Just a Little Sand (Nurturing Thursday)

December 3, 2015 · 8 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Last year my houseplants got infested with gnats. I tried repotting the plants, but there were so many gnats flying around the house that they soon colonized the new potting soil. My husband tried setting out cups of apple cider vinegar to trap the gnats, which didn’t do anything other than make the house smell like vinegar. What finally got rid of the gnats was covering the potting soil with a few inches of sand. The plants are thriving now, the annoying gnats are totally gone, and as a bonus I don’t need to water as often because the sand cover keeps the moisture in the soil longer.
 

Healthy pothos plant in a black pot. 

Often that’s the way of things—a problem starts with something tiny and grows to seem hugely annoying, which leads to making the situation worse by putting time and effort into bothersome fixes that don’t work, but all we really need to do is to spread just a little sand over our worries!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Freezer Liberation Day (Clutter Comedy)

November 29, 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Tomorrow my daughter starts her new job in Cleveland. She came home for a year and a half after graduating from college, while she got some work experience and saved up money toward getting ready to move out. We did not charge her any rent, but she tried to help out by doing some grocery shopping. She tends toward impulse buying, though, and my freezer is now full of random stuff that never got eaten.
 

Freezer drawers crammed full. 

I think it’s very unlikely she would want the ancient Fla-Vor-Ice that’s buried under one of those heaps, and I am sure she has totally forgotten about most of what she put in the freezer. Still, just to be polite, before she gets on the road this afternoon I’ll ask if she wants to take any of that stuff with her. I expect most of it will be on the curb tomorrow evening for Tuesday’s trash pickup, though.

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Silence (Nurturing Thursday)

November 26, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

I had a quiet Wednesday at home because I took vacation before Thanksgiving, while my husband had to go to work. My daughter was back from Cleveland, but she took the dog to the groomer’s and had lunch with a friend. Then, instead of peaceful thoughts, my mind started filling up with “shoulds” — today I have plenty of free time, so I should work on a story project, write my Nurturing Thursday post in advance, do some Christmas shopping online, clean the bathroom mirrors…

But the early afternoon sun coming in my back windows felt so nice and comfortable, I just closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the silence. The mental clutter drifted away like dandelion fluff on the wind. I went out to the backyard, took a deep breath of fresh air that felt pleasantly mild for late November, and noticed that a few pink snapdragons were still blooming.
 

Pink snapdragons still blooming in late November. 

I took a photo and uploaded it to my blog for a draft post; but rather than trying to hurry, I deliberately left the post half-finished and allowed myself to enjoy having an afternoon and evening with nothing much to do. After my family ran the Turkey Trot this morning, I lazed around the house for a while before sitting down to write the rest of this entry. I’m feeling much refreshed now, and wishing a happy and stress-free Thanksgiving to all my readers!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Falling from the Clouds

November 24, 2015 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Last night I dreamed that I went on a road trip with my husband. We had to cross a bridge that was so high it reached up into the clouds. Once we got up there, we couldn’t see anything at all besides the thick fog—no lane markers, no other cars.
 

Cars crossing a bridge on a foggy day.

(Creative Commons image via flickr)
 

Then all of a sudden we went over the side of the bridge and started falling! At first I panicked, but then I thought, “Hey, wait a minute, this has to be a dream because bridges have guardrails.” After that I woke up, found myself in my own cozy bed, and all was well.

So—maybe my subconscious mind was telling me not to worry about the unknown future because it’s not really as scary as it might look. No matter where I go, there will always be guardrails keeping me safe, whether or not I can see them.

Cuckoo! (Clutter Comedy)

November 22, 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

One of the decorative items in my family’s previous house was a tall clock that looked like an antique grandfather clock, though it was really just a cheap replica. We brought it with us when we moved, but the color clashed with the woodwork, and anyway it didn’t last very long at our new house before the machinery broke. My husband put it in the basement. He looked at it a few times over the years to see whether he could fix it, but had no success, and it wouldn’t have been worth paying for repairs.
 

Broken grandfather clock in the basement.

We finally got rid of it last week after it had been taking up space in the basement for over a decade. Although it wasn’t in fact a cuckoo clock, the word “cuckoo!” came to mind anyway when I thought about how we had left obviously useless clutter sitting around for that long!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Empty Space

November 21, 2015 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

My daughter rented a two-bedroom apartment in Cleveland, although she does not have a roommate. The main reason seems to be that she wants to use the second bedroom as a giant walk-in closet to accommodate her extravagant shopping habits, which I illustrated on this blog last summer with a photo of the closet in my entryway, totally full of her coats and shoes.

Although her original plan was to move out last year, it did not happen then, which probably was for the best because staying here another year gave her time to save up some money and get a clearer idea of what she wanted to do. But now she is gone and the closet is empty, except for a few hangers; all its overflowing contents got packed into large cardboard boxes for a one-way trip.
 

Closet with nothing in it but hangers. 

Sometime in the near future I’m going to clean the closet floor and polish the woodwork. Then I’ll paint the walls a nice bright color to get rid of the scuff marks from being piled high with all those pairs of shoes.

One thing I’ve learned from cleaning up clutter around the house is the value of empty space. People tend to think about their stuff mainly in terms of buying more of it, and about empty areas in terms of what else can be put there; but I would say that a comfortable house needs to have enough empty space so that everyone can move around easily and find their stuff when they want it.

Gone Fetching (Nurturing Thursday)

November 19, 2015 · 6 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Back during the summer, I got rid of a dog bed that Diva Dog totally refused to sleep in (as I mentioned here). My daughter bought another bed in a style more to the dog’s liking and put it next to a wall where the dog often napped. It has the words “Gone Fetching” in the middle, though you can’t see them in this photo with the dog snoozing there.
 

Dog sleeping on a red mat next to a wall. 

Bed, dog, and daughter left for Cleveland this morning, although they’ll be back for a Thanksgiving visit before my daughter starts her new job at the end of the month. It seemed very quiet around the house today. I took the garden fountain off the porch and put it away for the winter because this weekend is forecast to be much colder. In life as in nature, everything changes…

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

Something Missing (Clutter Comedy)

November 15, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Many years ago, my kids played Nintendo 64 and Xbox games in a comfortable nook in the basement, sitting on beanbags. The old TV that they used is long gone. More recently, my son helped himself to the TV stand, leaving an empty spot in the basement. But it’s not quite empty, because there are still old squashed beanbags, disconnected speakers, and game stuff down there.
 

beanbags 

I’ll ask whether anyone in my family wants the beanbags and speakers before I get rid of them, but I tend to doubt it because they’ve been in the same spot without anyone using them for so long. More likely, everyone just got used to seeing them in that area and paid no attention to them—which is, of course, the usual way that a house ends up with clutter!

About Clutter Comedy: Every Sunday (which I envision as a day of rest after a productive week of de-cluttering) I post a Clutter Comedy article describing my most memorable clutter discovery of the week. Other bloggers who wish to join in are welcome—just post a link in the comments! There’s no need to publish any “before” photos of your clutter, if they are too embarrassing. The idea is simply to get motivated to clean it up, while having a bit of fun too!

Fragments of Past Selves

November 13, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags: ,

I spent some time on Tuesday reading old stories and blog posts that I wrote years ago, along with other people’s writings on a website I once enjoyed that is no longer active. Maybe it was the damp, chilly feel of a dark November afternoon that put me into this reflective mood, gathering fragments of past selves like autumn leaves fallen from bare branches.
 

Bush with bare branches in front of a brick wall. 

I’ve had similar feelings in the past as winter drew near; but this year they seemed different, more peaceful and natural somehow. Rather than worrying that I had lost my creative spark, moping about the loss of online friends who had found other interests, or trying to force myself to work on current projects, I quietly acknowledged the feelings while knowing that they soon would pass. I didn’t judge the merits of my current writing by comparison with my past efforts, nor did I turn a critical eye on my previous work. All that happened, simply put, was that I spent a little time visiting with myself.

When I started composing this post, I wrote the word “melancholy” in the first paragraph instead of “reflective” to describe these feelings because that was how I thought of them in past years. I suspected they might be unhealthy—perhaps a symptom of seasonal depression? I didn’t know where they came from, what purpose they served, or why they might be showing up at this particular time of year.

Then I edited the post because I don’t believe that anymore. On the contrary, it seems likely that some of the stress I felt in past years was a consequence of not taking enough time to pause and reflect. Because our culture pushes us so hard to be active and productive at all times, it can feel unsettling to step aside from all those to-dos and spend more than a few minutes looking back on past experiences. But now, on these short, dark days when my inner voice speaks of quiet reflection, I trust that it has its reasons.

Uncertainty (Nurturing Thursday)

November 12, 2015 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

My husband occasionally buys rubber band balls to put in the desk drawer. When they’re new, the drawer looks neatly organized, with enough rubber bands to last for many years. But they don’t really last that long because as time goes on, the bands start coming off the ball and getting all over the drawer, and the rubber gets hard and brittle.
 

Rubber band ball coming loose and sprawling across the desk drawer. 

Last night I didn’t know what I was going to post for Nurturing Thursday. I started to feel anxious—what if I couldn’t think of anything good? It seemed so much easier last week when I had the post written and scheduled in advance, leaving no uncertainty.

Then I realized that such worries made no sense because a personal blog post is supposed to be a snapshot of where the author is in the present, which means there never can be much certainty. If I wrote everything far in advance like some commercial sites, I would just get bored, and the posts would feel as useless and irrelevant to my actual circumstances as old worn-out rubber band balls!

Nurturing Thursday was started by Becca Givens and seeks to “give this planet a much needed shot of fun, support and positive energy.” Visit her site to find more Nurturing Thursday posts and a list of frequent contributors.

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