The toddler eats rocks and other moments - Thriving Week 18

So what is that about the baby (oops -she is a toddler now) eating rocks? We decided Sunday morning to invite the family over for Sunday dinner and to spend time on the patio in the beautiful weather. There was rope jumping, dog racing and bubble blowing as well as spritzers or beer for the adults but the best part (ha!) was when the little one decided to eat a handful of rocks! Crisis averted by her observant Dad who removed them all hopefully from her mouth so we moved to the concrete patio for a bit and then went inside for a child pleasing dinner of turkey burgers, pasta salad, ice cream and cookies.

The 14 month old is walking now and definitely a toddler so it is a whole new adventure. The pup is not quite sure what to do with a slightly unsteady small human just a little taller than himself, but after his initial excitement over company he did well 🐶

Other bits of my week - 

We went to a new to me small local brewery for a late afternoon drink and sat outside on a beautiful Spring day. Hubby had been there before with our son and thought I would like it.

A neighbor is on vacation and learned that flowers were being delivered for her birthday. She asked me to get them from her porch and bring them to my house to enjoy! Gorgeous aren’t they?

 

Watched the White House Correspondents Dinner live broadcast and enjoyed the mix of serious commentary and humor. 

Back at once a week Pilates as trainer is home from vacation. Happy to be getting stronger and more flexible albeit slowly plus my ongoing back pain is now just occasional after overdoing it.

And Hubby figured out how to fix the toilet paper holder that tilted down significantly! I’m amazed at how happy I am about that fix and the fix so the frig door seal finally stays in place. Look around at the small things that aggravate you frequently and fix them one by one for instant stress relief.

Making a home inventory - why do we own so much!?

I’m in the midst of updating our home inventory for insurance purposes and hoping we never need it and wanting to just get rid of tons more stuff! 

No wonder housekeeping takes so much time and energy. 

I do have the visual clutter at a very low level if you exclude the garage and my husband’s desk🤭

However we do have a house that has 3 bedrooms (one used as an office/music room), 2 bathroom, kitchen, garage laundry/storage room, and living, dining, family and little bonus rooms. So lots of room and stuff to care for even though we have reduced a lot each time we move.

I’m at the point I am decluttering as I go about other tasks. Today some unnecessary paper manuals left the house. Little steps.

Self and Home Care - Thriving Week 17

Healthy self care is a challenge when I am stressed, lonely or bored and the sugar, salt, alcohol goodies call to me. I am trying very hard to substitute healthier self care as I remain stressed even though at a lower level than the first year after our move.

Successes this past week were:

1. Walked to the library bringing that day’s step totals to over 9300 totaling 3.8 miles so apparently fairly short steps lol.

2. Did my upper body strength exercises twice. 

3. Taking the time to give myself a pedicure and massage my feet. They do work hard every day.

4. Enjoyed our son’s 41st birthday family taco party and 2 after school visits from the older granddaughter.

5. Reading and more reading plus playing with the dog.

Getting these things done in the house also made me happy

1. Removing a bag of decluttered items from the garage and started a new one.

2. Cleaned the patio and put out some more chairs.

3.  Finishing deep cleaning the large bedroom and closet by mopping both and removing a chair that is better used upstairs.

4. Scheduled appliance repair/servicing. Turned out the oven igniter did need replacing and the serviceman is someone I would definitely use again. 

He also cleaned out lots of charred debris that was hidden in the covered parts of the oven, fixed the frig door seal so it stays in place, made sure the dryer inside was clean of lint, and showed me how to clean the dishwasher filter.

5. The upstairs addition to our house does not have good heating and is very hot in the summer so we are installing a split system heat pump unit for HVAC in that part of the house. We did that for a similar situation in our Atlanta home and it greatly improved our comfort level. 

They were able to install it on Tuesday and it passed inspection Wednesday. We already are feeling the benefit of a mor comfortable temperature in the whole house. Bonus is that we will get $2500 in federal tax credits for doing this in a very energy efficient way.

Time zooms on - my baby is 41🎂

My younger son turned 41 yesterday and while it is not as shocking to me as having a 53 year old older son it still feels like time has speeded up!

The birthday boy wanted a low key family only taco party and did much of the cooking himself. He loves to cook as does his wife and we are the lucky recipients of some of the results. A gorgeous warm and sunny day. When we arrived both granddaughters were swinging and laughing - so lovely.

Th unexpected part of the day was Hubby running into our DIL and granddaughters early in the morning when he went to get a dozen bagels as part of our gift. They were very surprised and exclaiming “Papa” happily according to him. He came home with a big smile.

Why bagels? Our son has been raving about this new bagel place that opened in Berkeley and also didn’t get to letting us know what he might like as a gift so it was going to be just cash. We tucked the cash into the bagel bag and I think he was most delight by the bagels!🌮🎂🎁🎉❤️

Focusing on ease of maintenance - Thriving Week 16

CURRENT MINIMALISM MINDSET 

After one year in this house I’m not stopping decluttering or reorganizing as appropriate but every time I clean or use something I am considering if I could make it a tiny bit easier to manage. When I focus on deep cleaning a room or area I am asking myself “How can I reduce the effort required to take care of this space and stuff?”

So I am asking 

• Why am I storing this thing that hasn’t been used in a year and has no sentimental or decorative value?
• What would happen if I got rid of it and then wanted or needed something similar? Could I borrow it or cheaply replace it?
• If I am going to keep it, could I store it someplace that makes it easier to manage and/or more likely to be used?

SO WHAT TYPES OF CHANGES HAS THIS MINDSET LED TO RECENTLY?

1. The dog has matured enough to no longer have to sleep in his crate or stay there when we go out although we are keeping it for now. I have 2 lovely crate mats and only need one given its minimal use. The extra mat plus an extra smaller dog bed were being stored under the king size bed making it difficult to vacuum there. I am getting rid of one crate mat but keeping the smaller dog bed for now and storing it in the spare upstairs closet.

2 We have an old set of sheets for the king size bed that haven’t been used for over a year. The thought was that if we were sick or couldn’t do laundry then they were there “just in case”. However we also have a queen bed and a queen air bed with 3 sets of sheets that fit them. The worn king ones are going and freeing up closet space.

3. My son is having a family taco party for his upcoming birthday. We have been storing partially used margarita ingredients since New Year’s when we made blue margaritas to toast Michigan during the Rose Bowl, but never make them at our house. I offered them for the party and got rapid acceptance. More pantry space. Really don’t know why we brought it home in the first place.

AMAZING HOW MUCH CAN LEAVE OUR HOMES AND NOT BE MISSED!

Of course non-consumable stuff keeps coming in but we are trying hard to make sure it is the result of thoughtful and intentional acquisition. 

So far this month we have acquired a sunshade for the car windshield since it gets really hot in the summer and the car is parked on the street. I saved the box to store it in the garage during cool weather when a warmer car is appreciated. We also acquired 4 folding patio side tables and put the 2 rusty old ones in the declutter pile.

Mid month check in

I am making progress on what matters for the month.

Focus 1 - Being a supportive local grandparent is a priority for me as is enjoying the time spent with the girls as well as our son and DIL. I will focus on spending time with the granddaughters.

We had a good time during her Spring break. I will see them this weekend at son’s birthday family party.

Focus 2 - Celebrate our 43rd anniversary and our son’s 41st birthday in person as well as our older DIL’s birthday long distance plus make plans for celebrating son & DIL anniversary and Mother’s Day in May.

We went to a new to us Greek restaurant for lunch on our 43rd anniversary. We both would like to go to the restaurant again so we have a new one on our list for repeats. Sent a gift to DIL for her birthday and had a good chat on the day itself.

Focus 3 - Last month I deep cleaned, decluttered and reorganized the main bath and this month it will be the large bedroom and adjoins little room I use for exercise.

I looked at some items in the main bedroom and decided to let them go. I’m creating a free pile to put out May 18th which is citywide yard.

Then I deep cleaned both rooms plus the hallway. Cleaned the closet, vacuumed the floor and baseboards, dusted everything including door tops and so on, turned the mattress, and reorganized the bedside table to make the drawers less crowded. I still need to wash the floor.

Focus 4 - Lean into my Pilates exercises and walking for exercise in addition to walking the pup. No more talking myself out of doing that!

Still need to improve on this between scheduled weekly Pilates sessions.

Focus 5 - Enjoy our yard more by creating a spot for sitting for coffee, wine or a meal. That means some patio end tables and a larger table of some sort. Perhaps a patio coffee table, bistro table or a 6 person table?

We bought 4 outdoor patio tables that fold so they can be kept in the garage until the weather is good. Holding off on a larger table until we see if we really would use it.

Spring wardrobe - I know what to expect this year

I had to stand on a step stool for this! Add a full length mirror to the Want List.

The outfit above is part of my capsule and what I wore out to lunch for our anniversary Friday. This is the Berkeley area and jeans work for almost everything. BTW, the Greek restaurant was very good and the atmosphere lovely. 

WHY BOTHER WITH A SEASONAL CAPSULE WARDROBE? 

The reason I do it is similar to what Dawn at the Minimal Mom says. I want to have fewer decisions and less to manage for this part of my life. I want the clothes in my closet to be ones I like to wear and fit my body as it is right now.

My Spring capsule covers April thru June and is similar to Project 333. It does not include outerwear or jewelry though. It also doesn’t include exercise clothing or sleepwear. I do think of those 4 categories as their own tiny capsules although I am rarely wearing jewelry in my life here so far.

Do you join in the capsule wardrobe approach or not and why?

SPRING HERE IS NOT LIKE SPRING ANYWHERE ELSE I HAVE LIVED

Last year I found the spring weather here difficult to plan for but this year I am doing better. My “reverse engineered” capsule wardrobe has to encompass lots of weather variety but few levels of dressiness fortunately.

Right now it is still mostly pretty cool with some warm afternoons. Lots of pulling on the light down or heavy fleece jackets in the morning and evening still. We don’t get consistently warm to hot weather until August or September. The rainy season is slowly coming to an end.

CREATING MY CAPSULE THIS YEAR

So how am I “reverse engineering” a capsule wardrobe for this season? I’m adding items to my capsule as I wear them and they work for more than one day. 

So far I have 25 items that are all in my best colors or neutrals. As I try on items in my closet I am finding some to declutter as they are too worn or don’t fit well anymore. I am buying very little and only to fill gaps. Also the reality is that I will only do laundry once a week so the capsule has to cover that timeframe.

In addition to the outfit above I have 8 more tops ranging from a cashmere pullover to short sleeve v-neck, 5 toppers ranging from a medium weight pullover fleece to a linen jacket, and 3 more pairs of jeans.

The capsule so far also has 2 more scarves, 3 pairs of shoes and one purse. I expect more lighter weight tops, toppers and bottoms will be added as the weather shifts to more frequent warmer days

The orange top is “new” from ThredUp this season.

THE ELEMENTS OF A GOOD CAPSULE WARDROBE FOR ME

I have learned the key to a workable seasonal capsule wardrobe for me here in the Berkeley area is being able to layer different levels of warmth tops and toppers and being prepared for rapid swings in temperature every few days. I want a variety of colors, textures and styles within a casual relaxed somewhat classic style. Every top and topper doesn’t have to work together though and bottoms are simply in a range of neutral shades.  

Every item does have to be able to go in the washing machine. I am enjoying having a hand wash cycle on the machine in this house because I can even wash cashmere sweaters!