Yuletide Reflections

This Sunday was Yule, the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. To celebrate, we had a fire in our backyard chiminea. Even though Christmas is just a couple of days away, I am already thinking ahead to New Year's. New Year's Day is probably my favorite holiday (though I also love Valentine's Day). I love the idea of a clean slate. I enjoy looking back on the year and reflecting on my journey, and then looking forward and thinking about where I want to go. This year, I feel like I will be continuing along the path that I began a few months ago, simplifying my life, minimizing my possessions, and making room for the things that are important to me - my family, my music, my art, my health. The new year will bring new opportunities and challenges, and I feel equal to meeting them.

I also had the joy of closing my Macy's credit card account this week. I paid the card off long ago, but just got around to closing it, thereby further minimizing the possibility of future debt!

2005 Was A Good Year

Last Friday night, we decided to have spaghetti for dinner, so I volunteered to cook (yes - I define boiling water as cooking!). While I was in the kitchen waiting for the water to boil, I decided to clear out a corner of one of the countertops. Out kitchen is very small with limited counter space, and yet has still managed to become a catch-all area in our home. This particular corner held a recipe box, two outdated phone books, several cookbooks, and more appliance / toy / equipment user manuals than I wanted to count! In the time it took for the water to boil, and the pasta to cook, I had recycled the phone books, sorted through the user manuals and recycled those for things that we no longer own, culled the recipe box, and selected unused cookbooks to take to the used book store. Though there is still too much in that corner, there is a lot less than there was before. It just goes to show that with even a few minutes, a bit decluttering and simplifying can be accomplished.

In sorting through all the papers, recipes, and user manuals, I found several interesting items - an old address book from when my husband and I first got married, and a whole stack of coupons that expired in 2005. Think about that for a minute. Those coupons were cut out and collected in 2005, placed in that corner of counter with the cookbooks and manuals, and have remained there, mostly undisturbed, for ALMOST 10 YEARS!! How is that possible?! We use those cookbooks and occasionally those manuals, and we HAVE cleaned that area of countertop in the past 10 years. But apathy, disinterest, something, kept us from going through those papers and throwing out those coupons. I wonder what else we will come across on our journey that will cause us to just shake our heads and say, "Why did we keep this?"

Has anyone else out there had this experience - finding things in their home and wondering why the kept them all this time?