april chaos

I need to write this down here so that I can "allow myself" to be okay with the fact that I must freeze my weekly projects for the month of April.

We are coming off a whirlwind of a weekend: Lyndon's 1st birthday, Easter, studying (sorta), relatives in town, and top it off today with Tan & I's anniversary. (**more on that later).

As I look at my syllabi for my courses & scratch my head in wonder of how I am ever on this earth find the time to complete papers & projects...I must officially take a hiatus on Minimalism 2012 til that last final is taken. May 2nd, it's on!!! I will jump back into this self-proclaimed duty with a BIG purge! Can't wait!

Did I mention on this blog (that no one reads) that I am pregnant again? Yea, there's that, too. My headaches, nausea, and lethargic days are high. Seriously, did I just get super lucky with my first pregnancy? All I dealt with then was light nausea and a sciatic nerve!

**Ok, so today I commemorate the day Tanner & I took the big leap. April 10, 2010, really was a gorgeous day. And it's the day my "new" life began! I won't talk all butterflies & lilies and say it has been day after day of endless bliss. (ha!) But I will say that Tan and I make a pretty dern good team.

It's not a grand, romantic love song when you talk about true love. Poetry & music are wonderful, but let's talk about daily living. Love is a whole lotta little things strewn together....when you look up, you have a gorgeous tapestry.

Case in point, two nights ago (Easter & our baby's bday) we were wrapping up the busy, busy day. I was feeling just plain awful. My headache was at a peak and the fact that I had gotten about 4 hrs sleep (no exaggeration) the night before was catching up with me.

Tan's brother called around 6 pm with a very out-of-the-ordinary proposal: He had scored some CLUBhouse Thunder tickets, no fee to Tanner...game was starting right then. Tanner didn't even flinch. I heard him quietly say as he stepped out of the room, "Lisa isn't feeling well, I need to stay here with the boy. Sorry, Jason."

How my heart did melt in that instant.

Of course I couldn't let him do that. "Tanner, if you wanna go, by all means GO! I can manage."

He looked at my sincerely, "Are you SURE? I don't think that's a good idea..." To give ya the Cliff's Notes, I talked him into it. And I am so glad I did.

Now, my hubs is a smart man. However, he married a smart woman. ;) I'd spot reverse psychology in a heartbeat, and he meant what he said in that first response to his brother. That's love, folks.

Minimalism #9

Well, it's official: This past week, I dropped the ball on my official commitment to minimizing the "stuff" in my life. I am sitting here racking my brain to see if there is anything that can count.

But I've played that game too much the past few weeks. Realizing after the fact that I did indeed purge something.

No, starting anew, it needs to be an activity that was done with conscience effort.

Oh, alas!! I can justify something!! Before I get too nit-picky with myself, how could I forget when it is staring me in the face!! :)

We have a "front table" as we call it; it sits right by the front door. Junk tends to multiply in the lone drawer. Coupons, mail we "might need" later, marriage license(s), winter gloves, insurance cards, gum wrappers, paper clips, expired coupons, TONS of address labels all those nonprofits send ya, stamps.

The list goes on. About every 3 months, we realize we can no longer smoothly close said drawer. And, yes, important stuff ends up lost among total clutter.

So...when I needed Lyndon's SS card the other day, I knew that drawer could be harboring it. Thus, I began dumping the content & I ended up doing a drawer purge! I did something for my year goal!

I guess most importantly, I de-cluttered the front drawer. The Hubbert home is still quite messy these days (and, yes, I will blame it on my everyday sickness, constant homework, and finding time with Lyndon to be more important...because obviously I am a justifier & blamer on many fronts, heehee) but darn it, we have a newly-organized drawer!

Minimalism #8

Ok, this may be stretching the rules a tad.....the bottom line is that I dropped the ball on my minimalistic visions last week.

However, Sunday rolled around & we technically did some major throwing away. Kenny, Kevin, Tanner, & I did a complete overhaul on the garden! Yeah! It is that time of year!!!

See, I think I can technically add this feat because there is so much more than just leaves & dead plants that we pruned out.

Our yard tends to gather ALL of the debris from the street. We have a brush-type thing that divides us from our eastside neighbors. Thus, we get everything from Sonic cups to cereal boxes intertwined in the bushes. No lie. It gets pretty trashy.

So, it's ALL cleaned out & ready for planting! If I could just get past this amazingly AWFUL allergy bout I am having, I would hop to it. Seriously, shots have cured me & when I get super sick with allergies, there must be some awful, awful stuff going on outside. As I write this, I am next to a bedroom window and I can hear that wind howling.

Gotta go get our taxes done in a bit & I am honestly scared to leave the house. I was so sick last night at my class that I finally had to just leave because the sneezing was nonstop....and due to some stomach issues that were coinciding, I just knew that whole situation could end very badly for me. ;P

Ok, so last week was a stretch (and it was technically Sunday) but I'm countin' it and moving on.

Hmmm, what will THIS week's project be? Thinkin' a possible Half Price Books trip...

Minimalism #7

Again, Saturday night came 'round and I had not gotten rid of anything...except the mounting pile of schoolwork that was stressing me!

So, as I sat on the bed of our newly-restored (ie, cleaned out) guest room--which is where I am doing homework these days because now I can actually get to our printer-- I noticed a very cluttered bookshelf. I knew it was mostly my junk and not only could I get it clean...I could throw out more clutter & meet my weekly goal!

Man, the weekly goal thing is GREAT for me. A little project like that would get overlooked & forgotten so fast. But I had this nagging sense of urgency to do SOMEthing to minimize for the week.

Thus, I cleaned & decluttered an entire bookshelf, found a book I may wanna read, found a book a friend had loaned over a year ago (and I promptly called to say I had it & would be returning it soon...he wasn't even worried).

Try it. Set a weekly goal. Then even the smallest of projects feel rewarding.

Minimalism #6

So, Saturday night rolled around & I realized I hadn't truly done anything to work towards minimalism this week. Oh no!

Alas, I was saved....by my Prince Tanner.

I took Lyndon to a wedding shower with me earlier that day & stayed gone most of the afternoon, while dear husband cleaned our guest room out TOP TO BOTTOM. Literally. It was no longer a guest room, but a storage room.

And to make it easy, I told him anything of mine in there that was dirty, broken, or just stupid...he could toss! Turns out he tossed a ton of stuff.

The only thing that slightly saddened me was my above-the-knee Chinese Laundry grey suede boots. But it was my poor care that led to their toss out....they were pretty stained. However, had I taken care of those sweet babys they would be part of my winter minimalism collection for sure. Thankfully, my black ones are still in tip-top shape and make regular appearances in my wardrobe.

So, by Saturday night we were ready for our out-of-town guests. (we had fun with Abe, Steph, and sweet baby Jet). AND I had met my weekly goal!

Minimalism #5

Did my 'good riddance' for this week...took more clothes in. It may seem like I'd have nothing left in my closet with so many clothing purges.

But, I am a woman. A woman who has been pregnant. I probably don't need to go any further to explain why this means I have various 'groupings' of clothes to be free of.

I also sold one baby item the other day.

I think a very, very big item is up next. It will involve getting an antique dealer over to our house. Any suggestions?

Minimalism #3 & #4... and more.

So, yes, I did do my minimalist activity last week....just didn't take the time (or rather, I did not HAVE time) to record it here. I sent away some baby clothes to a mommy friend. I also got rid of a few more of my own clothes. And speed up to this week....I, once again, sold an obsolete item on Craigslist. So I've kept my Minimalist Vow for an entire month so far. Woohoo!

And on to a story for the day. One of those ones I just don't want to forget, so it must go here on my virtual diary. I won't preface with too many details other than to say I've been very, very down for a few days now. Lots of tough stuff going on in the Hubbert home. Glad we've got each other, we love each other...but, man, times are tough. And I've really fallen into a “woe is me” state in the last 48 hours or so. So many circumstances in my life currently feel too difficult to handle.

And today, in a mad dash to get Lyndon some baby toothpaste at Mega-World Wal-Mart, I was completly, utterly humbled. I was checking out when a woman in an electronic wheel chair began to make her way over to our line. She wanted to stop and coo at the baby in the cart in front of me. She was the greeter at this particular WM door, and this was just a little 'break' in her work. I quickly recognized her as a girl I graduated from high school with. It is amazing how quickly this sprung a well of emotion in me. First, I was shocked. S was quiet in high school and we only had the occasional class together, yet it really hit me hard to see her under such different circumstances. Secondly, as she cooed at that baby, the shame I felt for how much I've been pitying myself was enormous. My eyes fill with tears just even recounting and revisiting that moment.

I'll interject here...I am not sure if you can call this a 'sign from God' moment. At least not in the sense we sometimes speak of divine signs. Sometimes I think we Christians are a bit ego-centric to think that so many things that happen in the world around us were meticulously placed for our benefit. I will say that I believe God gives us hearts, minds, and eyes to seek these sort of moments. They happen often, but we don't always see them.

I reintroduced myself to S. I am not certain she truly recalled me from high school. She smiled & after a tad bit of small talk, she openly told me about her nerve disease. I wish I could recall the long, long name of it...but, alas, I can not. Definitely was not MS or Huntington's. She said she saw early signs of the disease at 17, and during college she began to lose the ability to walk.

“So, I am paralyzed from the waist down,” she smiled up at me with true peace. Then she shrugged, “Whaddya do?” She giggled.

I took her hand and trying my darndest to not get too teary: “I just have to tell you that I was having a very bad day. And you just encouraged me so much. Your strength is so wonderful.” (something to that effect...seriously, I was so emotional that the moment is blurry, literally).

I told her I hoped to see her again, and walked my shameful, emotional self through the rain and into the car. This moment was epic in the journey I am currently on.

Thank you, S. I just hope the random, emotional, blubbering girl you graduated from Memorial with didn't scare you too much. ;)