good health, we have a roof over our heads and a car to drive. We have happy and healthy pets that provide us with companionship and entertainment (and eggs!). And we have friends and family nearby willing and able to help whenever they can. Overall, things are pretty luxurious in the grand scheme of things. Fostering an attitude of gratitude is a somewhat grueling process, but I seem to be managing so far. My negativity center freaks out for a second (you know how I love me a worst case scenario), but generally once I’m given a little time to get things into perspective, it all seems a little better. So that's pretty much it, trying to dig out from the multiple feet of snow we have and keep things together and unfrozen.

See you all soon!