August 21, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

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!

Dog sitting on a big heap of bones in a car.

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.

Package of four 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:

Samsung phone reflecting another phone taking a photo of it.

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!

July 31, 2016 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

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.

Pair of red oven mitts on the kitchen counter.

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!

July 25, 2016 · Write a comment · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Last year my husband gave up caffeine to improve his health. He bought decaf K-cups, but some of the flavors were not that interesting. And what’s the point of drinking decaf unless the flavor is good enough to get the morning off to a good start? So, last week he bought an assortment of decaf Crazy Cups, which have fun flavors like “Death by Chocolate” and “Frosted Oatmeal Cookie.”

K-cup carousel with assorted "Crazy Cups" decaf.

I like them too; and although I haven’t given up caffeine, I do agree it’s best not to overdo the stuff, and having a variety of options is always good!

* 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!

July 17, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

This past week was rather quiet. On Friday, my husband added a jug of vinegar to the grocery list, for cleaning the hard water stains off our boat. I wondered what sort of sponges to use. Plain soft sponges might not get those spots off, but kitchen scrub sponges might be too harsh and leave scratches on the carbon fiber. So I looked around at the supermarket and found a pack of “Delicate Care” scrub sponges.

One sponge in an open pack of three Scotch-Brite "Delicate Care" scrub sponges.

The hard water spots came off quickly and easily, with no problems. And that left me thinking—sometimes it’s useful that our consumer economy has so many varieties of whatever we might want. Although everyday items can end up as clutter if we’re not careful, buying the right tool for the job doesn’t always mean it will end up in a heap of stuff that never gets used again. What’s needed is a healthy balance.

* 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!

July 10, 2016 · 6 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

Earlier this year, I put a box of store-brand facial tissues in my bathroom because the supermarket gave some away for free to get people to try them. I wasn’t much impressed. The box had a plain, boring design, and the tissues felt coarse and hard. When I needed a tissue, I usually went and got a Kleenex from somewhere else in the house instead. That box sat on the bathroom counter for months.

When the freebie tissues finally got used up, I bought some real Kleenex in a box with cheerful summer colors, which immediately made the bathroom feel like a brighter and happier place.

Kleenex tissues in a blue, green, and white box on my bathroom counter.

And then I wondered why the heck I hadn’t done it sooner. Avoiding waste may generally be a virtue, but using up every one of those cheap tissues the supermarket gave away while they left my bathroom looking blah for months was taking frugality to an extreme!

* 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!

July 3, 2016 · 2 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

On the same general topic of workout gear as last week’s post, I may as well mention sports bras; I bought two yesterday. Okay, they’re just underwear, but I would put them in the category of good new things about the modern world because it wasn’t all that long ago when women did not have them.
 

Two new sports bras with the tags still on. 

Back when it wasn’t as common for girls and women to exercise regularly and be involved in sports, manufacturers thought there wouldn’t be a market for sports bras. Active women just had to get sweaty in their uncomfortable regular bras or do without. And when sports bras were first designed, they weren’t much different from regular bras—sturdier and less frilly, but still not comfortable for a long workout.

Nowadays both the design and the material of sports bras have been greatly improved since the primitive ones we had 20 or 30 years ago. There’s actually a lot of engineering work that goes into creating a modern sports bra. And, they come in cheerful assorted colors too, rather than just looking like plain boring old-fashioned underwear. So I’d say they deserve a little appreciation!

* 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!

June 27, 2016 · 6 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

My husband ordered new rowing shorts for both of us last week because the ones we had were getting past their useful life. After being washed so many times, the padding in the rear end (for sitting on those hard little seats in the boats) was getting squashed in some areas and bunched up in others. They were riding up all the time, and I kept having to tug them down. Not fun. It’s much nicer having workout gear that fits properly!

Two pairs of black rowing shorts, women's and men's.

We kind of realized the old shorts didn’t have much life left at the start of the season, but because they wore out so gradually, we didn’t know how much better the new ones would be until we put them on. That’s often how it is with many things, and why it’s important to look around every now and again, paying attention to what might need to be replaced.

* 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!

June 20, 2016 · 4 comments · Categories: Musings · Tags:

On Wednesday, I tidied my daughter’s room because we are getting the house refinanced and the appraisers were coming on Thursday morning. The room wasn’t too much of a mess, but she does tend to leave shopping bags and other stuff on the floor when she visits from Cleveland because she’s often in a rush. The room looked much neater with the bags in the closet and the carpet vacuumed.

Blue carpet, just vacuumed, with closet doors and a corner of a bed in the background.

Because our existing mortgage dates back to before the recession, we’d have done better to refinance before now, so as to get more benefit from today’s low interest rates. But when the house was full of clutter a few years ago, we didn’t feel as motivated to get things done generally. There was so much that needed our attention, it left us feeling overwhelmed. Now everything feels like it’s going much more smoothly—not just a better-organized house, but tidy finances too!

* 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!