Tag: books

enjoy life project: intro: create home thru konmari

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For the past three years, I have set intentions (I dislike using the word goals).  This year, so far, I have three of them and one of them is to “create home”, terminology “borrowed” from Joanna Gaines.

In her new book, Homebody, Joanna describes her home as the eye of the storm.  “There’s a certain calm I experience there no matter what is swirling around outside. Home is where I feel safe.” Right now, home is where I tend to feel the most guilt.  All the undone tasks that call to me, along with everything that has to be done at home on a given day.  I want to change that. I want to love the home I am in. And I want everyone who lives and visits there to feel loved and safe. This is what I mean when I say “create home”.

First thing that I need to do is clear the clutter and I have always wanted to try the KonMari method since reading her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up twice, as well as her second book, Spark Joy, over three years ago.  This year Netflix released a new series, Tidying Up with Marie Kondo where Marie tries to help people declutter their homes-and their lives.  I devoured the series within two days and was inspired to completely “tidy” my home this year.

I am pleased to annouce the first ever EnjoyLife Project here on the blog: Create Home thru KonMari. And I invite you to come on this journey with me.

Step 1: Commit to the Process

Marie identifies the first step you must take is to commit to the process. Marie warns that the process will be hard.  And it is.  This is not the first time I have begun this process.  Last time I began in January 2016. You can read about it here. It didn’t work. I didn’t follow through.  Marie says that  “tidying up means confronting yourself” and, boy, was she right.  And that was what held me back in 2016.

It’s worth saying again. Marie insists that this will be hard. And for a long time, I avoided anything that seemed too difficult.  Especially when it came to my feelings.  I stuffed them down, buried them deep and piled ice cream on top of them. This seemed easier than dealing with my actual emotions: my sense of failure, guilt, fear, etc. Tackling those things would hurt too much. My default instinct is to try to fix the thing, to move forward, to keep pushing, to try the newest method, to read the newest book, to implement the next plan.  And, for a long time I worshipped at the false god of efficiency and organization.  Oh, and perfection, or at least, the appearance of perfection because underneath everything was a mess.

Kind of like my home.  Most people visiting my house would insist that it was one of the neatest homes they have ever been in.  And that may be the truth of their experience.  But I know where the clutter is buried and what lurks in the closet.

Step 2: Identify Your Ideal Lifestyle

Step two is to identify your ideal lifestyle.  Thanks to leaving a full-time position at the end of 2017 and following the advice of Shauna Niequist in her excellent book, Present Over Perfect, to listen to my spirit, the voice of God, I have been able to discover some of what I am meant to do in this world.  I love this quote, “Be still and know.”  Before the knowing, before the stillness, there is the being.  In 2018, I began to learn to “be” and in the process rediscovered what my ideal lifestyle looks like. And perfection is NOT part of that equations anymore.  Honestly, my ideal lifestyle does not look that different from what it was before I took that detour of a full-time position in late 2016.  As I said then and reiterated at the start of this post, I don’t’ want to spend time dealing with stuff at home. I want my home to be a source of tranquility and a source of nourishment for my family, where everything  and everyone has a place and everything is in its place.  My knowing where that place is would be awesome.

Step 3: Finish Discarding First

This is going to be the difficult part for me.  I want to finish. To see the awesome “after” pictures but that’s not how Marie works.  Things will get a lot worse before they get better.  That’s one of the things that scared me the last time.

The Other Steps

Step 4: Tidy by Category, not location. Marie’s first category is clothes.  I will be tackling that this month and will share my progress next month.

Step 5: Follow the Right Order.

Step 6: Ask yourself, if it sparks joy.  Remember that you are not choosing what to discard but what to keep.

If any of you want to participate with me in this process, I would be thrilled. We could encourage and share our joys and challenges together. Let me know if you’re interested in the comments below and tag me on Instagram using the hashtag: enjoylifeproject

I’ll be back next month with an update on my progress.

enjoy life…

Take a look at the next posts in the series:

Spark Joy

Clothes Part I

Clothes Part II

Books

quick lit – next page, please {my best books of 2018}

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I have decided to do something that I have never done before here on the blog.  I am selecting the best books that I read in 2018. I am not going to cover every category (there are so many); I’m just going to highlight categories that had multiple selections that I really liked.

Fantasy

Circe by Madeline Miller

Runner-Up: Time’s Convert by Deborah Harkness

I do not read fantasy. I read The Illiad  and The Odyssey for school, along with other fantasy classics that were required reading.  But I have never read them for pleasure.  But towards the end of 2018, I was longing for something fun and pointless – an escape from the seriousness of my usual picks which tend to fall heavily in the Nonfiction/Memoir/Autobiography category-very worthwhile but often weighty material. I mentioned this to a friend who suggested that I try to read something that I don’t generally read.  I’m so glad that I did.  With these picks, I was able to suspend belief and just read for the sheer love of words-no deep thought, no lessons to learn, no new knowledge to implement into my life.

But a good story, no matter the genre, is always going to teach us something or make us see something in a different way. Miller’s Circe was amazing.  Miller took the character of Circe in The Odyssey and expanded her back story and made me see her in a whole new light.  I love books that do that.  And Time’s Convert, the fourth book in the All Souls Trilogy also accomplished that.  It was interesting. It was engaging and both books were an absolute delight to read.

Fiction

Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

Runner-Up: The Ensemble by Aja Gabel

I am still pondering Almost Sisters which I read with the Rocket City Mom book club.  The setting, the characters, the storyline. This was a book with very weighted themes told in such a light and palatable way. For a full review of this one, check out my review on Rocket City Mom.

I also loved The Ensemble, a debut by Aja Gabel.  That novel, about the lives of musicians in a string ensemble, also has stuck with me and I will probably read it again.

Memoir & Autobiography

Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton

Runner-Up: We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

Memoir/Autobiography and Nonfiction are what I generally read.  I read quite a few books in this category but it wasn’t really hard to narrow down my two best ones.

I didn’t read Love Warrior when it first came out. The reason: I was being a prejudicial snob. I don’t know if you remember but there was a lot of discussion around it.  Glennon released a book about saving her marriage while that very marriage was ending. I was convinced that she had absolutely nothing to teach me. I was wrong.

We’re Going to Need More Wine was so funny and if I indulged, I would have needed more wine.  I laughed so hard, I couldn’t stand it.  My girlfriends laughed so hard they couldn’t stand it. This book was awesome!

Nonfiction

I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights & Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Anne Bogel

This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide by Geneen Roth

My reading guru, Anne Bogel released her second book, I’d Rather Be Reading. I adored this little volume for making me realize that I wasn’t the only crazy person in the world when it comes to my love for books and for reading. I laughed. I cried.  What more can you want from a book?

I have had an interesting relationship with Geneen Roth’s work.  Her idea that it’s not about the food when it comes to weight and healthy eating was an idea that I had quickly dismissed as bologna.  Her first book, Women Food and God sat on my shelf for a year before I opened it. Then I read the first few chapters and put it away and it sat on my shelf another year before I was ready to receive the wisdom inside.  This Messy Magnificent Life is a follow-up. I love it so much, I am rereading it now.

The Winners

This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide by Geneen Roth

Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson

I can’t decide between these two so there you have it: my two best books of 2018. What were yours?

enjoy life…

Per usual, I’m linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy and her Quick Lit posts.  Head over there if you are looking for more reading ideas.

 

 

quick lit – next page, please {november 2018}

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My reading life has taken a back seat to the excitement and thrill of the holidays: Thanksgiving and Christmas and the associated activities have a way of taking priority. And if I’m being honest, I have taken some time to do other fun things. Don’t get me wrong, I have been reading, I just didn’t complete any books.

Currently Reading

  • Becoming Michelle by Michelle Obama. I have been looking forward to this book since Barack Obama was elected President of the United States. I was so interested in hearing about her time in the White House, I started reading at Becoming More on page 281. It’s very interesting.
  • This Messy Magnificent Life: A Field Guide by Geneen Roth. The astute readers will note that I read this one last month. Yes, I’m reading it again.  It’s just that good.

Read

This is just sad.

Abandoned Reading

  • Transformational Speaking by Gail Larsen. I’ll be picking this up next year.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Let’s be honest, I am probably not going to finish this before the year is out. And so, I am not going to be able to finish the Modern Mrs. Darcy’s (MMD) reading challenge. Oh well. HOWEVER, the MMD’s 2019 Reading Challenge is up and ready. I will be checking it out soon.

So, how about you? Have you been as bad as me? Head over to Modern Mrs. Darcy’s for this month’s round-up.  I know the community over there has been reading.

enjoy life…