Compact Follow Up

Okay, full disclosure here, I have lumped a WHOLE BUNCH of things in to this one idea for myself for the year and I am now completely overwhelmed.

1. Yes, I am committed to the Compact and reducing my purchasing of new items. Yes, I am staying within the guidelines as much as possible.

But I also said I would do a Freezer/Pantry challenge in which I am using up all the food in my freezer and pantry rather than buying something else to prepare for dinner. So there's that.

Then I agreed to a Savings Challenge of seeing how much I could put away in my savings account for the year.  My goal is $5000.  I think this is very conservative and do-able.  But I haven't been accountable in that I didn't write down my starting balance and make note of each deposit.  I think I need to get some of this written down so that I can track where my savings are coming from.

And on top of this!  I signed up on the cleaning-decluttering daily challenge.  Daily is just too much. I  have not been able to commit to this.  I would bet that I haven't even opened this week's daily emails due to the fact that I have been babysitting all week and this is the first time I have been on the computer since last week.  So, I can't very well do the challenge when I haven't even SEEN the challenge.  It's too much.

This is for my own accountability.  But I will try to keep regular updates to stay on track.

Recommitting to The Compact and to Decluttering

Here I am again!

I am going to post these thing separately for ease of searching them out later.  10 years ago in January of 2007 I heard about The Compact, a group of people in San Francisco who made a commitment to not buying anything new for the calendar year.  I signed up on the yahoo group (there are still about 10,000 people participating in that group) and started and education.  Boy, did I learn a LOT!  There are so many ways to look around and find a used item or make do or borrow or barter or any number of ways to do something other than just buy a new whatever-it-is.

What goes hand in hand with not buying new things is taking really good care of your old things. Also, I found a TON of ways to do the environmental thing rather than the easy things.  Such as:

*Use cloth napkins rather than buying and throwing away paper ones. I guarantee you have cloth napkins, or bandanas, or wash cloths or and old table cloth that has a hole/stain in it that you could cut up and hem and make napkins.  I have not bought a single paper napkin in 10 years.  I haven't bought any new cloth napkins either.  I already had some and I have found some in estate sales and added to the pile.  Just a few extra napkins added to a load of laundry will cost you no more in water, soap or electricity.  Plus they are much nicer.

*Recycle everything that you don't compost.  Buy foods with as little packaging as possible.  When you buy food with no packaging you are automatically buying your food as close to its natural form as you can get it.  That means you aren't buying crap for your body, either!  Yay!  I have been known to dig through the garbage and move things to the recycle bin or to the compost bucket.

Here's a short list of things that I throw in the compost bucket, things that no longer go in my trash:
Toilet paper cores, Paper towel cores, used tissues, shredded paper, dead plants, flowers, coffee grounds, tea bags, egg shells, tamale husks.

Now, picture your trash can and take all those items and compost them.  Then start looking for things to recycle, like oatmeal boxes, glass bottles, plastic bottles.  If you get those things out of the trash, look how small your trash pile is now!  It's awesome.

Anyhoo, I have back-slid quite a ways from my Compacty ways and I am now publicly making a recommitment to get back in to that.  I will post here regularly (not exactly sure how often) and see what I am adding to my list.

In addition to getting Compacty, I found a decluttering challenge called JanuaryCure 2018. Go here to see what is happening with that one.  I signed up for it and today's challenge is to clean out a drawer.  Any drawer.  Freezer drawer, desk drawer, junk drawer, dresser drawer, any drawer. Dump it out, see what you can throw away, recycle, put in its rightful place, clean the drawer inside and then neatly put in the contents that need to live there.  I will be doing that here in just a bit as soon as I select which of my cluttered drawers deserves the honor of being the first one decluttered!

Let me know if you are interested in either getting Compacty in your ways or in decluttering your way through 2018.  I would love to hear from you.

Recycling, Downsizing and Letting go

Remember the other day when I showed you the KonMari book?

I am trying to implement this in my life.  If you know me in real life you may be picking your teeth up and putting them back in your mouth.  I KNOW!!!  I am a packrat.  I love stuff.  I have accumulated loads of stuff.  I have collections of stuff.  Let's face it, I am on my way to being a hoarder.

So I am trying my best to embrace the more minimalist side of myself.  The part of me that sees all the stuff as things that weigh me down, that keep me from being the best I can because I am too busy dusting, arranging and finding homes for all my important stuff.  It is hard to completely change your mindset, especially when you spent years of your life accumulating.  I did recognize years ago that I had a lot of things and made a hard and fast rule that any time I saw something I wanted I had to stop and think of a similar object in my house that I was willing to let go of, be it sweaters or shoes or whatever.  Note:  this rule has never applied to books.  Books are sacred and as such, limitless in the number you can own.

I let things go all the time.  And yet, the clutter persists.  So I am reading and re-reading the KonMari book up there and falling more in love with the idea of having fewer beloved items that now have air around them, that aren't crammed into a large collection so that this item of beauty can shine all on its own.

And you know what is really strange?  Along with minimizing my stuff I am also changing my style of furnishings and things that I want to inhabit my space.  I have always been in the Bohemian camp with loads of competing patterns, fabrics, textures, over-stuffed big comfy furniture and the like.  Nowadays, my taste is running more towards mid-century modern, Danish 1960s looking things and craftsman/arts & crafts.  Where the hell did THIS come from??

I have very slowly over the last 15 years come around to the Small House Movement way of thinking.  I love the idea of making great use of the space you have and not building, heating, cooling and walking through long hallways of unusable space.

That's me right now; recycling things that need to go to someone else, downsizing the amount of treasures I want to keep and letting go of all the things that no longer serve me and no longer spark joy in my life.

Holler at me if you need something, I just might have a collection of said item that I would love to gift you.

Sunday Night Chit Chat

Okay, my blog friend Sluggy says we who want to play along on the Sunday Night Chit Chat should go here and follow directions.

Here's my answers!

Reading... "Lamb" by Christopher Moore.  This was recommended by a friend recently. I have just started and can NOT put it down!!!  I have never laughed so loud when reading in bed.  You will just adore this book.

Watching... AMC is running the whole previous 4 seasons of Breaking Bad late at night leading up to the Season 5 which starts on July 15.  I have been recording them and watching them and oh boy, it is even better watching a bunch back-to-back.  Season 5 is supposed to be the big finale so you want to be up on your stuff because this will be it.

Listening to...  I have the radio on tuned to an 1970s rock station and they are playing Van Halen "Dance the night away", and just segued in to some AC/DC "Dirty Deeds".

Cooking/Baking... nothing today.  But I just got a new recipe on Pinterest for Okra, Grilled Corn and Goat Cheese Fritters.  I will be going to get those ingredients for this week!  Yum.

Happy you accomplished... Holy Moly!  I finished a quilt I was making for my son that had been in the 70-80% done category for about 2 years. Then I got down an afghan I was 90% done with and finished it.  Right now I am working on a cross stitch project I have wanted to start for YEARS!  It feels really good to clear out some old projects.

Looking forward to next week... It is Mr. Big Ed's birthday on Wednesday, so that should be fun.

Thankful for today... got up early and have been accomplishing things.

*bonus question*

What is the WORST movie you've ever seen & couldn't be paid to watch again?  Hmmm, worst movie ever?  Let me think.  There are so many to choose from.  Right off the top of my head I am gonna have to go with a horrible piece of crap that my kids love and just think is *hilarious*.  The horrific "Freddy Got Fingered" with that moron Tom Green.  Have you seen this?  If not, be thankful.  It is so bad.  There are no redeeming qualities, not the filming, the writing, the acting, nothing.  It is pure crap.


Anyone want to play?  Either post your response in the comments or come comment with a link back to your own page.


Have a great Sunday night!

Book Review

I am reviewing a book I only started last night!!!


I am barely into this and am imagining the possiblilities for my own self.

Believe it or don't, this book has it's own trailer on youtube.  Am I the last person on earth to know that this happens?

Now that you have watched it and have an inkling of what this book is about, let me move on with my own thoughts about what I am reading.

Jen Hatmaker makes the choice to do this project and document what she finds in order to remove clutter from her mind and her life in order to make room for God and his message.  I think this is awesome. She is on the path to discovering that things, possessions, filling your life and your mind with all this crap only slows you down and impedes you finding your purpose.  Finding why you were born.  You and your own set of talents and gifts were born to do something, to be the best you there is.  To possibly teach or be a lesson for someone else.

But living our lives the way we do with so much STUFF doesn't help us achieve our purpose.  All it does is cloud things over and distract us.

I love how she lays out how each month will work and has her group of women she calls her Council to help her find what the boundaries of each should be.  They also hold her accountable and go on the journey with her each in their own way.

I love how she allows herself the freedom to complain and bend the rules or break them when necessary. And then spend some time reflecting over each decision and find the lesson.

The first month is food.  She did not force her kids to do the first couple of months but then the rest were all done as a whole family.  For the food she worked out a nutritious gang of 7 foods and stuck to it and tried to find recipes to incorporate as many as possible.  The only seasonings, condiments allowed were salt and pepper.  And so Jen opted to make those 7 foods as healthy as possible and bought local, organic and high quality foods.  Her findings over this month were really inspiring.

The second month was clothes.  Holy moly!  I am sure a lot of people are like me and have a huge closet full of things and yet only wear a tiny fraction of what is there.  Jen went through all the closets in her home and guesstimated the amount of items and multiplied that by $20 for each and got a staggering figure of how much money is just hanging there in the closet, unloved, and unneeded.  That's a sobering idea, isn't it?

And let me tell you, I have waaaaay more hanging in my closet than she did!

Right now I am most of the way through her Month 3 of no media, meaning no t.v., no facebook, no texting, no Wii, no screentime except for work and school.  So the family are forced to deal with each other face to face.  They go find things to do, like bike riding, playing ball outside, really good intereactions with each other rather than mindlessly staring at a screen.

I am wondering as I think about the first 3 chapters how this is going to manifest itself in my life.  Am I willing to be this drastic in any area of my life, much less 7 different ones?

I don't know.  I will continue mulling it over and let you know as things unfold.

FINALLY!!!!

Those of you who have been with me since the beginning know what an epiphany this is.  Anyone else, just play along.

Remember how I am a tea hoarder?  You know I have whittled and whittled down my tea stash only to create a tea tin stash?  I can NOT bring myself to throw away perfectly good tins.  I have looked and searched and thought and thought of ways to recycle, reuse those tins and not much has come to mind.

And then I found this  Please, go check out this fabulous recycling blog.  Beautiful, creative and innovative ways to use found objects.

Here are a couple pictures of the tea tin lights

Before:

And after:

Very clever.

New Bed!

Okay, here's Old Lumpy.  I had already put the quilt in the washer and removed all the blankies and was stripping the bed when it dawned on me to take some pics.  So that's why you are seeing Old Lumpy dressed up in 29 year old sheets.  You might further notice that we have a shitload of pillows up there at the top.  Mr. Ed has 3 pillows and I have 4 1/2 pillows.  We do like ourselves some comfy pillows!

Can you see the big high spot in the middle and the two low sinkholes on either side of the place where you get high-centered?

Ooops!  They took the mattress out before I could get a pic of it sans sheets.  Goodbye old box springs!!

Look, here are the brave, strong delivery dudes bringing in the new non-lumpy mattress.  See how they have to park waaaaaay down at the cul-de-sac and then schlepp that bad boy up the drive and then up the stupid steps that are a step-and-a-half wide each?  I hate those stupid step-and-a-half steps.

Here is one of the delivery dudes setting up the new frame.  Pay no attention to all the crap laying around the room while we make room for the removal and set-up.

Here's the new box springs all covered with a clean dust ruffle thing.  Lovely, uninformative photo.

And there's the new mattress!!!  See?  It still has the "Do not remove under penalty of law" tags.  It's all cushy, plushy and comfy!!

My friends Little Eliza and Virtuous Yvette showed up just in time to help me put new sheets on my bed and then try it out.  Don't we look like we worked really hard?  Don't you love my bunny slippers?  Don't you wish Yvette would put her whole self in and quit playing hokey pokey?

Actually, Little Eliza came by and rescued Old Lumpy from the delivery dudes truck and had them load it up on her truck and she took it home with her and it is now a "new" bed for her and her new husband. Yea for recycling and repurposing!!!

And here we have two more satisfied customers trying out the new bed.  Aaaaaahhh!  Can you just feel the relaxation?

Mr. Big Ed and I have spent more hours in the that bed this past weekend than I care to count.

Next purchase needs to be new headboard and nightstands.  Those things are just old and tacky.

Hope you enjoyed perusing the old vs new mattresses in Chez Lisa Pie!

New idea and possible free stuff

Ok, hear me out.  I have an idea that may just work to keep me on task with de-cluttering my life (and my tea pantry).  I am thinking of doing a Give-Away each month to one of you lovely readers.

What would I be giving away, you ask?  I will start with the overflowing teas (only sealed and brand new teas of course.  No half-used old crappy teas for you!) and then move on to whatever else needs to be cleared.  Trust me, we have tea to give out for six months before it is time to look in other cabinets.

I was thinking of the first week of each month for this exciting event.  And guess what?  It IS the first of the month already!

So shoot me a comment here on why you want to be the very first recipient of my tea largesse and I will find a way to randomly pick one of the three of you and then will mail you a lovely package of tea.

Year in Review or the Rear-view mirror

It has been many days since I last posted, and while thinking about what scintillating topic to ramble on about, I thought to myself "Self, remember last year when you made all those resolutions for this year? How did that go?"

So, I went back to the beginning of this year and scoped out the post on what all I was going to accomplish.  (See, the reason I started blogging was to hold myself accountable.  If it is all typed out in black and pink then I need to follow through)

What follows is my list of six items that I thought I could accomplish in 2010 and then I will update with what really happened.

1. My savings account will increase by $20,000. I don't know how do-able this really is, but I am using Sluggy as my motivator. She shot for 60K last year and landed in the 20's, which I think is great work. Now last year I moaned and ranted and bitched about how every time I save $250 for example, I then get a bill for $250, so I am REALLY hoping this is not going to be the case with my $20,000 goal. Please wish me luck and cross something for me.

What happened here is lots and lots of car maintenance.  Sparky's car, Rachel Pie's car and my own car all needed new brakes, tires, I think there were batteries and rotors and heaven only knows what other parts involved.  Also, I took July and August off of birthing since we had the big family cruise and the wedding, so that was loss of income.  Then my Grandma (r.i.p.) got so sick and I had to give away clients for Sept. and Oct. when I went to be with her, so that was more loss of income.  I will end the year with $5,000 in my savings account.  That is a far cry from $20,000.  But at least it is still something to the positive, right?

2. Continue on my Compact goals of lightening my footprint on the Mother Earth. I am going to step up all of my activities to another level and see how that goes. You know the drill, less packaging in the house, less things in the garbage, more in the compost, more things gone to Goodwill, less things brought in to the house in the first place.

This went well.  I really did buy way less.  I did choose things with less packaging.  Our compost heaps over-runneth!  And our garbage cans are hardly ever full.  There is still way too much going into the recycling though.  I would love to find a way to get even that reduced by more than half.  

3. Get started WAAAAAAYY earlier on Christmas and birthday gifts. I did not allow near enough time this year and Harry and David came to the rescue for several gifts. Not good planning on my part. I think lots of gifts this year will be through Heifer and Kiva. But the homemade gifts will be started on in April, I think.

Yeah, not so much.  Again, with the poor planning.  Thank the stars above for Harry and for David.  April would have been a good place to start on gifts, but that didn't happen.  Big fat failure on item number 3.

4. Start walking and find a way to get in much better health and better shape this year. 2 of my high school friends dropped dead this year unexpectedly and I am not only deeply saddened by this, but shocked that 50 year old people who should be in their prime are not. I would really like to be around for a little longer. I have more to accomplish, more to see, and I am not even remotely ready to kick said bucket.

You would think that I would remember this particular item.  But no, I had no recollection of this.  As a matter of fact, a little germ of an idea has been sprouting in my brain that says 2011 will be the year of me. The year that I will take care of me.  The year that I will make myself a priority.  Nay, not A priority, but rather THE priority!  Not even a glimmer that I had thought this very thing a year ago. 

5. Toward the end of better health, I will be doing more of my meal planning and shopping through Greenling our local online green grocer and at the farmers markets. Keeping it local and organic can only be good for all of us.

I did do this.  Not as consistently as I would have liked.  But it was an a-typical year with me being gone for extended lengths of time.  I will plan on doing even better on this in the coming year.  And this goes back to item number 2, all the local green grocer shopping and farmers market shopping have NO plastic involved.

6. Remove 1 full shelf of cookbooks from my collection. There are plenty of them that I have never used. There are plenty more that I only have made 1 single item from. These books need to be set free.

This was a complete success.  I got rid of about 75 books and my shelves have breathing room in them now.  I have not purchased (or been gifted) a single cookbook this year.  I did buy the November Bon Apetit with the new Thanksgiving day recipes to add to my collection.  But that is as close as I came to buying a new cookbook.

If I were grading myself I would give myself:

1. C

2. A

3. F

4. F

5. B

6. A

Horrible.  Now I have to decide what I am going to do for this coming year and how to hold myself accountable in a manner that will really work!  Any ideas?  Do I need to do a monthly or quarterly check-in?

This time of year between Christmas and New Year's is typically a time that I get really introspective and even a little sad, melancholy or sometimes depressed.  And it seemed like the right time to look back and see how I was doing with my goals.  Not very well, it would appear.

Oh, remember the Tea Hoarding Challenge of 2009?  I didn't buy a single tea for the whole calendar year in order to force myself to use up the stockpile of teas already ensconced in my pantry.  Lots of people in my family knew of this and throughout the year of 2010 gifted me teas, like I needed them or something!  And those no good sorry asses at Whole Paycheck Foods stopped having my very favorite morning tea in stock. I bet I went in there 5 or 6 times and spoke to the tea ordering person and gave her my card and asked her to please call me whenever they got re-stocked.  I get really irritated at this store because they carry items and you try them and like them and get used to them and the next thing you know, BAM!  they don't have it anymore.  It's rather like shopping at Costco in that regard!

So I started worrying that maybe Taylor's of Harrogate had quit making the awesome Scottish Breakfast Tea and it wasn't Whole Paycheck Foods' fault that they no longer carried the best tea ever.  And I went online and scoped it out.  

Of course they still make it!  Of course they were perfectly willing to sell it to me and ship it over here from Merry Ole England!  Even with the shipping it would still be comparable to WF price.  So I quit panicking and decided that I would order some as soon as my current tea stash went down. 

Meanwhile, my sister went on the hunt and sent me a box for Christmas.  (She had previously sent me a different tea, 2 gorgeous tea cups and a tea towel for my birthday) And my husband, Mr. Big Ed, got me a package of SIX BOXES of the famous Scottish Breakfast Tea for Christmas!!!  So I currently have 7 boxes of my favorite morning tea.  

Have I mentioned that each of these boxes contains 50 bags?  By anyone's estimations this is a year's supply of tea.  So!  No more tea buying for me.  I have yet to make my list of resolutions, but suffice it to say there will be no tea shopping for me in 2011.  : )

Next week I will post my list of 2011 resolutions and maybe motivation and memory-boosting need to be at the top of that list?

What time is it?

I have shared my tea hoarding collection with y'all.  And I have shared my penchant for collecting all sorts of crap.  Yesterday I shared just a bit of my aunt's beautiful museum quality nurse collection.  Not actual nurses, but nurse's stuff.

When I got to my Grandma's place, I was so tired from my trek through the forest being followed by the Big Bad Wolf that I immediately took off my red riding cloak and  . . . . spied this!

I know, you are wonderin what the hell is this a photo of!  This little table has 4, count them 4 watches sitting in front of the phone.  Just above the phone on the shelf thing is yet another watch.  And what is that right to the left of the watch?  It's a digital clock!

Here is a closer-up shot of the watches.

And then . . .

Hanging on the wall to the immediate right of the digital clock and watch, what do we have here?

Why, it's a regular clock!

But wait!  If we look to the left what would we find?

A faux-stained-glass clock featuring one of 323,345,657,856 dachshunds that Grandma has collected in her lifetime.  You might notice that the wiener dog clock is not keeping time with all the other watches and clocks!

I thought it was hilarious that the resting spot for Grandma's watches was right smack in the middle of 3 different ways to see what time it is.

As a matter of fact, I am still chuckling over that!

Cleaning, Anti-Hoarding & General Stuff

I have been bitten by the "get rid of excess crap" bug.  Call it Spring Cleaning or what-have-you, I am ready to pitch stuff.  There have been times when I have worried about stuff going to a good home, whatever that means, but now?  Not so much.

Here is the plan:  With many apologies ahead of time to whoever I stole this idea from, because I don't remember where I got it!  I will concentrate on one area each month.  I have written up a list of each room/area and assigned it a month.  During that month this area will get cleaned up, cleaned out, paint touched up, anything that needs fixing will get fixed, anything that needs replacing will be replaced.  I think this is very do-able.

There are 2 weeks left in January and since I have already removed 65 cookbooks from the shelves here in the office, I will continue in the office for the rest of the month.  We have a HUGE box we are filling up with cds, books, and movies to go to the Half-Price Book Store.  It will be nice to have money coming IN  from that place instead of always going OUT!  : )

January - Office
Feb. - Living/Dining Rooms
Mar. - Family Room/Bar/ Closet

That's the order for this quarter.  The garage will be done in the month we have our semi-annual brush and large item pick-up.  The city has twice a year large items and brush pick-up where you leave all that stuff out at the curb and they come take it all.  Dead appliances?  Yes!  All the brush and limbs you can trim?  Why, yes of course!  Boxes of old garage crap like paint cans and such?  Certainly!

You can't ask for a better deal than this.  So, to the person who told me about using the room a month system, THANK YOU SO MUCH!!  This fits my personality to a tee.