Tag: simple

30 Simple Days: April

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If you’ve been visiting with me for long, you know that I thrive on routines.  It’s the only way I actually get anything done.  My routine can and will be disrupted; but, if I have steady, doable things lined up, then they will probably get done.  Eventually.

One of the new habits that I want to be more consistent with this year is getting the donations out of the house.  Are you still there?  I know that every time I announce one of my monthly habit builders that I lose some of you.  I understand why.  Normal people already know these things.  In case you’re new here:  Hello!  My name is Tracie and I’m NOT normal.  Welcome!

Decluttering isn’t an issue for me anymore.  I’ve got a definite routine where that’s concerned.  My problem is that all the stuff that I’ve gone through sits patiently in my house.  Waiting to be taken away to be given a new life with someone else.  So, for the entire month of April, every Tuesday is going to be Donate Day.  If I can get this firmly entrenched in my brain, the rest of the year should be a breeze.

I learned a long time ago not to put my donations out in the garage.  They will just live there.  Permanently.  Just off the top of my head I know that right now there are things out there that need to be taken away:  a computer that we used three computers ago; a box of clothes that Liv stopped wearing in the second grade; at least two light fixtures that I replaced five or more years ago…..The list could go on and on.  Out of sight is out of my mind.

Yesterday, I took the week’s donations away and it made me feel so good to get it all out of the house.  I know that eventually I will get to the point where there won’t be so much to take away each week.  My house stays in flux most of the time.  I bring things in to try and if they don’t stay, they need to be rehomed.

Example:  about six months ago on trash day I noticed that one of my neighbors had put out with their garbage a big black art piece framed with glass.  Hayden has an art print by Brassaï that I got him for Christmas a few years ago and I knew that it would be the perfect frame for it.  I called her up and asked if I could snatch it.  She immediately said Sure!  I brought it in and propped it up downstairs and forgot about it.  Although I have to walk past it every day, and I would think “I need to frame his poster”, it still didn’t get done. 

Fast forward a few months and Denton calls to tell me that he was building a fort of some kind downstairs using that frame as one of his “walls” when it collapsed and shattered into 9 zillion pieces.  – Don’t ask, I have no idea what he was constructing or why, I think it had something to do with Batman…..  –  That frame and art print have sat downstairs waiting to be delivered to their new owners for weeks now.  I didn’t want the art print, it was going to be donated at any rate, I just wanted the glass and frame for Hayden’s print.  Sigh.

Hopefully making every Tuesday my donation day will keep my house free from all the things building up into a monster.  Routines are good things:  trash day in my house is Wednesday, so I take the recycle away then too.  Usually.  Hey, by the way, my local recycle center has started taking plastic and glass again.  Glory, Hallelujah!  Now we have somewhere to take all of that plastic recycle that’s been sitting in my garage.  Along with the other things that need to go away.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March Update 03.24.19

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It’s time for another update!  I would love to tell you that I’ve walked for 30 minutes every single day this month, but that would be a LIE, so I won’t.  I have actually walked every day, but most days I haven’t made it to the thirty minute mark.  Ten minutes here, five minutes there….  Yes, it adds up, but I have to say, when I am consistent with at least 30 minutes I can tell a major difference in the way I feel.

The weather is finally edging it’s way towards Spring.  Yay!!!  Which means, longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures and lovely smells to entice me outside more.  This should help with getting more steps into my day.  In case you didn’t know – I LOVE SPRING!  I want to live where it’s spring all year long, with a long, long fall too.  Just in case you were wondering….

On one of our many quick ten minute walks yesterday, we saw five jets in the sky at once.  I’m pretty sure that’s a record for me.  How many jets have you seen at once?  I said on my Instagram page that these are the burning questions in my mind, hahahaha.

In other news, I have made great strides in my endeavor to put things away.  Honestly people, you wouldn’t believe what active decluttering does for my space.  And my peace of mind.

Example:  I took everything, EVERYTHING off of my bathroom counters and made a specific space for all of that stuff.  If it didn’t have a home, I either found it a place to live or it went to live with someone else.  Now my drawers will actually close, the counter can be cleaned at a moment’s notice – which is amazing – and it just makes me happy to know that my toothbrush is in the left hand drawer (have you seen that episode of Mythbuster’s?!) and that my glasses are hanging on my magnifying mirror because otherwise I can’t find them when I take out my contacts.

It’s very, very satisfying for everything to have a place.  I am slowly going through my entire house, which will take me approximately forever, but it’s still progress.

Three months into this year and I’m still doing my dishes.  It helps that I have made a huge dent in the decluttering in this area too.  If I don’t own it, I don’t have to clean it.  Which makes me happy.  My routine at this moment, which could change, is that I make sure each morning to run my dishwasher.  This does many good things for me.  It gets all the dirty dishes out of my sink, which can be clean for the day and it ensures that we will have beautiful, shiny clean dishes to eat supper from that evening!  Winning!

Is it a perfect system?  Nope.  Do I do it every.single.day?  Most days, I do.  Which is shocking to me, and horrifying to most of you, I know.  But, it’s my reality and I’m happy with a kitchen that is clean 95% of the time.  Also, my family isn’t complaining which is a good thing, because my response would be “go clean the kitchen”.  They are keeping mum about it.  I take that to mean that they are happy with my system too.

So.  I am reporting success with my habit building so far this year.  It’s not perfect, but that’s life.  I’m happy with the progress I’ve made in all the areas I’ve tackled so far.  Also, this could be spring fever talking instead of my brain.  Either way, I’m happy.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March Update

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I wanted to do better with updates this month, so here we go!  I’ve been walking for at least 30 minutes every single day so far this month.  I have to say, having a dog that needs exercise has helped tremendously in this endeavor.  If Oreo wasn’t so gung-ho every day to do our mile and a half loop, I would definitely be sitting somewhere comfy with a book in my hand.

It is COLD here in Virginia right now.  I’m not complaining too loudly, because – SUMMER is coming.  Lord help me.  And as long as I dress correctly, I don’t even feel it most days.  One of the ladies in my neighborhood who I meet almost every time we are out, either in the neighborhood or on the trail, pulled up beside us yesterday and rolled down her car window to talk to us.  She said, “Girl, you are dedicated!” and I responded, “No, no I am not.  Oreo is!”  Hahahaha.  It was 19* I think.  But it looked so beautiful.

Rain, sleet, snow, sunshine, warm or cold, Oreo is ready at least four to five times a day to go find an adventure.  You never know what you are going to see.  Or what friends you will find.  He loves the new golden doodle that lives down our street now.  But he does NOT love the wrinkle dog that loops around our way sometimes.

I can’t wait for everything to start greening up.

One of the benefits of getting outside every.single.day is that my pants are slightly looser.  I hope by the end of the month that they are a LOT looser than they are now.  It would help if I didn’t shove an Oreo cookie in my mouth while I’m cooking supper, but.  Most days I just feel like I need an Oreo cookie.

If you want to keep up with our  daily walks, you can usually find a photo on my Instagram.  I love it over there.

So, are you walking or running or doing something completely different to make your pants looser in the month of March?  I would love to hear about it.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

31 Simple Days: March

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I cannot believe that we are entering a new month.  This year is flying by.  Another month means I need to teach myself to stick to another habit.

I’m doing pretty well in the dishes department.  I manage to run my dishwasher at least once a day, which has changed how clean I can keep my kitchen.  It’s amazing.  I also am beginning to be able to put things in their place now that I am getting rid of the chaff in my house.

Now that we are entering March, I am going to start building a routine that I am dreading.   It involves my Under Armour shoes.  I am not looking forward to this month, which is why I chose one of the months this year that actually has 31 days in it.  I’m going to need every single one of them to turn this into a habit that I will be able to stick with.

I also wanted to wait to start this journey because I didn’t want to be a cliché.  Again.  I’ve made promises to myself over the years where exercise is concerned; started things at the beginning of the year and fizzled and burned out before the end of January.

Every.single.time.

As I’ve said before, this year I want to make permanent, sustainable changes in my life.  So for the entire month of March, I am going to walk.  Every day for at least 30 minutes.  If I can’t do it outside with Oreo –

then I’m going to have to buckle down and use the dreaded treadmill.

I actually like our treadmill.  It does exactly what it’s supposed to do and it does it well.  I just seriously dislike walking on it in the house.   I know that doesn’t make any sense – Hi, I’m Tracie and I’m a walking, talking contradiction most of the time.  Walking outside with Oreo doesn’t quite feel like exercise.  EVERYTHING about walking on the treadmill feels like exercise.  Which I hate with a passion.

One thing that I have found that makes is slightly less traumatic for ME is to actually dress for it.  I used to just wear whatever I had on at the time (more than likely my comfy yoga pants and my crocs 🙄), and let me tell you, that makes it much, much worse.  If I change into workout gear – and my supply is pitiful – it does something to my brain.  It doesn’t make the actual exercise any less horrifying, but it switches something inside me to say “Let’s get this done and over with!”.

Also, listening to a podcast or watching a YouTube video dramatically cuts down on the torture for me.  I can take myself out of the misery slightly, and I am not constantly looking at the time shouting “3 minutes!!!!  It has to have been an hour already”.  Never mind the fact that I set the timer for 30 minutes, but you get the point.

I am just the opposite if I’m outside with Oreo or the kids and Denton.  I am trying my hardest to be present.  That means paying attention.  To conversations, either with the family or the dog.  Don’t you talk to your dog?  To nature, even now in the dead of winter there are things to see.  Yesterday we saw six white tail deer.

They walked across the street right in front of us.  This is the only one I caught on camera.

Things are already getting ready to burst into Spring and I can’t wait.  The trees are getting buds on them, and everything here is getting a faint green sheen to it.  It’s lovely.  But you have to look for it right now.

I take my phone in case I want to snap a photo, but I don’t scroll through Instagram because I can do that another time.  I’m soaking up the last of this cool winter weather.  I know that Spring is going to be short and sweet.  I can’t wait!  Also, I figure that if I make walking every day part of my routine NOW while it’s still cool, when the weather turns into the boiling, roiling surface of the sun we call summer, it will be ingrained in my brain and I’ll do it anyway.  At least that’s the hope with these routines I’m developing.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  How’s it going so far?

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

28 Simple Days ~ February Recap

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This year, I have decided that I need to dedicate 30 days each month (28 days in February!) to make simple changes in my life that I can stick with.  Permanently.  I didn’t want to set a bunch of goals and fail miserably at them a few months from now.  Like I have done every year in the past.

Hello again!

We are in the last week of February now and I thought that I would give you a better insight on how things have progressed this month with my new habit.

To recap:  I wanted to spend the month of February putting things away.  And to be able to put things away, they need a place.  I like order.  Order gives a calm space in the chaos that is life, in my humble opinion.  Also, I am a control freak.  You can’t control life most of the time, but you can control your response to all the things.  Hence, I like order.

One of the first things that I realized at the beginning of the month – and I don’t know why I was so shocked and surprised by this – is that I needed to step up my decluttering to make this happen.  Now if you’ve been hanging around with me for very long, you know I am not a novice when it comes to decluttering and sending things away to live with a new family.  I’ve been doing this diligently for over eight or nine years now.  It’s a never ending process.

Even though I mentioned it in the last post, I still didn’t realize the scope of how much stuff I still need to go through and get rid of.  You can see my last donation haul here, and it’s a direct result of sending away the things that I know I don’t want in my home anymore.  But.  You knew there was a but coming didn’t you?  This is going to take me a lot longer than 28 days to complete.  I have worked every single day of February somewhere in my house for at least five minutes decluttering something.

That my friends, is the gist of it all.  Very tiny chunks of my day.  I get overwhelmed very easily when it comes to all the things.  First there are a LOT of things.  If I decide to KonMari my house, things are going to go horrifyingly wrong in a hurry.  You’ll notice when I do KonMari something, it’s a micro segment of what normal people would do.

I KonMaried my purses and I was actually okay with that.  It was a task that I could carry out and accomplish within a reasonable time frame.  Otherwise, things would be pulled out and piled around my house for weeks.  That’s seriously not an exaggeration.  Ask Denton how I know this.  Actually don’t, he might tell you in detail.  I need limits.  So I don’t declutter my kitchen.  I declutter a DRAWER in my kitchen.  It’s something that I can do while I’m cooking supper and not turn my kitchen into a disaster zone that won’t allow me to function.

Every day this month I have decluttered something so that I can put things where they belong.  Like this:

I spent about 2 minutes going through my wooden spoons, culled out what I knew that I never reach for and stuck the lot in a crock that was gathering dust.  Now it has a function and a reason to sit there and be pretty.  My favorite reason for having beautiful things.

I am learning new things about myself throughout this process too.  I am not the type of person to buy all matching containers and then come home from the grocery store and switch all the cereal into the beautiful matching containers.  I just don’t have the patience for it.  But I also do not like looking at the cat treat box that comes from Wal-Mart.  We need a safe, out of Batman’s reach container for them, but I hate those plastic, ugly containers that they come in.  When I found this guy, I snatched him right up.

Form and functionality.  I love it.

As with January’s habit builder, I didn’t plan to have my entire house sorted out by the end of February.  This year, I am trying to teach myself routines that I can stick with forever.  This way, once I have my belongings sorted out and culled down to only what I love and know that I want to clean every day, it will be easier to spot newcomers who do not belong.  Because let’s face it.  Things are not going to miraculously stop coming into my house.  I see new things that I want to try all the time.  But once I determine that they are just not a good fit, hopefully it will be easier to send them on their way.

I found permanent places for quite a lot of stuff this month, but there is still a lot more to go through.  I have many, many lovely things that I’ve collected over the past 25 years, but as lovely as they are, most of them are going to grace someone else’s home soon.  I am not aiming to be a minimalist, but I definitely want to have less stuff.  

I want what I think most people want:  A comfortable, clean and welcoming home.  Now that I’ve finally figured out for myself how to get that, I am on a mission to get it done.  Five minutes at a time, clearing out the clutter to make a place for everything, so that everything can be put in its place.

I know that I will reap the rewards of teaching myself this new habit too.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  Let’s build some habits and routines!

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Tracie

28 Simple Days ~ February

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This year, I have decided that I need to dedicate 30 days each month (28 days in February!) to make simple changes in my life that I can stick with.  Permanently.  I didn’t want to set a bunch of goals and fail miserably at them a few months from now.  Like I have done every year in the past.

Hello again!  Are you ready for February?  I can’t believe how fast January went by.  Everyone I know was talking about how slow the month was, but I think it went by in a blink.  Now let’s get on with my new ambition!

This month I’m going to spend my time working on putting things away.  Everywhere I look in my house, there are random items just sitting about and I want that to change.  I have a terrible habit of just setting something down to deal with later.  It could be my contact solution when I put my contacts in, in the morning.  Or my purse when I come home in the afternoon.   The groceries after I shop for the week.  The list could go on and on.  I want everything in my house to have a place by the end of the month, so that I can put them away.

My reasoning is that if everything has a place, I will actually be more likely to put it away.  And putting things away will help me to keep my house clutter free.  I have discovered over the past long years of decluttering my house that if I put like things with like things, I am very surprised at how MANY things I can accumulate.  For instance, I have at last count five colanders.  I had seven but I made myself give two of them up.  Because do you know how many of those colanders that I use?  TWO.  I tell myself that each one of them has a different purpose – and they actually do.  One of my large colanders has very fine mesh on it and I use it when I drain hamburger meat.  The others are fine for pasta and the like, but they allow the very tiny crumbles of hamburger meat to escape.

The issue I run into is this:  justifying why I need to keep seven or even five colanders is giving me anxiety.  Things take up space.  Valuable space in my kitchen.  As large as my house is my kitchen is relatively small.  Keeping even five colanders is eating into a space that I could store my blender out of sight.

Here is the thing.  Last year when we were on vacation, I fell in love with the sparseness of our vacation house.  There was only the bare minimum of everything.  And everything could be put away, out of sight.  Between my parents, my brother’s family and our family we had eleven people in this beach house and it still didn’t feel crowded.  Because basically everything had a place and could be put away if we wanted to.  Did we?  No, we were on vacation.  But it could be put away.  I vowed to myself that I was going to come home and clear my counters, so that I could have the same feeling at home.

The problem I found when I actually came home is that I have a lot of stuff.  When you have a lot of stuff it’s difficult to put it away out of sight, since I have limited storage capacity.

Have you ever heard of Dana White?  She has a blog called A Slob Comes Clean.  I love her!  (She has no idea who I am by the way)  Her blog is amazing and you should definitely follow her if you want to delcutter your life.  Her books are also amazing and I highly recommend them.  I’ve been following her for years and she is such an inspiration to me.  One of the things that she says all the time is that your house is a container.  All of the spaces in your house are containers.  Meaning that your space will only hold so much.  I am slooooowly adjusting to this philosophy.

If I want my blender – which we only use about once a week – to live out of sight, I need a place to put it – out of sight.  Which means that I need to declutter one of my spaces in my kitchen so that it will fit somewhere out of sight.

So my plan for the month of February is to declutter my house with the intention of being able to put things away.  Am I going to be able to do my entire house in only 28 days?  I highly doubt it, but my purpose with each month this year is to build a habit and a routine that I can stick with.  Forever.  I think I am slowly coming to grips with January’s habit of cleaning my dishes every day, so I hope that this will become a habit too.  The funny thing that I never realized with habits, is that you do them ALL THE TIME.  I don’t enjoy doing my dishes and I certainly don’t want to do them every day, but I love the results of actually sticking with it.  I know that I will reap the rewards of teaching myself this new habit too.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  Let’s build some habits and routines!

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Tracie

30 Simple Days ~ January Wrap Up

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This year, I have decided that I need to dedicate 30 days each month to make simple changes in my life that I can stick with.  Permanently.  I didn’t want to set a bunch of goals and fail miserably at them a few months from now.  Like I have done every year in the past.  So for the first 30 days of 2019 I decided that I would get the worst of the tasks marked off my mental list:  The Dishes.

Hello again!  Did you think that I abandoned my mission for the month of January?  Nope.  I’m still here, plugging away at it.  I just did a horrible job of keeping you informed of how everything was going.  Hopefully, February will be better.  But, since it’s the 1st of February TODAY, and you don’t even know what I plan to work on for the month, it isn’t looking encouraging is it?  😂  I’ll try to get that post up tomorrow.

So…… How did it go for the past 30 Simple Days?  Okay.  Did I clean my dishes every.single.night?  Nope.  Did I wish I had every.single.morning that I got up and there were still dishes in my sink?  Absolutely.  But, my kitchen has actually stayed cleaner this month than it ever has.  I learned an invaluable lesson while I was building this new routine into my life.  The more often you do something, the less time it takes.  Time is a high dollar commodity in our lives right now.  And I feel like I’m cheating and gaining more time by cleaning my kitchen every day.

One thing I managed to actually accomplish this month was running my dishwasher every day.  This buys me time.  I might not have gotten every dish in my house loaded up, suds up in the sink, rinsed and put away, but I did run the dishwasher.  This caused a chain reaction day after day.  It took less time every time I did it, because there wasn’t two mountains worth of dishes waiting their turn in the dishwasher or sink.  Which gained me TIME.

Another valuable lesson I learned about myself in January is the fact that I need to get my dishwasher loaded up and the dishes cleared away as I’m making supper or it’s not going to happen.  Once supper is done, and we all make our plates, I am NOT going to go back into my kitchen to clean.  This may be a sad fact, but it is a fact.  So every night as I’m making supper, I load the dishwasher and wash what won’t go into it – like my iron skillets, or my giant stainless steel pans.  I might be left with my sink full of clean pans when we sit down to eat, but they are clean.  And I can live with that.

Don’t mind the dying rose in my kitchen window or the giant ring on my countertop.  This is real life people.  It gets done, eventually.

I also discovered that even after six plus years of decluttering my house, I still need to declutter more stuff from my kitchen.  I have a lot of pots, pans and dishware in my house which does hinder me in keeping up with the dishes.  Shhhh.  Don’t tell Denton I said that.  But, do I really need nine 18/10 stainless steel skillets?  No, but this is a downfall of shopping at yard sales and thrift stores.

I have to be diligent about the one in and one out method of shopping.  I can buy that All-Clad pan for $5.99 – which I did – but I have to replace one of my other pans with it.  Otherwise I am overrun with things.  Very nice, lovely, expensive things, but still things that need to be kept, cleaned and maintained.  That takes time.  Time away from my life that I am enjoying living.  No matter how lovely and expensive that All-Clad pan is, I don’t want to spend my valuable time cleaning and maintaining it more than is normal and good.  There have to be limits.

So, do I feel like I’ve established a new routine for myself?  Yes, yes I do.  I’m going to continue to try to do my dishes every single day from now on because I like having a clean kitchen and I also LOVE the fact that I have extra time on my hands because of it.  It’s a good feeling on both counts.

Now I’m ready to jump into February!

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  Let’s build some habits!

You can find all of the posts in this series here.

Tracie

30 Simple Days ~ January 8, 2019

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This year, I have decided that I need to dedicate 30 days each month to make simple changes in my life that I can stick with.  Permanently.  I didn’t want to set a bunch of goals and fail miserably at them a few months from now.  Like I have done every year in the past.  So for the first 30 days of 2019 I decided that I would get the worst of the tasks marked off my mental list:  The Dishes.

I want to build a new habit for myself this year.  Clean my kitchen every night before bed.

I have to tell you that the first few days of this “make simple changes in my life” for the new year was stressful.  The very first day, all day, I felt like I constantly needed to be on the lookout for stray dishes that needed to be taken care of.  Immediately.

I finally calmed down and realized that the dish police were not going to break down my door at any moment.  Once I relaxed and got myself into a routine, I was fine.  This has always been my go to:  routine.  It keeps me calm.  Calm is good.  Otherwise, I want to go hide with a book and pretend I live there instead of dealing with my kitchen.  Or my laundry, floors, toilets, etc.  You get the idea.

My routine looks like this.  The first thing I need to do in the mornings is unload the dishwasher.  That way, when fairies or gremlins show up with random dishes, they have a place to go instead of hanging out on my countertop.  Where they attract other things, which causes a snowball effect, and by the end of the day chaos has ensued.  I just need to unload the dishwasher first thing.  Trust me.

Now that I have a place to put dishes all during the day, I can clean as a fix supper.  This simple addition to my new routine has been life changing.  Note:  Don’t hurt yourself rolling your eyes.  Of course I knew to do this.  I just never did it.  However, since I have actually been putting this concept into practice, I don’t have a mountain of things to wash after we’ve eaten every night.  Whatever doesn’t fit into the dishwasher has been soaking and is quick to clean and put away.  Amazing.

Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty.  Have I done this every single night?   No.  And I regretted it bitterly the next morning.

I stuck with this for the first six nights and then I fell off the wagon.  Hard.  I have no idea why.  I just decided that going to bed and dealing with it the next morning would be easier.  And at that very moment it was.  But, I am here to tell you that the next morning when I opened my eyes, I knew.  Before I even got out of the bed, I knew that my kitchen was not this lovely, clean space that made me happy just to walk into it.  I dragged my feet; I didn’t want to go in there.  I certainly did not want to go try to make coffee and breakfast for Liv at 6:20 AM.  Who wants to try to cook, when last nights dinner dishes are staring at you?  Not this girl.

So tonight, I heaved myself back onto the horse, and I cleaned my kitchen before I sat down to tell you all the gory details.  Is it perfect?  Absolutely not.  But I did it and it’s progress.  Progress is good.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  I’ll keep you updated on how it’s all going during the month of January.  Let’s build some habits!

Tracie

30 Simple Days ~ January

Published on by Tracie1 Comment

When I posted a couple of days ago about my plans for this year, I knew that some of you were going to be expecting great and glorious systems or methods to get myself into gear for 2019.  And for that reason alone I’m going to lose a lot of you right out of the gate.  Because I don’t have plans for great and glorious things this year.  I was (and am) being very careful not to phrase this as a goal or a resolution.  Because I want this to be a permanent change in my life that I will stick with forever.  So here goes:

For January, for 30 simple days, I am going to do my dishes.  Cue the eye rolls.  I know.  How have a I gotten to be almost 46 years old and I don’t even know to wash my dishes every day?  I could give you all kinds of excuses, and that’s all they would be, excuses.  So we will skip over that part and save ourselves some time.

What started me towards this place, was a video I watched a few years ago.  I’m sure you’ve seen it, but just in case you haven’t I’ll link it here so that you can watch it yourself.  The full video is here if you are interested.  It is outstanding and you should definitely watch it.  Did this change my life overnight?  Nope.  But I actually started making my bed in the mornings.  Not every morning, but most mornings.  And you know what?  It makes me feel lighter on the days that I actually do it.  It surprises me when I walk into the room, sort of like I feel when I walk into a lovely, high end hotel, where everything is exactly where it should be.

I noticed that on the days I managed to actually get all of my dishes clean and put away, that’s exactly how I felt when I walked into my kitchen ten minutes later. Surprised, happy and lighter.  It also made me want to clean something else right away.  It must set off something in my brain, because cleanliness in one tiny spot in my house makes me want to clean another right away.

I decided to get a jump start and actually did this last night.

Unfortunately for me I have an obsession with dishes, so all of these did not fit into my dishwasher.  When I discovered this, (why was this a surprise to me?) did I contemplate shoving the extras into the oven or onto the dining room table where you wouldn’t be able to see them?  And then taking an after photo of the cleared and cleaned countertops?  I could have then run the dishwasher in the morning and no one would have been the wiser, right?  Oh, hello!  Have we met?  My name is Tracie and I have issues.  Have you noticed the title of my blog?

I actually set everything up so that I could hand wash them, then dry them and put them away. 

For me this isn’t about having a Pinterest or Instagram worthy kitchen.  Obviously.  This is about making a permanent change in my life.  Am I going to stick with it and do it every day?  I hope so.  Am I going to falter and go to bed with a stack of dishes in my sink some nights?  More than likely.  But.  This isn’t about perfection.  It’s about making small, what most people would say are stupid simple decisions in my life that I can build and grow on.  Life making my bed in the mornings.

So, I did my dishes last night. Every single one of them.  Even the two iron skillet’s I didn’t even know were sitting on my stove top until I was completely finished and ready to turn out the kitchen light.   I intend to do them all again tonight and every single night in January.  I may have pulled out all of my hair in frustration that people in my house insist on eating off of plates, using silverware and drinking out of glasses and then donated all but four of everything, but we’ll see.

If you are still with me by this point, don’t you love my helpers?

Neither of these things are being used as they were intended, but I love them.  They are serving the purpose I have given them.  Yes, they are antiques, and I will be upset when I eventually haphazardly destroy them, but in the meantime, I am using them in a way that makes me happy.  My elephant has 1966 on the bottom.

Anyone know what they were actually intended for?  I’m guessing flower arrangements.

Do you have plans to make simple changes in your life this year?  I would love to hear  about it!  I’ll keep you updated on how it’s all going during the month of January.  Let’s build some habits!

Tracie

30 Simple Days

Published on by Tracie2 Comments

This year I have decided to make permanent, simple changes in my life.  As the calendar year rolls onward, I will become 46 years old in January.  I’m going to say become, because it sounds like I’m embracing it, right?  You can’t stop the flow of time without dying, and I have a lot of living left, so this is how I’m choosing to think of it.

All of that to say, that in the past 45 years, I have discovered quite a few things about myself.  One of the big things that seems small is that I do NOT like abrupt, big changes in my life.  They happen, but I don’t want to embrace them.  So I sat down towards the end of December and seriously thought about some of the things I would like to change in this coming year.

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books, articles, and blog posts; I’ve listened to people’s opinions; I’ve even watched YouTube videos about how to create a habit.  What I have gleaned is this:  You need to be consistent.  You need to be accountable.  You need to focus.  Not necessarily in that order.

One of the things that I know now about myself, is that if I make small, almost not noticeable changes, I can stick with it.  So, taking in everyone else’s opinions, the books, the blog posts that people have written and all of the YouTube videos in the land, I’m going to spend 30 days each month making a small change in my life.  Small changes = big results over time.

I was very careful to not state this as a set of goals for myself.  I’ve set goals in the past, and failed miserably at them.  I am hoping that using these parameters I can make permanent, lasting changes that will transform my life, one small habit at a time.  And trick my brain into not understanding that they are actually goals.  Haha.

January 1st I’ll let you know what I have chosen to focus on for the first 30 days of 2019.  Are you making changes (shhh, goals) in the new year?  I would love to hear about it!