Decrapification motivation

I received a Facebook message from a friend who has been following along and was bitten by the decrapifly (get it? Bugs bite...decrapifly/decrapify....Bueller?) 

Anyway-she took on her attic!! After it was all said and done she had 25ft of garbage on the side of her road!! 

Y'all-that's big!! 

What an awesome start to her simplifying (decrapifing) her life!! 

One of the biggest challenges we face in today's culture is the desire to have lots...lots of clothes..lots of home decor for each season...lots of shoes...make sure our kids have a multitude of toys that keep the entertained or help them gain knowledge...we make great excuses like "well the pink coat is her play coat and the fur is her dress coat and the north face is for cooler temps but not ice cold and the peacoat is for when the fur coat is dirty{{guilty}} y'all what if it was just 2 coats? A backup incase one got dirty??

Take a look at one space in your life...just one. Channel all your energy to one spot. Tackle it. Own it. Mine is my vanity. It's a wreck and it's the one space in the house that no one contributes to..it's all me. Ill be back tomorrow to show you how I tackled it and what the means to me,

Decrapification 1-2-3

I am so inspired by everyone that is taking on the crap and getting it out of your life.

Today I took a load of my expensive clothes and purses to a top consignment store in the area. Over 25 items-gone. I have also been selling some of the bigger items via Craigslist and Facebook yard sale ads. However, I think I am done for now-just going to endure the sale and then the charity pick up.

Tomorrow is my last day of cleaning out. I have 1 closet left to clean out and then the attic to unload. We sorted all the attic stuff during the spring-but left it up there until we were ready for the sale.

I have bounced back and forth on pricing for the sale-I hate to run a dollar tree-but I also don't want to have a lot of stuff left over....so I am thinking on day 1 we will have regular pricing-then day 2 maybe 1/2 priced? Or some kind of special. Not sure yet.

The girls are starting to get excited and nervous. It is so different having our house cleaned out but I know once everything is calm and we can reap the benefits of this process it will all be worth it. 

Plus-we have promised the girls a date night with the earnings. Dinner and a movie. That helps the anxiety! :)

Keep cleaning friends and don't forget to share with me your progress. 

The Process of Decrapification Dos.

I believe that means (part) 2

Yesterday, I shared with you my sin of crap and yes Crap is a sin. When I die (which I will) and I go to heaven (which I will) I will not be packing my suitcases and taking them with me. I will not be ordering my POD full of memories and loading them up and moving them through the big pearly gold gates of heaven. It is not happening.

All the "stuff" the CRAP as I am calling it (because stuff is so nice) will be left here. And so will my memories of it all.

Here is another secret-((sorry Mom...in advance))
Growing up we had a junk room in our house. Not a drawer (although we had those too) we had a junk room. A room of boxes and baskets full of stuff. Our garage was full of stuff. Our porch was unusable because it was full of stuff. Our closets, our cabinets...all were full of stuff. When we purchased the house from my parents 2 years ago-and we started moving out things. We found dishes wrapped in newspaper dated 1989. Meaning. Those dishes were packed up when I was 5. We have lived in 2 houses since then...Why did they still have those dishes??

My parents treasure their "Treasures". Now they are not hoarders with dead cats under piles of stuff-that's nasty. But if it is usable-my dad keeps it. If someone gives it to my mom...she feels the need to keep it. They attach to stuff. And as an adult-I found myself starting to drift that way.

It has been a prayer of mine over the last few months-that God teach me to not need so much. And boy-did He. He helped me see the crap-clearly.

This crap-it is keeping me from having free weekends to go and serve with our missions team. This crap-is keeping me from being able to open up my home to the youth of the church. This crap is binding me in so many ways. It. is. suffocating me.

In todays world we are being taught to value "things". Pinterest is a source of that. How many pins do you have that is material based? According to my profile...I have about 2,680. 2,680 pins that I see that make me want and desire things. Wow.

This whole decrapification process is not only a stress management tool-it is a way , that I pray,  brings me closer to God. I want to desire God more. I don't want "things" to fill my life. I want God to fill my life. And if I have "things" in there too--I want them to be things that I treasure. Not just things that I have because someone gave them to me, they were expensive/on sale, they hold memories, or 15 of my friends had pinned them.

I want less. Over the past year-and all our drama-I have learned I really can live without things. I do not need every clearance item at Target. I do not need a new coat every winter. I do not need to keep all the clothes people give me.

I talked about the plans Todd and I made a few days ago-One of those plans is downsizing. It is a huge desire of ours to live modestly. We currently have around 2600 square feet. With the porch and garage. We want to downsize to about 1800/1900-with some acres. We want to be down to the minimal and be thankful for the bounties God has given us.

Crazy right? I know. Trust me. It has taken a lot of preparation and prayer over the months for me to be content with that.

But now-it is a desire of my heart. We talk about this a lot with the girls. I tell them I am ready to be able to spend time with them-and not so much time cleaning and picking up stuff. They are excited. They even have purged a lot of the items they no longer use.

Continue with us friends-What are some of the things filling up your life??

The Process of Decrapification.

Yall. I need to confess a major sin. It's a sin that I have a feeling many of you commit daily-I have been speaking about this on facebook over the past week and I have discovered MANY women who suffer from this. So here it is-are you ready?

I have a lot of crap.

There-I said it. And yall-I am going to be real honest-I have so much crap-I can not enjoy my life.

Over the 15 months as my life has been spiraling out of control I began making list-because list are organized and well thought out. One of my  list is things that I need to make me feel better. The #1 thing-A clean house. And by clean I don't mean dusted daily-and spotless. That's weird to me-especially when you have 3 kids. I mean I want to get a phone call from a friend saying "I am in your driveway coming for a visit" And my first thought is "Come on in" not "OMG my house is a disaster!!" Why is my house a disaster? Because of all the crap.

So-Over the last 7 months I have been focusing on this. It started right before Mia came-then took a pause for a while-then I worked on it...but for the last 8 weeks-I really dug down deep. I set my plan-and I began.

I cleaned out one closet-one drawer-one cabinet. I took each item and said, "How do I use it?" "What purpose does it serve?" and "Does this bring joy or stress?" Some items...like the high heels that kill my feet were easy to get rid of. The others like baby clothes-not so easy. So then I had to ask myself the REALLY hard questions..."Why do I need this?" because of memories? No. If that was the case-I would have 2600 square feet of sweet memory crap. Because someone gave it to me? Well-it was used well and loved now its time to move on.

I put everything in garbage bags and started loading them into Todd's office (he never uses it) then I moved them to the garage and started sorting.

Each item is now being sorted. Pile 1) Donation. Pile 2) Consignment Pile 3) Garage Sale. Whatever is left after the garage sale will go straight to a charity-I have already scheduled the pick up.

Y'all, I want to enjoy my life. I want to spend Saturdays doing craft projects or snuggling with my girls-NOT CLEANING CRAP. I want manageable laundry NOT MOUNDS.

I want to walk into my bed room and it be filled with things that I love not decorations because Pinterest tells me it is the right way.

I want simplicity. I want my kids to value what they have-not be so overwhelmed with stuff that they are ungrateful. I want to need something-and know exactly where it is.

So-that's where I am. Decrapifiying my life.

So tell me friends---Do you have issues with this? Do you keep things because of memories? Do you desire to be free of clutter?

#onebigtruth

When life falls apart and is spinning out of control-sometimes it is really hard to stop-and get the reins tight enough to gain that control back. That is where I am right now-pulling really hard on the reins trying to get control again.

Let's recap-since November of 2011: I have had a miscarriage-had 3 failed adoptions-gotten pregnant-had a rough pregnancy-my mother in law died-my husband fell apart-I got put on bed rest-my husband lost his job-we had a premature baby-we almost lost our marriage....yea. Pretty rough time. 

I am a very "control" person. It has taken a lot for me to step back during all this and "ride it out". I couldn't have done anything to change any of it. God orchestrated it. He has allowed us to suffer to teach us to trust in Him. 

I have been spending a lot of time in prayer. I am working on finding a balance between being in control and allowing God to be in control.

Each day-I have to wake up and make decisions. What are the girls going to wear to school-what am I going to do today-what are my goals for the day. Those decisions I am in control of. The bigger picture is all Gods. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want. Is it what God wants? Will I be okay if my plans don't line up with his? 

Todd and I have never really had a "plan" in life. We have always gone about this marriage/parenting thing on a whim. Sometimes it has benefitted us. Most times it has hindered us. So part of our rebuilding our marriage is to talk and write out our plans. We did an excersise the other night "what I want" we took 3 minutes to write down what we wanted material, spiritual, professional....it didn't matter. You know what was hard....I had a time thinking about what I want. 

As a mom-you become easily focused on putting others first. I read a book by Terri hatcher a few years ago called Burnt Toast. the basis was it's okay to sometimes toss the burnt toast and make yourself a non burnt piece. 

After the excersise we shared with each other what we had written down-Todd's was very direct. I think guys have a lot of time to contemplate what they want. Mine was more here and there. I want to adopt or foster....I want to sell our house and downsize...I want to go shopping-for me. selfish? Yea..but you know.. Inever go shopping for me. I can not tell you the last time I went to the mall-without kids and stayed only in the women's department and bought clothes for myself. I have 1 pair of jeans that fit-got them 2nd hand off of eBay. I have 15 shirts that fit-12 came from my sisterinlaws closet clean out. The 5 dresses I have-4 were gifts from my mom . I am blessed to have these things but really-it's something minor that I want for myself. And I don't mean a huge shopping spree that cost hundreds of dollars-just a trip to buy maybe another pair of jeans, a few shirts,and a new pair of black pumps. Anyway...

After we shared our wants-we prayed-we asked God to help us figure out what was next for our life-we want --need--a plan.

Then last night-after the kids were in bed, We each wrote out our 5 year goals. He wrote his-i wrote mine. Then we compared. We took our lists and we developed our family goals. Stuff we really want to accomplish-like moving to the country-fostering at risk kids-helping fund a ministry-Todd wants to get a degree in social science...all things that are doable with Gods help and His guidance. So that's where we are. Taking our reins-slowing down-looking ahead-and praying for God to help us orchestrate the next steps...

Dollar tree days!

I have a serious obsession with the dollar tree. I go at least 2x a week! I have decided I will start sharing some on my dollar tree goods here on the blog! 

Today-my wreath. I needed a simple "kid approved" fall wreath. I didn't want to spend a lot of money so I headed to the dollar tree.  

I purchased a package of raffea and a scarecrow. I put it on a grapevine wreath that I had in the garage and a b from a craft store sale a few months ago and-tada a $2 wreath.

It's simple. Very affordable and I don't feel like I am wasting money decorating a door-that we never used :/.

Happy dollar tree exploring!! 

The day I deleted Facebook from my iPhone.

Today I did the unimaginable-I deleted my Facebook app from my phone. 

Now-Facebook and I have had a long relationship. 9 years. Yes-I was one of the first on Facebook back when you had to be a college student with a college email to get it. It was back when Facebook was good. 

During our first year we went through a lot together-I learned of an incident through Facebook that changed my relationship status-for the first time in 5 years. Later that year-the status went from single to married-then it followed with being a young mommy on Facebook with all my college friends still posting about going to bars or tailgating at football games.

Facebook and I have been together for longer than Todd and I but today-today was the last straw.

Now that everyone is on Facebook (including my grandmother) it's a platform for people to complain-post "their opinion"-make extremely negative comments towards other humans because they don't have the same lifestyle as them-and now in the craziness of the government. I.am.done.

And here is why-I am a Sinner. I make a ton of mistakes a day. I have done things in my life that I am not proud of-but they are still apart of me. Since I am a sinner-i choose not to cast stones. I may not agree with a certain decision made by our government but as a Christian-my job is to pray-not to complain in a 1,012 word status update. Followed by 9 "shared" news stories about the topic. 

Madyson and Aubrie Kate go to public schools. And they are both thriving. Madyson has been tested and is considered "gifted" and has been placed in our districts gifted courses. She is learning so much. At their school-they use the common core standards. The standards are taken and our curriculum is written by well educated teachers in our district. Teachers that I have a personal relationship with and know and trust to teach my children. Many-MANY people on my Facebook page are in a uproar about common core because schools in New York, Indiana, California-are teaching their kids stuff that is controversial. Sucks for those kids-but that's not here-in my school district-so I can not have an opinion on "how bad it is" because I see the good. 

Aubrie Kate is a different learner than Madyson-she doesn't learn the same as madyson. She has struggled through-preschool, and our stint of homeschooling-to learn. Once she began at public school-she began to blossom. She loves math now. She is learning to add differently than I learned as a child....but if I remember correctly I learned differently from my mom so I don't really see an issue with it. She likes the challenges and the goals they have in her class. She gets up every morning-and wants to go to school. And to me-that's what matters. 

Another thing-I have found that breaks my heart about Facebook is people that I know and love Picketing outside of the abortion clinic. I have spent hours speaking with women who have undergone abortions for various reasons-let me tell you-by standing there holding a sign saying "your baby has rights" or "god loves your unborn child"-you are missing your opportunity to be a witness for God to a woman who is in a very hard place in life. I choose to meet with women on a one on one basis-there are programs that can connect you to women who are thinking about abortion. I get to know them-their story and their life. I pray with them-and for them. And show Christ love trough actions not picket signs. 

I am not unaware of what is going on-and I understand what hardships are and how things are unfair. Trust me-I have my list of complaints as well-I just chose to take my list of what I think is unfair to God and not Facebook. God hears my concerns and my prayers and my thoughts. He is all knowing and nothing is above him-not even a government made up of human sinners. I have 3 girls to raise and a husband to care for-that's what I want to exert my energy too. I will give the rest of the world's problems to God and let him guide me on what to do.

So Facebook-that's why we broke up today. I will keep my profile bc of all my pictures and videos but you no longer have a place in my (what is up peeps) folder. Maybe at times I'll share a picture or two-via computer-but no longer will you be at my fingertips. 

Thanks for the good times.

7 months Mia Margaret!

Happy 7th month birthday Mia Margaret!!! You are such a big girl now!!

You have moved from "liquid baby food" to some with a substance. You liked mashed sweet potatoes the most!

At your doctor's appointment a few weeks ago-you were 21lbs 6.2 oz and you are 27inches long!

You are FULL of sweetness. You smile 99% of the time with that 1% when you are exhausted.

You adore Madyson and Aubrie Kate. They think you are pretty darn cute as well!!


You are almost crawling in "proper" crawling form. You have finally learned to get your belly up off the ground and rock!

You also pull up now-you are very wobbly so I usually make you sit! We are lowering your bed this weekend.

Speaking of bed-you quit sleeping this month (not cool) you despise naps and have been up a lot. I am praying once that tooth you've been working on since JUNE comes through-sleep will be better!

Your schedule right now goes as followed:

You nurse around 6am then go back to sleep til 9/10ish

You wake up and eat Apples and Oatmeal

Then you play and hang out til around 12. At 12 you have a 5oz bottle and a veggie.

Before this month you would nap 12:45-2:20 but this month you boycotted that. So instead we snuggle and watch cartoons.

We get sisters from school and you love car rider line. It's your quiet time.

Once we get home you usually play with them and will take a short (30 min) nap in the 3-6pm time frame.

You eat dinner around 7 and have another 5oz bottle-

Bath-and play with daddy when he gets home. Then you nurse around 9 and go to sleep :)

You are such a joy and this month have been so wonderful as mommy worked on sister's school race. Such at trooper being up at the school a lot!! We are so thankful for you Mia Margaret!!! Happy 7 months!

Life after baby weight.

I am busy editing Madyson's baptism video so it will be up tomorrow!!

Today-I am sharing (by request) my journey of clean eating.

Over the past few years my weight has been a battle. Before the miscarriage I was 120-after the miscarriage I was 145-then I dropped down to 115 -then I got pregnant, and Todd's mom died, and I get sick, and Todd lost his job, and life fell  apart and I found myself weighing in at 165 lbs. I have never been overweight-and for some people 165lbs is a great weight. But I am 5'2 tall. I am small framed. My little heart doesn't work well and when it has to work extra hard-i have to take medicine for it. So when Amelia was born I made a commitment to myself. I would do a strict clean eating diet until I was at 120lbs. Then I would maintain my eating but live by the 80/20 rule.

So let's get started-here I am right before Amelia was born. 

I look "pregnant" to the untrained eye-but   I was all over big. My arms had doubled-my legs had doubled-my face was fuller. My blood work was off-my energy level was shot.

I pintersted "clean eating" and here is where I began.

This was my first shopping list-minus tuna,salmon, and cottage cheese ((I can't do those my tummy doesn't handle it well))

I stocked my grocery cart (buggy) with kale, spinach, dark leaf lettuce, tons of avacados, celery, carrots....picture walking through the produce department and loading up on almost everything.

Produce goes way beyond salads-that was my first lesson I had to learn the hard way. After spending a week eating salads for breakfast, lunch, and dinner I took it back to Pinterest to figure out what to do with all this clean food i just purchased-I liked a bunch of pins (and I have now put them on a board for you and learned how to cook with all this.) 

{{I know what you are thinking-my kids would not eat that}}

Well-mine do-at times and at times they look at me like I am crazy. So if you come to my pantry you will find easy Mac, jambalaya mix, princess soup, and a few other "kid staples" that they are allowed. 

 The first month it was hard. I adore Oreos and cheesecake and ice cream and kit Kats and all that. But I knew that I also adore my 3 girls and my husband and if I want to be healthy for them-I had to do this for myself. 

After 2 Weeks I had a waist line again. But the rest of me still needed to deflat.

I kept it up-and once I got to 130 lbs -I began to allow myself to indulge 20% of the time-while staying focused 80%.

At 6 months post delivery-I was at my goal weight of 120lbs. 

I went from wearing large/xL clothes to a size 2. The only exercising I have done in 6 months is strolling with my girls around the neighborhood-and nursing. Now we all know how many calories nursing burns-so by clean eating I had to make sure I was taking in my daily amount PLUS enough to maintain a milk supply for miss Amelia. I am proud to announce that she is in the 99% for weight-so this did not effect her in anyway. 

What do I eat? 

Check out my Pinterest board for some ideas but a normal day would include:

Breakfast: oatmeal with fruit and honey

Avacado (sliced) with a boiled egg (sliced)

Snack: peanut butter and banana wrapped in a wheat flat out wrap.

Lunch:2 quesadillas (8 triangles) with black beans, shredded chicken, low fat cheese, 1/2 avacado and spinach.

Snack: fruit bowl or carrot/pepper/celery and Greek yogurt ranch dip

Dinner: grilled/baked chicken or turkey breast-sweet potato, broccoli, wild rice

Dessert: dark chocolate 

Snack: smoothie or low fat cheese & crackers or some sort of fruit.

On my indulging days I would eat a cheeseburger-French fries-Oreos-cheesecake....

Now that I am allowing myself treats I will have one of the mentioned above each day-i just make sure I get my veggies in!! 

 

*****i am by no means a doctor and before beginning any diet or life style change always consult your doctor.*****