1) The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Okay, admittedly I just had to do a counterpoint to Laura’s post 🙂 Seriously, though, I read the book a couple of weeks ago and did find that the ideas resonated with me. It’s not that I aim for a home-furnishings-catalog aesthetic; in fact, a perfect home with beautiful decor has never been something that interested me all that much (though I do think ours has a lovely old-world Miami charm). It’s the sentiment of eliminating all that does not spark joy.
We — like most people — simply have too much #($*&@# lying around. Clothes we don’t wear, things we don’t use, ‘mementos’ that are just there by default because someone couldn’t help passing them on. (Before you think we are hoarders, I’d say that objectively our level of possessions is well below average for a family our age/size.) For me, being surrounded by these things is a drain on my joy. There’s more to clean up, it’s hard to find things or dig them out of the closet when they are needed, and I just generally feel awashed in negativity when I have to dig through a cluttered desk drawer to find the scotch tape.
As OMDG pointed out, “there’s medication for that” 🙂 So perhaps she’s right — this book resonated with me because of my personality type. But as I’ve gotten older I’ve become accepting of my own needs and preferences, so yeah. This book was written for me. I’ll own it!
This weekend we (yes, we — Josh is on board too and actually he is the one that bought the book!) have a day sans kids and we plan on tackling the first section — clothes. I am so excited to go through the jumble of clothes we have and eliminate all non-joy-sparking items. I promise I will report back! Oh, and as the book was NOT written with Americans or families with children (especially young children!) in mind — of course, we will do some of our own modifications. But I still think the general tenet holds true.
2) Setting up 2015 calendars. IE: the big family wall calendar (which I have yet to create — I do a photo one for the family each year!) and my 2015 Hobonichi. I’m especially excited because this is the first year in a long time that I’ve had legit vacation days to use. As in — I have a decent number of them and no maternity leave to take them all away from me! I spent some time the other evening trying to figure out how many weekends Josh and I have off together where neither of us are traveling for work (something like 21/52 = 40%).
I am planning on taking off a few random days here and there, something I was never able to do before. For example, the day after the Miami half marathon, I plan on treating myself to a me-day of hanging out at home and perhaps getting a massage. In March, I am taking a day off to go to Annabel’s school and do a little presentation on being a doctor for kids (don’t worry, I won’t bring my prader beads) — and also to get some time for myself as well. Josh and I are taking our birthdays off together, a tradition I’d like to continue until we are retired (you know, like when we are 80).
3) Miami half marathon. Honestly, my training is not going all that well. But the running bug has hit and I’m oddly looking forward to being done with this race so that I can start again training for another one! I really want to get some speed back and I’m actually toying with buying a customized training plan or trying a coach (the recent episode of Another Mother Runner made it sound pretty enticing). Does anyone have experience with an online coach they would recommend?
In other news:
C is pulling to stand. And crawling all over the place. He’s almost 10 months, so right on schedule — not early or late. A walked right at a year, so maybe he’ll follow in her footsteps. The 2 have been very similar babies in many ways so it would not surprise me!
No Comments