Packing Boxes and Fluffing Pillows

We made up and sent out a box to Decluttr, and I just packed a box for Twice Clothing. I (almost) don't care what monetary offer each shipment earns - removing unused or unusable (to me) items from my home and my life is payment in itself. 

Small, bitty steps to making my routine and my home what I want it to be. We're currently (not exactly by choice) on a very tight budget - and while it's not fun it can also feel good. I have started exercising (again) and thinking intentionally about good food portion size and content.  Even smaller things, like making the bed each early morning so I can walk back into a tidy room later in the day, are currently making my life better. 

What small, intentional (even sacrificial?) things do you do or can you do to make your personal life a little brighter?

Home Life.

I had a wonderful weekend and barely left my house. Many thanks are owed to Hubs for reminding me that sometimes it is okay to turn down all social invitations and focus on what is dearest and nearest - home life. 

Those two words: home life - have to come to have a definite meaning and purpose in my life in the past year and a half. I may have mentioned before that I am in love with the home that Nathan and I live in. The days or evenings I get to spend just "putzing" [is that still a word anyone uses??] never feel wasted to me. I enjoy decorating, cleaning, fixing, and living in this house.

What's the point in carrying a mortgage on a home we never spend time in or investing our love and thought in? No point at all I tell you

I love to be at home. 

One of many random thoughts as Sunday evening ends. Revisiting this blogging thing feels so good. 

-DB

Two days and five theatres later, and I have had one response.  It was to say they would keep my resume on file.  Best part: note in the email that he saw a play I SMed and it was "superb"!  Lovely accomplishment to have my work be memorable.

~DB

Hustlin'

I put in an eight hour day at the box office, and then decided it was time to stop dreaming and start hustling.  I have written emails and submitted resumes to four different theatres this evening, with three of them being new ones for me.  My last show in any production capacity was almost a year ago.  I'm good at what I do in my [two] current day jobs, but it's time to get out there.  It's time to face my fears of transportation, money [lack of], failure, and career and just do what I love, as much as I can, and see where it takes me.

~DB

Unauthored.

"Find your theme."

"Find your brand."

"Don't confuse your readers - pick a message and stick with it."

A quick Google or Pinterest search for blogging prompts offers these suggestions and I find them all discouraging. I miss writing for the sake of writing - when writing was a personal emotional release.

I hadn't thought about it for a long time, but over lunch last week I told a friend that I used to write short stories, poems, and essays constantly from early childhood through adolescence. She said, "aaw, do you want to pick it back up?"  And I felt sad inside as I said, "I'm not sure I would know how."

I don't know what to say - but I always feel like there is something to be said. How did I get so locked up inside?

Part of me wants to dive back into the digital pages of this familiar friend, my blog of [a sporadic] six-ish years, and part of me wants to start all over with a blank title and draft list.

I have unauthored, aching thoughts yet I have nothing of note to say.

~DB

Why Would I Accept My Worst, Anyway?

There's been an article circulating The Face Book for a couple days that I finally got around to clicking on. The previewed topic greatly interested me.  There's a certain "empowerment" quote I see a lot that has always bothered me but I could never define why.  You'll find out all about it if you follow the link. Thank you to this man for hitting the nail on the head.  

If I Can't Accept You at Your Worst, Then Maybe You Should Stop Being So Horrible

Doesn't it all come down to, treat others as you would want to be treated?  If you would never accept mediocre love and care from a partner or friend, why tell them they have to accept it from you? 

My favourite part of Walsh's argument was this excerpt: 

"Love is a transformative force, and if you want to experience it you better be ready to change in every way imaginable. My wife does not "accept me," and thank God for that. She challenges me. She makes me better. In other words, she loves me.

What kind of a pathetic and dreary goal is that, anyway -- just wanting to be "accepted," tolerated, put up with? That's not why we're put on this planet. Life is not about gaining "acceptance." Life is change. It is not static and stagnant, do you really want your relationships to be?"

Thoughts?  May we strive for more than acceptance...

-DB

Where The New Year Has Found Me

For the first time since I'm-not-sure-when, I have not made any new year's resolutions or changes.  Maybe because 2013 was a year of so much change in my life (husband, house, work, etc.) I'm not really identifying with the "new year, new you" thing that usually launches late December and fizzles throughout January.

Kudos to those of you who are finding and striving towards a "new you"!  Nothing wrong at all with that.  It's nice to have a built-in motivator for our lives at least once a year.  But in my personal journey at the moment, I am being found with exactly the kind of contentment I always hoped for.

Life as a wife in the past 11 months and some odd days has taught me that for both the sake of yourself and your partner changes, goals, and growth have to be encountered daily.  From tasks some times mundane to other times exciting, building a [healthy] home together requires a lot of work.  I can't stop to think about that work only once a year just because the fanfare tells me I should.

For the bloggy friends who don't follow us on other platforms, here is our Christmas 2013 picture.  I wish you happiness and the best YOU you can be in 2014!

~DB

 

This Started As A Status

I read an article* the other day about a gal who wanted to purge her entire Facebook timeline history. Her main theory was that the very nature of social media is that most of our posts become irrelevant after a certain amount of time.  I don't disagree with her, but I won't be combing through a five year timeline in order to stay "relevant".  After all, another perspective is that things such as are Facebook are our generation’s chronicle of our lives, however mundane they may look time from time, they are no less important or relevant later on.  I think that is why one should try to utilize some analysis before deciding what is worth (to you) “sharing” in the first place; because in some way or another it becomes a permanent part of that chronicle.

This article did however reignite a certain desire I have from time to time to digitally purge.  Online photo albums in particular spark a love-hate relationship within me.  While I certainly want to have a way to easily look back at milestones, I don’t necessarily want to relive painful milestones, see familiar faces that are now distant/dead relationships, or just realize how many mundane selfies I felt necessary to share with my digital community.  If I do edit or delete these digital memories, am I exercising the right to preserve memories only of my choosing, or am I doing what no generation before me has had the particular privilege of doing: deleting and editing undesirable perspectives of themselves?

What about this very blog, last updated months ago and started years ago.  By posting in it, I’m giving both you and myself an accessible avenue to cull over pages of thoughts, some of which I might decide I wish I hadn’t published to cyberspace (because obviously you have nothing better to do than cull over blog entries dating back almost eight years. :-) ).  If I choose to delete some of said entries, am I being selfishly selective, or prudent? After all, isn’t self-respect some of the most important respect there is?

Looking over (and even deleting) some items today has led me to think that sometimes I don’t necessarily need to  “delete” but rather to refocus.  And that’s not just with digital items, but with the intangible, the mental, and the emotional.   While eternally valuable, as is anything that shapes us, are certain memories and personal monuments necessarily relevant or profitable?

So what do YOU think?  Would you spend hours like the writer I referenced proposed: editing, pruning, and altogether deleting your online history in order to feel "cleansed"? Or has it all been out there from day one and will continue to be unashamedly so?  And is all this talk of editing, deleting, and sharing really a metaphor for our cluttered mental and emotional lives?

~DB

*"I Decided To Delete All My Facebook Activity" via Slate by Jennifer Golbeck