5 Years

Five years ago, my old house and David's old house were packed into boxes and bags - much to the annoyance of Henrietta and the confusion of the 3 month old Gracie.
On October 29, 2005, our friends and my mom and dad descended to help move and clean up the old house. The great thing about our friends is that you don't have to ask them for help. They just show up and start.

The night that we moved, David began digging holes for fence posts by the light of his truck headlights. The next day, it was determined that bigger equipment would make that job go faster. Or, David just wanted to drive one of these. I'm not sure which.

Over the next months (year?) our weekends were spent making a minimum of 3 trips to Home Depot and Lowe's every weekend. Goodbye to ugly wallpaper and dated fixtures. Hello paint brushes, wallpaper stripping, and paint chips.I lived with the blue in the cat room until the next summer. My Mom, Aunt Connie, and Grandmother came and stripped wallpaper in that room and in my bathroom.
Oatmeal colored paint and new carpet made a lot of difference!I wish I'd taken pictures of our bedroom on the day we moved in. The curtains looked like 80's prom dresses. They were pretty awful. No picture though as I took them down as David was steam cleaning the carpet before we moved furniture in.Eventually, we added a real headboard and dresser, changed out the wimpy ceiling fan, painted, and hung curtains.I remember my dad shaking his head in disbelief while we were doing all this work. "I thought you liked this house?" he said. "I liked the potential of this house!" was my reply. And after 5 years, I'm pretty satisfied. But...I'm still not finished.

Traveling A Little Lighter Update

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. ~William Morris

I'm still plugging along, cleaning up and cleaning out. It's certainly not my goal to live like this picture, but eliminating some clutter makes room for the things that I really like or use a lot. The fall swap helped rehome some things that I really liked, but no longer needed. Other things are going straight to the Goodwill pile, and some I'm posting on Facebook to see if friends want it. Feeling lighter already!

Picture credit: http://www.homedesignfind.com/how-to-tips-advice/design-dilemma-overcoming-decorating-paralysis/

Golden October

Fall Swap

I read an article in a magazine about having a "swap party"with friends. Here's an article in Real Simple magazine, although I don't think that was the one I read.

We had a few light snacks - nothing fancy.Everyone brought a few items to add to the swap - the article suggests 1-10 I think and we pretty well stuck by that.
When it was shopping time, everyone took a bag and started picking things out.

It was fun! Might even do it again - something tells me that I could find more things to include!

Happy Fall Ya'll!

Just catching up! I forget how busy October can get, but I love it! Last weekend we enjoyed a campfire and chili at my aunt and uncle's with my parents on Friday night. On Saturday, David and I went to Farm Fest, where every year we pretend to be farmers, then on Sunday Christina and I attended the annual Ozark Craft Festival (where we bought nothing - yay us!)

This weekend we went to Monett for a delicous pork chop dinner (my birthday dinner request), to Apple Butter Makin' Days in Mt. Vernon, and had a fun fall swap with friends and family. That last item gets its own post, so stay tuned!

A Bump on the Road to Living With Less

Last week, Christina and I went to the Ozark Craft Festival. Lots of really cute things...lots of really awful things. There were lots of decorative things that caught my eye and tempted me, but I stayed strong. We both did - we left empty-handed except for my Coke and burger for lunch.

Today, David and I went to Apple Butter Makin' Days. We ate some goodies - fried potatoes and a ribeye sandwich, homemade ice cream. And left, again empty-handed. But then I asked him to stop a neat little store that I rarely go to. Her hours just don't match up with the hours I am through that area. As always, I was the only customer which always makes me feel compelled to buy something. And I did. On impulse, I bought a cute sign to go over the kitchen sink.

It doesn't even fit over the kitchen sink - too long. I could hang it, but then could not open two cabinets. So now I have a stinkin' thing bought on impulse and I don't even have a place for it. I'm annoyed with myself for not exercising more self-control. I guess there will be bumps on this road to living with less. I will occasionally still make a purchase that I'll regret. I just hope there will be fewer!

Living With Less - An Introduction

This post swims around in my head from time to time, but always gets too lengthy. It keeps coming back to me, whispering in my ear to share it, so I've decided to do it a little at a time.

Stuff. My relationship with my possessions goes back a long way. I'm told that when I was little (3 or so), I cried on vacation because I missed my toys. For several years around age 12, I arranged my Christmas gifts on the sofa so that I could take pictures of my haul. If I can find any of those, I'll scan them so you can see. I really liked my stuff!

Recently, I've started to be a little more aware of the sheer quantity of stuff that I have. To keep the house from looking cluttered, closets and drawers have been filled to overflowing. I can hardly watch an episode of Hoaders without starting to clean out something. I've been reading several blogs on minimalism and decluttering - some extreme minimalists who can carry all of their possessions in a backpack to others who seem more like me.

People who know me and who have spent time in our house might think that me and any form of minimalism can't possibly exist in the same sentence. By no means do I have plans to scale down to a backpack, but I can let go of some things that I don't need and I can try to bring fewer things into the house. I can choose to live with less.