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Is it just me or are October and November always really busy months?  I have been getting more and more stressed at the mounting things I need to get done by December.  I tick one thing off the list and something else gets added.

I am amazed at how so many mom bloggers out there are able to keep up with it all and their blogs too.  There are a lot of amazing women out there.   And honestly, if my neighbor, who has four children, brings me baked goods one more time…well, actually, I will thank her profusely as she a brilliant baker and just continue to call her supermom behind her back.

Went to a pumpkin farm last weekend.  Got two pumpkins.  It’s was beautiful on Saturday and a perfect day to spend outside on a farm.  Crap on Sunday.  But that’s okay.  I went to the mall and actually started my Christmas shopping.  Mind you, I detest Christmas shopping.  And for those of you with tween girls, I found this fabulous light up journal at Justice.  So cool.  And lots of 50% stuff at Barnes and Noble.

But, I digress.

We are keeping it simple this Christmas.  Just a few toys and books.  And low stress.  Planning on getting nearly everything I can off of Amazon.  Shipped right to my door.  It’s always cheaper than the shops anyway, plus I don’t have to drive or be around mad shoppers.  Perfect.

Also started looking for a few plane toys for our trip.  Found this cool mini eye spy game on Etsy.  Think I will get it for the trip home since it’s a day flight (14 hours from Brisbane to LA).  Flying over is at night, so fingers crossed there will be some sleeping…at least for the kids if no one else.  If all else fails, there are always movies and walking around the plane.

Having my bi-annual clothing swap this coming Saturday morning.  Siked.  Think we will have more clothes/participants than we did in the Spring.  I’m hoping to find a decent pair of jeans.  Will be making some muffins and my co-host is making sausage balls and limosas (champagne and grapefruit juice).  Yum!

But there are so many things going on, I’ve started running again in a feeble attempt to beat down the stress.  I feel enormously snowed under right now and running is the only way I can clear my head.  Doesn’t get anything done unfortunately, but at least I’m feeling a little better and getting in better shape.  And it’s helping me sleep, which I wasn’t doing a great job of before.

Now, if only I hadn’t bought that bag of cashews at Trader Joe’s, I might actually lose that leftover baby tummy that keeps hanging around.

How do you manage it all when activities and ‘to do’s’ start piling up?

Image by Cindy Funk

I’ve been reading (and writing) a lot about this lately.  There are blogs galore of people trying to achieve a simple existence, me included.

I feel like I’ve accumulated more stuff, simply because all those around me have and because it’s something I’m supposed to do as I get older.  I still sometimes feel like my house is less ‘grown up’ compared to others since I prefer to keep ours more basic and sparse.

Even typing that though I feel like a phony when I compare our life now and the amount of stuff we have compared to when we lived in Australia.

We lived in a two bedroom (one was more like a half bedroom since only a single bed would fit in there), one bath, furnished flat.  You want to talk about some ugly furniture!?  But, we didn’t really care.  It came with the flat.  We bought a desk and a computer and a bookshelf.  I think that’s it.  My husband’s family gave us some kitchenware, but nothing fancy by any stretch.  There was one closet in our bedroom for the whole unit.  And we didn’t need anything more either.  We just didn’t have a lot of stuff.

And I really don’t even remember cleaning that place.  I know I did, mind you.  I just think the time it took was so negligible that I don’t remember doing it.

Hence we had a lot of time just to do whatever!  Of course, we didn’t have kids either.  But, that’s a whole other level of stuff that just needs a separate post!

Whether you are de-cluttering or downsizing or cutting out more extra-curricular activities or dumping debt, everybody seems to be wanting “the simple life”.

However, ‘simple life’ means something different to each person.

To some people is means getting back to basics like baking your own own bread and making your own cleaners.  Vinegar and baking soda anyone?

To some people or families it means selling (or at least storing) most everything to live in an RV.  Or to some it means paring down to the bare essentials!

There are those who create household management notebooks, which seem like a fabulous idea if I ever actually did it or followed it.

Some are slowing getting rid of childhood collections or selling nearly everything for a new adventure.

For me, being a stay at home Mom keeps our routine simpler.  Also being debt-free as we have less to worry about.  And finally, our attempt to get rid of extraneous stuff is starting to pay off.  The house is slowly but surely becoming easier to manage and to clean

Sometimes I fantasize about moving back to Australia simply so I will be forced to get rid of stuff and start over.  Weird, I know.

What kinds of things do you do to create a simpler life?

Are you one of those people who is always talking about what you want to do, or plan to do, or hope to do….yet nothing or very little ever becomes of all your chatter?

I am often one of those people.  One person, in particular, who is close to me is definitely one of those people.  So much in fact, that I change the subject often when she begins speaking about certain things.  I’m just sick of hearing about the same thing that she’s going to do that she’s been going to do for over 2 years now.  Do it already!

And, in an effort to curb my own ‘all talk and no action’, I decided a couple of weeks ago to no longer talk, just do.

Amazingly, it’s worked so far.  I’ve accomplished more in the last few weeks that I have in while.  And I feel much better for it.

I read this great article a while ago about a study on how talking publicly about your goals will often derail them because people often mistake talking for doing.  I can see this in myself.

So, this is the only time I will say anything about all that I’m doing to make our house one that is a better, more organized, less cluttered (less stressful) place to live.

Over the summer, I’ve been slowly, but surely, taking more and more things to Goodwill.  Sure, I could have saved it all and had a big yard sale.  But, then I would have had to have a yard sale, which I detest doing.

I find MUCH more encouragement in just getting that stuff out of my house and having a more immediate calming effect due to more space and less clutter.  I almost dance a jig as I load things in my car going to Goodwill!

My current project is working on our mud room.  This tiny room (about 40 sq ft) is off our kitchen and goes to our driveway, so it’s where we always enter and exit our house.

It has mostly been a utility room/broom storage with all sorts of junk in it.  We painted it and put peel and stick tiles down when we first moved in, to make it feel a bit nicer, but it’s still just a utility room.  Well, not for long!  I will be posting a before and after pic when I’m done, but it’s going to be a much nicer entry way into our house once I’m finished.

I don’t know why it never occurred to me to make this space a nice entry way, but it didn’t until the other day.  So, that’s what I’m doing.

After the mudroom project, will be the BIG ONE…..photos.

Good grief, you can’t even imagine how many photos I have to deal with.  Well, maybe you can.  But, this is the year.  I am going to tackle them before our trip to Australia.  Some will be sent off to Scan My Photos to be put onto cd and some will be simply put into photo albums or scrapbooks….this is it.  I am also going to create a simple scrapbook, in chronological order, of things that are sent to me in the mail that I feel are worth saving (photos of family/friends, baby announcements, cards, etc).

So, there it is.  I won’t be writing about it anymore (to anyone!) unless it’s to showcase what I’ve done.  Less talk, more action.

I hope I haven’t destroyed my chances by writing this post!

What about you?  Do you feel you are less likely or more likely to get something accomplished when you tell someone about it?  Is there something you’ve been talking about doing for years and it’s not been done yet?

It’s the little things.

Sunday morning, while Little C was napping, hubby, Big D and I worked on cleaning out the basement.

I would say it’s about 2/3 done, but it feels and looks 100% better than it did before.  Which is great, considering the laundry and freezer is down there and so I’m down there pretty often.

We threw stuff away, took things to recycling, made a big Goodwill pile, and pulled out the shop vac.  We vacuumed and wiped things down.

I found a rug in a plastic bag that I had no idea we still had.  Not really sure why I saved it.  We made tons more room on shelves and I still need to go through some of the plastic totes to see if I can find more things (ie old Christmas decorations) to get rid of.

I should have taken a before pic.  It doesn’t feel cramped down there and it actually makes me feel like painting down there.  But, I won’t go that far!

I am stuck.  My house, and as a result, my brain, is cluttered. When my brain is cluttered I over think certain things and drive my husband crazy with my wishy washy, don’t know what I want out of life ramblings.  I also can’t focus on what’s really important and in the here and now.

I get like this every few months when I start to feel trapped by my STUFF.  I feel it closing in around me and need to purge and organize and clean.  I think it’s from years of living with very few possessions and the ability to just pick up and go.

To this day, anytime I purchase something really big and expensive, I almost immediately start to regret it thinking, “Now I am tied down…I will lose all sorts of money trying to sell that if we want to move…” and things like that.  I thought that when we recently bought a new playset for our boys (that was finally shipped today – woo hoo!).  I thought, “Well, now we definitely can’t move”.  Who thinks like that?  It’s crazy.

I often start off with the best intentions to get ‘er done, but then life happens and I start to get used to it all again and don’t really get anywhere.  My ‘to do’ list is quite long.  I have things that need to be washed, hung (photos, prints, canvas), put away, given away, thrown away, sold, organized, repaired, you name it, I feel as if it’s on the list.

So, in an effort to help turn over my new leaf (which I will hopefully be talking about next week), I am going to unplug for a few days (at least from my blog and facebook since I still need to list things on Craigslist and Ebay to sell) in an effort to cross some things off my list.

Do you have things you do to unclutter your life?  Please share….