I am working to quiet the voice inside of me that seems to always be saying, "I want, I want, I want." It is not easy. The house we have moved into is very different from our old one. The old one had a lot of built-ins - shelves, dressers, and two hutches. The new place does not have anything like that and as a result, we are still living out of a lot of boxes.
My human nature wants to find fixes for all of this immediately. We have found a couple of fixes. For example, we bought an amazing armoir at a local store called Itsy Bitsy, which is sadly closing (and also the reason we could afford it and felt the need to buy it quickly). But the "I want" list is pretty high and I am trying to hold off until garage sale season.
If you've ever spent any time at the story of stuff, you'll understand where I'm coming from. If you have never spent any time at the website or spent ~20 minutes watching the video, head over there. Hopefully it challenges you the way it challenged me. My heart embraces the idea of consuming less, wasting less, and being more resourceful with what I have; my head hasn't quite made it there yet.
Materialism and the desire for instant gratification are not easy characteristics to shake. But here's the thing ... instant gratification almost always lets me down. I'll see something and think I need it immediately, but when I act on that desire I am usually disappointed down the road. If I just wait, look, deliberate, and put my heart and my energy into it, I am usually so much happier with whatever object it is that I so badly "needed."
I guess I'll try to make that my mantra while I'm waiting for winter to melt away and garage sale season to show its face.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Today is my lazy day.
Today is my lazy day. So far I've done 4 loads of laundry, made breakfast for 2, rearranged some kitchen drawers, showered, loaded the dishwasher, and done a mild amount of play with my nearly 3-year-old.
On the other hand, Rosemary has watched a lot of TV today and we are both still in our pajamas. It is almost lunchtime and we just finally brushed our teeth.
Yesterday afternoon I drove home from "the cities" (that's what us rural-folk call Minneapolis and St. Paul) completely exhausted. The Lovely Sarah made me some coffee for the road, but I still had to stop for some candy and eventually a strawberry shake. I think what made it particularly difficult was the beautiful day - the hot sun was shining on me, but it wasn't hot enough to have windows down or air conditioning on. It was the perfect nap weather, and Rosemary was napping in the back seat. When we finally arrived [at the new] home, I was done for the day. I didn't have any energy left to do anything. I fell asleep at 9:30 and slept until nearly 8 o'clock.
So here we are. Packed and unpacked. We were mostly unpacked until our recent trip to the cities in which we brought a bunch of junk up here with us. So now it feels like we're back to square 1. We've been figuring out the internet, the tv service, and all the other technical things. I'm looking forward to spending a decent chunk of time here and figuring out what our new home is like.
On the other hand, Rosemary has watched a lot of TV today and we are both still in our pajamas. It is almost lunchtime and we just finally brushed our teeth.
Yesterday afternoon I drove home from "the cities" (that's what us rural-folk call Minneapolis and St. Paul) completely exhausted. The Lovely Sarah made me some coffee for the road, but I still had to stop for some candy and eventually a strawberry shake. I think what made it particularly difficult was the beautiful day - the hot sun was shining on me, but it wasn't hot enough to have windows down or air conditioning on. It was the perfect nap weather, and Rosemary was napping in the back seat. When we finally arrived [at the new] home, I was done for the day. I didn't have any energy left to do anything. I fell asleep at 9:30 and slept until nearly 8 o'clock.
So here we are. Packed and unpacked. We were mostly unpacked until our recent trip to the cities in which we brought a bunch of junk up here with us. So now it feels like we're back to square 1. We've been figuring out the internet, the tv service, and all the other technical things. I'm looking forward to spending a decent chunk of time here and figuring out what our new home is like.
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