My Stuff, My Journey

As I get more into this project during the Lenten season it is going to get harder, because I am a natural hoarder. Not like TV show hoarder, but enough that my stuff makes it difficult to be organized and feel comfortable in our home. Much of this stuff I have had for 22+ years and so there is some real emotional attachment to it. It should be "just stuff" but there are a lot of wonderful memories attached to my stuff and so it makes it that much harder to get rid of. I keep reminding myself of the William Morris quote:

"Have nothing in your house that ou don't know to be useful. Or believe to be beautiful."

If it is useful or beautiful or even both, then we will have no problem finding a place for it in our home. It will be interesting to see how both my husband's and my different styles come into play as we are able to finally start decorating our home as we get everything put away. The challenge came at the right time as I was starting to feel overwhelmed by stuff and wanted to be able to get things organized and start feeling settled. Not because people were telling me that I had too, but rather because I want to be able to have a less chaotic home and I wanted to be able to open our doors to others. What good is having a home if you cannot demonstrate hospitality to others. So during the processing/ planning phase I came across these questions from Home Your Way. It is definitely worth the time it takes to read it! Happy Saturday!

Day 3: A Weird Mishmash

So yesterday I did a weird mishmash of things, because i was kind of spazzy for some reason. I took out "The Docs" farm collection just so that I could visusally see what was there and which peices were the biggest because I needed to measure them. We will be buildeing a custom build a shelf around those pieces because we want everything to fit. After everything was on the floor I realized what time it was and had to run to town to do some errands. while in town at my parents house I cleaned an entire trash bag out of my car, and that was just the front seat and what I could grab from the back. I need to still clean out the back seat of my car and take the rug out of my trunk, but my office isn't until a little later in the 40 Days, 40 Bags so it will just hang out there for awhile. When I got home all of the groceries went in their cupboard and the farm collection got put back in its box for now and the other mish mash of stuff is going into their designated boxes until I get to that room. Happy Saturday everone!

Five for Friday

Here are a list of 5 things I love: 1. Rootbeer 2. Our dog Annie 3. Watching movies with The Doc 4. Teaching 5. Spending time with people. There are more things that I love, but I just wanted to share 5 of them with you!

Organizing Day 2

So, I have come across an interesting problem as I starte decluttering my living room this morning, that there really isn't anyplace to put things that I have sorted and wanted to keep as of yet, because the rest of our rooms are just as crazy and cluttery... so my solution so far is I have 3 Cashwise boxes one is for kitchen stuff, one is for my office belongings and one is for misc. tools etc. I dont think that we can do this forever, but as the house is sorted the boxes will also get put away too, so it might be that our living room is going to end up being the last room put together even though it is the first room to be decluttered. What I did today was:1) unpack one box, (threw away anything that I didn't want, need or couldn't use and put things in the appropriate box until we can start putting more and more stuff away. I think that I might have to also do some designing as well to have an idea about what I need during this process/ transition. 2) washed two loads of towels, and folded some laundry that were washed the other day. As soon as the dryer is done I will start folding laundry. 3) picked up all of the strings from our dogs toy... she likes to shred her toys and they were all over the place and were making us batty. The overall goal of 40 days, 40 bags in our home is so that it is organized, finally decorated, and we are able to have friends and family come over without having to move a whole bunch of stuff around all of the time or sit on the floor. It is like the William Morris projects out there... if it isn't beautiful, useful, and you don't love it... then there really is no place for it in your home. I am feeling pretty good about what I have accomplished so far today.It wouldn't look like much to the casual observer but I know that we are a little garbage bag closer to being able to have all of our furniture in our house and all of the things we love around us... It will be worth it even if the decluttering process isn't that much fun. There is still more to do, but that is okay Eventually ecerything will get done.

Hello 2013!

I changed the background, text,and some of the colors on my blog because it was time! I wanted something cute, fun, and a little less bright. The other new thing is that yesterday was the first day of Lent and instead of "giving something up" I decided to become better organized. The Doc (ie my husband) and I haven't fully unpacked since our big move in October... truthfully boxes have been shoved into our closet to the point where I have no idea where any of our stuff is. I was surfing Pinterest a few days ago and found this challenge 40 Days 40 Bags 2013 Declutter Challenge from (www.whitehouseblackshutters.com ) If you want to join me! Yesterday, I started by putting all of my clean laundry and laundry baskets away! It is ins't anything truly impressive, but it is at least a start. I think that today I am going to sit down and just look at the calendar and create a plan! I think that I am going to start with my living room, since it causes the most stress in our house... and just work my way out and up from there. I haven't decided if I am going to include pictures or not, we shall see. If you are reading this do you want to see pictures of my crazy looking house? Happy Valentines Day everyone! I hope You feel the love of Jesus, family, and friends today! XOXO

Burnt Gravy

Yes, I decided to write about the time that I burned gravy while trying to make supper. There is the stereotype that the first year or marriage consists mainly of badly charred foods. I was convinced that wouldn't be me. I was going to try so incredibly hard to not burn anything the first year we were married... and here is the ironic thing about that... it happened very shortly after we hit the second month of marriage. Remember the Titans was on tv and I was trying to make it so that everything would be done at the same time and come out amazing... well what happened was i wasn't paying attention to the gravy and i scorched the bottom. At first I thought I could save it until there were dark brown chunks floating to the top, and then there seemed to be more and more chunks, and then we had a problem. I was annoyed with myself an I got a smidge careless and burnt my finger while I was trying to scape the charred chunks stuck to the bottom of the pan. After my pan was clean I was determined to make gravy again, that wouldn't be burned to go with my baked chicken and mashed potatoes. The second time around I was convinced that I wasn't going to let it burn. Before I started I refreshed myself on the directions, I gathered my ingredients, and then I started from step 1 all over again. When I started out with this new batch I was a little bit nervous, but as time passed I became a little bit more confident an relaxed a little more... though, i cannot say that I was completely relaxed because the horror of burned gravy was still fresh in my mind. Sometimes life is like burned gravy and we just need to scrape out the chunks and try it again.

Where has the time gone?

I missed writing... getting my thoughts down on paper or on the computer screen helps me process and evaluate what is going on in my world. I tried to start a new blog because I felt like this one didn't really fit my lifestyle or where i was going anymore, but found that to be untrue. MissBookworm85 is where I have been collecting my thoughts for so long that it just seems right. Especially, as I am still navigating the post college/ teaching world and this new thing called marriage. I am going to try to blog more, but I am not making any promises because I feel like a failure when I don't do it right. Well, I will catch you later. I am going out with friends and my husband for pizza tonight.