Want to know how hectic things around here have been and exactly how scatterbrained I’ve been lately? I finally got our Christmas tree up tonight. I do believe this is the longest I have ever waited to put up a tree. Funny thing is that I haven’t really missed it up until now. Some of that could have to do with the fact that my daughter is gone right now, hence not being harassed by her because it hasn’t been up yet. Then there’s my son, who just seems indifferent to the holiday season all together. This is odd for a ten year old but who am I to judge? And we don’t need to go into another rant about how society has turned Christmas into a consumption orgy, right? So, the 2007 Christmas tree is up in all of it’s 4.5 foot glory. Behold!

While grabbing the tree and all the decorations out of storage, I was amazed at how much Christmas related stuff I have accumulated over the years. Most of it I have gotten as, surprise, Christmas gifts. There really are very few items that I have a soft spot for. There’s the Christmas scene picture frame that holds one of the last photos taken of my grandfather — Christmas of 1992. There’s the angel that sits on top of my tree every year that I really love. I have a few ornaments that the kids made in grade school that I could never part with. Other than those few items, though, I really have no use for all the decorative items that are taking up space in my storage building.

Remember all of that talk about stuff removal and daily productivity?

I just listed the following box of items on Freecycle. There are some pretty cool Santa dolls in there, a ceramic musical snowman that plays Frosty the Snowman (of course), some teddy bear figurines dressed all Christmas-y, several boxes of icicle lights that have never been opened, a few strands of snowflake garland, and some other odd-n-end type decorations. I think they will make someone out there very happy.

An aside: It’s been 23 minutes and I already have a taker who is willing to pick them up tomorrow. You have to love Freecycle.

I guess it’s time to say goodbye to Santa and Frosty. It was nice knowing them, but the time has come for us to part ways and move on to better things. They brought me great joy (I suppose) and entertainment (for the kids, anyway) while they were here. It’s my hope that they continue bringing joy and entertainment in the years to come for someone else.

It feels good to lighten the load, even if it’s just by one box. That one box was the one step that I needed to take today. That’s one step closer than I was yesterday. Yes, it feels good.

Have you ever had the feeling that you have just bitten off a little more than you can chew? That all too familiar choking feeling has managed to creep up on me and the term overwhelmed would probably be sufficient enough to describe how I feel at the moment. I suppose it’s a natural thing when you make the decision to totally redefine your way of life. The question that I am now faced with is how can I make it through this next year and maintain my, and my family’s, sanity.

There is a lot to do. A lot!

As much as I hate to admit it, our house is popping at the seams from all of the stuff we keep accumulating. On top of that, we have a storage shed in the back yard that is full. We also have a storage building (that we are paying rent on every month) full of stuff. While I’ve already talked about how we plan to tackle the stuff removal, the fact remains that we still have to actually do it and not just talk about it.

Then there is the money issue. While it would be nice to sit here and think that we can make all of our dreams come true just by thinking about them, the fact is that we need money. We need money to pay all the bills for the next year. We need money to buy a bus. We need money to convert a bus. We need money to get started. And we need money along the way. We aren’t retired with a nice little nest egg to travel around on. We don’t have a big business that we can sell for a pretty penny and travel around on. We don’t have rich relatives to inherit millions from. And we have yet to hit the lottery, despite our repeated attempts. We do, however, have plans (which I’ll go more into depth about in a future entry). We have ideas. We have tools. We have leads. And we have a way. Implementing all of the tools and taking advantage of all our resources requires time and effort. Since we can’t very well quit our jobs and focus on just that, we are forced to do what we can when we can. This creates it’s own source of stress.

My mother doesn’t know about our plans yet. That’s right, I haven’t discussed this major life change with my mother. Don’t ask questions. Just trust me when I say that it is not something I look forward to doing. Why else would I have put it off this long? This creates stress for me, obviously. I want to talk to her about our plans. I want to share my ideas, hopes, and dreams with her. I want to include her in all of our efforts for the next year. The right time to bring this topic up with her has yet to present itself. I can’t help but wonder, though, if it’s not just me being a big chicken. I’m beginning to think it’s time to just bite the bullet and get it over with.

Other miscellaneous items of concern are: getting health insurance (which we currently do not have), getting bus insurance, selling our house, finding a home for our cat, discussing our plans with my ex-husband (my daughter’s biological father), talking to our umbrella school about our plans, finding a permanent domicile that fits our needs the best — just to name a few because I’m sure there is more.

I think I’ve discovered a way to deal with it all and it’s called Daily Productivity. The idea is that at the end of each day I write down all of the productive steps that were made that day. It could be something that I did, something that my husband did, or something that the kids did. It could be something small or something big. It could be that I added something to the recycle boxes (more on these later) or an hour spent on our business website (more on this later, too). As long as steps are being made in the right direction, things won’t be so overwhelming on a daily basis. I want to end each day thinking of this quotation:

I may not be there yet, but I’m closer than I was yesterday. ~Author Unknown

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