It is official!

I thought i would have more to say today, it is officially on the market... our house!  But i am at a lack of words for this feeling of it being 100% up for sale today.

how do they do it?

I love all of the pretties. I adore everything that this website (Anthropologie) has to offer. My only concern is this... how do you keep nice things nice?  I live in my home. I USE my items. I have a 9 year old child. A $98 shower curtain that is so beautiful, it is all great in theory, but in reality... it just doesn't work.

So, do people buy cheap "knock-off" pretty items? Or do people go broke buying the expensive things in life and just use it until it quite literally falls apart? i see so many pretty things in homes on blogs that i love to follow and read about. Flickr images are filled with adorable (expensive looking) items inside of homes. Are they all rich and indulge in nice things?

I am using a shower curtain as my example, so i will continue with this same example. We go through shower curtains about 1 every 3 months. One reason is that they are cheap, they are plastic, and they always rip in out in the circle/ring area at the top. Most often within the first month we will rip a circle/ring area and then we will carefully use it until it needs to be replaced due to being old and nasty.

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Lovely Photos i see on Flickr

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In a land of opportunities, why are so many people seeking?  

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If i never run for office, does that mean i do not care enough to CHANGE what i feel is wrong with America?

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Does having the right to speak your mind mean you should speak your mind?

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Lend me your ear, i'll tell you a story...

is it truth that he tells

can a person in power, honestly, lie?

if i doubt in his power, his words

what does that make the rest of you?

going a great distance, to take 1 step... backwards

follow the giant, before he hides

his words are so shallow, his heart is so cold

never ending lessons to reach what is right

by the way, i never believed in his "change"

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Today feels like a good day for a nap...

Post 101.

This is my 101st post! Blogging goes by so fast.

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Sharing some more blog love; Knock Knock is wonderfully full of beautiful life images!

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Who's following you?  In the land of twitter, you are who follows you.  I have to admit to rather boring updates... my life just is not that interesting to most people in a play by play mode.  But i am up to 76 followers!  And even though that is no where near the amount that is following say, Ashton Kutcher, i feel pretty good that more than 5 people enjoy what i say ;-)

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Gelatinous form. something about winter... it makes me feel all lazy and wiggly in areas!  Soon i will be back to t shirts that are not covered up by baggie sweatshirts and these issues will be more than just me feeling wiggly!  I miss warm weather, i just do not seem to get out as much in the winter... which leads to lazy days watching TV and playing on the computer, which leads to wiggly areas.  Stupid winter!

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Consumerism!

I have really started to notice all of the CRAP filling up the stores.  I use to be a consumer of CRAP.  I use to be a buyer of CRAP.  But now when i am at the store and i look around at the many isles of items... i start to get angry and then that anger turns into an almost "panic" of where the world is going.  So i pondered the question to my family the other day (to which they gave no solid answer).  "If tomorrow the store stopped selling 5 items, those items would be gone forever, what would you be OK with never being able to purchase again?"  So here is my answer, and mine is grocery only for this purpose of the question.

1. Hostess treats - twinkies, ding dongs, ho-ho's, and all of the other varieties.  I never buy them, never will.

2. Bagged Pop Corn (sold already popped like chips).  If you can't pop popcorn, there is something wrong with you!

3. Already cut up celery and carrot sticks in water. OMG, nasty!  waste of a plastic container, and they look nasty and taste nasty!

4. Half of the varieties of BBQ Sauce, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayo, etc.  What ever happened to being happy with PLAIN ketchup, mustard, mayo and BBQ sauces?  When i was a kid... we had Ketchup, Mustard, Miracle Whip, Open Pit BBQ sauce, and A1 sauce.  There were not 30 variations of BBQ sauces... if we wanted to spice something up, we used actual spices!  Which in our house we normally we had salt and pepper.  Today, i hate the condiment isle due to the choices.  Give me 1 and toss the rest out!

5. Candy... what ever happened to M&M's and a couple of choices.  There are 10 choices of Hershey Kisses currently on the store shelf!  Seriously, consumers have too many choices!

I could go on, but those are my 5 FOOD items that i personally could go without.

just me, just things

Do you have a box?  Is it filled full of things you had as a baby, perhaps just as a child, or even perhaps it is from collage?  When i was 17 i moved away.  My parents sold their house, whatever i did not take with me when i moved out, my mom threw it away.  I only have a couple of things that fit into a box that is 8 inches tall and about 5 inches square around.  It holds several things from when i was a baby.  My foot was broken when i was 3 days old and i wore a cast to fix a problem in my foot for 6 weeks.  I remember taking this cast in for show-and-tell when i was in Kindergarden!  It is a piece of my very start into life.  This box also holds my duckie stuffed toy, and my baby outfit that has duckies on it, and this cute little guy (seen above).  

It doesn't mean anything to anyone else.  But this tiny box, it is all that i have left from being a child.  I try not to dwell on the fact that i have nothing left.  I try not to harbor angry feelings towards my mom for throwing away all of my childhood things.  But there is something to be said where i am still excited to have just this one box left.  It holds few memories, but the ones that it does hold... they are the most important to me and i am excited to have what i still do have.

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ALERT!  I'm giving everyone this blog to read... and it is a MUST read by anyone with children and especially those who do not have children and keep saying "i'm never having kids, kids are too much work..."  And this will be read by me daily still, because it is just a fun read.  If you are offended, get over yourself... kids are all kinds of crazy, daily!  It does take a special kind of person to be a parent.  you either have it (and know that you have it in you) to be a parent, or you do not have it in you to take care of a human every single day, for the rest of your life.  Trust me, my parents are 60 and they still help my sister and brother out with their lives!  You're never done, and you are locked in for your entire life.  I for one, i'm willing to have another one, and keep up this madness of being a parent.  But enough said by me... go, read it, read it all... you have to get to the 2nd or 3rd page and do a spit-take like me when you read about the exploding diarrhea in the snow suit!  So go on... READ IT! ;-)

making choices

how do you weigh an option?

at what point does this reason win out over that reason?

who gets the final say...

who loses in this battle of "what if's" we are now letting take over our lives...

There are no easy answers, but there are a lot of opinions to be had. I'm sure it will all work out and everything will have its reason before the move is complete. Somedays are more frustrating that others. But for the most part we are so excited about all of the moving stuff.

what's the rush?

Everyone is always in a big hurry.  People are constantly cutting me off when driving.  I get passed daily by parents who think taking their child to school is more of a rush than taking my daughter to school.  Everywhere you turn in life, people are running to get somewhere.  Even our government is rushing to pass laws and stimulus packages before they learn what it all means!

So i ask everyone this, What is the big Rush?

Stop.

Look.

Listen.

Learn.

If you race to get through your homework as a child, you will not learn the lesson very well.  

You will fail.  

If you race to get through your life, you will not learn any life lessons.  

You will fail.

I have this desire to just stop and look at life a lot.  I do not fly anywhere anymore.  Although, if it was an emergency, i would take a plane.  But getting somewhere takes time.  It is suppose to take time.  You are suppose to go along with the journey that is your life.  If you stop and watch your children play, you will learn about who they are as children.  Often times i see parents just glance over while their child is playing and then they go on about their life.  They did not notice that their baby put a choking hazard toy in their mouth... and they will not notice until it is too late and they fail as a parent.  They are often times oblivious that their child is the one pulling other children's hair, biting, stealing toys, and just being a bad playmate.  Eventually they will see that they have failed their child by going through their life and by raising their child too fast (or easy) so they can get back to living their fast paced life.

Stop.

Take notice of things that are around you.  Not only your children.  Your spouse, your mother, your father, your cousins, your Aunt, your uncle... your friend that you forgot about because life just got too busy to notice them anymore.  See the cashier who is working hard to ring up your groceries; bag your own groceries for her when you can see they are having a bad day.  Take notice of the person who let you cut over a lane on the highway.  Give them a wave, it won't hurt you... but it probably will make their day if you notice that they were nice to you. Take notice that your spouse is trying really hard to connect with your children even while you are too busy working on your career, your crafts, or your everyday life. Notice your life; good or bad at the moment... it is your life, notice what it is about.

Look.

Listen to your friends who take the time to call you.  Even if you do not answer the phone when they call.  Listen to their voicemail.  Hear the words they are saying.  Feel the words, and if you bother to call them back... take the time to call them back and hear the words that they are conveying to you about their life.  Make the things you hear mean something to you.  Don't only hear your voice talking back to them, hear the message beyond the message in what you are saying and what they are saying to you.  Give the sound a second to sink in when you are listening to the world.  Hear the cars, hear the birds, hear the sound of the washer, hear the way that the wind is moving your house during a rain storm.  Take advantage of a sense some have learned to live without.  Make the way you listen something that others notice about you... don't make it the thing they dislike about you.

Listen.

The most important thing about life, is learning.  I believe that we are put on this Earth to learn.  It isn't a popular belief, but i believe that we live again and again.  Until we learn all that our souls need to learn... we will keep living again and again.  You might not believe this, and that is OK.  Even if you are only learning for this 1 life time.  Learn something.

Learn.

Take advantage of today, tomorrow might need to be faster than yesterday.  Our children are only children for a short time.  When you miss something, you miss it forever.  There is no reset button.  There is no rewind button.  There is only PLAY.  Take your finger off of the FAST-FORWARD button and PLAY today in your life.

i just can't say it enough...

Less is so much more!

article 5 things you think will make you happy (but won't) it is written on a comedy magazine website, but it is far from humor.  If you take the time to read it, it will make you sit up and think.  Sorry, it is a comedy website and the link was given to me by a friend, there are curse words in there... be for warned! 

That article puts a much finer point on some of how i feel today. 

"if i own all of these movies and our collections complete...."

"if i own as much music as i see that person owning..."

"if only i could have all of this pretty paper...."

"if only i had those shoes like her..."

"when i have a bigger house i will be happier..."

I could list out so many thoughts that have filled my head over the years.

desires. wants. wishes. 

The truth is, i had the huge movie collection... yet i could never find anything to watch!  i had the complete collection of Music CD's... hundreds of CD's!  But i still only seemed to play my 4 favorite CD's when i wanted to listen to music.  I had hundreds of pieces of "pretty" paper, it all sat in a drawer and only on a rare occasion did i use it.  I wanted to create cards just like this blog girl i followed, the fact is it was an illusion of want.  I had the pretty shoes just like "her", they hurt like heck!

I've been trying to put into words, this feeling of "relief".  This feeling of "freedom".  It is something i wish i could convey into words.  I had it all, and i gave it all away.  I do not miss it. I do not want it.  I do not even know why i ever wanted it all.  It is this feeling of, wow... what really matters to me in this life, i can not buy it at a store.  I can not ever have the exact same life as someone else.  This is who i am, these things i have are all mine and no one else can have what i have in my life.  No matter how much i purchase, i will always be who i am.... and that is OK!

Today i went through boxes that have been out in our garage for at least 5 years.  I had not gone through them since they were packed up and put outside.  I had no idea what was inside of them.  Most of it went straight into the trash.  Old magazines i kept for dumb reasons.  But i came across a box... i almost threw it straight into the trash because it looked like something dumb.  But i stopped myself... i took a second attempt to toss it... again, i paused and then sat it in front of me to look into in a minute.  When i looked inside, it was the stuff i had been looking for!  It was my baby cast from when i was born and they broke my foot.  It was my glass baby ducky with the toothbrush!  It was several other small things of mine from when i was a baby!  I must have sounded and looked like a complete idiot to Michael, but i almost cried i was so happy to find these things.  My past, my life, the only things from my childhood that i have left.  Things that actually made me who i am today and it made me remember the things about myself that i once had hold of.... it made me remember how far off course i have gotten from who i use to want to become.  

This move has done so many things, but most importantly... it has given me a whole new way of looking at everything i have in my life.  It has given me a greater understanding of just how much our society wastes on purchasing JUNK.  how much time and effort i myself have wasted on these things that are not needed to provide any means of happiness in life.  They are just time wasters, things to satisfy the need of NOW.  There is so much more to life than the things that fill up our homes.  The things that fill our hearts and minds are so much more important.