"The Best Things in Life are not Things!"

(A quote I got from a Don Aslett book that I love.)

I'm once again dealing with the organization problem. I'm not a hoarder and I wouldn't even consider myself a packrat. The problem I have right now is that we have sold our RV, which has house a lot of our stuff since we had the fire. Some of it has been cleaned out, but there is still a decent amount of stuff in there.

It has to be cleared out by Thursday, which means my house is now cluttered and messy from all the boxes scattered.

I've been giving a lot of thought to my stuff. I'm sick of it, I don't want it, but I have been having a hard time getting rid of it. My latest thought about it is this: I want to have a yard sale, but I don't want to deal with one. I want to make money from the stuff I have, yet I just want it gone. Let's say I was WAY lucky and got $1000 for the things I'm getting rid of. I don't care. Holding on to this stuff just drives me crazy. I can't really focus on the things that are important to me with all this stuff. If I really wanted to, I could make $1000. But not with all this stuff. It just weighs you down.

I absolutely love Don Aslett's books. I would recommend his books to anyone (unless you are the perfect homemaker with the perfect clean home). Even if you don't have a clutter problem, he has a book all about getting help from the kids and husband. His books about cleaning/clutter are to me like the Book of Mormon is to the gospel. The man is my hero.

My goal this year is to be clutter free by the end of the year. I don't want stuff. The things that are important to me: my family, my health, my wanting to write novels, the church, friends. My wants in my life are: I want a bigger home. I want more room, but not more stuff. I want to wake up everyday feeling refreshed, not worn out knowing that I have clutter to deal with.

I have some pictures of my house the way it is now. I am not posting them yet. But I love before and afters. Maybe I will post them when the after part is achieved.

Okay, now if the rain will ever slow down I will take 2 of my DI boxes out to my car.

Life is busy

I have been getting long gaps of time between posts lately. Of course, there is a lot on my plate right now. Three little kids (one a baby), remodeling house, springtime outdoor chores, planning a camping trip, organizing stuff, etc. Doesn't like a lot of time to think.

I have however been thinking about writing again. Of course, thinking isn't doing, but it's a start. I actually thought of ways to better my novel that has been in the works for over a year. I know there will be a time in my life that I will make the time for writing. It just isn't top priority to me right now.

I have been reading blogs written by other writers. I enjoy reading about others successes in the writing business. There are lots of books I am excited to read someday on my list. A few of them:

Agent in Old Lace by Tristi Pinkston. Tristi is on my facebook friends, and although I have never met her in person, I have enjoyed getting to know her somewhat online. She's only about 2 hours away from me. Maybe someday our paths will cross.

My Fairy Grandmother by Aubrey Mace. I read her Spare Change novel and really liked it. (It also won a Whitney Award for Best Novel.) It was her first published novel, so she's off to a good start. :)

English Trifle by Josi Kilpack. I've enjoyed the few books of her's I've read. I also read Lemon Tart and liked it. I'm sure this one will be just as good.

Another author I have really enjoyed is Robert Farrell Smith (Not the nicest layout format on a website, but it shows his books.) Anyway, he is a funny guy. I love his books. I've read his newer ones and some of his older ones. I had to check some out from the library, but they are worth the read.

Okay, well enough of the blogging. Time to actually go do something productive like cleaning .... :(

Contest Link

When you have a CTR 5 and a daughter who will be a sunbeam next year, you can use all the help you can get. Anne Bradshaw has a contest going to give away a free "Tiny Talks" book. Go to her website to find out how you can enter too.

My son hasn't yet given a talk in Primary. The one time he was assigned last year, we were all sick that weekend. I'm not sure he would have stood up in front of everyone and talked or not. But I am pretty sure he'd do it now. He gets nervous doing new things, but he'll usually try new things when his mom is by his side.

Baby Blessing

We blessed our newest little one yesterday. Afterwards, we had friends and family come over to our "small" home for a lunch. My home is around 1200 sq foot, 1 bathroom. There were 19 adults and 15 kids. Wow! I really didn't think that many would fit in my house. It was a lot of fun though.

She has been almost sleeping through the night since she was around 3 weeks. She'd sleep from 9 to 4 a lot. But here and there wake up an extra time. Last night she slept form 9 to 5:30. I can live with that. I don't like mornings or being up that early. But it's better than being up at 11:00, 2:00, 4:00, 6:00. I was hoping the new baby would sleep through the night around 7 weeks, because my other daughter slept through the night at 7 weeks. I don't know how I got so lucky to have it actually be true.

Now I just need a few more days of the whole night sleeping, and I may have the energy to do most everything I want to do... unless of course the baby decides otherwise. :)

Life's Getting Crazy

I haven't written on here much, because life is getting more busy for me right now. I had a new baby on Jan 9th. I'm starting to get adjusted (as much as one can) to the sleepless nights. I'm a zombie for a few hours in the morning, and then my body wakes up the rest of the way after that.

I'm also feeling good enough now, that I am starting to clean and organize the house again. We are still working on remodeling the back bedroom. For now, my son and daughter are in one bedroom, and the baby is in our room. The back bedroom just needs muddding, painting, carpet, and trim. We knocked down the plaster walls, updated the electrical, put in new updated windows, and put up new walls. Well, I didn't, I was 8-9 months pregnant when the project was started.

I've decided I like a simple clean home. You may not know it by looking at some of the piles in our house. But I am going through everything and trying to objectively look at stuff and decide if I really want or need it. The DI has been getting stuff from me weekly, and I feel good getting rid of stuff.

Breast Cancer Awareness

It's interesting how some things don't really mean as much to you, until it hits someone you know.

There is a woman in my ward that has Breast Cancer. When they found it 18 months ago, it was stage 4, Inflammatory Breast Cancer. I just got back from the fundraiser that the was citywide for her. (Our city is about 3000.... small place).

A little about her. She just turned 30. She's actually a little bit younger than I am. She has 5 kids. Her oldest is around 12 and her youngest is 2 1/2.

The main park is across the street from my house, so my son wanted to know why there were so many people over there. We went outside to check out the 1 mile / 5 K run. He wanted to run so bad. There I am 7 months pregnant, but we went on the 1 mile walk. He ran a good chunk of the time. He was probably about a block ahead of me at one point. I know a lot of the people walking (nice thing about small towns), so I wasn't worried about him. But then he fell and cried walking all the way back to me. Poor kid. Then they had an auction afterwards. It was pretty fun. I wish I needed a new leather overstuffed chair, because it went for $300. A nice vacuumm went for $50. I did donate some money though, so I didn't feel too bad for not bidding on stuff.

A travel agency donated a 5 night trip, park hopper passes, and free airline to go to Disneyland for their family. I can tell there was quite a bit of money raised for her. I'm sure it's exciting for the family to have that much help financially and lifting their burden some. And the trip I'm sure will be fun for all. But I'm sure it's bittersweet too. She definately had a good fight so far, and I hope that without too much pain she can stay around as long as she can.

Her favorite saying is "Every day is a gift, that's why it is called the present."

Her is a link to her blog http://amberchase.weebly.com/index.html . I'm really glad that I know Amber and am glad that they were able to have this fundraiser.

Getting Back in the Habit

I just don't have the motivation to start writing much. Even though we have moved in, things still aren't organized like I would like it. Half my belongings are still in our RV waiting to be sorted and put away.

I think that things probably need to settle down a bit before I can really get into writing again. I still think of ideas for my current novel. Life is busy around here though. I am doing a home preschool group with my 4 year old. My 2 year old is, well, a 2 year old. And I'm 1/2 done with my pregnancy. My son is moving into a different room. But first we need to clear out the extra room. Then set up the crib in my daughters room.

There is a time and a season for everything in our lives. This just isn't my "work to the bone with writing" season. I suppose if I just get what I can out, then I should consider that an accomplishment.

There's No Place Like Home

We're home! Finally!

When I find my camera cord, I will try and post some pictures of our home. Because of the fire and having to remodel the front room, we decided to just remodel the whole house. Well, the whole house except the bathroom and one bedroom. But we are planning on doing those two rooms now that we are back home.

Our house was initially built in 1911. It was 2 rooms. There have been two additions since then. When we bought the home, it was pretty ugly, but it was a good price and a home. It reeked of the 60-70's. The kitchen had orange, green, brown, yellow mixed thin carpeting. The cabinets were custom made probably in the 70's, and weren't all that great. The windows were randomly placed and all sorts of sizes. The carpet was worn and ugly. The only thing we had money to do when we bought it was to paint and re-carpet the baby's room.

Because of the fire we finally had a reason to remodel the house. We took the insurance money and did a lot of the work ourselves to be able to spread the money further over the house. We did have some money saved up too, and that helped. We were also in process of remodeling when we had the fire, so a lot of materials were bought, we just didn't have much time with 2 kids running around the house.

We still need to do a little of the finish work. Put up blinds, go pick up our new front door, put doorknobs on a few of the doors, etc. But it is so nice to be home.

We still need to do something to the outside. We need to decide to re-stucco or to do siding. So the inside looks really nice, and the outside looks like we are the poorest, most rednecked people ever. (We have our old toilet sitting in the driveway, waiting to be put in the truck so we can haul some stuff off to the dump.)

Now we just need to remodel the last bedroom. Which REALLY needs to be done by the end of the year, because ..... I'm pregnant. This will be child #3. Baby is due Jan 13th.

Anyway, so now I'm back to hopefully posting more often, and reading all the blogs I used to read often. Which is another reason I'm glad to be home. My parents still have dial-up. And my husband and I use the internet often, play games on the internet, get information on the internet, etc on the internet. I really missed high speed internet.

Anyway, long post again... Thanks for everyone that posted. Things are going great.

Where there's smoke, there's fire!

Okay, so I dont' really know if there was any fire. We never actually saw flames, but we did have the fire department at our house over the holidays.

On Dec 28th we were remodeling our home. We had the kids go to Grandmas so that when we knocked the plaster down in the back room. the kids wouldn't be breathing in the dust. We were using our wood burning stove (we had used it the day before too). As my brother and brother in law left after helping us with remodeling, they both joked "hey, your house is on fire". We saw a small amount of smoke coming from above the light fixture on the porch. We all actually thought it was just a reaction. The front room was probably 70-80 degrees with the fireplace going. So we thought because it was so cold outside, that maybe the warm and cold was making it smoke, steam, sweat, something like that.

Well, my husband gets back home from the store and I show him the smoke. It was getting worse and he looked outside. The chimney area was starting to turn brownish. We stood in the front room and then heard a crumbling in the wall. So my husband grabbed the cordless phone, I grabbed some documents from the next room, my coat and my camera. All were grabbable on the way out the door.

We called the fire department and first the police came. They had just come from another fire call, but it was a false alarm. No real problem. They looked at our house and said "yes, there is a problem". The firemen came and cut a hole in our roof, cut a hole in our front room ceiling and bedroom ceiling. Then they started axing into the outside wall. That is when I saw a TON of smoke coming out. That wall between the fireplace and the outside was burnt. Some of the wood was completely gone. We never saw actual flames, but it may have gotten so hot that is smolder burnt the wood.

One of our friends grew up in that house and said he had gotten that wood burning stove MUCH hotter than we had it. So it wasn't an issue of the heat, but something just went wrong. We wonder if maybe the birds that have moved into the roof area dropped some nest pieces down the chimney or if the Box Elder bugs went down. Who knows?

Anyway, we have been staying at my parents home. My youngest has no idea what's really happening. Just that we are at Grandma and Grandpas and she is having a blast. My 3 1/2 year old wants to go home. We showed him the house and he kept asking his Dad to fix it.

Things will be okay. It's just stuff. It will be a pain in the butt to figure all this out. But at least I have my family. (WRITTEN JAN 2nd)

UPDATE:

We are in process of cleaning the house. We decided to do the work ourselves even though it will be a lot of work. Today we had: My husband and I, my father-in-law, brother-in-law, his friend, our home teacher, relief society president, her husband helping out. We actually got quite a bit of stuff packed. We are going to go ahead with our remodeling jobs that we had planned, since stuff is in disarray anyway.

We are tired, but actually quite optimistic. This gives us an oppertunity (spelling??) to go through all our stuff. I've thrown out some stuff and it's really giving me an idea of what I want to keep and what I don't want to keep. I am going to take pictures of the place during the different stages, so maybe someday I will post the goings on.

I haven't been able to really catch up on the blog reading. We are staying with my parents, and they have dial-up. !!!!! :( Anyway, Just wanted to let anyone who might read my blog see what's up.

By the way Tristi, I keep trying to check one of your books out from the library, but it is always checked out when I go. That's a good sign for you I guess.

Clutter On, In, and Around Us

I have been doing some major cleaning. I have sent stuff to the Desert Industries, I have thrown away stuff, I have given away stuff. I've always been somewhat of a clutter-er. Is that even a word? I watched an Oprah show about this hoarder.

While I am nowhere near that messy, I do have my piles of stuff that I have no idea what to do with or where to put it. Show like that inspire me to clean out what I need to do.

My two favorite Clutter/Organizing people are Don Aslett and Peter Walsh.

Don Aslett has written tons of books about Clutter, Packrats, how to clean your home effectively, even one about how to get the rest of the family (husbands, kids) to help around the house. His books have a lot of suggestions and ideas from people, so there are lots of good ideas.

Peter Walsh is on TLC's Clean Sweep. It is such a good show. I haven't read any of his books.

One of my favorite lines from Don Aslett's book: "Weekend Makeover"

The Triangle of Too Much

1) Mental and Emotional Stress (clutter in us)
2) Overweight worries and concerns (clutter on us)
3) Our stuff: all the things and possesions of all kinds we have (clutter around us)

"Too much" causes much of the "too busy" in life, so in reality we have only one giant in the battle of life to fight and defeat -- too much."

So whether you are a hoarder, a little messy, or your closets and junk drawers are a mess, these books/shows are so inspirational to get moving and clean out junk. I would very much recommend Don Aslett's books. Amazon has some books that you can read a few pages of, to see if you like the style.

I've decided that I have to get rid of stuff that I don't love, don't want, don't use, don't need. I'll have less stress, less stuff to take care of and clean, an easier time cleaning, and more time for the things that I love - like my family, my writing, my crafts, my piano.

I've done a little here and there in the past, but this week, I have decided enough is enough. I may not get it all cleaned right away, but progress is progress.

So, have a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone that is celebrating it. Hopefully after this week, my posts will be flooded with writing themes.