Coffee Please
So I played Journey to the Wild Divine into the night and beyond, it is
so much fun using creative imagery and imagination and practicing the
interactive states of relaxation and clarity. It's just fun, and it
carries into real life because you are so used to tuning into how your
body reacts that you recognize anxiety and stress right away. That's
what I've noticed. So it's fun but it's like an emotional training
tool. It's really cool.
Dan is making breakfast, bless him, and we are getting ready for a fun
day of housework. Ever since our roommate moved in and we turned the
2nd bedroom into the massage studio, we've been struggling to find a
place for everything and get the whole house situation to work, though
we both are really committed to reducing what we own and living in a
clutter free environment.
irisblue23
sent me this great link http://organizedhome.com/ that totally rocks and has given us many good ideas for doing our do today.
I've been studying this pyrimid model for wellness at OSM and it talks about how the "absence of illness or disease" is a neutral state on the path to wellness. It takes something more to gain wellness, a state of fulfillment that encompasses a person's health but also their whole life in mind and spirit. So I'm becoming increasingly aware of the areas of our life where we really are just scraping by and it never feels more than "adequate" and this impacts our whole life. So the good news is, I'm feeling well enough and aware enough to want more from life than just the absence of illness. This is real progress!
But Dan and I are a couple of kids. We live like we're still in college even though we own our own home and have put so much care into making it a potentially wonderful sanctuary for daily life. And I'm realizing that not doing the daily little things we need to be doing creates this downpressing energy that makes daily living not fun. It's like, getting away from the house that feels bad to spend money we don't have for mediocre food that isn't as healthy or delicious as the food we could pretty easily make at home if home was clean and ready to be used for cooking and eating. Ya know?
So we've made some good changes already. I spent about 6 hours deep cleaning the kitchen a few weeks ago, and totally reorganizing it to give it the "flow" that I'm talking about. To me, flow is sort of a process engineering that goes into the way the house works so that it takes minimal energy to keep the place clean and functional for daily life. Like spending $12 on a plastic compost bucket with a lid, and decluttering the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink so that the trash, cleaners, compost bucket, and recycling bag all fit and are easily accessible. Now Dan has plugged my cell phone cord into the wall nearest the basket where we keep our keys, so I can charge the cell phone right where I'm going to need it, rather than losing the cord and letting my phone go days to weeks without charging because there is no flow. Also, we've set up the shredder right under the coat rack near the shelves/front door so that as the mail comes in I sort it daily. It takes like a few seconds and keeps huge unmanageable piles of mail from establishing themselves menacingly all over the house. Now I shred personal unwantables, put the stuff we want in a mail sorter that's right there, and recycle the non-personal stuff in the bag under the sink in the kitchen. When the bag in the kitchen gets full, or the shredder basket gets full, out they go to the recycling bins under the carport in the driveway. Flow. Once things are cleaned and put where they need to be so that daily life is functional and manageable, it takes a few seconds and prevents the problems that we've been struggling with for so long. "An ounce of prevention" and whatnot. I mean, it seems like it's a no-brainer but for us it's taken a long time.
One of the tips on the website is to clean the house all in one go. Don't start, fart around, and stop. This is such sage advice, because if one room is clean and all the rest are dirty, it makes the whole job stretched out and less satisfying. By the time the last room is clean, if you stick with it at all, the first room is likely to be dirty. It also recommends cleaning in pairs. The site says that 2 people make a bed 4 times faster than 1 person. That is so cool. And it's more fun and motivating to clean as a couple, and a lot faster. Once our lives are manageable, we can get more into the FAA program and have more quality time at home, spend less money out to get away from our sweet little home, have people over more easily with less notice, and just generally have more time to do stuff other than be frustrated by living like teenagers in a cruddily managed home environment. I would rather live in a 1 bedroom apartment with virtually no possessions, that's easy to keep clean and function in manageably, than a beatiful home that stifles and stagnates and downpresses my spirit. So even after Jeff moves out next week, we're not going to fill his room up with stuff. We're still going to keep getting rid of excess stuff and we're striving for the stuff we need, the stuff we want, and the stuff we cherish. Everything else goes. We've been working at this ever since we moved in, and in fact for years, but it's never come together well in terms of daily liveability, so that's what this 10 day plan is all about, this being day 3, and so far we're on track. By Sunday (a week from tomorrow) everything should be set, energy should be flowing through this home freely, and then we transition to a simple maintenance plan that we work out together. Sure, it's going to be tough picking up after ourselves when we're tired and lazy and cooking meals when we're used to eating pre-made crap, but it will get easier and easier as we keep it going and develop these skills. So updates to follow, I'm off to start the day... Hey, where's that coffee?
On a stranger note, I've accepted an invitation to a passion party tomorrow. I'm tingly. Dan and I have never been "sex toy" people, but I think it should be fun, informative, and possibly tingly, so there you go.
irisblue23
sent me this great link http://organizedhome.com/ that totally rocks and has given us many good ideas for doing our do today.
I've been studying this pyrimid model for wellness at OSM and it talks about how the "absence of illness or disease" is a neutral state on the path to wellness. It takes something more to gain wellness, a state of fulfillment that encompasses a person's health but also their whole life in mind and spirit. So I'm becoming increasingly aware of the areas of our life where we really are just scraping by and it never feels more than "adequate" and this impacts our whole life. So the good news is, I'm feeling well enough and aware enough to want more from life than just the absence of illness. This is real progress!
But Dan and I are a couple of kids. We live like we're still in college even though we own our own home and have put so much care into making it a potentially wonderful sanctuary for daily life. And I'm realizing that not doing the daily little things we need to be doing creates this downpressing energy that makes daily living not fun. It's like, getting away from the house that feels bad to spend money we don't have for mediocre food that isn't as healthy or delicious as the food we could pretty easily make at home if home was clean and ready to be used for cooking and eating. Ya know?
So we've made some good changes already. I spent about 6 hours deep cleaning the kitchen a few weeks ago, and totally reorganizing it to give it the "flow" that I'm talking about. To me, flow is sort of a process engineering that goes into the way the house works so that it takes minimal energy to keep the place clean and functional for daily life. Like spending $12 on a plastic compost bucket with a lid, and decluttering the cabinet underneath the kitchen sink so that the trash, cleaners, compost bucket, and recycling bag all fit and are easily accessible. Now Dan has plugged my cell phone cord into the wall nearest the basket where we keep our keys, so I can charge the cell phone right where I'm going to need it, rather than losing the cord and letting my phone go days to weeks without charging because there is no flow. Also, we've set up the shredder right under the coat rack near the shelves/front door so that as the mail comes in I sort it daily. It takes like a few seconds and keeps huge unmanageable piles of mail from establishing themselves menacingly all over the house. Now I shred personal unwantables, put the stuff we want in a mail sorter that's right there, and recycle the non-personal stuff in the bag under the sink in the kitchen. When the bag in the kitchen gets full, or the shredder basket gets full, out they go to the recycling bins under the carport in the driveway. Flow. Once things are cleaned and put where they need to be so that daily life is functional and manageable, it takes a few seconds and prevents the problems that we've been struggling with for so long. "An ounce of prevention" and whatnot. I mean, it seems like it's a no-brainer but for us it's taken a long time.
One of the tips on the website is to clean the house all in one go. Don't start, fart around, and stop. This is such sage advice, because if one room is clean and all the rest are dirty, it makes the whole job stretched out and less satisfying. By the time the last room is clean, if you stick with it at all, the first room is likely to be dirty. It also recommends cleaning in pairs. The site says that 2 people make a bed 4 times faster than 1 person. That is so cool. And it's more fun and motivating to clean as a couple, and a lot faster. Once our lives are manageable, we can get more into the FAA program and have more quality time at home, spend less money out to get away from our sweet little home, have people over more easily with less notice, and just generally have more time to do stuff other than be frustrated by living like teenagers in a cruddily managed home environment. I would rather live in a 1 bedroom apartment with virtually no possessions, that's easy to keep clean and function in manageably, than a beatiful home that stifles and stagnates and downpresses my spirit. So even after Jeff moves out next week, we're not going to fill his room up with stuff. We're still going to keep getting rid of excess stuff and we're striving for the stuff we need, the stuff we want, and the stuff we cherish. Everything else goes. We've been working at this ever since we moved in, and in fact for years, but it's never come together well in terms of daily liveability, so that's what this 10 day plan is all about, this being day 3, and so far we're on track. By Sunday (a week from tomorrow) everything should be set, energy should be flowing through this home freely, and then we transition to a simple maintenance plan that we work out together. Sure, it's going to be tough picking up after ourselves when we're tired and lazy and cooking meals when we're used to eating pre-made crap, but it will get easier and easier as we keep it going and develop these skills. So updates to follow, I'm off to start the day... Hey, where's that coffee?
On a stranger note, I've accepted an invitation to a passion party tomorrow. I'm tingly. Dan and I have never been "sex toy" people, but I think it should be fun, informative, and possibly tingly, so there you go.