When you have lots on your plate - add one more thing!

It's not very logical. It's not wise. It doesn't even make the tiniest amount of sense. And yet, this is my pattern. Get busy, very busy, then add one more thing!

So, here's the scoop. Currently, I am;

• Hardcore into weekly budgeting (Dave Ramsey style)
• Making a big switch from "I didn't really feel like planning dinner or grocery shopping so we're eating rice and beans again" to a seven day a week dinner plan. Now I have to grocery shop every week and cook every night (cooking and I get along, but we're not best friends ;)
• We've gone gluten free! Seems to be positively impacting the kids, but that means more cooking. Particularly at lunch time. I can't just make PB&J's (because gluten free bread is $5 for the tiniest loaf ever) or mac n cheese. I have to be creative. 
• Slowly but surely dealing with our disease of stuffatosis (thanks to Disney Junior's Doc for teaching me how to make a word sound medical!). I'm weeding through our belongings and getting rid of things, consigning, throwing away, and donating. As freeing as the end result will be, the process is actually laborious. Time consuming. Dull.
• Reengaging in art. I stopped painting and drawing and writing for several years, and I'm slowly wading back in! I have a couple paintings being displayed on the church 'art wall' and I've even been commissioned to (attempt) to draw a portrait. I was going to try to submit some art for the Edmonds Arts Festival, but I missed the deadline (by three months) so I put it on the calendar for next year!
• I'm trying to will myself into being a runner. I don't particularly like running, but it's free, and I am re-committing to exercising a few times each week. Bring on the strength, endorphins, and dolphins! (just checking if you're still awake)
• It appears I will be homeschooling Lorelai for Kindergarten, so I am wrapping my mind around that incredible privilege/labor. And sometime soon I'm going to have to start getting homeschooling materials. Advice welcome. 
• Reading the Bible in one year! I started last August, on my birthday, then failed miserably for about 5 months, so I'm re-entering that commitment :)
• I ordered a Passion Planner - and I finally got it in March! So I've been doing that and that is where I realized that;
1. I have a very hard time changing my schedule to commit to something daily
2. I love to commit to things (and so I commit and commit and commit until I have 3,000 things)
3. I am VERY easily distracted. I'll decide to do a task, but then I'll notice that an area is disorganized, or there's ducklings stuck in the pool outside our window, and all the sudden an hour or two are just gone. Poof. Dissipated into thin air, with nothing to show for them!

All of that is to fill you in on what I've been up to over the last two and half months of radio silence. And to tell you I'm thinking about opening an Etsy account. That's today's one more thing.

Any thoughts? Have you ever sold on Etsy? Please feel free to ponder and respond in the comment section below.

Until next time!

-MM

PS- What do you think of my in-progress custom shoes?

Be Yourself!! (Then Blog About It)

Have you ever thought to yourself: "I should start a blog!"

Me too.

And so I started one, then another, and now another.

My first blog had no posts, no followers - I created it then felt paralyzed by the sheer possibilities. The weight of the emptiness was too much for me, so I didn't act. I didn't write. My second blog was less about words and more about images- I took pictures of my art and posted it, curious to see if it would generate any interest (it did not). Again I found myself with very little posts and even fewer followers. This whole blog thing was a mystery to me! And so I emptied it yet again, leaving a clean space for whenever I decided to make a third attempt. 

And that brings us to present day, and my third (and let's hope final) attempt at this whole blog thing. You may ask, "What changed?" After all, I've already had two unsuccessful attempts at being a blogger. And aside from those two actual attempts where many more ideas that never even made it to the web. I'll tell you what changed; I decided I needed to write about a subject which I already talk about. I know that sounds simple, but all my other ideas I was striving to talk about a subject which I didn't currently talk about in my daily life. Don't get me wrong, I've thought about blogging about a lot of things that I love, like art, fashion, books, or finding good deals, but those are not subjects I talk about on a daily basis. Starting a blog to talk about things that I didn't already talk about all the time felt like an uphill battle. I think a blog is a place to find yourself, be yourself, maybe even challenge yourself. But not a place to change yourself. So I've decided to be who I am, and write what I know. So, with that, welcome. I hope you enjoy my novice expertise displayed on these pages.