How do you eat an elephant?

I have heard this saying before but never quite understood it; you know the saying I'm talking about: "How do you eat an elephant?---ONE bite at a time." I have never been a one bite at a time kinda gal. It's always ALL or NOTHING and that doesn't bode well for me because if you know me or have SEEN me, you can tell my choice is usually ALL!

Last year I continued my desire to purge the clutter from my life. Most clutter in my life comes in the form of 'treasures' I pick up from the Goodwill, the alley, Bunco or wherever I seem to wander. I have filled my four bedroom home with these treasures, much to my hubby's dismay and now to my own. Scott grew up in a home with barely a picture hung on the wall and my childhood home was the opposite, decorated in true "Home Interior" style with the main focal decoration matched with twin sconces and underscored with a plant shelf and miniature figurines that seemed to bring the whole thing to life. (google Home Interiors if you don't know what I am talking about). So here I am, stuck with stuff all around me and quickly becoming a runner up to a candidate for the show HOARDERS if I'm not careful. What to do?

I began slowly a year and a half ago of purging the stuff I never use. It was not too hard because at the time we were emptying out a spare room for a young man to use while he needed to. My garage became the junk pile and when the spare room became available to me again I chose very carefully what would make the cut and return to the comfort of the indoors. Soon, the garage emptied out and presented an opportunity for storage to friends of ours who moved out of their home and into an apartment; next we lost a friend of ours and I had to go through all her belongings and disburse them accordingly, storing other items for later dismissal. Lesson learned: it's all STUFF and most of it isn't necessary nor wanted when you are dead or forced to move on.................and so I was given a jumpstart again to motivate me in the purging process.

Fast forward to today: I have given my daughter a second bedroom as her 'lair' where she can entertain, craft, exercise or stock pile her JUNK and I am nearing the completion of a new room that has recently been emptied and I will call it, the Library. I have shredded all unnecessary documents and removed furniture that is useless to me and will now be able to shelve my books and move a couch in where I can laze away a rainy afternoon with some good friends found between pages of a much loved story. All this has been done painlessly, easily and fairly quickly. The key was to remove the extra without filling the empty spots with something new.

I am happy to have really seen progress that I hadn't noticed at first and I am eager to see if 2011 can bring the same success to debt reduction and weight loss. One bite at a time................I hope to look back and see a skinny elephant who is almost debt-free!

May you, too, eat the elephant of your goals this year. Savor the bites as they build character and strengthen you for the challenges that will come along. Let us season the elephant with the grace of God who will be helping us to digest this thing and will use it to nourish us as we become more like HIM.

Happy 2011

Memories................

It's interesting to sit down and 'blog'. There are no fresh thoughts to put down or funny stories to recap; unlike driving in the car on the way to a meeting I am late for or when catching a scent in the air of orange blossoms-this is when the memories or funny stories come to mind.

Getting older is definitely challenging. I was noticing that I can't cross my fingers like I use to but I can still flip the bird! I don't recall a thought from five minutes ago but I can remember the wrong that was done to me in my youth. The challenging part, for me, is to not exercise the 'limber' aspects of myself but to refrain and to begin to practice those things that have stiffened as of late, like my will, opinions, attitudes, ability to adapt and preferences. I like to think of myself as a modern woman, pretty savvy to the trends and ideas of the day but I hear myself sounding like an old woman who is at times channeling her mother.

I hope I'm around when Emily experiences these things so that she can relay them to me when I am lame-brained and sitting near the window smelling the orange blossoms experiencing lost memories, which to me may just seem like delusions...............

when will i learn?

Seems that once again I have damaged someone I care very much for. Out of the heart the mouth speaks..............

I carried some personal hurt and some hurt felt by others and let it fester until it bacame an ugly, puss-filled boil that burst right onto the heart of a good friend. The sad part is that this friend is very young and has probably not had such an angry dart hurled at them before, thus, making me feel even worse.

We always want to be memorable, make our impression on people. Well, what impression am I making? I certainly hate myself when I see the "old man" rise up and cause such ugly pain. I am pretty good at it, too. Isn't that ironic? You see, I'm not good at many things and this is certainly not something I desire to be gifted in, or be outstanding in.

There is no repair that can be done for this except for the healing powers of Jesus Christ. My prayer is, that as I ask for forgiveness of this young man, that God will heal the hurt and erease the words from his mind. As for restoring our relationship, maybe time will be able to do that, I can only hope and pray.

Sometimes I really HATE interpersonal relationships. There is too much pain involved. Sadly, the hurt I feel related to this situation is minimal compared to the hurts I feel in other relationships but this is the one that got vomited on...................