To Do:

My life has been one massive To Do list for the past several months, hence my lack of blogging. I have so much super news to share though. First and foremost - after 2 long years of struggling to begin my career I have been offered a position as a mental health practitioner working with children in a community setting. I am more than excited! Final I can begin to use my hard earned masters degree! I will begin this new endeavor on Nov. 21st! After 6 years of working in my current position it was scary to make the change, but it is for the best. The one down fall is that we will be paying quite a lot more for health insurance for our family each month and by "quite a more" I mean several hundreds of dollars. I am hoping we can make spending cuts in other areas and make this work out. It was necessary that I make this move in order to start my career though.

My actual planning frenzy began with trying to find my daughter the perfect Halloween costume. I settled on a baby cow. Here is a picture of the costume which I snagged off of Amazon.com  This is not a picture of my daughter, but you can see how cute the costume is. She looked absolutely adorable on her First Halloween!

I actually got this costume with some of the credit I received for selling back textbooks at Amazon (which I mentioned in a previous post).

After Halloween was taken care of including the painting of and carving of pumpkins I moved on to the next big event. My daughters 1st birthday. Now this was a 2 part event. First of all her actual birthday which was on Friday, November 11th and then her birthday party which was on Sunday, November 13th.

For her actual birthday I had to find and purchase the perfect presents for her, and then assemble and wrap the presents. I also had scheduled an appointment for professional family pictures that day and so I had to find coordinating outfits for both my husband and I as well as outfits for my daughter for both family and individual pictures. The pictures turned out amazing! The lady (Trisha) that we go to is so good with kids. I didn't discover her until after I got my daughter's newborn pictures done and was very disappointed with the quality. We decided to go with Trisha for her 3 month pictures and have returned to her for 6 month and now 1 year pictures. Here is her website: Trisha Schumacher Photography I would recommend her to anyone! We drive an hour just to get to her studio, but it's totally worth it. One of the best things about her is that she actually shares the copyright with you and puts your images on a CD so that you can print as many photos as you want wherever you want to print them. I love that!

Here is what my daughter got from mommy and daddy for her first birthday and she absolutely loves it! She can open the door and crawl in by herself and even shut the door. She likes to beep the horn by kicking her foot and making her heal hit the horn. She gets a huge smile on her face when we push her around and give her a ride in her car. Overall she is adorable in her Princess Cozy Coupe by Little Tikes:

I will say too that I put this entire bad boy together. It took me like 2 1/2 hours. It was not fun in the least, but I did it and I usually don't do things like that. I usually make my husband "deal" with all of the assembly projects. So, woo hoo for me!

Other gifts from my husband and I included:



Wonderworld Eco-Friendly Blocks



Melissa & Doug Magnetic Fishing Puzzle



Fisher Price Elephant Shape Sorter



Princess Cozy Coupe & Trailer: From Toys R Us

Wonderworld Blocks: From Amazon (bought with credit from my books I sold)
Melissa & Doug Puzzle: From Amazon
Elephant Shape Sorter: From Kohls

And for Part 2: The Party - it took about 2 months of preparation and it was over in 4 hours! So much planning and work went into her party, but it was all worth it. So many family members and friends attended to share my daughter's special day and everything went perfectly. Thank you so much everyone who was a part of this. It meant so much that you could be there to help us celebrate!

This was the theme:

I ordered the main party supplies from Oriental Trading and got accessories from Walmart, Target, Hobby Lobby, Party City, & ABC Toy Zone.

And I made 3 dozen cupcakes and 3 cakes! I never bake so was incredibly proud of myself for doing this and I think they turned out great!

The reason it took 2 months of preparation is that it was important to me that we could host the party at our own house, however the room we wanted the party to take place in happened to have turned into a storage room during the almost 6 years we have been in our house. With my husband's help we were able to clear away everything in the room creating a very large space for the party! This was a huge project and I vow never to allow the room to get back to that state of disarray. I read several books on home organizing in order to become motivated and educated enough to complete this huge project. It was all worth it though for my little girl and I will continue to keep organizing and decluttering our house. I have already come so far and have accomplished so much. I want to keep up with it so that I have the space to do the projects that I want to do (such as create a scrapbook for my daughter which I have yet to start). I also want to be able to invite people over to my home more often and allow my daughter to have friends over when she gets to that age of wanting to do that. It is important to me that we have a livable home, a place we feel comfortable in.

Upcoming things on my To Do list are: Prepare for Thanksgiving, My Husband's Birthday (The 29th of November), & Christmas, Attend my nephew and niece's birthday parties, Christmas shop for family while being mindful to my budget, find a Christmas dress for my daughter and order Christmas cards. Oh and send out thank you cards for the birthday party. So as you can see my plate is still quite full! I will keep you all posted on the progress of these next project leading into the new year!

And here's to the weekend....

Since I didn't get a chance to post this week and it's already the weekend again (well almost) I will talk about my past weekend cause it was a very productive one! I made a list during the week of everything I had hoped to accomplish and I ended up completing everything except for ONE item on my list! Here's what I was busy doing:

7 loads of laundry which included (but was not limited to...)
Taking the carseat apart and washing all the cloth parts
Washing the bed sheets
Washing the crib bedding

Cleaning up the piles of stuff off the kitchen floor (these piles accumulated when we cleaned out the party room)
Cleaning the kitchen floor (with the swiffer)
Cleaning the entire bathroom including scrubbing floor on hands and knees (usually I just use the swiffer)

I was so proud of myself when I sat down last Sunday night and realized just how much I had accomplished. I didn't really reference the list during the weekend as I was doing these things so it was surprising that I was able to cross so many things off. It seems that even when I do have productive weekends that it ends up consisting of things that I had not meant to do.

The only thing that I didn't get to was getting more books ready to sell, but there's always this weekend to do that! And speaking of this weekend, I am currently working on another list already!

Now I also did something very fun last weekend as well! I took my little girl to Oak View Nursery Pumpkin Patch in Owatonna, MN and it was a lot of fun! We went on a hay ride, strolled through a corn maze, stuck our head in goofy wooden cut outs and took pictures and played in a corn box! Before leaving we purchased two pumpkins as well. One pumpkin we painted and the other we will be carving this weekend! I definitely would like to take her back next year when she will be even older and able to enjoy even more of the fun activities.

I also had lunch at El Tequila and you can find them on their Facebook link here. They have excellent Mexican food. I highly recommend the chicken chimichangas! Then I did a little shopping at Fleet Farm (completely packed with people and it drove me crazy!) and Target. I was really impressed with my spending and I didn't get things that I didn't need. At Fleet Farm I got a toy for my nephew for his birthday (exactly what I went their for) and that is it. At Target I got washable paints and paintbrushes so we could paint the pumpkin, shoes for my daughter (not something random, she really needed new shoes!) and a pair of pants for my daughter that were $5. These are the paints we got and I LOVE them. I'm sure any parents out there are already aware of these paints, but they actually are completely washable! My daughter had orange paint all over a brand new white shirt at daycare and it all came out, not a hint of stain whatsoever!

Now I mentioned that I was impressed with my conscious and meaningful spending this past weekend, but what I am really proud of is that is is October 28th and I have tracked every single thing I have spent money on this month at Spending Profile. This is an awesome website and I really recommend it to anyone. It's totally FREE and helped me to have an organized way to track my  money. Now that doesn't mean I made all smart choices of what I spent my money on this month, it just means that I have a way of seeing at the month what I did spend my money on and how I can cut back in future months on certain things! I will give you all the break down of my major spending categories for October soon!

I've been trying to work on something else to help keep me more organized. For whatever reason I am a huge "scrap" person. What I mean by that is I write things on scraps of paper all the time. I take these scraps and I put them in my purse or in my pocket or in a drawer, etc. I write down everything. Shopping lists, To-Do lists, things that are going to be on TV that I don't want to miss, cool quotes, addresses, phone numbers, songs I like that I hear on the radio. I literally write myself notes about everything, but not in an organized way. I have tried having a little notebook to jot things down, but then it seems that I can't always have the notebook with me, so if I need to write something down I will grab the nearest junk mail envelope or post it that I can find and what this has turned into is a huge problem. I would say in the past month I have done an incredible job with making progress in this area. While I have still made notes, I have diligently transferred the information either into my small notebook or online and ditched the scraps! This makes my information feel much more meaningful and useful to me and I hope to continue working on this. If anyone has a similar problem or has any organizational suggestions I would greatly appreciate hearing anything you might have for me regarding this strange quark I have.

I have been so busy trying to plan so many events lately as well. These next couple of months are going to be busy ones! First I had to decide what my daughter would be for her 1st Halloween! We finally settled on the most adorable cow costume. I look forward to taking her around in her costume for a little trick or treating on Monday. She also has her 1st Birthday coming up so we had to decide what mommy and daddy were going to get her for her big present and then getting the theme for her party pinned down and getting all of the decorations ordered and invitations sent out. I am pleased to say that as of yesterday this was done! I have a few last minute things to pick up, but the bulk of her supplies have arrived (I ordered them online) and I mailed out her invites yesterday. Then we have her 1 year pictures (and family pictures) to prepare for. I already have the appointment scheduled, but I have to work on getting coordinating outfits. I am getting my haircut tomorrow so that will be good to have that done and ready to go for pictures in a few weeks. I also found two outfit options for pictures for my daughter online and ordered them today. And I have been slowly but surely shopping and accumulating Christmas gifts for my daughter and nieces and nephew. So things are falling together as far as the planning department goes.

As far as the career department, I will have to update you all on that next time....

The good and the bad...

So, I haven't posted lately and I thought it was just because I didn't have much to say, but really it is because I have a lot to say but that it feels negative so I didn't want to say it. So this is going to be the good and the bad series to let you all know where I am in my life right now.

I am feeling incredibly stuck. When I evaluate my life and think about where I am and how far I have come the one thing that is holding me back right now is my job. It is incredibly frustrating for me to know that I worked so hard and completed a masters program only to get nowhere with it. I don't know how many positions I can actually apply for and how many times I can be turned down. I need a change and goal is to have that change in place by the end of the year.

When I think about this process I am going through I can't help but think of a good friend of mine and the changes she has made in her life and leaps and bounds and risks she took to make herself happy. I try to think to myself what those changes would look like for me and the steps I would need to take to get where I want to be in life.

Now if I can just back up a bit, I am not by any means misearble in every aspect of my life. I am completely and entirely happy with my home life. I have a great husband and an adorable daughter. I couldn't be more happy in that aspect. When I think about the time I spend at work though and the hours that I work and how that cuts into the quality time that I spend with my family it can get me real depressed and real quick. I currently work each day from 10am-6:30pm. There is a rare exception when I will get an earlier or later shift, but for the most part those are the hours I work. I have found that I have gotten real stuck in routines with this schedule and while routines are good for children I feel that it is leading to the monotany of my life and if anyone has ever seen the movie Groundhog's Day with Bill Murray that is what I feel my days are - the same over and over and over only to be interruped by a blissful 2 day weekend that goes all too fast.

In the morning we get up, I get my daughter breakfast, I get myself ready for work, I pick out clothes for both me and her, we get dressed, I pack my lunch (if we have food in the fridge) and then it's time to drop her off at daycare. I go to work. My husband picks her up from daycare and then I don't get home from work until about 7pm. As soon as I get home it goes into the evening routine of feeding my daughter dinner, giving her a bath, cleaning myself up and getting ready for bed and then before we know it it's bedtime and another day is gone. I'm also not under the illusion that I am the only person that deals with this. This is the way life has become and I wish we could get back to the old fashioned family values lifestyle. Now all people seem to do is GO-GO-GO!

Last night I came to the realization that I rarely ever get quality play time with my daughter and that made me really sad. I engage with my daughter all of the time, but I don't get that quality play time. I told my husband about this last night and he said, "I play with her every night after daycare until you get home". I told him that made me very happy, and it does, but at the same time it made me a little sad because I wished I could spend time and play with her and read to her more.

I do get time on the weekends to do fun things with her and I feel like that is why I am kind of selfish about my weekends as well. I hate when people make plans for me and fill my weekends up with activities that I would rather not partake in. I have tried to be more forward about this and have declined many invites to do things that I really would rather not be doing with my precious time off of work. I feel that reading the book "Enough Already!" by Peter Walsh that I previously mentioned in my blog has been very helpful with this. The author talks about decluttering your relationships and emotional baggage. I need to learn to be more selfish of my time, but in a good way. I will still do things with my husband's family because I know it is important to him and I know it is important for my daughter to develop a relationship with her grandparents. I know when to say no though and create healthy boundaries because I don't need to spend every weekend with them, but I need to spend some weekends with them. I also need to try and spend more time with my family. It is not fair that just because they live further away than his family that we should see them less. This is something I am currently working on.

So how do I deal with this dilema and handle the stress that I feel on a daily basis? Mostly in negative ways. I eat un-healthy foods for comfort. I feel that if I have to at least be at work and away from my daughter that the day will be better if I eat something that is terrible for me, but tastes great. This morning I literally looked into the fridge to get something for lunch and I said out loud, "yep, this is going to be a 2 coke day" and I grabbed 2 cans of pop and closed the fridge. I have been trying to drink only 1 can of pop a day, but I knew after the morning I had that I would need that extra kick to keep me going today.

Another way I deal with it is to vent. I feel that lately I have been incredibly negative at work and I try to keep it to myself as I don't want to affect my co-worker's moods, but sometimes my attitude leaks out. I don't like when I have so much anger and negative energy inside of me. I try to get to a better place when I feel the negativity setting in. One thing that I have found can be helpful is to listen to Christian music. I have some favorite religious songs and I have saved them to my favorites on my YouTube account. I find that if I can listen to them my perspective on life can change and I get a sense of calm come over me and I can let things go and move on. Now when I am at a horrible place emotionally this does not always work so I don't even "go there" with the music because I know it will be a failed attempt.

So what all of this has taught me is that yes, I do have a lot of work to do with decluttering my physical space and home. But also I have a lot of work to do with decluttering my emotional space as well.

On a happier note my husband has totally stepped up and helped me out immensley with my cleaning project. I'm proud to say that we are about 90% ready for our daughter's birthday now! We have almost entirely cleared out the room we have been working on. And I was so happy because I didn't even have to remind or beg my husband to go thorugh his stuff. He just took initiative and worked on it for one Saturday and a few weeknights. It looks so much better than the junky stoarge pit it had become. I'm very excited that we will be able to host her 1st birthday party at our very own house!!! I do have pictures of the progress and I promise to put them up for you all to see soon!

I also have ordered some of her birthday supplies and I bought a really cute cake pan last night at Hobby Lobby with a 40% of coupon! I will keep the theme a surprise until the invites go out.

I will stop here since I have been trying to post this all day. But more soon my lovely readers!

If you are going to spring a leak make sure it's sprung in a convenient location!

So yesterday I was on my way to work and I blew my water pump in my car. Of course I did not diagnose that ailment myself, but here's how it went down:

Smoke billowing out of my hood, a horrible smell coming from my car and a strange noise as I pull into my work parking lot. I look up and a man is standing in the parking lot staring at me. I get out of my car to assess the damage and he says, "I think you blew your radiator hose". There is liquid pouring in abundance from beneath my car. So, I get my husband on the phone and this was our conversation:

Me: Um, Hi. I think I just broke my car.
Husband: What? What happened?
Me: There is smoke coming from the hood, it smells really bad, and some light pink liquid is running all over the ground from under my hood.
Husband: Can you pop the hood
Me: Ok (I pop the hood)
Husband: What do you see?
Me: An engine
Husband: Okay....but what do you see?
Me: Honestly, I don't know. I don't see anything out of the ordinary. It is hissing though.
Husband: Hissing? Is your car still on?
Me: No, I turned it off
Husband: But it sounds like it is still running?
Me: Not really, but there's a noise. Here listen to it (me putting the phone up to the engine). Can you hear it?
Husband: Yeah, I heard it. Do you see a black hose in there?
Me: (Me looking around). I do not see a hose.
Husband: Okay, just close the hood. Can you go back in the car and look on the dashboard and tell me the temperature that is says.
Me: 64 degrees.
Husband: No, not the temperature outside, the temperature of your car engine. There should be a temperature gauge on the dash
Me: I have no temperature gauge on my dash
Husband: Yes you do
Me: No I don't
Husband: Believe me, you do
Me: Oh, there it is. It's all the way to the top, in the red zone, like 260 degrees
Husband: Okay, go into work. I will call a tow truck

I felt strangely calm and not at all distressed by my situation and instead reflected on how lucky I was that I made it all the way to my work parking lot before this happened. I had no indication on my 40 minute drive to work that anything was wrong with my car that morning. As many of you may have read in my previous blog I also made an extensive drive to the big city this past Saturday for the bike tour. That is an hour and a half each way. I was so glad that if my car was going to blow up that it did it in such a convenient location!

Have you ever had something incredibly inconvenient happen to you but are able to reflect on it and think of how much worse it really could have been?

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

"We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give." - Winston Churchill

I had a lot of things on my to-do list this weekend, but I did not get to any of them. But I'm okay with that because I was extremely productive anyway! I got so much done this weekend, just different things than I had in mind.

What I had hoped to do:
Clean out the bathroom cupboards and drawers
Clean the bathroom
Go through more books to sell to Amazon
Go through my clothes
Continue going through the binders of school papers on my bookshelf
Go through our winter gear to donate to the winter drive at work

Just because I didn't get to these things this weekend doesn't mean I crossed them off my list. They are still there and I will continue to work on them throughout the week and beyond if needed.

So, if I didn't do any of that, what did I do this weekend?

Well, I worked primarily in the room that we hope to hold my daughter's 1st birthday party in in just 1 month! It has over the years turned into a large storage pit and is a completely un-usable room at this time. After this weekend it is now a half usable room! Yes, I was able to clear out half of the room. I even vacuumed that half and took pictures. It hasn't been that clean since we moved in 5 years ago. I am very proud of the progress.




BEFORE




AFTER (half way there!) See even the kitty likes her new found clean-ness!



AFTER

 Here are all of the boxes of papers that I have gone through so far:



Boxes of papers

 Unfortunately when I boxed these all up I did not take the time to sort though things that may need to be shredded or burned. My husband says it's too much work to burn paper so we must go about this from a different direction. We do have a shredder at home, but it is so time consuming! I went through two boxes on Saturday and shred a lot of documents. We can only do 3 sheets at a time at home or else the shredder jams so it took a very long time. I am not looking forward to going through the rest so my husband is going to call the bank and see if we can shred any documents there. We are unaware of any other ways to safely get rid of personal documents. If you have any ideas for us, please share!

Since I have been cleaning out the house we have accumulated piles upon piles of things that we no longer need or want. The idea was to sort through everything saving some things and donating other things. At this time we were storing massive amounts of items in the large room that we did not want any longer. I brainstormed where I could possibly store this stuff with having it out of the way. Here's what I came up with. I printed out large signs on the computer that say, "Garage Sale". I got as many boxes together that I could find and I starting putting everything we didn't want in these boxes. I then closed them up and taped a Garage Sale sign on the box.

We currently have attic storage that runs the entire length of our house and is accessible by a little door in the wall in our bedroom. Currently we store things that we are keeping in plastic storage bins. I was able to re-arrange the bins so that everything we are saving could be to the left side of the storage and this left the entire right side empty. I swept it all out and made sure it was clean and then decided that anything for garage sale would go to the right. This is what we have so far. I have also decided that I will donate things, but I would like to try them on at least one garage sale first and get back some money. Whatever can't sell then I will determine from that what I will donate.


I also was able to clean out 2 closets this weekend! They were small closets, but still I felt like I accomplished a lot! And I was absolutely exhausted by Sunday night.

Now I didn't just clean and organize all weekend. I did something awesome for myself. I participated in a bike tour through Minneapolis By Bike It was a really great experience and I would recommend it to anyone who likes to get outdoors and explore. I don't do a lot of "fun" things for myself so I was really happy that I decided to do this. I was a little nervous because I don't exercise other than just walking sometimes and I haven't even  rode bike since high school. I did really well though. I was wobbly at first as I was learning the new bike, but then it was really comfortable for me. The company is run by my friend and she provides bikes as well as helmets. The helmets have a speaker hook up so you can hear her talking throughout the tour. She points out attractions. There are 2 current tours that she does. I participated in the Historical Tour. There is also a Farmers Market Tour which I would like to do someday. The bikes have baskets on the front so you can store anything you would like to take. I highly recommend you take a camera. I also brought a light jacket but did not end up needing to use it. They provide ponchos in the event that it rains. You also receive a complimentary water bottle with the company logo on it. The first 25 participants receive a tee shirt with the company logo on it (you can see the cool logo by clicking on the website link above). Since I was on the 2nd tour I did receive a tee shirt! Here are a couple pictures from our tour:



I really liked the tour because it made me see Minneapolis in a way that I have never experienced it before. I very rarely make it to Minneapolis and when I have in the past it has always been by car. I really appreciate that I was able to have this experience and I hope other people take the advantage to go on a tour for themselves as well!

What are some fun activities that you like to do? Do you make time in your busy life to do "fun" things for yourself? If you find that all you do is go to work and then continue to work when you go home (either housework or take your work home) try to make it a goal to do at least ONE fun thing for yourself a month. Make it be an outing with friends or spend time with family. Just make sure you do something you enjoy (and it doesn't even have to cost money if you are on a budget!)

What is the life I want to live?

For many years now I have had an BUCKET LIST. If anyone is unsure what a bucket list it, it's an ongoing list of the things you hope to accomplish in your lifetime. I just realized today that I failed one of my bucket list items.

**VISIT EVERY CONTINENT (MINUS ANTARCTICA) BEFORE I AM 30 YEARS OLD**

This endeavor wasn't a complete failure, I guess. I did make it to 4 of the 6  I aspired to visit:

• North America (have lived here my entire life and have also been to Canada twice and Mexico once)
• Europe (on 3 separate occasions)
• Africa (on 2 separate occasions)
• Asia (on 1 occasion)

The only ones I have left are South America and Australia.

At first I felt a pang of sadness when I realized I did not meet this goal, but that was short lived and I realized that:

1. I can extend my time frame and that I still have a whole lifetime to make it to the last 2 continents on my list.
2. I have been to quite a few places already and cannot discount the travels I have already accomplished. AND
3. I'm not so sure making it to every continent is on the top of my list of importance any longer. I used to be obsessed with travel, and don't get me wrong, it still intrigues me, but I feel more grounded now that I am married and have a baby. It has made me re-prioritize my goals (money is also a huge issue with this).

I only share this to illustrate that our goals should always be fluid. Never carve them in stone because it is okay to change them. As we grow and enter different times in our lives our priorities shift and that is OKAY! Don't beat yourself up for unaccomplished goals, look at them and change them in to new and improved goals!

Everyone should have a Bucket List



I started a new book by Peter Walsh. He wrote, "It's All Too Much", which I mentioned in a previous posting. Reading that book was life changing. It motivated me to start cleaning the clutter out of my house and organizing room by room as well as letting go of materials items in a way I have never been able to before. I thought I would try out other books he had written. I picked up Enough Already! from the library and started reading it about a week ago. This book focuses on emotional clutter. At first all it was talking about was relationships and to be honest I was quite bored with the book. Last night, however, it took an amazing turn and went into WORK!



From what I read last night I came to realize that I have a very cluttered vision when it comes to work. I have a big idea of what I would like to achieve and where I would like to be in my life. I know that this is not it, but I don't know how to get from HERE to THERE, and furthermore I'm not so sure I know where THERE exactly is. I know I am not happy in my job and that I would like to begin a career (preferably in social work), but I feel incredibly stuck. In being incredibly honest with myself I have come to realize that FEAR plays a large part in my being stuck. I am unsure if I can be successful or if I can even have a career. Even though I do not like what I do and to me it is just a job that pays the bills, there is a comfort in knowing that every day I come to work that it is very clear cut and easy. It's quite mundane and very repetitive, but I know what I am doing. I feel very comfortable doing it and I know I'm good at it. That is absolutely no reason to stay in a job! True there are other jobs I could be doing, but to be honest my job pays well for what I am doing and there are amazing health insurance benefits that come with the position that I am just not ready to walk away from, particularly since my husband and I plan to have another baby in a few years.

I search for opportunities all of the time, but I feel I do it half heatedly. I find something that sounds interesting, but I always look for a reason why it wouldn't work or why they wouldn't hire me and I convince myself not to apply or I apply knowing in the back of my mind that I will not get it. These are mind sets I have developed for myself over the years and I have come to realize that I will never get anywhere in life with these mindsets. I am being proactive half heatedly. I need to do it full on! I need to apply for a position with the attitude that I've already been given the position. I need to interview as if I've been working in the field for 20 years already. THIS IS WHAT PEOPLE ARE LOOKING FOR! CONFIDENCE IS THE KEY!~

So, I am unveiling my next goal - Confidence and attitude change in my career search process. That's a pretty broad goal, so I will have to fine tune it along the way.

I took a seminar class at work last week. It was on stress. I did not find any of the information helpful and was pretty bored during the entire class, however, I gained one very important thing from it. They gave handouts at the end and amongst the papers there was a little chart that said:

Monday - Gratitude
Tuesday - Compassion
Wednesday - Acceptance
Thursday - Higher Meaning
Friday - Forgiveness
Saturday - Celebration
Sunday - Reflection / Prayer

I cut this little chart out and slipped it into my wallet. I look at it every day now and try to work on the concept for that given day. IT IS HARD!

Last night nature called and I had to get up around 3:30am to go to the bathroom. For some reason I startled my husband and I quickly told him to be quiet so he wouldn't wake up the baby. Not even a second later I bashed my knee into a fan sitting on the floor and it flew over and crashed into wall. And guess who woke up? I was so angry as I made my way to the bathroom with a throbbing knee. Not mad at the baby, but mad at myself. All I wanted was to go to the bathroom and crawl back into my delightful bed and go back to sleep, but in the process I had to be loud and wake up the baby. I tried to calm myself down as I thought about the list in my wallet. I was able to calculate that it was early Thursday morning, but the only word on the list that I could remember was GRATITUDE. I knew that wasn't Thursday's word, but since it was 3:30am and because I could hear my child screaming in her crib from the other room, I just went with it. I tried to think of how I could find gratitude in this situation. Here's what I came up with (I thought it was pretty good myself). In that moment it came into my head to feel grateful that my child was able to HEAR that loud crash that I made and wake up to the sound. I don't know of many people who would think of that example,  but that is what I came up with. You see my nephew (born the same day as my daughter) was born completely deaf. I always have thought - that so easily could have been our little girl. It has made me grateful ever since for her ability to hear, something most people just take for granted. My nephew has since received cochlear implants and now IS able to hear! I mention this story just to point out that there are always, always things you can be grateful for even in the worst of situations.

Now to mention a little on the things I have been accomplishing. I found a really cool website for tracking my spending Spending Profile. I individualized it to my needs and have been tracking all of my spending for this month so far (I know it's only the 6th). I don't think that the website is set up in a way that you are meant to individually list each item that you purchase, however, I wanted to even more specifically know exactly where my money is going - so each day I review what I have spent money on that day and I individually track each item, where I got it and how much it cost. Once I have tracked the items both in my checkbook register and online on the website I can throw the receipt away (more on this later...I have a huge issue with saving receipts for EVERYTHING). It is working great for me so far and I'm excited to see the end product at the end of the month. I was most excited because even though it gives you categories it has already created, it also allows you to make your own categories so I can really individualize it to my spending!

I have sold more textbooks. I used a different website this time Sell Back Your Book. I sold 4 books back this time for a total of $119.52.



4 books I sold today




So I have sold back 9 textbooks now:

• 5 to Amazon for credit on their site for $191.22 and
• 4 to Sell Back Your Book for $119.52 cash

This extra cash will help me to pay my bills this month and have an even balance in my checkbook. The credit I got on Amazon helped me to purchase Christmas gifts for my husband and daughter and a Halloween costume for my daughter - all of which I would have had to spend cash on, cash that I did not (and will not) have!

Now selling my books has not been something that has been easy for me. Just last night I had to re-evaluate the reason that I am doing this. I was worried that I was doing this out of anger. I do feel a lot of anger that I worked so hard in my grad school program and finished my degree but yet have been unable to work in the field. I tried to think of the reasons I was saving the books in the first place. I saved them as a resource that I may use one day. I have not touched my books since I last used them in school. It has been over 2 years for some of them, longer for others. Already new editions of those texts have come out. My point was illustrated further when I tried to sell some of my undergrad books online recently. I could not sell them, no one will buy them because they are obsolete now. I thought to myself, do I want to sit on these grad school textbooks for years and then go to try and sell them and get nothing for any of them. NO I DO NOT! So far I have gained $310.74 and that's not even 1/3 of my textbooks yet. Sure, that's nothing compared to what I bought them for, but it's SOMETHING and something is better than nothing! I figure, textbooks are always going to be around. If in the future I work in a job that I need to re-learn something specific I can go out and find another book on the subject and purchase it! Or simply research the topic on the Internet. It does not need to be the exact book that I used for my class and furthermore, by the time I need the information I'm sure they will have new and improved information that maybe hasn't even been published yet for me to read up on! With that said I am keeping a very select few books for reference, but the rest have got to go. I just don't have the room to store books that I may use one day.

Are there things that you hold on to that you think you may use one day? What are those things? Why are they hard for you to let go? Remember to live in the present! Don't save everything from your past simply for the reason that it is from your past and don't save everything for the future simply because you might use it one day! Live in the NOW and keep the things that you use NOW!

What is your hotdog stand?

I recently picked up the audiobook "The New Frugality" By Chris Farrell from the library after reading on my friend's blog Goal Getter Gurl about how she went and listened to the author speak in person. Today as I was listening he talked about a man who as a child had a dream of having a hotdog stand and while all of his friends talked about wanting to be firemen or astronauts or police officers, he talked about wanting to own his very own hotdog stand. When he was older he became a very successful business man, however always in the back of his mind was that hotdog stand. He didn't need that hotdog stand to be financially successful or to make ends meet, but eventually he got himself a hotdog stand just because it was his dream. Apparently all of us have hotdog stands in the back of our minds. I don't know anyone that aspires to grow up and sit in a cubicle and talk on the phone all day. That's what I do now. (At this point I will just interject and say that while I am not in my dream job I am very thankful to be employed at all as I know many people would take my job in a heartbeat just to have a job). For anyone that doesn't know, though, I went to school to get my Masters in Social Work. I finished my degree in December 2009 and shortly after took the State of MN required exam for licensure and passed at the LGSW level (licensed graduate social worker). Since that time I have not advanced or started my career. I have searched high and low and I have applied to countless positions, been offered some interviews, but have received more rejection letters than I could even keep track of. Due to my circumstances of living in a small town in the corner of south eastern Minnesota there are just not a lot of opportunities for me in the field as there would be if I lived closer to a large city. Since I am married and have a family and we own our home instead of renting we just do not as readily have the opportunity to uproot ourselves to help me gain more opportunities. So, where does that leave me? I feel stuck. I know what I want, but I don't have the tools and I don't know all the necessary steps to take to make it happen. As I just celebrated my 30th birthday this past weekend I feel a mild sort of panic creeping up again. I feel flooded with "what ifs". What if I wasted a "home mortgage" amount of money on school and it will have all been pointless? What if I can never get where I want in life? What if I am never successful? What if I never have a career? It makes my head spin and it makes my stomach hurt, but I think it's good to talk about it. If anything maybe people can reach out and give me pointers or advice. At the least maybe someone will just say, "I was/am in the same boat, hang in there. It will get better". Chris Farrell indicated that no more than 8% of your income should be going towards school loans. Well I'll be darned because I just figured it out and I pay 37% of my income to student loans! (It will go down to 28% now that I have increased my hours to 40 per week again instead of 32, but still that's a lot!). And that's before taxes! I took the total amount of money I spend on my student loans every month and then divided it by what I should make a month before taxes and it came out to be 36.8% (based on 32 hours per week / 27.6% based on 40 hours per week). To me that is crazy considering that I don't even work in the field I went to school for.

On a much happier note I had an AMAZING birthday weekend. My husband took me out to eat for a fabulous dinner at The Porterhouse in Lakeville. It seriously was the best food I've had this entire year. I got the lobster tails, and yes that is tails with an "S". New England Clam Chowder (apparently it is the best in the state and they have won awards for it), amazing artichoke and spinach dip spread on soft, warm baguette bread, and the biggest baked potato top with a mound of butter and sour cream!!! Wish I would have remembered my camera to take pictures!

Then yesterday we went to my parents house and I was able to celebrate my birthday with my mom, dad, brother, sister, husband, and daughter! We ate together and then had cake (cheesecake with cherry topping - my favorite!!!) and presents! My parents gave me a much needed set of king size bed sheets, the really soft teeshirt kind and the 5 ingredient or less cookbook I wanted. My sister got me a really cool Harley Davidson shirt (she works there), and my brother got me the DVD's Bridesmaids and Groundhogs Day! All things that I will definitely use and will not be added to the household clutter, so kudos to them all for their awesome gift choices [although I did also provide a list ;) ]

Everybody has dreams, whether they are big or small. What are you dream? What steps are you taking to help you to achieve your dreams? What are some of the barriers or road blocks you have come up against? How do you keep a positive attitude and continue to move forth when you reach these stopping points?

Clothes, clothes, clothes, books, and papers!

So, the other day I was watching PBS with my daughter and Sid the Science Kid comes on. We learn that the show is on recycling and reducing waste. It starts out with Sid throwing away a much prized toy robot that has lost both of its arms. The toy is clearly broken. I silently commend him for throwing it out. Then in walks his mother and asks him what he is doing. He explains and then she guilts him into removing it from the trash saying that maybe it can be used for something else. I'm thinking HOARDER! And then the plot gets worse. Later in the show the kids are digging through the recycling bin learning about things that can be recycled. This is great, however, then they are encouraged to remove things from the trash to see if they can reuse them and make them into new things. And this my friends is why America is consumed with garbage and houses are overflowing with trash. I fully support recycling, but when something is broken or no longer worth saving get rid of it! Don't keep it in your house to cause clutter and disorganization, just let it go.


This would be Sid the Science Kid



And now on to the projects I have been working on at home:



This is one of my 4 bookshelves full of books. This one is primarily for textbooks.


I thought that it would be a great idea to keep all of my textbooks because I figured they would be a great reference for me one day. (The "I might need them one day" mentality). I have now come to realize that I have not touched these textbooks in over 3+ years now and that what is going to happen is that they are not going to serve as a reference for me after all, but rather as something else to add to the clutter in my house. Not only that, I have found that some of them are still worth money! The older ones that I have from undergrad are, of course, obsolete and therefore no one wants to buy them back, but I found that Amazon has a Textbook Trade In program online and it's super easy to use! You don't even have to pay shipping for your books. You just enter the books ISBN, see if they are buying back and how much the will give you for it (they give you credit on your account to buy from Amazon, not cash). If you want to sell it then you just print the slip and drop them off at a UPS store! Here is the link: Amazon Text Book Trade In. I figured it's a great way to fund some Christmas shopping as I love ordering from Amazon anyway!



The books that I traded in on Monday - 5 books got me $191.22 credit at Amazon.com




This is a bookshelf containing every single paper for every single class I had in grad school. It also contains half the work I did in undergrad and even some from high school!



Grad School in a Nut Shell! This is over 2 feet of papers from grad school that took me over 6 hours to go through last weekend. These are all going to be recycled!




All of the empty binders left from my grad school purge! I will donate these somewhere as they are all still very nice and someone can certainly use them!


Another major project that I have worked on since last week was going through all of my daughter's clothes and getting them organized. She is almost 11 months old and I have everything she has ever worn plus clothes that people have borrowed to me. I first started by going through her dresser and closet. I pulled out all of the clothes that no longer fit her. I got her dresser set up in a way that made sense to me and in a way that it is easy to quickly put outfits together for her. I wanted no more piles of clothes on the floor so I hung everything up in her closet or put it in her dresser. I designated the bottom drawer for things that are too big for her yet so that they are not mixed in with the clothes that currently fit her.

One pile of clothes

More clothes

Yet more clothes

And the end result of all the clothes that no longer fit and needed to be gone through and either sold, donated, or packed away for another baby

The end result. I'm quite proud! All of the clothes are packed away nicely in hopes that they will be used one day again if we have another baby girl. Don't worry, there are a few gender neutral and boy items in these bins too! I also have a few boxes for garage sale or donate, so don't worry. And I have two bags of items to return that were borrowed.

Upcoming projects:

• I have gone through about half of the kitchen cupboards and re-organized and gotten rid of items we no longer need. I plan to finish up the kitchen so it is all done in the near future
• I have about half of the book shelf of 3 ring binders cleared off I want to work to finish going through all of those items that are remaining
• I need to sort through all of my clothes in my dresser and closet and get rid of what I don't wear any longer
• There are doing a winter collection here at work and I would like to go through all of my winter gear and see what I have that I no longer use and donate some of these items along with scarves that I have made

What projects are you working on in your house at this time? What do you have for upcoming projects? How do you tackle an overwhelming project to get an end result that you are happy with?

Spring cleaning in the fall

I finished the book "It's All Too Much" last night. I feel like I have learned so much and it has completely motivated me, given me hope, and empowered me to make changes. For years I have wanted the skills for decluttering, but I never knew where to start or how to do it. I have made many failed attempts to organize and get rid of things, but I feel confident that THIS IS THE TIME! I have been working on the house since the beginning of September and already I can see the gains I have made. My main goal when I started all of this was for Natalie to be able to have her 1st birthday party AT OUR HOUSE. I have 7 more weeks until her party and if I keep going at this rate I know I can have the house ready in time. I had an unexpected day off of work with a sick little girl today so I took advantage of organizing and declutting while she napped. I primarily worked in the kitchen today. Here is an example of what I got done:

Food Cupboard BEFORE



Food Cupboard AFTER



All of the food that was old and had to be thrown out


I went through each cupboard one by one in the kitchen (I didn't finish all of them yet, but got through over half of them today). I took everything out, wiped out the shelves and only put back the things that we currently use. If anything had not been used in over a year I put it aside. I now have about 5 boxes of "things" that need to be sorted into sell or donate. I fortunately have been throwing things along the way so I don't have to sort a throw pile also because that step is already taken care of! I feel incredibly accomplished and so happy with my progress.

Today every time I hesitated about getting rid of something I said to myself, "do you want a clean house or do you want these things?".  The answer was always, "I want a clean house". If I thought, "But what if I need this one day?" I then countered that with, "then I will buy it when I need it if that day ever comes - EXAMPLE - pie tins - I've never made a pie in my life and quite frankly I don't really ever aspire to ;) So...out they went!

Have you every gone room by room in your house clearing out all of the things you haven't used in a long time? Is it hard for you? Do you have the urge to hold on to things thinking that you one day may need it?

There is still hope for me

Beginning last weekend  9/10-9/11  I decided that since I am back to working 5 days a week that I am using my weekends for ME! Usually I feel obligated to do things on the weekends that other people want me to do, but I am going to do my best to use my weekends as I want to since they are mine and the only reprieve from work that I have. So, for the past 2 weekends I have stayed home and the only time I have left the house was to go to church on Sunday morning (my choice). I spent all day both Saturday and Sunday clearing out the house. Now people probably do not find that to be something that they would enjoy doing on their weekend off, but to me it is incredibly rewarding as I can visibly see the difference I am making and it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I feel like I am finally getting somewhere and I know that with continued hard work and dedication that I will unleash our house of the mounds of clutter laying around and get rid of things that are not needed.

I have made great progress in my "It's All Too Much" book as well. I only started it last Friday 9/16 and already I am 2/3 of the way through it and Peter Walsh has great advice! I have realized that while I do have a mini hoarding problem (as does a vast majority of the rest of our nation), I am not doomed. Some of the positive things I found as I was reading the book I made note of and these are some of the reasons I am not doomed:

1. I do not have an issue with shoes. I actually have the minimal amount of shoes a person would need. I have 2 pairs for work (brown and black), a pair of tennis shoes that I wear often and a couple pair of flip flops of which I wear often! I in the past had other shoes that I was not wearing and easily was able to get rid of them (aside from one pair of flip flops that I absolutely adored, but were beyond repair - that was hard to throw them out, but I am on the search for a pair of the same brand, probably won't find them though because I bought them like 8 years ago. Sigh...). So that is good news for me! While I hold on to many things and over buy certain items SHOES are not one of them!

2. There is nothing underneath my bed and I mean nothing. Some people use the space under their bed to store things but I am proud to say I store nothing under my bed!

3. Junk mail - It comes into the house and goes right into recycling. It does not sit in piles on the table for very long and I feel that while I do have massive amounts of saved paperwork that none of it is junk mail. That's an easy one for me so I just rid myself of it immediately.

Now after listing some of my strengths I do know that there are going to be some troublesome areas.

1. First of all my books - I am saving that for much later because I know there is going to be some issues when it comes to weeding out my collection. In all honesty I know that I have way too many books, way more than anyone could ever read in a lifetime, however I have somewhat of a sense of pride in my book collection, but all my bookshelves (4 to be exact) are stock full and not another book could fit - so what have I done - I have not bought any books in the last 6 months. Was it hard? Incredibly, but to help I unsubscribed to email updates from my favorite book vendors and refused to peruse the isles of bookstores. I now read the books I have and/or go online to my library account and order the book through my library consortium and it arrives usually within about 3 days and I can pick it up right at my home town library!

2. Another problem area is going to be most anything that was given to me as a gift. I feel an incredible sense of guilt getting rid of a gift even if it is something I don't need, don't use, or don't even like. So, if you want to help me with this area please give me permission to purge gifts you may have given me that I no longer need. I would be ever so grateful to be released of that burden.

3. Stuffed animals! For some reason over the years I have come to the conclusion that stuffed animals are like pets or something. I don't mean this in a crazy way like I feed them or pet them and talk to them, but I find an emotional attachment to my stuffed animals and feel that I need to give them a good home. What that has come to is having a collection of about 100 stuffed animals when I probably only need about 3-5. There are a handful of ones that I would never get rid of like the bear my dad gave me when I was very little or the monkey that my mom gave me and a few select ones that Justin (that would be my husband) gave me, but overall my collection needs to be decreased and this is going to be a hard endeavor.

Along the way I'm sure I will come across more strengths and difficult areas and will talk about them further, but for now - my weekend progress...

We have lived in our house for almost 6 years now, I JUST hung up the first pictures on our walls. And I did it all by myself! About time! These are beautiful paintings that my husband's grandmother did.





Bin full of papers BEFORE
(Note stacks of papers beside the bin as well)



Bin full of papers AFTER







This may not look like much of an improvement, but believe me, IT IS! I could not see the floor before the stacks of papers were so abundant. Here's to progress!



Are there things that you have in your life that you wish you could let go and get rid of? What are some of the things that you treasure and never would dream of getting rid of? Have you made progress in any area of your life lately that you are proud of and would like to share with others?

It could be better. It could be worse.

My First Blog Post! I never thought I would be a blogger, but here I am. As of recent I have "stumbled" upon an amazing and inspiring blog of my good friend from high school and started thinking, maybe I could blog. Check our her blog here Goal! Getter! Gurt! As you will see from my friend's blog she has made significant changes in her life over the past several years from organizing, minimalizing, re-prioritizing and even revamping her entire wardrobe! Recently she achieved her ultimate goal of starting her own business and just got it up and running! Check her business out here Minneapolis By Bike She has inspired me so much by reading all of the changes she has made to make me want to STOP THINKING and START DOING!

In all honesty my main goal in having a blog at this time is for myself. Sure it would be cool to have followers along the way, but at this time I just need a more tangible and visible way to track my progress as I work towards some major projects that are underway in my life at this time. I will briefly touch on these "projects", but will go in much  more depth as I blog more.

FIRST PROJECT: Out, out, and away - clearing out the billions of things I don't need but for some reason hold on to that now clutter up our entire house.

I have recently become very overwhelmed with the amount of material items in our house, but for a lot of different reasons have only made minimal success in clearing things out. I have realized that I can't do this alone and so I have turned to the literature for help. I picked up a very good book from the library recently called "It's All Too Much" by Peter Walsh. I started it yesterday and am already on page 53 if that tells you anything.

It is my hope that this book and others like it will help me to let go of things, gain a better relationship with and understanding of emotional attachment to material items and purge many things from my home so that it feel more like a HOME rather than a storage unit, full of things I never use or look at.

Some of the problem I will admit is just lack of knowledge, there are things I could get rid of today but I just don't know where to take them. I don't need them, but I don't know where to donate or sell them so that someone else can enjoy them. So, I keep them boxed up for the garage sale that I will have one day (but never have), hence taking up more space in our house.

What are some websites, blogs, or books that you have come across that have been helpful with organizing and decluttering your life?

Are there ways that you get rid of things you don't need? Where do you donate them or sell them? Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!