September Pointless Lists

Thirty days has September.  Hath September?  One of those.

Ah, how I love lazy Sunday mornings.  I went on a news website to be all worldly and informed and somehow ended up on YouTube watching "Smart Girls Ask Amy" episodes.  Amy Poehler giving advice to people?  THAT'S AWESOME.

So I still don't know what's going on in the world, but you know what?  That's probably for the best because I end up yelling at my monitor a lot.

P.S. Abby had a sleepover Friday night.  When you're a teenager and all your friends have iPod Touches, you can put out an APV at like 7 p.m. on Thursday and get a party going in no time flat.  So we had a houseful of girls, is what I'm saying.  Or four.  Whatever.  So Saturday morning I made Mickey Mouse waffles with the waffle maker my Aunt Jan gave me as a shower gift like 17 years ago for my "future children."  I don't always make waffles, but when I do, they're Mickey Mouse.

THEN.  It was National Coffee Day, and our Dutch Bros had all their medium drinks on sale for $1.  So I piled everyone into my car and vanilla lattes for all!  Decaf because I'm not going to stunt anyone's growth (right, Tim*?), and actually a strawberry smoothie for Johanna because my coffee fiend decided at the last minute that's what she wanted.  Alrighty then.

Um, that was enough interaction with the children, so we came home and I  tried to read on the deck but it got too hot (!!!) so I read inside instead.

Today: Grocery shopping, laundry, light cleaning.  More reading?  Perhaps some decluttering.  Decluttering is fun.

P.P.S. Johanna is playing Mario Kart and just got first place.  She's jacked.  But my favorite quote this morning?  "I'm solidly in second!  I'm in solid secon... oh."

Pointless list time!

Books read:
You Can Buy Happiness (and It's Cheap) by Tammy Strobel.  Tammy writes the Rowdy Kittens blog, which I love and adore, so knew that this book would probably be awesome.  And it is.  Tammy and her husband Logan have chosen to live very simply.  How simply?  They live in a 128 square foot "tiny house."  But it's not so much about that as it is about the research Tammy has done into happiness.  What makes us happy in the long run are experiences, not stuff.  I mean, yes, it's also about minimalism, but she presents it in a way that is the exact opposite of preachy.  She says upfront that she's not an expert and that minimalism looks different to everyone.  Plus she was the epitome of the Western Lifestyle less than ten years ago, so she has a great perspective on what it means to purposely choose to have less stuff.  And also: It wasn't her idea, it was her husband's.

Highly recommend.

Gone, Hunger, Lies, and Plague--all books by Michael Grant that Abby insisted I needed to read because they are "so great" and I'd "love them."  They're interesting, I'll give them that, but after reading four... and knowing there's still a fifth one to go, and a sixth to be published next year... I'm feeling a little burned out on the whole ordeal.  I'm thinking Grant could have made a really great trilogy instead of a... whatever the word for six books is.

See, it's a bunch of kids under the age of 15 living in a dome.  No access to the outside world.  No grownups of any kind.  And man, these kids have it tough.  At first it's fine because no one knows what's going on and there's a lot of pop and chips, but life in the dome is far from normal, so you've got mutant creatures and a lack of food and no water and a growing tension between those who have developed powers and those who have not.  And just when you think maybe these crazy kids have a handle on things, it gets WORSE.  What's hunger and lies when you've got people dying from the plague?  Unless they die from bugs hatching out of their skin, I guess.  Anyway, I'm not sure I'm emotionally stable enough to handle Fear, the next in the series, let alone whatever else happens after that.  Although I'll probably read them anyway because I'm OCD.

Great.

Movies watched:
The Odd Life of Timothy Green.  Johanna REALLY wanted to watch this movie.  Every time we saw a preview she was wondering when we could go.

My mother and Abby joined Johanna and I for an afternoon matinee.  I'm not a crier, people, okay?  But I had tears ROLLING down my face at the beginning and at the end.  Holy crap.  Jo also found it emotionally troubling.  Mom and Abby were dry-eyed.  Huh.  It was a great movie, but I'm not sure I could watch it again.  Craving a baby is something I am all too familiar with.

Garden update:
I actually picked some beans a week or so ago.  Weird.  Where'd they even come from?  The zucchini seems to have given up, but the pumpkins look good.  We dug up the last of the carrots this month.

And I am so over the tomatoes.

Canning/Freezing update:
Peach butter up the yang (like we're talking two dozen half pints).  Lots o' tomato sauce and dried tomatoes.  You know what?  I need to roast some up.  I keep forgetting about that option.  Made some applesauce.  Need to tackle pears and then I can put my big ol' canning pot away.

I'm over canning, too.

Things I learned:
I'm big.  I'm a minimalist.  I'm a minimalist who is, at this very moment, is letting Johanna, who has decided she's had enough of Mario Kart, put Halloween and Thanksgiving decorations up all over the house.  The clutter is going to drive me insane.  But.  Johanna.  That's the thing.

Also: Dystopian novels--series, even--are fine when they don't drag on forever; otherwise they give me a headache.  Sunshine is nice.  Hazy forest fire skies are not.  You can bribe your children with licorice.  Skilly weighs seven pounds.

*My brother Tim, as you may or may not remember/know, is 6'10" and used to drink Mom's coffee all the time when we were kids.  We'll never know how tall he WOULD have been had he laid off the joe.

When the hardest part is over, we'll be here

There's a fire burning just east of us and wow, is the valley smoky.  The thing started Tuesday night, and so of course it was on the news yesterday, but since it was clear at our house, I didn't think too much about it.  Until I went to work.  The smoke was so thick downtown it looked yellow, and you could see particles of ash falling now and again to boot.

Um, that's smoke right there over the hills.

Of course the smoke has spread to our house now.  Everywhere you look, all you see is smoke.  A haze has settled over our yard, and it smells like a camp fire.  Johanna was pretty sure it was fog this morning as we were driving to school.  I tried to explain it was smoke, but she was all, and fog, and honestly, there are only so many disagreements I'm willing to have in a day, so I was all word up.

It sucks, people.  There are air quality warnings and events have actually been canceled.  (Like the high school homecoming bonfire.  How's THAT for irony?)  I think I like raging, out of control fires better when they're just on the TV.  P.S. No structures are in danger.  But it is in this pretty awesome nature area.  Bummer.

More smoke (?).  Trust me, it's there and it's bad.

Abby's school has its open house/carnival tonight in the plaza area outside.  Nothing like a little smoke inhalation to make a Thursday complete.  She's pretty sure I don't need to be there at all, but hello, how else am I going to introduce myself to her teachers and embarrass her?  THINK IT THROUGH, KID.

She's a WEB leader, which is essentially an eighth grade mentor, so she stayed after school yesterday to help clean up and get ready for tonight's gala.  When I told her I'd pick her up after work, she was all, go home and THEN come get me, and I was like, uh, no.  And she was all, I don't know where I'll be, and then it occurred to me that my 13-year-old didn't want me showing up and calling attention to myself by standing quietly out of the way in a corner, so I was like, relax, I'll just stay in the car and you can find me when you're done.  She liked that plan.

Thirteen is awesome.

Hey though, there are some pretty great pictures of her and her friends on Facebook with uni-brows and mustaches and huge moles now.  Apparently they had a little too much fun "practicing" with the face paint last night.

Let me make sure I have this straight: My very presence is humiliating, but walking around with a uni-brow and mustache and various moles should be publicly celebrated.

My eyes itch.  I feel like I've had a good cry without the benefit of emotional release.  What's the percentage a rain dance would actually work?  Smoke is highly overrated, just FYI.

UPDATE 12:34 p.m.: Just got a phone call from Abby's school and the open house has been canceled tonight "due to poor air quality."  Well, can't argue with that.  It looks like we're in a fog bank.

Brandon Flowers, Crossfire.  It was either that or an Adele song, and not that I have anything against Adele, it's just more Abby's thing than mine.  Hey, what did this guy do to have all those ninjas come after him?  Good thing Charlize Theron is a boss.

Trisha, Minimalist

I am a minimalist.

Okay, I've been a minimalist for like a day and a half.  Longer maybe if you count all the blogs I've perused to get a handle on what minimalism even is.  But I've sort of come to the conclusion that I need to own it, take it on, say it out loud.  Because just thinking about it isn't making it happen.

When I cleaned out my kitchen and my closet, I was hoping that would be the snowball that started the avalanche.  And it was, for a while.  Here's the problem I've run into: Now I've got all this crap in Eric's office/brew room, mocking me every time I pass.  I've tried to get rid of it by putting ads in the paper, but apparently no one else wants this shit, either.

Well, not that I blame them.  Except some of it is pretty great shit, if I do say so myself.

It just bugs me.  I've managed to move crap from one area to the other without actually getting rid of anything.  What's the point?  Why bother?

Which is why I haven't tackled other areas.

And is also why I bought a denim shirt that I really don't need a couple of weeks ago.

You know what the point is?  Why I should bother?  Because I am a minimalist.  Because I want to spend less time cleaning.  I want to spend less time searching for the things we need.  I want to spend more time reading.  I want to be able to do fun stuff with the girls on the weekend.  (I'd include Eric in there too, but he's too project oriented.  Hey, it's been 17 years, we're in acceptance here, people.)  I want to be happy with what I have.  I want my self worth to come from the inside.

I just want some peace.

I don't think minimalism means stark and cold and complete denial.  We're not selling the house to go live in a van down by the river.  I'm not going to pare my wardrobe down to like six items.  I'm not going to limit my possessions to 100.  I'm not going to get all preachy, although I may write about it from time to time (especially since I know there are going to be struggles.  I am really great about getting rid of stuff.  I am really horrible about bringing more stuff in).

I am going to remind myself that things are just things, that relationships are the most important, and that an hour on the porch with a good book and a cup of coffee is a really great way to spend my time.

There.  I feel better.  Time to tackle the hutch.