Meg Evans

When I started writing weekly Good Things posts in March, after giving my house a thorough decluttering, I wanted to cultivate a mindset of finding cheerful little surprises everywhere. Clutter causes feelings of stagnation and blocked mental energy, making it hard to plan for—or even to notice—anything better amidst the junk. Conversely, good things naturally show up when there is room for them.

So I set myself a weekly task of appreciating one new and positive thing every week in a blog entry, with particular attention to anything that might not have turned up if I’d still had heaps of clutter in the way. The posts were meant in the same spirit as a gratitude journal, to focus on the little things that modern people take for granted while rushing through our busy, overscheduled lives. Even though we may not realize it when we get stressed and distracted, we’re actually sitting on heaps of abundance. So, we should just relax and enjoy the ride!

When I considered what to write about today, having plenty of time to spontaneously enjoy fun activities was what kept coming to mind. I already wrote a post on that topic back in the spring, and I didn’t want to get repetitive. Then I decided that after writing five months’ worth of articles in this series, I probably could give myself credit for doing a decent job of training my brain to notice the good stuff. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t let myself relax for a while and enjoy what’s left of the summer weather, rather than always having a task-oriented blogging schedule.

Although this will be the last post in the Good Things series, I’ll keep on writing about good things when they come to mind!

This week seemed like it went by pretty quickly—late summer always feels that way! As for good things showing up, well, it was a quiet, peaceful week, which is generally a good thing. Not much out of the ordinary, though, with the small exception that I bought a pack of steak knives.

The old knives had gotten dull, with faded handles, so I’m sure they must have been around for many years. Worn-out things like that often get overlooked, although they are mildly annoying. It’s not until after they have been replaced that the contrast between old and new becomes much sharper, as with the steak knives themselves.

* Good Things is a weekly series featuring the many unexpected joyful things that show up when clutter and stagnation have been cleared away. It’s meant as a reminder that life is always full of happy little surprises, when there’s enough space for them!

My family got new mobile phones recently when we got to the end of a two-year plan. Because technology is advancing so quickly now, there’s always something new and better to discover when upgrading phones and other gadgets, even if it has been only two years. The screen resolution is much improved over the old phones, making the images crisper and the text easier to read. This is my husband’s phone with a little mirrored image of my phone taking a photo:

For those of us who are old enough to remember when a phone was a big clunky thing with a mechanical dial and a real bell, hard-wired into the wall and never changing at all from one year to the next, it sure is amazing what we literally have at our fingertips now.

* Good Things is a weekly series featuring the many unexpected joyful things that show up when clutter and stagnation have been cleared away. It’s meant as a reminder that life is always full of happy little surprises, when there’s enough space for them!

My oven gets cleaned regularly because my husband is so well organized, he sets calendar reminders to turn on the self-cleaning cycle. That makes it much easier because there is very little ash to wipe up afterward. But I have to admit that when it comes to oven mitts, I don’t have that level of organization. Last week I realized that it had been about five years since I bought oven mitts and, well, they looked like it. So I got new ones when I bought groceries on Thursday.

Now the kitchen is looking brighter with new oven mitts instead of the old faded ones, which were still functional but had a few rips and stains. Small kitchen items like that are cheap, so I wasn’t trying to save money by not replacing them sooner; I just hadn’t given it any thought. It makes more of a difference than it might seem, though, because when we regularly see shabby worn-out stuff we’re subconsciously left with feelings of lack and stagnation. Bright new little things coming into the house make it feel like there’s plenty of abundance and good cheer!

* Good Things is a weekly series featuring the many unexpected joyful things that show up when clutter and stagnation have been cleared away. It’s meant as a reminder that life is always full of happy little surprises, when there’s enough space for them!