Revamp and Revive

Hey, friends!

Well, we've been working on revamping and reviving the blog in hopes that we can consolidate and strengthen our efforts to reach more people and get the word out about adoption and our journey as a family. From here on out you will be able to find homestead updates, recipes, adoption updates, health and nutrition info and anything else I want to share with you all in one place! We will maintain our separate FB pages but the blog will encompass them all.

My goal for this year is to let go of stress and embrace joy and there are many steps that we're going to have to take to get there. Stress makes me physically sick and it's no fun at all. Stress is a joy stealer and God says that joy is strength. I need to be strong and happy. I need this for myself, for my family and for my community. I would love to hear from you if you've felt inspired to be rid of the chains of stress (which lead to poor health, poor sleep, hurting relationships and more!) and pursue freedom and JOY this year. What steps are you taking to go after this goal? It certainly doesn't happen overnight. For us, we are doing some major de-stuffing/decluttering/cleaning at the farmhouse as a first step. Clutter is linked to depression, especially for women, and I don't want any part of it anymore! Rob and I used to say that we were a match made in packrat heaven but, no more. We were made for more than that. I wish I would have taken photos of all we've gotten rid of so far, just to encourage myself that we really are making progress and to show you that it can be done!

We're probably 1/3 of the way done, maybe more, and every time I clean Will's room or my room or any room I'm looking for things I don't need/want/use/love and I'm donating, trashing or selling it as fast as I can. My goal is to be totally clutter free and free of things I don't use or love by the time we move to a new home (which may be soon, depending on a few things). I do already feel lighter and there are certain rooms in the house that rarely get messy anymore because there's nothing in there that doesn't belong. SUCH a good feeling!



If you're interested in learning more about the depression-clutter link, check out Nourishing Minimalism's blog.

If you have kids, you know how hard it can be to remain sane when there are toys everywhere and little collections of sticks and leaves in little boxes and "nature scenes" in random places but, fear not! Living a life of less is still an attainable goal and, actually, becomes all that more important! When the house is in order (which is not as often as I'd like... yet) I'm much less likely to freak out about Will's collections of things or his latest Lego station that happens to be in the living room. I have to look to my own stuff before I can really ask him to keep his stuff clean. I have to lead by example and that's harder, but better.  Allie Casazza speaks to this in her blog post here. Thankfully, Will has been pretty awesome about getting rid of things and I've been so proud of him for that. At this point, we really just need to get in the habit of cleaning up at the end of the day so that the mess doesn't get to be too much for him to handle by himself.

All-in-all I'm so glad we've embarked on this purging adventure. The more I get rid of, the more I want to get rid of. Things I thought I loved after going through a category the first time often still get removed after a 2nd look. I held onto so many things for "someday" or because it was a gift and those things can really bog down a home. I'm learning to let them go and it's freeing.  I look forward to the day we are done! Of course, after that it's very important to be very choosy about what comes into the house and be quick to offload things that don't belong but, hopefully that will be more manageable.

Other things I'm working on cleaning up are e-mails (I can't be the only one with thousands of unread e-mails!), photos, papers and phone stuff.

We'll have to address lots of different things this year to reduce stress include getting on top of health issues, both mine and Will's, spiritual health, more exercise, getting our house up to par and deciding about selling. We love our house and our property. We love our garden. We love our neighbors. So many things would be hard to say goodbye to. However, the reasons for a move may outweigh the reasons to stay. We shall see. In the meantime, we move forward toward the other goals and I think we'll know when the time comes.

For the few of you who read this, thanks for being awesome! I hope this will be a place we can have productive conversations and learn from each other. :-) For now I'll leave you with the following thought: