Just saw a report on blogging that reported a woman who started a blog after receiving a personal challenge ("you can't make any money doing a blog...") and now employs 12 people doing her blog.
Um...holy crap.
Here's hoping. I'm hitting the shredder. :)
Multnomah Falls
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
A Comparative Study of the Similarities Between Doing Puzzles With a Seventeen-Month-Old and DeCluttering OR Things That Make Me Think I Could Develop a Drinking Problem
Occasionally, my seventeen-month-old notices the puzzles that are sitting in the entertainment center and decides she wants to pull them out and play. And by "play," I mean take the pieces out and scatter them across the living room, and then bring out some books that she will angrily grunt at until they are read to her.
When I think she has tired of the puzzles, I decide to try and return them to their proper home. After putting a few pieces back into the big wooden base, she notices what I'm doing, promptly approaches me, and starts taking out the pieces that I have just put in. So I start working faster. And so does she. And soon, I simply give up and leave the pile there until after she goes to bed, because I realize that the entire effort is completely futile. Because of this, my living room is frequently not company-ready. And if anyone were to criticize me for having puzzles out for a toddler, well....they would receive the verbal lashing of their life. At least in my head. Potentially out loud, depending on the level of sleep I'd had the night before.
This same principle seems to apply itself to my clutter. As soon as I've decluttered an entire box of crap...suddenly there's another stack sitting on my desk, just waiting to be put into yet another box..and wait for a few years to go by before it's placed in the garage or on the moving truck. YIKES. I hate this pattern. Hate it.
I don't think this is unlike a lot of problems in life. Ask anyone who has been through a twelve-step program and they will tell you that there are setbacks, cycles, ups-and-downs. That every day they have to start fresh, admitting they have a problem, and that they submit to a higher power for help.
For those folks, there are meetings to go to, people to call in a crisis, coaches, counselors, helpers. For clutterbugs, there are no twelve-steps groups, no meetings, no counselors. Just book after book after book on clutter-busting, that if you spend the time to read, another pile will pop up as if magically while you sat down to read the book...about organizing.
I'm not whining and asking for a 12-step program for people with clutter problems. (Because undoubtedly, one could possibly show up in the world. I know there are other people like me out there.) I'm just saying that no matter who you are or where you've been or where you're going, there are likely to be some things that you do that aren't the best or healthiest things you could do. It could be alcohol, drugs, food, or even clutter. It's just a matter of every day getting up, looking yourself in the mirror and asking God for the strength to make your life a little better instead of backsliding once again.
So I'll let my daughter pull out the puzzles....because no matter what, she's learning. And little by little, so am I.
When I think she has tired of the puzzles, I decide to try and return them to their proper home. After putting a few pieces back into the big wooden base, she notices what I'm doing, promptly approaches me, and starts taking out the pieces that I have just put in. So I start working faster. And so does she. And soon, I simply give up and leave the pile there until after she goes to bed, because I realize that the entire effort is completely futile. Because of this, my living room is frequently not company-ready. And if anyone were to criticize me for having puzzles out for a toddler, well....they would receive the verbal lashing of their life. At least in my head. Potentially out loud, depending on the level of sleep I'd had the night before.
This same principle seems to apply itself to my clutter. As soon as I've decluttered an entire box of crap...suddenly there's another stack sitting on my desk, just waiting to be put into yet another box..and wait for a few years to go by before it's placed in the garage or on the moving truck. YIKES. I hate this pattern. Hate it.
I don't think this is unlike a lot of problems in life. Ask anyone who has been through a twelve-step program and they will tell you that there are setbacks, cycles, ups-and-downs. That every day they have to start fresh, admitting they have a problem, and that they submit to a higher power for help.
For those folks, there are meetings to go to, people to call in a crisis, coaches, counselors, helpers. For clutterbugs, there are no twelve-steps groups, no meetings, no counselors. Just book after book after book on clutter-busting, that if you spend the time to read, another pile will pop up as if magically while you sat down to read the book...about organizing.
I'm not whining and asking for a 12-step program for people with clutter problems. (Because undoubtedly, one could possibly show up in the world. I know there are other people like me out there.) I'm just saying that no matter who you are or where you've been or where you're going, there are likely to be some things that you do that aren't the best or healthiest things you could do. It could be alcohol, drugs, food, or even clutter. It's just a matter of every day getting up, looking yourself in the mirror and asking God for the strength to make your life a little better instead of backsliding once again.
So I'll let my daughter pull out the puzzles....because no matter what, she's learning. And little by little, so am I.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Resources and Questions
A dear friend of mine sent me this link. It is....unbelievably fantastic.
Where to Donate Your Stuff
Very exciting possibilities for stuff I had no idea where or how to unload.
And now that I figured out how to put a link in my blog, here's one from a previous post that didn't have the exact link....just incase my loyal fan base is aching to know what I'm looking at online. :)
www.flylady.net
Working on getting myself to the good will store today for yet another drop off. They're starting to know my face there, and I'm not sure if they're thrilled to see me or dreading my arrival.
Reorganized my kitchen the other night and it is a thing of beauty. Once I figure out how to post pictures, that's just what I'll do. The trick is...do I spend my time blogging about the process or engaging in the process? With a 17-month-old on my hands, time is like gold, so I have to use it oh-so-carefully.
Here's to a little less weight hanging out in my house!
Where to Donate Your Stuff
Very exciting possibilities for stuff I had no idea where or how to unload.
And now that I figured out how to put a link in my blog, here's one from a previous post that didn't have the exact link....just incase my loyal fan base is aching to know what I'm looking at online. :)
www.flylady.net
Working on getting myself to the good will store today for yet another drop off. They're starting to know my face there, and I'm not sure if they're thrilled to see me or dreading my arrival.
Reorganized my kitchen the other night and it is a thing of beauty. Once I figure out how to post pictures, that's just what I'll do. The trick is...do I spend my time blogging about the process or engaging in the process? With a 17-month-old on my hands, time is like gold, so I have to use it oh-so-carefully.
Here's to a little less weight hanging out in my house!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Silence
Silence is as common as the air we breathe. It is a vast pool always available to us where we can refresh and renew ourselves, or simply stop in for a while. Silence is God's gift to our minds, a gift that modern life seems to have lost or crowded out. We need more silence in our lives, more stillness in our homes. We need, in our increasingly complex and frenetic world, to silence ourselves -- and to listen… The key ingredient is not so much the total absence of noise as receptivity and access to the "still small voice within".
The cultivated ability to hear that voice is the most enduring value of silence. In silence we can discover the divine within, which is universally accessible but speaks to each of us in a unique voice. If we can locate, at the very center of silence, our individual "still small voice," we will have found our greatest ally in life. Because if we listen to that voice with an open heart, it will guide us through the most challenging crossroads of our lives: in work, in love, in distinguishing right from wrong.
We need only trust the voice that speaks to us out of the silence.
-- Robert Lawrence Smith in A Quaker Book of Wisdom
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Shrinking Piles of Boxes
I recounted the boxes. There are now only 2 boxes at my friends' house. I got through two boxes and whittled them down to just one of stuff that is to be kept, but needs to be organized.
Out in the garage there are 5 tubs of which the contents are known. One needs purging, two need lengthy and deep purging. They're full of memory-stuff that I've already deemed keep-worthy, but could probably go through and chuck more.
(Some shame to make public: One tub is full of shoe-boxes, carefully covered with contact paper, holding all the mail that I received during college, high school, and a few years after college. Christmas cards from the people I sat next to in homeroom. I haven't yet been able to bear opening that one. I'm sure it will put me right into the fetal position. )
12 more boxes, 3 of which the contents are known, the rest need purging.
Lots of just shuffling around so that two half-boxes of books go together to make one, two half-boxes of junk go together to make one, but there have been a number of trips to the good will, recycling, and the library, with more to come.
The way I counted these up, I have no idea what the actual total is, but it's definitely less than it was before. Additionally, I mis-counted the office-boxes, so there are 23, not 24. And there's a shredding extravaganza going on. I'm not entirely sure that the motor on my shredder isn't going to give out.
I've already done that to one shredder in my life. This one was supposed to be industrial strength. Burning out the motor of an industrial strength shredder should be an indicator of the mountain of crap that we are dealing with here. If I disappear for any length of time, check to make sure the boxes didn't fall on top of me....
Out in the garage there are 5 tubs of which the contents are known. One needs purging, two need lengthy and deep purging. They're full of memory-stuff that I've already deemed keep-worthy, but could probably go through and chuck more.
(Some shame to make public: One tub is full of shoe-boxes, carefully covered with contact paper, holding all the mail that I received during college, high school, and a few years after college. Christmas cards from the people I sat next to in homeroom. I haven't yet been able to bear opening that one. I'm sure it will put me right into the fetal position. )
12 more boxes, 3 of which the contents are known, the rest need purging.
Lots of just shuffling around so that two half-boxes of books go together to make one, two half-boxes of junk go together to make one, but there have been a number of trips to the good will, recycling, and the library, with more to come.
The way I counted these up, I have no idea what the actual total is, but it's definitely less than it was before. Additionally, I mis-counted the office-boxes, so there are 23, not 24. And there's a shredding extravaganza going on. I'm not entirely sure that the motor on my shredder isn't going to give out.
I've already done that to one shredder in my life. This one was supposed to be industrial strength. Burning out the motor of an industrial strength shredder should be an indicator of the mountain of crap that we are dealing with here. If I disappear for any length of time, check to make sure the boxes didn't fall on top of me....
Anne of Green Gables and the Curse of the Best Compliment Ever
It went something like this:
"Gilbert said you were the smartest girl in the class."
"I might have known he meant to insult me."
No...Prissy Andrews said that Charlie Sloan heard Gilbert say that being smart is definitely better than being pretty."
I'm one of those people who never finishes the book version of the movies I love. (Yes...once again, everything that's wrong with America.) So, this is the watered down version of the "Anne of Green Gables" conversation between Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, her bosom friend about Gilbert Blythe, the dreamy love interest.
It is the same conversation that came to mind when my husband gave me perhaps the best compliment of my life. It went as follows:
"You're more organized lately than you've ever been."
My husband. The king of all organization. The guy who won "most organized" in his senior class superlatives. I've said for a while that the two best compliments a person could give me are that I'm funny and that I'm organized. If Chad had followed that statement up with something like, "and organizing has made you totally hilarious!" well, I would have died right there. Happily.
So I've been pondering this compliment, because I'm wondering if, like Anne suspected Gilbert of meaning to insult her...Chad actually meant to drive me further in my efforts. Because now when things are laying out, I want to live up to this compliment. So I want to clean more. Do you hear that? I want to clean more. Weird. I mean.... weird. I don't actually think he meant anything mean at all....I just think that sometimes when someone gives you a compliment that makes you feel really great, then sometimes the pressure is on to make sure you live up to those words again.
Similarly, when I'm around people who have told me that they think I'm funny, I find myself trying to be funnier. Which is why I've started wearing purple hats with plaid pants. Just kidding! (See? Funny!)
"Gilbert said you were the smartest girl in the class."
"I might have known he meant to insult me."
No...Prissy Andrews said that Charlie Sloan heard Gilbert say that being smart is definitely better than being pretty."
I'm one of those people who never finishes the book version of the movies I love. (Yes...once again, everything that's wrong with America.) So, this is the watered down version of the "Anne of Green Gables" conversation between Anne Shirley and Diana Barry, her bosom friend about Gilbert Blythe, the dreamy love interest.
It is the same conversation that came to mind when my husband gave me perhaps the best compliment of my life. It went as follows:
"You're more organized lately than you've ever been."
My husband. The king of all organization. The guy who won "most organized" in his senior class superlatives. I've said for a while that the two best compliments a person could give me are that I'm funny and that I'm organized. If Chad had followed that statement up with something like, "and organizing has made you totally hilarious!" well, I would have died right there. Happily.
So I've been pondering this compliment, because I'm wondering if, like Anne suspected Gilbert of meaning to insult her...Chad actually meant to drive me further in my efforts. Because now when things are laying out, I want to live up to this compliment. So I want to clean more. Do you hear that? I want to clean more. Weird. I mean.... weird. I don't actually think he meant anything mean at all....I just think that sometimes when someone gives you a compliment that makes you feel really great, then sometimes the pressure is on to make sure you live up to those words again.
Similarly, when I'm around people who have told me that they think I'm funny, I find myself trying to be funnier. Which is why I've started wearing purple hats with plaid pants. Just kidding! (See? Funny!)
Friday, May 27, 2011
Saving a Turtle
I did an enormous amount of driving today. Lots of little trips to and fro. Errand-running. On one of those trips, down a smaller highway, I saw what looked like an upside-down bowl in the middle of the road. As I slowed down and straddled it with my tires, I realized I had just passed over a small turtle. My Sweet Kiddo was asleep in the back seat of the car, so I turned the car around, wondering if anyone else was going to do anything about this. (Yes...that was the thought. It wasn't my best moment.) There was a turtle in the middle of the road, most definitely in harm's way.
I drove past it several times. Back and forth I went, not knowing exactly what to do. I realize--this seems silly. Most normal people would have stopped, gone over, picked the thing up and put it by the side of the road where there was lots of tall grass leading to an even bigger field. BUT...I am not an animal person. I mean...really not an animal person. I like dogs, for the most part, but if they jump on me, I start to feel less enthusiastic. And they never, ever stop sniffing or licking. I mostly dislike cats. I intensely dislike any animal that doesn't have fur and have been known to run away when faced with them. As an adult. So...the helpless turtle in the middle of the road was a little more daunting to me than it would be to most people.
So, I finally stopped driving around it, pulled over, got out of the car and approached it. Talking to it like I would talk to a small child. "Hey there...are you going to pull your head in if I touch your shell, buddy?" [Light tap on the shell with one finger to test the waters] "Can I help you little guy?" [A few more fingers on the shell.] "Okay...I'm going to try to pick you up now." [I hear a car approaching. I stop, stand up, and point to the turtle, as if to show the approaching driver that I'm not just some wacko in the middle of the road. Car continues on its way, driver unaffected by obvious nature moment.]
"Okay, buddy...here goes...I'm going to bring you over here and put you in the grass so you're safe, I'm not being mean to you." And I did it. I picked it up and moved it, potentially saving it's little life.
I'm going to repeat: I'm not an animal person, so this was a moment of immense personal growth for me, and I pondered it afterward. What made me do it? The desire to teach my daughter how to treat living creatures? Eh....she was asleep. I think the lesson was lost on her. A newfound desire to create peace in the world because of all that great praying I've been doing? Eh....I have been praying, but not for the ability to handle turtles. A longing to be more friendly toward all living things because my vegetarian friends are rubbing off on me? Doubtful. I still love me some bacon.
I think today there was simply a tiny bit more courage inside of me than there has been before. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but it might also be because I've had the courage to say good-bye to some junk lately. Not just physical junk, but the work of getting rid of some spiritual junk too. Maybe it's freeing up my spirit for some other better things to make a home. Maybe letting go of some stuff is giving me the juevos to free up some turtles in the world. Who knows?
More errand-driving found me listening to the Oprah station on XM radio. I heard Julie Morgenstern talking about organizing. She said two of the most unbelievably profound things. First, she said "Organization is not a talent, it's a skill." WHAT? Amazing. You mean it's not something you're necessarily born with? It's something you have to learn over time? Brilliant. I love it. Needlepoint that for me on a pillow. No wait, don't....I don't have anyplace to put that stinking pillow.
Next she said, "Organization is not the destination. Organization is a gateway to a higher goal."
Again: WHAT?! Brilliant! Julie Morgenstern, come here and let me kiss you! I DO have a higher goal: I want to live a peaceful life. I want my daughter and my husband to feel a sense of peace in this home. I want this home to be a welcoming haven. Maybe even for a turtle...who knows?
So, saving a turtle was a big deal. Slow and steady wins the race.
I drove past it several times. Back and forth I went, not knowing exactly what to do. I realize--this seems silly. Most normal people would have stopped, gone over, picked the thing up and put it by the side of the road where there was lots of tall grass leading to an even bigger field. BUT...I am not an animal person. I mean...really not an animal person. I like dogs, for the most part, but if they jump on me, I start to feel less enthusiastic. And they never, ever stop sniffing or licking. I mostly dislike cats. I intensely dislike any animal that doesn't have fur and have been known to run away when faced with them. As an adult. So...the helpless turtle in the middle of the road was a little more daunting to me than it would be to most people.
So, I finally stopped driving around it, pulled over, got out of the car and approached it. Talking to it like I would talk to a small child. "Hey there...are you going to pull your head in if I touch your shell, buddy?" [Light tap on the shell with one finger to test the waters] "Can I help you little guy?" [A few more fingers on the shell.] "Okay...I'm going to try to pick you up now." [I hear a car approaching. I stop, stand up, and point to the turtle, as if to show the approaching driver that I'm not just some wacko in the middle of the road. Car continues on its way, driver unaffected by obvious nature moment.]
"Okay, buddy...here goes...I'm going to bring you over here and put you in the grass so you're safe, I'm not being mean to you." And I did it. I picked it up and moved it, potentially saving it's little life.
I'm going to repeat: I'm not an animal person, so this was a moment of immense personal growth for me, and I pondered it afterward. What made me do it? The desire to teach my daughter how to treat living creatures? Eh....she was asleep. I think the lesson was lost on her. A newfound desire to create peace in the world because of all that great praying I've been doing? Eh....I have been praying, but not for the ability to handle turtles. A longing to be more friendly toward all living things because my vegetarian friends are rubbing off on me? Doubtful. I still love me some bacon.
I think today there was simply a tiny bit more courage inside of me than there has been before. Maybe it's because I'm a parent, but it might also be because I've had the courage to say good-bye to some junk lately. Not just physical junk, but the work of getting rid of some spiritual junk too. Maybe it's freeing up my spirit for some other better things to make a home. Maybe letting go of some stuff is giving me the juevos to free up some turtles in the world. Who knows?
More errand-driving found me listening to the Oprah station on XM radio. I heard Julie Morgenstern talking about organizing. She said two of the most unbelievably profound things. First, she said "Organization is not a talent, it's a skill." WHAT? Amazing. You mean it's not something you're necessarily born with? It's something you have to learn over time? Brilliant. I love it. Needlepoint that for me on a pillow. No wait, don't....I don't have anyplace to put that stinking pillow.
Next she said, "Organization is not the destination. Organization is a gateway to a higher goal."
Again: WHAT?! Brilliant! Julie Morgenstern, come here and let me kiss you! I DO have a higher goal: I want to live a peaceful life. I want my daughter and my husband to feel a sense of peace in this home. I want this home to be a welcoming haven. Maybe even for a turtle...who knows?
So, saving a turtle was a big deal. Slow and steady wins the race.
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