Kitchen Stuff

So, today my goal is to at least start on the kitchen...I'm tackling the pantry first (though I did pull the few food items that were on top shelves in the laundry room down to deal with as well). I took a pic before I started and will take one when I'm done so progress can be seen.
Seriously, I read on a blog the other day where the lady challenged people to not go grocery shopping for as long as possible. She said something about people having WAY too much food in their pantries that never see the light of day. So...part of my goal in going thru all this is to make a master list on the computer of all staples that I have on hand...and use that to plan meals for the next little bit.
My mom got me an awesome cookbook for Christmas (one that I'd been wanting for a while). Make A Mix has recipes to make up all kinds of mixes...stuff comparable to Bisquik and the like...but since you are making it up yourself, you can adjust ingredients to account for allergies and food sensitivities...veddy cool!! So now I just have to convince my mom to part with some of her awesome glass canisters she got from an old country store that closed...to store all my lovely homemade mixes in!!

So here are my before and after pics!! What do you think?

Some Simplicity At Home...

Another step that I took toward simplicity is to go thru my closet. Granted, having been a missionary (particularly one who sent over a crate and came back with suitcases)...I didn't have a HUGE amount of clothes. However, since moving back to the States, I have gained some weight and went up a size. I do plan on working on that as another goal toward simplicity, but will probably never have quite the same proportions again as I did in my 20's!! So...some of the stuff that didn't fit (and hadn't for over a year) had to go!!

I was pretty ruthless in my sorting. There were some things that went into my "keep for now" list and I do have a decent amount in my "keepers" list (particularly when you think of the amount of clothes that the majority of people in the world own per person). But I did manage to weed out several pairs of shoes (leaving me still with 10 pairs of keepers and 4 pairs of keep-for-nows...including slippers and flips)...as well as several purses and quite the pile of clothes!! Take a look at the pictures below to see the new closet space and the piles of sell or give away stuff!!

First Steps of 2008 Toward Simplicity...

So...since I made the decision to embrace simplicity in my life in mid-January, I have done a few things toward simplifying my life.

One of the first steps I made toward simplifying my life is still a work-in-progress. This is the simplifying of my online life. I completely closed out my accounts on Myspace, Yahoo 360, Tickle, Friendster, and Flixster. I was going to cancel my Hi5 account, but am leaving it open for now, as it is one of the only ways to keep in touch with so many of my Romanian friends. I also have been ruthlessly pruning out old email on my Hotmail and Yahoo accounts in anticipation of moving all email just to my Gmail accounts (which then funnel into my Outlook). Not done on the email pruning yet, but I'm making progess!!

I also moved my old Yahoo 360 blog posts over to my Blogger account and have started copying my Xanga posts over to there as well. I won't be leaving Xanga for a good bit yet, but am going to be posting simultaneously for a while. With Blogger I can have one dashboard for three blogs: my "Random Days" (texanromaniac) blog, my "A Missionary Journey" blog (which I've started to rally people into helping my career missionary parents get into a decent house), and for this "Essential Simplicity" blog!!

Another thing I did was to go thru my "Favorites" links. I deleted any links that no longer were interesting to me, set up RSS feeds for any blogs that I'd saved to favorites that I actually wanted to keep up with, and posted bookmarks on my Google homepage for any other often-used sites. Now on the laptop I have just a few links in Favorites left to go thru...and all the ones on the desktop are organized into folders. The laptop is threatening to die soon...so I want to have anything really important saved to the desktop before that happens!!

I will not be completely swearing off the internet...no worries!! But I figure if I can get it down to just Gmail, Facebook, a few blog feeds, a few message boards, and my own blogs....then I will be doing pretty good. It is just too easy to get sucked into wasting too much time on social networks and slogging thru junk email!!

Blogs are synched!!

So I just finished up synching my Xanga and Blogger blogs...so from now on you will be able to find my personal blog posts both here and here!! Let me know what you think of my new blogs!!

Currently Listening To: Time Is... by DC Talk

My New Blogs!!

So a little less than two weeks ago I posted about simplifying my life...at that point I'd mostly simplified my online presence. Since then, I've completely gone thru my clothes and my half of the closet, taken one load to Goodwill, am in the process of selling a couple bags worth of clothes, and have another load ready for Goodwill.

Anyway, as you may recall, I moved all my Yahoo 360 blog posts over to Blogger and started moving Xanga posts over there as well. I am really loving Blogger since I can have one profile and multiple blogs...plus I get to play around with HTML!! So, without further ado...let me introduce my new blogs!!

Random Days is my regular blog....the one that will eventually at some point in the future replace my xanga blog...though not for a good while yet. Meanwhile, I will be posting here and there simultaneously.

A Missionary Journey is the blog I have started to rally people toward helping my career missionary parents get into a decent house before next winter. This one is still a work-in-progress...so check it out in a week or so...

Essential Simplicity is my newest blog...and I'm pretty excited about it!! My goal in having this blog is to help keep myself accountable for the goals I’ve set to simplify my life and to help encourage others who have decided to follow this lifestyle themselves. The things I will concentrate on here will be to simplify in these main areas: cleaning, organizing, shopping, cooking, etc. Other things touched on will be simplifying life online, simplifying activities offline, using resources to find cheap or free fun, getting or staying in shape, staying healthy, etc.

So anyway...please check them out and let me know what you think!!

Currently Listening To: Ebay by Weird Al Yankovic

What is Essential Simplicity?

The dictionary defines essential as absolutely necessary or indispensable. Simplicity has more definitions but the one I like the most is freedom from complexity.

I am not one to come out and condemn someone for having a lot of things and/or a lot of stuff going on in their lives…that is their decision. I just know that the more things you own and the more stuff you’ve got going on…the more complicated life can get. For myself personally, I choose not to embrace complexity…I choose to embrace simplicity. To me, simplicity IS essential…hence the name for this blog.

My goal in having this blog is to help keep myself accountable for the goals I’ve set to simplify my life and to help encourage others who have decided to follow this lifestyle themselves. Not everything I do will be the right step for another, so feel free to pick and choose from the ideas presented here…and maybe you will find other ideas that help you that you may want to pass along here as well.

The things I will concentrate on here will be to simplify in these main areas: cleaning, organizing, shopping, cooking, etc. Other things touched on will be simplifying life online, simplifying activities offline, using resources to find cheap or free fun, getting or staying in shape, staying healthy, etc.

Since this is a blog, I do welcome comments. Since this is MY blog, comments can be deleted at my discretion. Just keep it clean and polite, please!!

The Story of a Determined Young Princess...

Once there was a little furry princess. Her name was Amidala, but her human parents called her Ami. She was a tiny little thing with an interesting face.This little princess loved to play as hard as she could, and then she would sleep really hard afterwards.
One day she saw her toy up on a shelf and determined that she MUST have that toy to play with immediately...so she set her mind to it and got to work on acquiring it!!




All was right in her little world!! She played some more, ate a little food, and took a nap in the sunshine!!
THE END

Currently Listening To: Beautiful Life by Ace of Base

Simplicity...and other stuff...

So, yeah...it's been a while since I blogged...even when I started out the year determined to be a bit more consistent with it. Ahh, well..."the best laid plans of mice and men", right?

So my temp job came to an end almost three weeks ago...so I decided that I really don't like sitting at a desk all day...duh!! So I tried going for the nanny thing again...and had a couple interviews so far...but the jobs went to others...though I do have an opportunity to work for the one mom part-time running errands and babysitting some evenings...so I may go ahead and take her up on that. I should just do that...then get a 20 hr/week job at Starbucks for the benefits and free coffee...and then see if I can get my own little business started. I realized that I really can be brutal in sorting, weeding out, and organizing other people's junk...so if I could turn that into a business...that would be awesome. I actually like doing that sort of thing...weird, I know...but that's me!!

I've really decided to simplify and streamline my life as well...starting with deleting a lot of my online accounts. I actually completely closed out my accounts on Myspace, Yahoo 360, Tickle, and Friendster...will soon be closing out my accounts on Flixster and Hi5...and have been ruthlessly pruning out old email on my Hotmail and Yahoo accounts in anticipation of moving all email just to my Gmail accounts (which then funnel into my Outlook)...

I moved my old Yahoo 360 blog posts over to my Blogger account and have started copying my Xanga posts over to there as well. I won't be leaving Xanga for a good bit yet, but am going to be posting simultaneously for a while. With Blogger I can have one dashboard for my regular blog, the blog I've started to rally people to help my folks get into a decent house, and a future blog I want to start about living simply...so eventually I will be completely moved over there...but not for a while yet!!

I will not be completely swearing off the internet...no worries!! But I figure if I can get it down to just Gmail, Facebook, a few blog feeds, a few message boards, and my own blog....then I will be doing pretty good. It is just too easy to get sucked into wasting too much time on social networks and slogging thru junk email!!

There's a lot more I could blog about tonight...but if I blog about everything tonight, then I'll not have much (if anything) to blog about tomorrow!!

Here's hoping you all are doing great and staying warm!!

Currently Listening To: Mr. Zoot Suit by The Flying Neutrinos

A New Year...

So...it's been over four months since I last posted. It's not that nothing has happened for me to post about, but rather that I've been so busy that the last thing I wanted to do upon getting home was to sit and post!! But I suppose that it is now time to update everyone on what has been going on...

September-- I started a new job in September...what was supposed to be a temp job for 6-8 weeks...however, I am still working there!! I am a dispatcher for a copy machine company...taking orders and service requests and sending out techs to make repairs. I like this job (good pay, nice co-workers, and not stressful)...so it'd be nice if they took me on full-time, but I'm not holding my breath!! We shall see what's what in that department sometime in the next couple weeks, I imagine...

October-- Finally got to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival with Brack, David, and Danielle. We camped out..which was an experience!! Already our first night there we were making lists of things to bring "next year" to make our campsite a bit more comfortable!! Danielle and I actually got the guys to go in garb with us for the first day...surprisingly, they got more into garbing than we did, I think!! It looks like we might be checking out a few different ren faires this year and then narrowing it down to going once a year to a family-friendly faire and once a year to a grownups-only faire!!


November-- We were going to make up for our sad shortening of our honeymoon last year (due to migraines and asthma attacks) this year by doing something nice. However, since our anniversary was a race weekend and Brack got free tickets to go...we ended up going to a Nascar race on our anniversary!! Then our plans to spend the next weekend at a froofy hotel fell through...so we ended up just spending a night out on the town!! Ahh, well...maybe a spring trip to Mexico, who knows?!! We ended the month with Thanksgiving in Lubbock with all of Brack's family...such a bunch of cute little nieces and nephews!!



December-- We promoted from the newlywed class to the young marrieds class in Sunday School. We also had a nice dinner and game night with Todd, Leah, David, Jess, and Nate (and baby Maggie, too) about the middle of the month. Christmas weekend itself saw us at the farm with my parents, two youngest siblings, and my sister Melody's little family. Brack got to play uncle to Melody's two rowdy kiddoes--which I'm sure he'll never forget!! We got to see John, Dayana, and little Luke a few days after Christmas at an extended family gathering...which was fun! We were going to go to Austin for New Years with the Faulks, the Pravels, and the Drewas--and I even got New Year's Eve off from work---but then I came down with a nasty bug that kept us home. I ended up falling asleep in the living room, only waking up about 30 seconds before midnight, getting a hug from Brack, then crawling into bed to go back to sleep!! Ahh, well...it's a new year!!




Speaking of New Years...I don't wanna say that I'm making resolutions, as those usually end up getting broken...but I do wanna put out here for all the web to see...what I am wanting to at least work on a bit this year...

1)Being more organized...not just the house, but my schedule...

2)Eating healthier food...and planning meals out ahead of time...

3)Getting more exercise...going for walks, to the exercise room, and out dancing...

4)Keeping in better touch with people...thru emails, cards, facebook, and xanga...

5)Spending more time with my husband, friends, and books...than with movies and the internet...

6)Getting more excited about God, church, and reading my Bible...

I guess that is about it!! Happy New Year to everyone...and hope this year is the best one yet!!

Currently Listening To: Home by Daughtry

It's all good...

Susanna posted on her xanga. They are fine there in Taiwan. The typhoon was I'm sure a scary thing to go through, but she and the other girls did fine. There was only one person reported dead as a result of the typhoon, but it was scary for us here stateside to hear that it was in the same town Suz was in.

We still haven't heard from Peru, but are fairly certain that all friends and family are okay...as they are situated a few hours south of the quake zone. Just pray that none of them were in the area when the quake occured, and just pray for the people of Peru in general...there were almost 600 people killed and there are thousands now without homes...so keep them in prayer.

In other news, things are going pretty well for us. I again no longer have a job...the receptionist position fell thru Friday before last...(yes, right in the middle of all the YUCK)...but the staffing place is hoping to get me placed very soon here...so it's all good. This at least is giving me a chance to get some much-needed cleaning and organizing done around the apartment.

My sis-in-law posted some CUTE pics of the babies on her ringo account...they are just SOOO cute!! I love being an aunt and can't wait till I have some of my own babies to love on too!!




Currently Listening To: Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

Please Pray!!

I don't know how many of you follow world news, but there was a major earthquake that hit Peru Wednesday and we are still waiting to hear if it affected anyone we know (it hit just south of Lima...so several hours north of where my parents planted two churches and where my BIL and SIL's relatives are)...

Now, though...please also pray for my sister Susanna and all those who are in Taiwan with the English Village...as well as for the Taiwanese people, of course....I just found out minutes ago that there is a major typhoon and the area where my sister is located is also the frontlines for this typhoon!!

Please just pray for all the people affected by both the earthquake and the typhoon...and particularly for my sister's safety...the typhoon is expected to make landfall today...if it hasn't already.

All of this, plus the news that my brother John may get stationed in Iraq later this fall kinda puts the whole drama of this last week into perspective, doesn't it?

Currently Listening To: When God's People Pray by Wayne Watson