Back From a Badly Needed Break

Am I the only one who gets overwhelmed sometimes? These past weeks it has hit me hard. I find it hard to run errands, blog, keep the house running, cook. etc. Those who know me will tell you that I am a perfectionist who likes things just so but my body has been telling me to slow down. It is very annoying! I am a planner who starts her day off with a routine and a to do list. Lately I am lucky to get just some of the things done. When I do go out and run errands, I can only do 2-3 things not the 6 that I did a year ago. I come home exhausted and need a nap. I am hoping it is just the heat and humidity. It has been intense.

Not only that but we actually got take out 3 times this week because I just couldn’t get my act together to cook. Shame on me! As a frugal person, I hate it when I spend money on takeout.

After a lot of thought, I finally decided there is just too much stuff in my house getting in my way. I need to make things easier for me. I have always tried to keep the stuff down to a manageable amount by tossing or donating things a couple of times a year and organizing everything. But it isn’t enough. I need to be ruthless and get most of the stuff out of here. I don’t want my children to have to do it when we die. Believe me when I say that your children do not want your stuff. They have enough of their own stuff!

I also need to make simpler, easier meals and prep them in early morning when my energy levels are higher.

I am not doing a lot of shopping because we are trying to eat what we have in the house. But we still need some items like produce and Hubby’s soda which is too heavy for me to carry. So I have decided to get Walmart delivery more often. It is so easy and saves me so much time. I do not buy any meat from Walmart except for bacon and sausage rolls but I need none of that right now. We are well stocked. Every few weeks I will get a $35. order of the things we need. That will be one thing that I can control for a while and it will save me time and gasoline.

That time saving will be useful to declutter. So last week, I started in our third bedroom, hall closet, and guest bathroom. I took 4 garbage bags of stuff out of the closet, end table, drawers in the TV stand, bathroom vanity, and off the shelves in the hall closet. I got rid of exercise equipment and tapes from Richard Simmons. I got rid of an entire collection of motivation tapes from Tony Robbins. All of these tapes were decades old. I decluttered Christmas gifts that I would buy on sale and never use. I threw out most of our wrapping paper since we only give money gifts now. Stamps to make cards and the pads I used with them are no longer here. So many more things went. And you know what, it felt good. I am now on a roll!

I will be working today in the closet in the second bedroom where Chris and her Hubby stay when they visit. As you can see, it is a disaster. Yes, that is a bag of rice. It was 20 lbs. which I cannot carry up from the basement. My pantry is full up here so it had found a temporary home in that closet. UGH! I am going to go through everything in my home. If it doesn’t fit, we don’t like it or we just have no interest in it anymore, it is getting thrown out or donated. We have sterling silver flatware and serving trays. We haven’t used them in decades. Silver prices haves skyrocketed recently so it is the time to sell it and get it out of here.

I thought about quitting blogging because it does take a lot of my time when I post. But that is worth my time because I enjoy it! So that will stay in my schedule.

I hope you all had a great July 4th. We went to a party at one of our neighbors and as usual we had a wonderful time.

I made a large pasta salad to share. This bowl is about 1/2 of what I brought there. People seemed to like it. For the first time in our lives, we had grilled venison and sausage burgers. They were so good. I only had venison one time before many years ago and it was awful. It tasted gamey. Not this burger, it was scrumptious. We came home about 8pm. It is a good thing we did because then all the fireworks in the neighborhood started and they were so loud. Eloise was terrified! My Hubby ended up holding her until midnight, when they stopped, to try to calm her down. She was trembling. I am hoping that no one does anymore this weekend. UGH! My neighbor brought over a container of cooked salt potatoes today. She had too many left. They will be a great side this week.