January 14th

Monday, January 14th, 2019

I don’t know about you, but the holidays hit us hard.

Constantly on the go, anytime we had something that we didn’t have time to deal with we placed it in our utility room as a way of saying “We’ll deal with you later.”

Weeeeeell, our pile of things to deal with got quite large, and today we pulled everything out and sorted through it all: Garbage, donate, keep, or storage.

As we were reorganizing and putting everything back together I noticed a small box that I thought I recognized. I opened it, and realized why – some of my favorite jewelry from when I was a kid was in there! It had been a long while since I had worn them, but it was fun to pull out and look through all the same.

I should note that while many young girls had normal jewelry, all of my jewelry was horse related. This particular charm bracelet had been one of my favorites.

I wore it often, and I wasn’t gentle with it. One charm would fall off, and my mom or dad would wrestle it back on. Then not a few days later another would come off, and the process repeated.

My identity was in this bracelet. My loves (Arabians, duh), accomplishments (I added a “Grand Champion” charm after winning the Arabian Fall Fest with Tahki one fall), patriotism (red, white, and blue horse shoe), and discipline (western saddle – gaming specifically) all told a little story about me and who I was.

Some may see it as a trinket, but I see a lot of responsibility, hard work, and passion in this little bracelet.

Oh, and love. A whole lot of love.

February 9th

Thursday, February 9th, 2017

Pauls been in an organizing mode the past couple days. (I’m glad one of us is…)

Weve recently been inspired by minimalism and the thought that too many unneeded possessions can control your life. So we’ve been going through cabinets, old totes, our closets and weeding through what we don’t use anymore or things we’re keeping “just in case.” Just so we’re clear, I’m evidently the queen of “just in case.” It’s been trying for me to separate myself from material items, especially ones that hold memories but don’t serve a purpose.

For example: Today Paul found the tote that held about five journals of mine from late middle school/early high school. Do I really need them? No. But does it bring back memories (even if they aren’t overly encouraging memories)? Yes. Anyway, with each item that he pulled out, he was more and more flabbergasted by the difference between his “boy” life and my “girl” life. This was magnified by this music box that was one of my most treasured possessions as a young girl. A box that played music while a little ballerina spin around? “I have a lot to learn before we have kids” was his reply. Haha!