Your Life Lessons - Clutter weighs you down in many ways

Second day of July, it's a Monday and it is the start of the 2nd half of the year.  Where did the 1st half go?

There are triggers to jump start me throughout the year.  Some are weather related - springtime is to plant the garden.

Some are event related - we have a birth and wedding this year in the clan.

Then often it is just the accumulation of all of the above that triggers the "oh my" need to pay attention to the stuff in my life.

Today - pulled out a bunch of stuff from my NCTV cubby and that's my task for the next couple of days.  

Clearing out "stuff" on a regular basis lightens the load.  I did one of the upper cabinets in the kitchen (again) and found a few more items that could go to the donate box.  Went through the clothes closet and weeded out some of the pieces that I haven't worn or will not be wearing.  In the office, I went through paper files and found that 90% was outdated and needed to go to the shredder!

I was talking with my mom the other night and she is considering downsizing from the house she and my dad built. Yet she continues to lament that no one wants her stuff.  First time where two generations are downsizing at the same time and no one wants the stuff.  Life evolves, you need to rid yourself of clutter or get stuck in the past.  

Remember, when you are de-cluttering --- reuse, recycle, reduce is the way to go.

More Challenge begins! - Week 1 - Household Paper Products - Saving Money

This week's tip is to help save some money so we can get some MORE sleep and MORE dreaming.

One of my pet peeves, as I go down the grocery aisle, is seeing every kind of household paper product you can buy to make your life better.  Really?  
Years ago I stopped buying paper napkins and paper towels.  Instead, I use cloth napkins and kitchen towels.   

Guests sometimes feel out of sorts when they receive a cloth napkin at dinner.  It is easy.  There is no waste, nothing to throw out, and it is less expensive in the long run!  Long ago I was staying with a family in France.  At the dining table each person had a cloth pouch and in that pouch was your napkin.  For each meal you removed your napkin and returned it to the pouch after the meal.  No fuss, no muss.  

As to paper towels.... I found this quote a while ago and it stuck with me. "13 billion pounds of paper towels are used each year. That's over 45 pounds of paper towels per person, per year. Talk about wasteful! If every American reduced the number of paper towels they use by just one per day, we would divert 571,230,000 pounds of paper waste each year."  https://www.theenergy.coop/community/blog/banish-paper-towel .

Time to do the math.  One roll of paper towels weighs about 8 oz and therefore about 2 rolls equals a pound.  45 pounds would equal 90 rolls of paper towels per person per year. That is kinda scary.  A roll of paper towels is approximately $1.00.  A family of four, if they're an average paper towel user, would spend $360 just on paper towels.  I could be losing sleep over this one.

Since I'm not using paper towels any longer, some family is taking up my slack!  Oh, the roll in the picture, that roll belongs to my late cat.  She would have those 'cat events' and a paper towel worked best in cleaning up the mess.

as we called it back then, was the only choice.  My gram and mom would wear one over their shoulder  or tucked into the waistband of their apron.  Those were the days.  I still find myself, when at my mom's house, taking the dish cloth and throwing it over my shoulder while helping in the kitchen.  

My solution to the paper towels are cotton, lint free, kitchen towels. My favorite ones come from IKEA  - called Elly, four per pack costing $3.99 per pack.  Yes I have a whole stack of them, about 24 in use at any one time.  I generally put out one-two each day or so and I'm set.  The soiled towels are put in the laundry area and when a white wash is going in, they are put in and voila.

For this week's MORE Challenge -- If you are already doing this bravo, you are enjoying the savings today and helping keep our earth!  Not yet ?  Consider trying it, then you'll be saving some money, sleeping  better and dreaming about what you can do with your savings.  

More Challenge! Are You Ready?

Happy New Year to everyone!  Welcome to the MORE Challenge.

What's the More Challenge you ask?  See the list on the left.   There is one 'more' on the list for each week of the first quarter of 2017! 

Just imagine how you would feel and the change in your life, if, by the end of March, you did each one of those 'mores'?

First - there are the excuses why you can not do all these 'mores'.  I looked to those excuses to find the underlying reasons (not all of them as I'm not a psychic) why we don't get to do MORE.

There are two excuses that seem to resonate on a regular basis -  'don't have the time' and 'don't have the money'.  Really?  If all these items were to be eliminated from life forever in the next 13 weeks, would you change what you are living life right now?  

Here is the MORE Challenge.  Join with me to explore as I share with you some hints and techniques that you can do to eliminate these two excuses. You'll be changed and possibly be richer in the end.  Let's enjoy the 'mores' that will enhance your life, your family and friends around you.

Cleaning Day - Dread it or Joy?

Cleaning Day, it is such a joyous day for me.

Cleaning Day happens once a month with the help of a friend of mine who has a cleaning business.

My house is clean generally all the time.  I'm a drop it and leave the cluttered and littered mess kind of gal.  Since this day is once a month, the littering and clutter doesn't get too bad.  So the night or two before, I run around and put items back into their places.  Since I started a minimalism campaign about 18 months ago, most items have a place.  Of course one could wonder why I don't put it in its place when I have it in my hand?   Guess I got distracted!

Cleaning Day is a chance to get the big stuff completed and caught up without losing a step in my work schedule.

On the dawn of the Cleaning Day, I begin the wash, make a great cup of coffee and pick up the last few items.  Then Sabina arrives!  We go over any extra items that need to be done and then she wizzes away.  I get back to working on the day's tasks and responsibilities.

We stop for some lunch and catch up on each other lives, and then it's back to work for both of us. 

Then low and behold, she is done and viola it's like a magnificent hotel suite!  There is a fresh smell about, all the laundry is completed, bed changed and made, vacuuming done, trash out just to say a few.  There is an amazing relaxing feeling about my home.    I tiptoe about for several days to keep the feeling going.   

Over these last 18 months, I must say that my home stays picked up better because of Cleaning Day.  A recent article I read affirmed my thoughts that clearing the clutter is healthy to the mind and spirit.  While each of us is different, I do think that a "place for everything and everything in its place" keeps my life in order, saves so much time looking for those bits 'n pieces and keeping the sanity of day somewhat in line.

Hoping you find the joy in Cleaning Day, however you find it.

Living My 60th Year - A New Year

Credit to Jan van der Crabben

I've  been absent a while - I was bogged down in "stuff".  Really can't name exactly what it was, but whatever it was, now has seemed to have left!

Happy New Year.  The entries, hundreds of them, all well wishers  are flying by on FaceBook.  

What is New Year?  A day on the calendar.  Actually, it is the first day on the  Gregorian calendar and was started, according to some sources, somewhere about 153 BC. Then depending on how or what you  believe, New Year occurs throughout the year based on that calendar.

My New Year's Day isn't January 1st, mine is May 1st.   Actually this begins my busiest time of the year as I start the "season" which lasts from January to April.


So to celebrate the disappearance of the boggy, I decided to take this day head on. For the last few weeks, I've been catching up and cleaning up.  

Ruthless catching up - marathons at my desk.  I've filled my recycle box twice in the last week.  Papers scanned, filed, shredded or recycled.  

Marathons at my volunteer desk aka my kitchen island. Taking assessment of my assignments, glad to say most are up to date.   

Ruthless cleaning up - marathons at putting items back to where they belong.  Interesting as my minimalist work a year ago and this year has made this easier.  Actually, a few times I had to empty the drawer, closet, etc and put it back together.  It is amazing how 'stuff' shifts during the year into places not intended.  I've done at least 1000 stairs so far today.

Marathons of re-arranging - all of a sudden, more drawers need to be done.  How did that happen?

Whatever you choose for your New Year's Day....  May you have health and happiness all year long.

Here's to a year of catching the dreams you chase,

doing what makes you smile,

and loving the life you live.