The White World of Minimalist Living

Since I’m focusing on cleansing my life this year, of course, that is going to bring me to a state of needing to declutter.

This has taken me into the realm of minimalist living.

This world, I have found, is mostly white.  With no pictures on the wall and sometimes no bed, just a mattress on the floor.

Why?  Dear lord, WHY!?!

Now, I do understand in a way.  There are degrees of minimal.  Some minimalist people really want to be able to fit everything they own into a backpack and can just get up and go at a moments notice if they see fit.  Other people just feel like they have a wee bit much stuff they need to get rid of.  Other’s still are somewhere in between.

I understand, as well, that there is a connection between clutter and mental health.  I know its not healthy that I’m sitting here right now looking at a bit of ribbon that came off of a pack of dish towels I got for Chrsitmas and I can’t bear to think of throwing it away because “I might can use it for something.”

Somewhere along the way I’ve reached a point where having stuff, some of it literally junk, is very important.  This is stuff that I may never, ever use.  But I have it.  Its mine. It means something.

So, yeah, I need to work on the letting go.

So to a degree I understand the appeal of nothing but a mattress on the floor.

But why the sea of white?   I mean, I spill pretty much everything I touch.  If I painted my world white then it would look much less minimal than it does now because it will be stained in a multitude of ways.

In my year of cleansing I will be more minimal than before, but probably I can never par myself down to the point where I will be a “real” minimalist.

For sure I’m not going to paint everything white.

And my book shelf will never, ever, EVER look like the one above, because I have too many books for that. (I am kind of digging that bug calendar though.)

Eating for No Reason

When my husband picked me up from work today he took me to McDonalds.  I had a double quarter pounder and fries and ate till I felt like I was gonna pop.

Then we went grocery shopping.

Meanwhile, just a few hours later, I’m sitting here eating some mild boneless wings.

I’m not hungry, but they are good.  I’m eating for no reason, other than that the food tastes good and it makes me happy.

There is a reason I am over 200 pounds.

This has been one of the biggest roadblocks in my losing weight.

I crave the endorphins that food gives me.  I can’t find the same satisfaction in anything else.

One day I’ll figure out the magic potion to help me stop my cravings for yummy goodness.

Anyone got any suggestions?

Dead Until Dark Novel Review

Our heroine in Dead Until Dark is Sookie Stackhouse.  Too sweet and naive for her own good, Sookie lives in the small town of Bon Temps with her grandmother and works at a local bar.  Many of the bar’s patrons call her Crazy Sookie because she’s not exactly normal.

Sookie Stackhouse can read minds.

When a vampire walks into the bar one night, she is excited.  Most of the undead would rather go to New Orleans.

The vampire Bill, however, wants to mainstream, to live with humans.  And he finds Sookie Stackhouse very appealing.

When she realized she can’t hear Bill’s thoughts, even if she tries, then he becomes very appealing to her as well.

Unfortunately, young women in Bon Temps start turning up dead.  Young women with a lot in common with Sookie.  They worked menial jobs and they had affections for vampires.

Sookie wants to make sure nobody points a finger at HER vampire for these crimes.  Instead, people start looking at her brother.

 

Sookie Stackhouse was portrayed by Anna Paquin on the HBO series True Blood. (CREDIT)

While trying to navigate the rocky road of an interspecies relationship Sookie finds herself doing something she has never done before, opening her ability to read the minds of everyone around her, trying to save her brother from going to prison for crimes he didn’t commit.

 

But if he didn’t do it, then who did?

I enjoyed this novel much more than a lot of more modern vampire novels.  While the main vampire, Bill, is not a bloodthirsty monster all of the vampires in the novel are capable (and most are equally willing) to shed human blood.

Dead Until Dark is the first book in a series of novels featuring Sookie Stackhouse.

Dead Until Dark and the Sookie Stackhouse novel’s, were made into a series on HBO called True Blood.

Parts of this review have been cross posted at Noner’s Bookmarks.

All Gone

Woke up this morning to sad news.

My post yesterday (A Radiation Cloud of Grief) apparently tempted the fates and a family member had a heart attack in the early morning hours.

I was terrified for most of the day, but now the terror is gone.  Mostly gone anyway.  As she was awake and coherent enough to all her sister.

Tentatively I put out into the universe for the death cloud to be GONE!

 

Image Credit

 

Its too bad I don’t have the magical crystal healing awesomeness to be sure that all the dying is over.

I want the grief and the fear of more grief to be GONE.

Inspired by Gone.

A Radiation Cloud of Grief

This year has been good to me.  All two days of it so far.

Other people have had sad news.  Someone I know lost their mother on new years day.  It’s tragic, though it was expected it still has to be a horrible way to start a new year.

 

Image Credit

 

There were so many celebrity deaths in 2016.  So much personal loss for many people as well.  Too many police shooting innocent people.  Too many people shooting innocent officers.  Too much death in general.

We lost family members.  We lost pets who have been with us for 13 years.

I wanted 2017 to start without any deaths, a day or two where everyone lives, and everyone gets to go on…just one more day.

Is it just fallout.  The toxic radiation of destruction reaching into the new year, but will dissipate the farther from December 31 that we go?

Or is it a portent?  A sign of things to come.

Will 2017 = 2016?  Will it try to surpass it?

I’m happy to be in a safe home tonight.  I’m happy to have two robustly happy children sleeping in their beds.  I’m happy that bad teeth and a ringing in his ears are the worst my husband has going for him.

If we can make it deep into 2017 without someone near and dear to us leaving us behind then maybe, just maybe, we can have a year free of personal loss for a change.

Cleanse – My Word of the Year

Today is January 1st, and people are thinking, thinking, thinking of what their resolutions for the New Year will be.

Other people feel that resolutions are set ups for failure, that they are often such lofty goals that they seem overwhelming and people give up.

That is why some people choose a word of the year instead.  Just ONE word to apply to all of their lives in the upcoming year.

Many of my friends have been doing Word of the Year, but I have never chosen a word.  Until this year.

This year my word of the year is:

CLEANSE

I have had struggles in my life, not just in the past year (which was especially harsh) but for many years.

My life, my body, my soul, all need a good cleansing.

This upcoming year for me is going to be about casting out the old, unwanted, unneeded in order to make room for new, fresh, better things.

For the next year I will be trying to live my life by my word.

1. Decluttering my home of the stuff I don’t want/need/love
2. Letting go of negative emotions, grudges, sorrows of the past.
3. Treating my body better, cleansing it of the fat that is making it sick.

I’m sure there are mor ways I can live my life in a cleansing way.

I will still be making resolutions, and I’m sure they will fit hand in hand with my word of the year in one way or another.

On top of my ONE word of the year, I would also like to learn some new words this year, and considering buying a Word a Day calendar.  Or maybe just a word a day e-mail.

Do you do resolutions or a word of the year?  What are/is your main goal/goals for 2017?  Let me know in the comments!

 

The Folly of Positive Thinking

Some time back I read “The Secret” and like millions of others I fell for it.

If I only put positive thoughts out there, then amazing things would come to me!  It happened for lots of other people!

Now, positive thought are HARD for me.  I’m naturally a very pessimistic person.  I joke that not only is my glass half empty but it has a crack in it and the rest of the juice is leaking out.

 

Some days my glass isn’t just half empty, its shattered. (Photo Credit)

The power of positive thinking is pretty much what The Secret is.  If you think, “I wish I had” it is basically the same as sending “I don’t have” vibes into the universe and that echos back to you.  You are supposed to send out, “I have” vibes.  Live as if the thing you really want is already yours, and the universe will MAKE it yours.

And thinking positively isn’t a bad thing but…

The catch is that if it doesn’t work for you that just means you are not doing it right.  You’re not beleiveing hard enough.

So if it doesn’t work its all your fault.

How’s that for a daily affirmation.  If its not working its because you suck.

After a few months of positive thinking, I noticed that nothing had changed.  Absolutely nothing.

So, it has to be me.  The univerise has it out for me right.

 

Dear Universe, what am I doing Wrong!?! (Image Credit)

Oddly enough, despite the obvious flaw, I can’t seem to drop the idea that Positive Thinking will fix all the problems in my life.

I just have to think harder!

 

Right now I’m going through a low in my mental health.  Having been battling depression for many years without medication I know this is not a “sadness” that positive thinking can blow away.  I also know that Positive Thinking is going to be pretty much impossible this time of year.

Holidays+working retail means October and December is nothing less than a living hell.  Hell is not condusive to positivity.

But still……

 

I think in this upcoming year I need to work on positivity again.

Who knows, maybe I AM doing it wrong.  Maybe I just need more practice.

Have you ever tried to harness the “Power of Positive Thinking” for yourself?  If so, did it work?

(Post inspired by Folly)

Girl in Pieces

Charlotte Davis is just seventeen.  She’s already lost more than most people do in a lifetime.  She is a Girl in Pieces.

This novel by Kathleen Glasgow tells Charlie’s story in 3 parts.

Part one opens with her in a hospital, surrounded by other girls and women like her. Girls and women who harm themselves.  The chapters are short and erratic, much like Charlie’s thoughts.

She’s covered and bandages and she will not talk.  Her thoughts often go back to the dark place she almost didn’t get out of alive,  but she feels safe.  She never wants to leave.

The second part finds Charlie out of the hospital, much to her dismay.  She travels very far away searching for a new life, different from her old life.

She reconnects with an old friend, who seems good for her.  And finds a new friend, who seems very bad fo her.

Her life is different than before the hospital but threatens to fall into the same old patterns.  She fights her self-destructive thoughts and struggles to move onward and upward.

When someone from her past comes to visit her, things start to fall apart farther and faster.  He life is in pieces again.

Part 3 is all about healing.  The events in part two of the novel have her in a safe place again, with perhaps a kindred spirit.  But she’ll have to leave again.  And what happens when she’s back in the world.

I enjoyed this read.  I was easily sucked into Charlie’s life.  You can feel her fear and her pain very clearly.  You go from cheering her on to hating her for not being able to see the bad decisions she’s making.

Self-mutilation is the theme of this novel, so I would not recommend it for someone who might be triggered by reading it.

Girl in Pieces is the debut novel for young adults by Kathleen Glasgow.

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Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow is available on Amazon in kindle, hardcover and paperback editions.

I received a copy of this novel for free from Blogging For Books in exchange for an honest review.  This review was previously posted on Noner’s Bookmarks.

 

Magic and Maybes

Every day, they say, is a new beginning. A chance to reset, to start over, to redefine yourself.

They say.

But, also, they say the one thing you can never change about yourself, ever, is your personality.  Once you reach a certain age who you are is really set in stone.

Or in flesh.

Strangely, foolishly, I’m looking forward to the new year.

January 1 is not only the first day of the new year, it’s the first day of a new month that falls on the first day of a new week.

First, first, first.

Maybe, magically, when ’16 becomes ’17 all things will be better.

Maybe our nation won’t be fueled by hate.  Maybe Death will decide he took enough and give us a year away from dying.  Maybe…

Maybe a person can change their personality.

Maybe when the first day of the first week in the first month of a new year will wash away my anxiety and my depression, my fears and my frustrations.

Maybe…..

So, in getting a jump start on the new year, in planning my resolutions, I’ve decided to learn.  Lets start with simple little things.

A new word every day.  A new Quote every day.

Join me, and learn things, and share things.

Lets, you and me, hold hands in friendship and peace and let us survive one more month before January arrives.

Lets look forward, as friends, to magic and maybes.

WORD of the DAY

equipoise
noun

1. An even balance, equilibrium, an equal distribution of weight
2. a counterpoise
3. to equal or offset in weight, balance

QUOTE of the DAY

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
—Bertrand Russell

Anticipation, Hard Goodbyes

When you add a new family member to your home,

you anticipate many years of love, and of loyalty, and of friendship.

You never anticipate the day you’ll have to decide to end the friendship.

Goodbye Boomer, my sweet boy.  You were a good boy, even when you ate the bed.  And the door.  And the other door.  We love you and we’ll miss you very much.

Shared with The Daily Post’s Anticipation.