Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Memories and photographs, that's what's on my mind this morning. I was feeding the guinea pig and thinking back to Brownie, my childhood guinea pig. In my childhood scrapbook, which I looked through recently, I found one picture of myself and Brownie. He looked like I remember, and I was fairly fascinated by my 1970s outfit, but did I need this photo, or any photo, of Brownie to remember him? No, I don't think so, yet my children have dozens of photos of Thorn, Blackberry, and Corky, the guinea pigs who have lived with us. These photos are trapped on my computer, but we … [Read more...]
Friday’s Favourite Five ~ 8JUL2011
Friday's Favorites, but Not Five Once again I am delving into the cyberworld to ferret out interesting and useful blogs for your enjoyment. Because this week was lower than usual on comments, and higher than usual on blog suggestions, I decided to change it up a bit. Hopefully I won't be in trouble with you or with Colleen! 1. Since so many readers have lots of scrapbooking materials, I love this guide to holiday gift making. It's July - time to start, right? (Warning, at least one of the links doesn't work any more.) … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Put Your Big Rocks in First
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom More than a dozen years ago, when I was working, a email like the one that follows circulated. It's probably the only chain email that I've found to be truly valuable. I hope you find it meaningful too. A time management expert stood in front of the group of high-powered achievers. He said, "Okay, time for a quiz." Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would … [Read more...]
Friday’s Favourite Five ~ 1Jul2011
Colleen is on vacation visiting her daughter and other family, so I'm exploring the blog world this week and picking the Friday's Favorite Five. As a reminder, I rarely read blogs, so picking 5 favorites is always an experiment for me. 1. There is not one post I'm specifically pointing to here. The Good News Network is my favorite site besides 365 Less Things, and I have visited it every day for years. I think we all could use more good news and less grim in our lives. Geri, who founded the Good News Network, has excellent journalistic credentials as she used to work for CNN, which she … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Intersection of Ideas
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Back on April 13, Jennifer made this comment: I am often surprised by the intersections between different movements — minimalism, homesteading, and green, just to name a few. I’ve made a few of the same switches you have, but for environmental rather than declutter reasons. Being concerned about the impact of what I use has been pretty effective in getting me to cut down. I think Jennifer's really onto something here. Isn't what truly motivates us usually a mixture of factors? Exercising comes first to my mind. Sure we do it for our health, for the adrenaline … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ A Sense of Wealth
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom Do you feel rich in your possessions or poor? Feeling poor makes it difficult to get rid of things that are no longer needed, wanted or valued. It induces hoarding and the suspicion that you really might need that someday. Might you really? Feeling rich in your possessions allows you to let things go. It allows you to feel sure that there's no lack of items in the world, and there's certainly not, at least not in the world of anyone who's reading this blog. Certainly our fortunes may change, but it's unlikely that anything you may declutter today would mean the … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Why I Love a Label
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I love a label. Love. Love. Love. My grocery store bags, children's lunch boxes, our water bottles, coolers, and flashlights are labeled with our last name. All of my girls' uniforms, sweaters and coats have their names in them. When they were littler and their feet closer to the same size, all of Audra's socks were labeled on the bottom with a letter A to distinguish them from Clara's socks. My canisters of food staples are labeled with their contents, even though you can easily see into the canisters. The girls and Dan and I have matching hairbrushes and … [Read more...]
Simple Saturday – Cindy’s Laundry Room Cabinet
Yikes! It looks pretty bad, doesn't it? But really, the cabinet needed a tidy even more than it needed a declutter. Here's what I did: removed two towels, which I mentioned in my post The First Fruits removed the package of sponges, which I donated to local food pantry transferred the Socks Looking For Their One True Love from the crumpled bag on the top shelf into a plastic bin. (Freed up from other decluttering, of course!) took down the cardboard box on the top shelf, which has light bulbs in it. I cleaned out the box itself and removed 9 light bulbs (one of which I used right … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ The First Fruits
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom I was holding two pitchers: One was a really nice Tupperware in great shape with a tight, functioning lid. The other was a yellow, stained pitcher with no lid and handle that threatened to crack down the seam but was still holding. Which to declutter? The phrase "the first fruits" popped into my head. I knew the reference, but I had to look up the quote from the Bible. It is from Psalms 3:9: "Honor the LORD with your substance, and with the first fruits of all your increase." This quote is referring to tithing (giving money to the church). What did it have to … [Read more...]
My Journey to Now: Day 365
Cindy's Weekly Wisdom If you live in the US, you're reading this on May 31, the last day of my 365 challenge. Ah, let's all say that together, "365 Days of decluttering." Sounds nice, doesn't it? How did I get to this point? What have I gotten rid of? What have I learned? The Journey In 2002, my family of a 2 1/2 year old daughter, husband and I bought a well used house in a very nice neighborhood. An 86 year old widower lived in the house, which hadn't been remodelled or updated in dozens of years. You can use your imagination! Within 3 months, we had another daughter. With these two … [Read more...]