Clutter

Clutter drives me crazy. I have been on a "de-cluttering kick" lately. This is new for me and new for anyone who has known me since my childhood. I was THE BIGGEST SLOB as a kid. My childhood bedroom was almost uninhabitable at times. Clothes, books, toys and who knows what else covered every square foot of the floor. Recently I was talking on the phone to one of my best friends from high school. We were talking about how much I love to organize and am trying to get the clutter out of the house. She paused and said, "Um, so, what happened since high school? You were definitely not like this." I laughed and agreed and then had to think about my answer. I think there are a few things that happened- number one on the list has to be my wonderful, Type A, neatnik husband. Another reason has to do with owning a house. Now the things that I am organizing and cleaning are things that I have bought or been given. I feel a deeper sense of responsibility and care for my possessions. This has also been a trend since Baby Boy was born. Babies bring love, joy and lots and lots of stuff!! In order to not get taken over by all of his toys, clothes and little necessities, I have to be organized. Lastly, as I talked about in a previous post-there is so much "stuff" in life. I want to try to live a simple life, focused on family, friends, and God. I find this to be much easier without a lot of things around to occupy me otherwise.

Don't get me wrong, it hasn't been a total 180. I am still messy at times, I lose things constantly and can find myself drowning in clutter. It is a step by step process- I try to learn from others and use strategies that I know have worked for them. Any de-cluttering/organization/cleaning tips out there?

Happy Advent!

I saw this quote on a friend's facebook status.

"For the greatest things are accomplished in silence--not in the clamor and display of superficial eventfulness, but in the deep clarity of inner vision; in the almost imperceptible start of decision, in quiet overcoming and hidden sacrifice." (Romano Guardini, The Lord)

Silence is something that has been at the forefront of my mind lately. As I've touched on before, there is so much noise around us. Radios, TVs, the Internet. So many gadgets to keep us "in touch" with people and things and news. This quote helped to remind me what Advent is about-waiting for and preparing our hearts, minds and souls for Christ. What better way to do this than to spend time in silence.

I am trying to keep our schedules as bare bones as possible this Advent. After one or two or all three of us being gone almost every weekend the last two months, I am really looking forward to no traveling during Advent! I am also trying to keep our social commitments and extra-curricular activities down. All in the hopes that we will spend more time together as a family, just being and praying and forming our own Advent traditions.

May your Advent season be filled with joy, hope, patience and... silence!

A Little Help

A topic that has been on my mind lately is isolation. I recently read somewhere that "we are all isolated living in our suburban castles." How true this is. I really don't think we were meant to live this way. I think the individualistic, self-reliant culture has in fact hurt the individual. People are so lonely. We think that we have to do everything ourselves and get burnt out so easily. God gave us all different gifts and I think that it is so important to share these gifts with others and let others share their gifts with you. There is so much more I want to say on this topic, but I have to leave that for another post... it is way too late already!

What got me thinking about this topic is a short story that I will leave you with tonight. Today I was outside raking the front yard for about the tenth time-seriously. As I was finishing up, one of my neighbors came over and asked if he could help me haul the leaves. I thanked him but insisted he didn't have to do that. He insisted that I go get my tarp and let him help. As I was looking for the tarp, another neighbor came over with his ladder to change a light bulb that I needed his ladder to do. While I was helping the second neighbor with the light bulb, the first neighbor and his wife raked up the rest of my leaves and hauled them away for me! I was overwhelmed with their generosity and kindness.

Time

I am a champion time waster. I used to pride myself in the fact that I don't watch alot of TV anymore, and then I realized I am spending way more time on the computer than I ever did watching TV. It is amazing how easy it is to get sucked into blogs, facebook, news articles, etc. It isn't all "time wasting." I really enjoy reading blogs. I find that I can really grow and learn from the experiences of others through their blog postings. Sometimes I just get so sucked into this link and that link and learning about this and then that... then its an hour later and I really haven't accomplished anything!! I mean, really, how many times can you click back to facebook and refresh to see if anything new pops up on your newsfeed. Yes, I just admitted to doing that, and yes, I am ashamed.

So, I figure if I'm going to be wasting time on the computer, I might as well be writing. And why not write about wasting time on the computer. :) Ok, maybe I can come up with something a little more fruitful than that. Technology is exciting. It is big, bold and full of endless possibilities. It has so much to offer, yet it offers many distractions. There are literally times when my husband and I are sitting in the same room, on two different computers, with the TV on. He thinks this is spending time together, I disagree. There is so much noise out there. In our society it is almost impossible to have "quiet time." Yet, it is something that is so important. How do you unplug? How do you find time to just be and to be quiet?