Church Flea Markets

A great way to get rid of clutter and help your parish at the same time! I'm scouring the house for anything that would be saleable at our church's parish festival flea market. That would include just about anything. People buy the strangest things-even used mops. I'll post a photo and maybe a list of the things I parted with. Warning....unless you have a specific need, DO NOT under any circumstances visit the flea market. Especially don't let the kids in there!

Darn!

Every year one of my neighbors hosts a "multi-family" yard sale. Sometimes I'll put something out or let the kids man a table. She usually has it in June but decided to have it early. I wish I would have known sooner because there are still things in the house that I'd love to get out of here. I took so much stuff to the junk store over lent-and I'm glad I did. My point is had I known the sale was today, I'm sure I could dig up lots more clutter. It starts in an hour and a half and I'm certain I don't want to spend my quiet time scrambling around to find and price things. I'm even more certain I don't want to spend my day hovering over a table of my unwanted clutter. Maybe it's a good time to have a "free" table. I'll let you know.

Update on Waking Up

Just reporting that waking up without snoozing has not added or detracted from my days. It hasn't made my days better or worse. No, I'm not getting all the laundry finished by 7 am. I thought I'd be more tired at the other end of the day-but that hasn't happened. I still hit my wall at about 10:30. I'd have to say the only benefit is feeling good about getting up right away. Maybe I do feel a smidge better than when I sleep on and off for the next 20 minutes or so. My days are pretty much the same, though. So, if you're looking for something to transform your life, NOT SNOOZING is not your answer....snooze away. Will I go back to snoozing? No, I do prefer the habit of waking when the alarm goes off.

A Radical Experiment in Waking Up

I am the CHAMPION SNOOZE ALARMER! I've been a snoozer ever since high school-it's an evil invention, that snooze button. But there is just something about ENJOYING the coziness and luxurious comfort of that fluffy bed that makes me want to get back in it. Although I completely appreciate a good night's sleep, when you're enjoying a good night's sleep, you can't truly appreciate the coziness and luxurious comfort of your fluffy bed. As I've gotten older and more achy and after the hip-separating experience of child-birth, I've become accustomed to cozying up to a pillow between my bony elbows and another between my bony knees. I'm not sure I even move during the night.

I'm still an early riser. The alarm is set for 5:30 and I snooze until just before 6:00. I started getting up early when the kids were littler-I craved the early morning quiet before the busyness of the morning. Now that they're not waking up at the crack of dawn and tumbling out of bed at various times, I can still get a good hour of quiet before they make their way downstairs. They're also pretty self-sufficient so I can do other things to get ready for the day as they're having breakfast.

I love snoozing so much, I actually gave it up for lent one year when I was still working. It was so bad that I would snooze for about 20-30 minutes, take a shower and then get back into bed. I really didn't like my job. Unless I have a particularly bad night of sleep, I don't crawl back into bed anymore but I still LOVE to snooze.

I've found that this forum is GREAT for motivation and accountability-even though not many people read it yet. So, starting tomorrow, I'm not going to hit the snooze button. There, I said it. I'm going to try a week (that's reasonable) of getting up when the alarm tells me to. I just want to see if it makes my day more productive. I know I'll be more tired on the other end which doesn't work well for Mark's work schedule-he gets home late 3 nights a week and I do enjoy our time together. A week shouldn't kill us though.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Tackling the Garage

Because of the weather and preparing for Mark's communion, I had to put off decluttering the garage. I rolled up my sleeves and got to it today. The good news is that we have always managed to be able to park in there. The bad news is, there is a lot of clutter in there and not much organized storage space. Talk about a hodge-podge. I have 2 free-standing closets (white particle board things). 1 steel shelf, 1 closet that looks like an old canning cupboard and then random shelves and hooks. I really should pull those white closets out. They're huge and don't really hold that much. (I just thought of that). What I really need is a place to hang the usual stuff you find in a garage, long-handled yard tools, heavy duty extension cords, ladders, and some sports equipment (basketballs, rollerblades, bikes, hopefully baseball stuff). The lawnmower is in there, extra terra cotta pots, yard maintenance things. I know there's a better way to store all of it. I just need to do it.

So, today my goal was to purge. (2 big green garbage bags and a huge haul to the junk store). Tomorrow I'm hoping Mark and I can shop for some storage solutions. Any ideas?

Recycling Easter

My mother-in-law, who passed away in 2008, was a treasure-trove of tips and tricks and methods and habits that I've cherry-picked for our family and home management. She was a child of the depression era so many of her practices were born from frugality. Recycling bits and pieces of holidays and turning them into "traditions" and nostalgia is one of them.

My husband and his sister not only woke up to the same baskets for their entire childhood but the same tin egg, crank-music egg, and other sundries that they looked forward to every year. I was enchanted with this practice when I spent my first Easter dinner with my husband's family. I didn't decide then that I'd do the same thing, but I've been doing it ever since my oldest had her first basket.

Each year, the kids get the same stuffed bunny or in Mark's case a duck in a blue bunny suit and a big plastic egg with Lucky Charms. That sound of the cereal shaking inside the egg when they woke up and found the egg in their beds (or cribs way back) was better than any alarm clock. I also recycle the cellophane grass for their baskets. Some of you are more classy and use something that looks less tacky but I love the Easter "grass". Over the years, uncles or aunts have given them little toys and a few of them have held up over the years and disappear sometime after the holiday and reappear on Easter morning.

Finally, you know how stuffed animals multiply like bunnies? For some reason we happen to have accumulated an inordinate number of stuffed bunnies. I keep these in a bin in the attic and usually the week before Easter, they make their appearance and the 2 younger kids place them all over the house or play with them. Since they're getting older, the novelty is definitely wearing off but I'll bring them out as long as they ask.

I'm not sure this is "simple". I'm sure there are much more simple traditions but I do look forward to pulling these few things out every year.

I don't save everything and keep the baskets pretty simple otherwise.

Camcorder? What Camcorder?

Well, it happened. "Where's the camcorder?" Mark asked the other night as we were going to sleep. Why? I wondered. In the 6 or 7 years since we've had it, he's never asked to used it. Don't be horrified that I made the executive decision to get rid of it. There are some things that Mark feels comfortable leaving to me. Small appliances that only I use is one of them.

When I simply told him that it was broken and I didn't want to spend the time and money to get it repaired, he didn't give it a second thought. No regret, no "we should have...." or "that cost a lot of money..." It was fine and he was at peace with the decision.

I was surprised that I didn't regret the decision not to investigate repair. It was all fine. I just didn't expect the question to surface so soon. I anticipated second thoughts-nope.