Christmas Anomaly

Confession: We didn't decorate very well for Christmas this year.

Scott and I put up our Christmas lights early this year, like the first week of November. For those of you who live close to us, this may confuse you, seeing as there are no Christmas lights on our house. Scott was off track and it was really warm outside, so we figured the temperature might be bearable on our north-facing roof which tends to be about 20 degrees cooler than its counterpart across the street. All you North-Facers know what I mean: chipping ice off your driveway in April while the South-Facers are tending tulips and daffodils.

Anyway, to make a long story short, between the two of us, we had two and a half strands up when we reached the point we could connect to the extension cord. Scott plugged them in and exactly 1/2 of each strand worked. I'm not trying to point fingers or place blame, because as frustrating as this scenario can be, I really find it quite funny. I'd figured he had checked all the lights before we climbed the ladder, and he'd figured all the lights would work since this was only their second year. We just took them down.

After Thanksgiving we put our tree up and had half a strand of burned out lights that I just bunched in a huge wad near the top, somewhat out of sight and hidden behind a working strand. We ordered a Light Keeper Pro and an LED Keeper with the intention to fix the tree lights and the outside lights.The Light Keeper Pro got most of the tree lights working again so I restrung, but it basically told us that the strand was so old and damaged that it would never function fully again.

We never fixed the outside lights, making this is the first year ever that we haven't put up lights. A couple weeks ago I climbed the shelves in the garage and pulled down the light-up candy canes in attempt to remedy the cheer-less front yard. I couldn't find the stakes, so I just waited until it snowed enough to stick them in and balance them against the rocks along the flower bed. The only bad thing was that when it snowed again, it knocked them over, so now I have one standing and three lying in the snow. It looks like a little kid's gingerbread house made with heavy candy and thin icing. As for the Christmas tree, about two weeks ago, my son climbed on top of the couch and leaned onto the tree to get the singing cow ornament and jiggled something enough that the entire finicky strand of lights went out.

That story wasn't very short. But here's what I want to say: we didn't have any Christmas lights up (candy canes aside), and an entire strand of burned out lights left a 12" deep black spot on the Christmas tree for nearly two weeks. Not only that, but I never got out my Christmas village or most of my other decorations. Here's the crazy thing: we still had a wonderful Christmas!!!

I attribute my change in thinking to decluttering my house. In years past, the lack of lights may have really stressed me out. As I've gone through my house and gotten rid of so much stuff, I've learned to set aside the notion that things hold value and meaning. I realized I still love my daughter just as much now as I did before I threw away the art project she made. I realized my husband loves me just as much now as he did before I donated the sweater he bought me seven years ago. I realized that I still have the same memories of my amazing trip to New York without the Empire State Building Shot Glass collecting dust on my window sill. I realized I could still have the spirit of Christmas without lights. Plus, it's going to be really easy to clean up all the decorations I never got out! I realized that what makes me happy is Extreme Dancing with my kids in the kitchen, singing off pitch at the top of my lungs in the car, eating dinner at the table with my family (even if it IS just cold cereal), watching my baby attack her stuffed animals, hanging out with our friends, laughing at anything, and taking care of our home physically and spiritually so we have a nice environment for all of that happiness to happen in.

My goal is to continue to simplify and find meaning and value in the relationships around me every day. I love my family, I love my friends and wonderful neighbors, and I love life! Life is full of so many wonderful experiences, and so much fun and laughter. May we all choose to smile and dance in the kitchen every day. Merry Christmas!

the Black Hole

The Festive Celebration that is our yard.

It just screams MERRY CHRISTMAS.

True Happiness

Still Going!

I started getting a little overwhelmed when it came to documenting my progress. Most days I was well into my decluttering project before realizing I hadn't taken a "before" picture. One time I even re-cluttered just to get the picture. Booooo! So lame.

Here's the update: I've done Ty's room, Calli's room, Meg's room, and the laundry room. Scott really wanted to get involved, so I let him tile the laundry room floor this weekend! (He did a fabulous job, too!) The grout is drying, and the washer and dryer are in family room, and the kitchen is currently a mess. BUT. It's so easy to clean up now! I don't feel overwhelmed anymore when I look at the dishes drying in the left side of the sink; I know that I no longer have to shove them into the cupboard only to hear them topple out five minutes later.

The moral of today's story is this: don't stop just because you don't have time to document. Just keep going! 

The Rest of Week 1

Confession: I stare into my kitchen for unhealthy amounts of time.

I open the blinds, turn off the lights, close the blinds, turn on one light--I can't get enough of my kitchen and I just like to see it in every possible light! But don't ask me to cook because I don't want to mess it up. It's beautiful.

I found myself overwhelmed on Day 4 because my "donate/sell" pile from Day 3 was still covering my table and counter. I have a room where I wanted to put it all, but that room was impossible to step into without holding onto the entertainment center or leaning onto the fusbol table while stepping precariously between piles of stuff hoping to find ground. I told myself that this challenge to De-Clutter Your Home in 91 Days doesn't mean it has to be 91 days in a row. I sat on the couch and watched Friends reruns instead.

At 11:00 my sweet little 9-year-old best friend from next door knocked and asked if I wanted help. FINE, I'll keep going! So we started with that basement room and straightened it up in pretty good time. Then we transferred everything I wanted to donate and sell to that room. Then I dejunked my two junk drawers which frightened me the most. I did the rest of the drawers the next day.

Here are some of my final pictures:

BEFORE                                              AFTER

BEFORE                                              AFTER 

BEFORE                                AFTER

BEFORE                              AFTER

BEFORE                              AFTER

BEFORE                                              AFTER 

Day 2 of 91-Day De-cluttering: Pantry

Confession: I like the little shreds of shredded wheat at the bottom of the bag.

The pantry. Wow. I started at 9:40 with a goal to be done by noon. At 12:30 I quit looking at the clock as well as setting goals. To be fair, I had a fuzzy stuck in my contact that I had to get out. If I hadn't had that setback I'm sure I would have finished by noon.

I always wear socks and shoes (laced up and tied) when I clean; wearing shoes not only adds an extra bounce to my step, but also protects my feet from the stuff I drop. I have three pair of Nike running socks, each with different colors of embroidered Nike swooshes and designated foot symbols "R" and "L." I couldn't find a matching pair, so I picked out one pink and one blue--which is fine, but both were embroidered with a capital R which means Thou Shalt Wear Me On Your Right Foot. Feeling like my life might be in danger, I sifted through my sock drawer one more time to no avail. This is a scary situation because the packaging doesn't come with any warning of what might happen if you disobey your sock. Luckily, once my shoes were on, other than a little bit of mental discomfort I couldn't tell the difference.

I decided I wanted to completely empty my pantry. I always say I wish I could empty my whole house and only put back in it what we really need, so my pantry was the mini version of my wish. I didn't trash anything immediately because I wanted pictures of my piles to make my before and after pictures better.

Before

Before

Before--up high

Before--down low

2 shelves into the process...

Blue basket for "donate/sell"
White basket for "relocate"

My kitchen after the pantry is empty

Some of the stuff I trashed...

I'm pretty sure I brought these with me from Rexburg, Idaho, NINE YEARS AGO.

Just in case I ran out of my other 50 packets of hot chocolate mix I had. (I threw them all away!)

To quote Scott: you never know when you're gonna need sprinkles!

What if my neighbor calls and needs 1/2 tsp. of red crystals???

Everyone knows I love hot dogs. It's only fitting that I have this petrified relic.

11 bags of cereal.
The ones on the left are for those who like to strain their cereal through a colander in order to get one spoon full.

Next, I put everything into the pantry that I was keeping so I could trash, donate, or relocate the rest.

Keep

Trash

Organized trash

donate/sell

relocate


And this was my final product
 

I took the time to post all the items I want to sell on a Facebook garage sale page, and I relocated all the things that didn't belong in the pantry or on the table. It was quite the process, but it's all done! Ty came home and said: "Woah, MOM! The floor is empty so we can set mouse traps!" Calli said: "Wow. That's amazing. You know it's not gonna last?" Ha! I think it's time to add "organize pantry" to their weekly chores. And for the record, it was really nice to clean out the pantry without the purpose of cleaning up after mice! 

Insecurities and stuff

Confession: I have insecurities.

More than a year ago, someone made a comment about my blog that made me uncomfortable. So I stopped writing. I know they didn't intend to make me uncomfortable, but I let it stop me. Then, I met with some of my dearest friends a few months ago, and they helped me realize that I was letting the fear of negative response get in the way of one of the things I love most!

Over the course of the last year, I changed jobs, had a baby, and had to choose whether or not I wanted to continue working a job I really loved. The problem was my boss needed someone who could work more hours that I was willing to give with my new babe and my increasingly busy family schedule. Now, here I am, once again a stay-at-home mom and loving it. I'll write more later about my own progress, but in summary, I'm totally mature now! Ha!

Confession: I have stuff.

One of the things I'm excited and overwhelmed about is organizing my house. I've realized that when my house is cluttered, my mind feels cluttered. And STUFF! We have so much STUFF! I was browsing Pinterest for organization ideas and found this:

http://bit.ly/1emRX9k

I'm going to de-clutter my home in 91 days! I'm 2 weeks late according to her schedule, but I started today! If I post my progress, I'll be held accountable. I'll also be posting a lot of embarrassingly honest photos of my home--the parts I hide behind closed doors. I plan to be clutter free before Christmas. I'm also planning to sell some of my stuff as I go so I have money to buy more stuff for Christmas! :) Here goes...

Week 1, Day 1: Clean out fridge/freezer!

I decided to clean off the outside of my fridge, too. I went the extra mile today, but it's only day 1! I have two baskets: one for items to relocate, and one to sift through and decide whether I need it or can trash it. Can you see the cauldron on top? that's full of Halloween candy from last year! I haven't tackled the nook next to the fridge yet. That's another day. 

I also scrubbed a door shelf of sticky soy sauce that spilled a long time ago and coated the bottoms of every container on the shelf. I've just ignored it until today. Boooooo. I also found a lot of ice cream toppings and I couldn't bring myself to throw them away! I guess we're having ice cream every night this week.

I owe a special shout out to my sweet neighbor girl who came over and helped me with Meg while I did this! I couldn't have done it without her. She even stayed and helped me after Meg went down for a nap. So sweet! Thank you!

Gone are the Days of Freudian Slip

Confession: "Damn You Auto Correct" happens in my head

(Thank you Michael Waters for coining that phrase for me!)

For those of you Android Swypers, does your swyper finger (formerly known as your pointer finger) lose direction and totally get out of control? You start to swype a word, then realize your key-location memory hightails when you try to navigate a keyboard with one finger instead of from Home Row Position? But you don't stop; you redirect and swype at least two or three letters more than you actually need to spell the intended word, and you end up with some funky word you've never heard of, or one that offers an entirely new connotation with its cutting-edge syntactic relationship.

I'm sure you had this happen pre-smartphone era, way back when we used T9 predictive text; remember how you'd key in the buttons containing the letters you needed and hoped the correct combination would magically appear? Pretty smart for a dumb phone that ended up in the sandbox. Next came the iPhone and Auto Correct. I don't think anyone predicted the hazards of Auto Correct. Auto Correct doesn't even wait for you to come close to finishing your word. It's like that friend who always finishes your sentences and is never correct and you just stop with your mouth still gaping open and you tilt you head and stare blankly at her and say, "Um, no." On the other hand, some of it's corrections are more revealing than incorrect--that's the reason you sometimes pee your pants from laughing so hard: because Auto Correct has just uncovered your deepest darkest secret! But you definitely don't laugh if you hit "send" before you notice the defaming information you just volunteered to the universe, hence the frenzied attempt to explain what you meant to say, only to realize that Auto Correct could care less about amending your embarrassment, resulting in a string of stupidity that lands you on the front page of "Damn You Auto Correct." Am I wrong to generalize that everyone who has ever texted has been on one end--if not both--of the Oh Crap! What Did I Just Say?? Composition?

Here's a small, not so incriminating example. I was texting with a friend trying to arrange a birthday surprise.

Me: Is there a time I could just show up and take her?

Friend: Do you want me to call her and see what she's doing?

Me: Sure, that would be great. I'll stand by trashy to go.

Friend: I'm not familiar with trashy to go.

Me: Oh gosh. That was supposed to say ready
Me: Ready to go.

I don't know about you, but I think this has happened so often that I no longer trust anything I swype or type. I have to reread every text to make sure I'm not sending an open door for future ridicule. Not only that, it seems to be happening inside my head. I have to double think before I speak or the giant finger swyping across all the (millions of) axons in my brain totally gets out of control and before I know it, it hits "send" and I say something completely amiss. One day at work I received a phone call from Jenny From Britain inquiring about an order she had placed in November. A coworker and I were looking everywhere and couldn't find the order; we guessed it had somehow been lost in the transition of our web site. We had her on speaker and I asked her to hold while I went to ask our shipper if he had any recollection of the order. (He remembers everything--Hollywood could make a movie about his Beautiful Mind.) He didn't remember the order. I got back to the phone and said: "Thank you so much for holding. I just spoke to my stripper" (at which point I gasped and burst into laughter so loud I couldn't even hear her reaction), "I MEAN MY SHIPPER!" I couldn't stop laughing for the rest of the conversation. I had tears.

We had a good laugh around the office. We feel lucky to work in a place of so much opportunity. :)

My coworker Mike said: "'Damn You Auto Correct' happens inside your head! You don't even need a phone!" So beware: after sending an undisclosed amount of text messages, your brain will begin to Auto Correct the words lingering on the tip of your tongue and you won't have time to fix them before they come spilling out and you've dubbed your coworker a stripper.

Look like you feel? Or feel like you look?

Confession: I feel better when I feel pretty

Remember in high school when we were getting ready to take AP tests (or regular tests...) and we'd groan and complain when our teachers told us to dress up for the tests? I definitely believe the way we prepare ourselves physically translates to how well we perform mentally. Anyhow, I love this conversation I had with my daughter Calli this morning.

Preface: Calli was her class alternate for today's school spelling bee. We didn't study AT ALL. Yesterday she came home and told me that one of the boy contestants said he might not be able to make it. Of course we were freaking out, but we still didn't have time to study. We decided we would study this morning before school. But I accidentally stayed in bed until 8:05.

This conversation takes place at 8:15 this morning:

Calli: How do I look?

Me: You look super cute!

Calli: Thanks! I have to look cute if I'm going to be in the spelling bee, especially if I get out on the first word!

Years later I finally understand that all those times our teachers told us to dress up for our tests, they knew that once the test was over, all we would say in complete exhaustion was: "I'm so glad that's over. I don't even care if I failed. At least I looked good!"