Finding a balance

It's Spring!

Finally.

This may have been the longest winter of my life. Maybe it's having 3 small kids cooped up inside for a whole winter? Maybe it's because of the ongoing illnesses that have plagued our house? I've never really had too much trouble with winter before. I wasn't one that felt like I needed a beach vacation in the middle of January. I sort of liked the sight of newly fallen snow in the backyard. A couple of magazines and a hot cup of coffee to curl up with was fine with me. A sort of permission to rest it seemed. But this year it has taken me so long to feel rested.

I have a fairly simple life. I try to not to overcommit. But apparently I have been doing too much. Stress and overdoing it has caught up with me. I have gotten so sick that in some ways I feel like I'm throwing in the towel by reducing my committments. Maybe that's what it takes sometimes?

A sort of wake-up call?

It becomes a vicious circle of sorts. Too much stress weakens your immune system, that causes stress, that causes depression and round and round it goes. My doctor suggested anti-depressents, but I said I wouldn't be depressed if I wasn't sick.

So, either way I need to shake things up. After six weeks of being sick I'm finally feeling better. So now I'm ready to get rid of some unnecessary stuff. I'm reducing my hours at work and hopefully going to get rid of some clutter around the house. 

I'm going to try to focus on the most basic of things.

Simple pleasures, good food, good rest, basic exercise, and fresh air.

Hopefully Spring is here to stay for a while.

Craziness and the love of thrift stores

March is here.
How did that happen?
Having 3 kids is pure craziness sometimes. This winter has been a back and forth of sicknesses bounced between each family member. Sometimes it starts to wear on me mentally. There is so much packed into each action packed day, and that's just with normal committments, that there doesn't seem to be any time for extra things like being sick. We're trying to eat better, rest more, and wash little hands a little more. I'm also looking forward to being able to send the boys out to the sandbox and open some windows to let in some fresh air.

I've tried to make a few quick trips to the local thrift shop to check for fun little surprises. I found this great bird picture/collage recently that I couldn't resist. A fun little spring addition to the decor.

January

After reading all the inspiring blogs and looking at all the pretty pictures on tumblr I've come to a sort of revelation.

No matter how much decorating or remodeling I do, it won't matter much if we are surrounded by clutter and mess.

It doesn't matter how many boxes or plastic bins we buy, there is way too much stuff around here.

My husband and I are slowly going through the corners and piles of stuff we've aquired in about 10 years....and getting rid of lots. Some is being donated, some will hopefully be sold this spring at a yard sale, and lots is being thrown away or recycled.

I'm still aquiring things here and there at thrift stores, but I'm trying to be a little more selective about my purchases.

With three little kids running around it's sometimes hard to find the time to go through all the stuff, but we are working in little hour long shifts here and there.
I'm hoping by July most of the excess will be long gone.

So after being inspired over and over again by photos and posts about pretty rooms I've realized we'll never get there if we don't starting cleaning and organizing.

Hooray for January and the hopes it brings!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We had a little impromptu Thanksgiving celebration here last week. My husband again managed to put together all the basics....some homemade (the turkey and potatoes) and some premade (the Stove-Top stuffing & the Mrs. Smith's pumpkin pie)....and made it look so easy. We put a couple of leaves in our table, brought out the good linens and silverware. My parents came over and it was a nice and quiet, little lunch. Sometimes it's good to just keep things simple. (We found the little thanksgiving owls here.)

So much to be thankful for!

A 3rd Birthday!

We recently celebrated our youngest son's 3rd birthday. He's such a sweet boy who is so easy to please. I was putting him to bed the other night and as I rubbed his back he sighed and said, "Mom, you mine best friend."

tumblr love

A while a go I started paying more attention to some of the inspiring tumblr blogs. I used to have a little obsession with magazines. I collected the Martha Stewart magazines for years. I had several other favorites. Before we had kids and had a little extra money floating around I used to go to the local Barnes and Noble and spend too much money on good coffee and British and Australian decorating magazines. I hoarded old Bon Appetits and Food and Wines. I even forced my husband to move my stash of magazines to our current home.
It got a little ridiculous so I started some binders to save my favorite pages - And then I recycled all of the stacks and stacks. I have one binder devoted to recipes and one to decorating ideas.
I still get a couple magazines to have something to browse through in the evenings if I get a chance to sit down, but when I ran across some of the beautiful and inspiring tumblr blogs I was hooked!
I started one of my own so I could reblog some of the cool stuff I see. I feel sort of bad because I don't really contribute any new ideas, but there are so many talented people out there contributing so many beautiful images and inspiring ideas! It's a great way to save some inspirations and not have to hoard magazines any more.