Month 1

- Oh Happy Daze

Don't keep the manuals!

We’ve entered into February and, as is typical for any project I take on, I’m taking longer to finish this task than I had anticipated. Though I guess you should never really stop paring down your stuff, I had hoped to power through this by giving myself a deadline because I didn’t want to lose steam or have my motivation wane as the weeks went on and it got progressively more difficult to part with my precious things. And it really did get progressively more difficult to part with my precious things.
{Side note: I wanted to insert a photo of Gollum from Lord of The Rings here…. my precious… but I just couldn’t look at him. Too scary and I don’t want self-induced nightmares}
Even though the month is over, I haven’t been able to tackle all of the ‘areas’ of my home, so I’m not bailing on this until the very end {If you’re just joining me, you can read about my adventure with self-reduction here}. I’ve still been trucking along, tackling each room and space a little at a time. Closets, drawers, toy bins, under the beds, the scary junk drawer…. no area is safe. It has taken me a while to make it into each room because I keep getting side-tracked with random jobs that must be completed that instant. Like today, when I happened to notice how yucky the inside of our dishwasher was becoming. Have you ever really looked in your dishwasher? You’re supposed to clean it occasionally, and I feel like I have to clean ours more frequently than most because our washer is probably 80 human years old. All I can say is YUCK. I gagged three times. There is a little section where the door hinges that doesn’t ever get washed by the water so it is like Fear Factor up in there! Each time it gets yucky from now on I’ll just throw the washer out and buy a new one like the good American consumer I am.
Recently I’ve been focused on Peep’s bedroom, half of which was also designated as my ‘office’ which included all my therapy materials and our personal filing cabinets. I’ve uncovered some long lost memories while going through these bins of random junk and it was straight up terrifying to get rid of my old graduate school notes. Don’t ask me why, since I haven’t referenced any of it in 6 years {thank you Lord for the internet}.
This week I said adios to:
Manuals. You guys. Don’t be like this. THOW AWAY THE MANUALS. If it makes you feel better you can check to make sure a particular manual is online before tossing the paper, but don’t harbor these space suckers.
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Therapy materials. It’s hard to toss something you’ve made or something you ‘might want to reference in the future’. Guess what? That’s what the internet is for. And also my brain. I conjured up this social script for a patient of mine once before, I can do it again.
social-script
I had been harboring so many old therapy materials and books that I just can’t use anymore. It’s nice to make space for the things I actually do use.
I also purged half the contents of my linen closet. I mean, look at this ridiculously tiny closet. It’s definitely not a normal size. What is this, a closet for ants? It was pretty easy to let go of a lot of things in here because most of it was expired medicine, a crib sheet that’s lost its elasticity, six tubes of sunscreen, and fifty thousand bandaids. With all that extra junk gone I can find my essential oils with ease!
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Also this week:
Charlie got ‘tired’ from shopping. What?!  #notmychild
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We discovered I have an obsession with bunny slippers. Charlie decided on an interpretive dance to wish them well in their next home.
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I rewarded my winning month of purging with a pretty new throw for our bed. I struggle with keeping our room clean and orderly and I think part of that is because I hate being in there. We’ve had the most horrendous dark dark teal carpet in our master bedroom since moving into this house 6 years ago. We don’t have the budget to re-carpet right now, so I’m embracing the color and bringing more teal things into the room. Loving what I put into my room will help me stay on top of clearing out the clutter; I don’t want to allow our room to continue to be the ‘spare room’ where all the random stuff goes to die. The teal throw was approved by Charlie.
new-blanket
Are you still going strong with paring down your stuff? Don’t quit just because January is gone. You’ll feel your burden becoming lighter with each bag of stuff you toss or donate.
Make space for the things you truly love and enjoy and are using regularly.
Xoxo,
Ashley

- Oh Happy Daze

The F Word.

Lol, made you click. Since you’re already here, let’s chat about the F word that always makes me cringe a little inside: Fast. The ‘fast’ I’m referring to is the biblical concept of voluntarily doing without {typically food} for the sake of honing your focus on God and his spiritual provision.
It’s such a churchy word, don’t you think? To the average non-Jesus following person, mentioning ‘fasting’ takes the religious conversation from tolerable to NOPE in about .5 seconds. Most likely because the concept of doing without is counter-cultural, especially for Americans. Most of us don’t have to do without…. so we don’t.  Also, the concept of self -sacrifice and going without {food especially} dances along the lines of some cult cultures we know about and condemn. Not eating and even the word ‘sacrifice’ just seems weird to most of us. But I want to share with you that biblical fasting is good and wise and not reserved for any special ‘level’ of Christianity {there are no levels, by the way, and if anyone tells you there are… run the other way}.  Fasting is for anyone who loves God and wants more of him.
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Fasting must be specific to each individual because the topic of the fast has to be meaningful for that person, otherwise the fast won’t be effective.  A food fast is good for everyone, really, because food is meaningful to all of us. If I were to choose to fast from television it wouldn’t be an effective fast for me because I watch very little television as it is, and could definitely go without it and not miss it. My response to a TV fast would be “meh”. Reducing my possessions is difficult for me, though, and is a true sacrifice, but might not be the right fast for someone else – like my husband, for example, who is not your typical American consumer and could care less about his clothing options or whether or not we have a cute vase on the table…. weirdo. It took him 5 minutes to toss 1/3 of his wardrobe into the donate bag without a single moment of angst or a second glance. Meanwhile, I’ve been working on my own closet for weeks and have had to take frequent mental health breaks to preserve my emotional well being. Because I love my stuff. I love my clothes. I love the pretty things in my home. They make me feel good, but if I’m honest with myself, they are burying me! There is such a things as too much good. Keeping clothes that make you feel confident and keeping things in your home that help it feel peaceful and comfortable and full of love is not bad. Those are good things. However, when it becomes excessive it is actually sin. It’s unhealthy. It consumes my time {because I spend so much more time cleaning and organizing and putting away all the things}. It consumes my patience {because I can’t ever find the thing I’m looking for amongst the other things}. It consumes my rest {because I can’t take my focus away from my to-do list long enough to be quiet in reading or prayer}. It consumes my control over my emotions {because I get easily upset over the loss of a thing when it gets broken or ruined, and my immediate reaction is not one of grace and love and forgiveness}.
I don’t want to be consumed.

“Don’t hoard treasure down here where it gets eaten by moths and corroded by rust or worse – stolen by burglars. Stockpile treasure in heaven, where it’s safe from moth and rust and burglars. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”

Matthew 6:19-21

So, this month I’m participating in a fast from possessions. You can read more about it here. I’m taking a purposeful look at the stuff in my home and severely paring down. Are you living in excess too? Many of us are experts in excess. We expertly and excessively consume ______ {expensive coffee, fast food, clothing, shoes, Facebook/Reddit/Pinterest/Twitter/other social media I’m not cool enough to know about, pretty trinkets, cars, Netflix shows, purses… fill in the blank with wherever your time and paychecks and go}.

“As Jesus explained it, the right things have to die so the right things can live – we die to selfishness, greed, power, accumulation, prestige, and self-preservation, giving life to community, generosity, compassion, mercy, brotherhood, kindness, and love. The gospel will die in the toxic soil of self.”
– Jen Hatmaker, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

Join me?
Xoxo,
Ashley
 

- Oh Happy Daze

This is for me. But I hope you'll join in too.

This January I’m revisiting an adventure I first embarked on 3 years ago; essentially following in Jen Hatmaker’s footsteps, which she outlines in her book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. She explains it best:

I started praying about what God wanted; what would move me closer to His agenda and further from mine? How could this be meaningful, not just narcissistic and futile? What areas needed the most renovation? How am I blind and why? Where have I substituted The American Dream for God’s kingdom? What in my life, in the lives of most westerners, is just too stinking much?

  • Food
  • Clothes
  • Possessions
  • Media
  • Waste
  • Spending
  • Stress

Seven Months, seven areas, reduced to seven simple choices. I’m embarking on a journey of less. It’s time to purge the junk and pare down to what is necessary, what is noble. 7 will be an exercise in simplicity with one goal: to create space for God’s kingdom to break through. I approached this project in the spirit of a fast: an intentional reduction, a deliberate abstinence to summon God’s movement in my life. A fast creates margin for God to move.  {Taken from 7’s introduction}

Three years ago I adopted Jen’s approach and did my own little 7 experiment, tackling each area of excess for one month. You can read all about the start of it HERE, the first days of Month 1 {purging possessions} HERE, and follow along with subsequent posts from January – December 2014 if you want to see how things went for me.
You guys. Creating space is life changing. Space in your home, space in your closet, space in your finances, space in your calendar…. it changes you, because it essentially creates space {physically, mentally, emotionally} for God to move and bring you in the direction of his greater purpose for your life. It’s a purposeful choice, though, to change directions and focus rather than continue barreling through the days and weeks on our own agenda, completing our own tasks to move us towards our self-appointed goals in life.
Three years ago, after completing only the first month of experiments {possessions}, I felt PHYSICALLY lighter. Like a weight had been lifted off of me, simply by getting rid of STUFF. I can’t wait to do it again. So far, my intention this year is to tackle only possessions, but I may end up fasting from media again as well. Cutting back on Facebook is never a bad thing.
Want to join me? Starting January 1st, get rid of 7 items each day. Honestly, the first weeks are probably going to be ridiculously easy for most of us. Three years ago, in my initial adventure with purging possessions, I made it through a month of purging 7 items each day without breaking a sweat. But I understood the purpose of this experiment, so I extended the length of time I was focused on possessions to two months. And just a word of warning; don’t cheat yourself out of this experience by phoning it in. Be diligent. Be consistent. Be thorough. Be hard on yourself. Make tough decisions. If you read my blog posts from three years ago, you’ll see that I didn’t allow myself to coast through this by counting each article of clothing individually {which would have resulted in the first month of purging being focused solely on clothing, I’m sure} or by keeping items simply because I had the space to store them. Nobody needs two cake stands. I’m not the Pillsbury dough boy. I don’t even really bake. When it comes to possessions, allowing yourself to gloss over a hoard of stuff just because ‘you’ve always had it’ or ‘it’s not taking up much space’ is really defeating the purpose of this experiment.
The purpose isn’t just to get rid of stuff. It is to GIVE UP stuff. Stuff you may even love. To create space for something GOD loves and has in store for you.
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I like starting with possessions, rather than one of the other 6 areas of excess noted in Jen’s book, because freeing up our hold on our earthly possessions is more about our mental and emotional priorities than it is about actual items in our homes. It’s about our focus, about our heart’s focus…. and I think it’s the hardest one for us to be truly honest with ourselves about, because everything in our home is ours. It’s for us. To make life easy or so we can feel good, feel like we’re enough when compared to our neighbor. I’m ready to kick comparison out of my life. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
I’m so excited for you to join me on this adventure this month.
Less of me, more of him.
XOXO,
Ashley
 
 

- Oh Happy Daze

Month 1: days 19 – 30

The past 10 days have been packed and, no offense to you, I would much rather spend any extra minutes with my sweet kiddo than in front of the computer screen so not a lot of blogging happened. I didn’t keep up with tracking what I got rid of every night, so some days are grouped together. If you are just tuning in, I am neck deep in a month long battle against my possessions in my own experiment in self reduction.
Days 19, 20, 21, and 22: So I’m sitting here trying to remember what I did these past few days. I honestly don’t remember what I purged on what day. I know for a fact there were a few days I didn’t have time to dig around and purge anything, I was taken out for a day with a terrible horrible no good very bad migraine, and we had a snow day thrown into the mix which was awesome but somehow sucks all the energy out of you, forcing you to sit on the couch and watch movies and eat cookies all day {snow days have magical powers like that}.
Totals for the past 4 days: they are literally so random I can’t even remember them all, but they include 1 frosting spatula, 2 picture frames, 1 stainless coffee carafe, 2 mixing bowls, 3 muffin tins, 2 strainers, 4 pie pans {I had 5, and that’s 4 more than necessary seeing as how I don’t really bake pies… no lie, there were 5 in my house}, 5 of Charlotte’s headbands and bows, 1 wooden shelf, 1 pair of pajama pants, 1 necklace, 1 scarf, 1 sippy cup,   = 25 {not quite enough for 4 days x 7… but pretty close}
Day 23: 
Conversation I had via text with one of my friends, Melody:

Melody: I have an urge to come digging through your donate box!
Me: haha, you can, but then you’ll have to go digging through your own stuff to find things to get rid of, that’s the rule.
Melody: I’ll pass… but what does that say about my urges?!
Me: That they’re the same as mine! I want to go digging back through my own boxes!!!!

We have black hearts, the lot of us! Here I am in the midst of a quarter life overhaul that God is implementing on my heart and I’m desperately trying to cling to my old ways and my stuff that has, for 29 years, been my comfort and my focus. I am still struggling with letting things go. Ever day is a struggle. I want so badly to pull some things out of boxes in the garage and put them back into my drawers and cabinets. This is difficult, folks, and I am  starting to lose steam. Being sick, working, having snow days, and simply keeping a toddler out of my sorting piles is starting to wear on me too. Blah! I realize that if I just donated all of these boxes now it would be much easier on me. I love thrift stores and I typically donate things to them every year. For this project, though, I want to be able to see, in a tangible way, how my fast from things has not only improved my life but the life of someone else. Someone God loves and someone He wants me to show love to also. I am not sure yet who will be the recipient of this blessing, but I know God will present me with a clear idea on that after my yard sale when the time is right!
Totals for today: 4 children’s books, 1 quilt, 1 piggy bank, 4 receiving blankets = 10
Day 24, 25 and 26: We had a little 8 month old foster babe come stay with us for the weekend so I thought my cleaning/sorting/purging rampage would come to a screeching halt. Miraculously {hallelujahpraiseGod} I still managed to find a few moments to dig through Charlotte’s clothing in the peace and quiet of two kiddos playing together.

Charlotte and Pheonix January2014

I am pretty confident that by the time this purge is done I actually won’t have any clothing or baby things left to sell. I have been successful in giving them all away to friends, mamas, and soon-to-be mamas! Our sweet little temporary foster babe even took some outfits and sparkly headbands home to adorn her bald baby head.
I am also pretty confident this month’s purge-fest will spill over into February. There’s just too much stuff… January can’t contain it all! I have yet to go through my office/craft room, the garage, and the attic.
Totals for the past 3 days: 3 children’s books, 12 hair bows/headbands/barrettes, 1 thermometer, 5 baby bibs = 21
Day 27, 28, 29, and 30: I am almost finished with Charlotte’s room and have even had a few minutes to venture into my craft room. This is a daunting task. I have a giant collection of craft things and I truly do use almost everything so digging through to find things I don’t use won’t work and won’t get me to 7 things a day. I am going to have to get rid of things that are purely excessive. and it will be painful. herewego!
Totals for the past 4 days: 5 pairs of girl’s shoes, 2 stuffed animals, 3 coats,  1 dry erase board, 2 coupon organizers,  3 stamp sets, 1 bag of random scrapbooking bedazzles and stickers, 1 hanging basket organizer, 2 small woven baskets, 1 bag of party supplies, 3 throw pillows, 2 empty scrapbooks  = 26
Only 1 more day of January but probably another week left of reducing my possessions. joy.