Happy Birthday to my brother David!
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I came back from QuiltCon and — of course — hit the ground running. The good news is that a lot of the stuff I’ve been tackling lately is fun! Like vacations! We are officially booked for our first Disney trip this summer. I don’t plan to tell the girls until it’s closer, but they are going to be SOOOO EXCITED. I can’t wait.
(Also we are using one of those Disney planners who takes care of all the hotel and park tickets and fast passes for you, and that has been an EXCELLENT decision so far. The amount of sheer stuff to consider when planning a Disney trip was overwhelming to me, and having someone else take care of it has been seriously amazing.)
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Last weekend was particularly full and fun. On Friday night, I kicked off a class at Sparkly Elephant for the Alison Glass Trinket Sew Along, which officially starts next week. I’ve got 6 students and we’ll be doing 3 sessions over the course of the 10-week sew along. For our first session, I taught the basics of foundation paper piecing and by the end, everyone had finished at least 2 blocks.
On Saturday, we all went to a birthday party for one of Emma’s friends, and then our babysitter came over for the evening so Jose and I could go to another friend’s 40th birthday party. It was fun to have a date night that was a little different than our usual of dinner and a movie!
And on Sunday, we spent the day with friends at the Houston Rodeo — a much-anticipated annual outing around here. (To be honest, the girls look forward to the carnival more than anything else, but I suppose that is to be expected.)
The weather was chilly, but we suffered through it in the name of cheap (actually, carnival tickets are not so cheap) thrills. Charlotte was tall enough this year to ride several new things with a companion, like the caterpillar rollercoaster in the kiddie area. She loved it!
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The new floor in my sewing room was finished a month ago, but I still haven’t gotten the room back in order. I did buy a new rug — which immediately covered up 80% of the new floor, an irony which is not lost on me. But I also want to paint the room before moving all the furniture in and securing my huge bookcase back to the wall. The can of paint has been staring at me for 2+ weeks now so on Monday I threw in the towel and called a painter. Fingers crossed they can fit me in their schedule sometime soon. Having my stuff cluttering the rest of the house is starting to make me crazy.
I came across a blog post yesterday that said this:
Studies show a direct link between the amount of physical possessions in a house and the stress level of the female homeowner. One study done at UCLA found that the more stuff was in a woman’s house, the higher her level of stress hormones. This same study also found that women subconsciously relate how happy they are with their home-life and family to how they feel about their homes. So the more clutter and chaos in the home, the less happy the woman is with her family and her life.
The whole post is pretty stereotypical of the “self-improvement/mommy blog” genre blog post. (I mean that in the sense that if I’ve read one post like this, I’ve read a thousand.) However, I did find this paragraph interesting. There are no actual studies cited for me to go read — hey, 58% of statistics are made up on the spot! — I would not be surprised at all to find out it’s true.
I’m basically ready to Konmari my whole house ASAP. Sewing stuff first, followed very rapidly by kids toys. SEND HELP.
Misti says
It makes sense, re: clutter. We’re the ones (typically) to be cleaning it all up and organizing it. Sure some men help to an extent but by and large it’s the women dealing with it all.
Sarah says
Amen to that.
It’s a source of tension between Jose and me at times. He doesn’t understand why it bothers me so much, and I don’t understand how it literally doesn’t bother him at all. Ha!
katie says
Joel and I have this same tension. I really think he doesn’t even see the clutter somehow.
Junie says
My house is pretty bare as I went Konmari YEARS ago before it was cool. And when I bought the house 2 years ago I took it to what I thought was a new level. That is up until about 2 months ago. LOL. I now have a completely empty spare room and its amazing every time I walk past it. LOL.
Junie says
oh and I don’t know about studies and what-not but I can tell you a) I have zero stress b) rarely have to clean and when I do its super easy because the walls and floors are NOT cluttered and c) I notice on your posts how much you ‘complain’ about the messes, clutter, things to do in your house a lot. Just sayin.
Sarah says
We had an empty room in our old house for the first few years! It became a guest room when we had Emma. We don’t have an entire room of empty space anymore, but our guest room is still the cleanest spot in the house…it’s also the only room that doesn’t get daily use.
Yeah, fighting the clutter is an ongoing battle in our household. Minimalism doesn’t come naturally to me…and even less so to the other 3 members of my family! I’ve noticed that my level of irritation with all the stuff in our house is highly correlated with my level of stress in other areas of life. If I’m stressed in general, clutter bothers me more. When I’m less stressed, I’m much more likely to let it go.
michelleJ says
Where did you find the Disney planner and how much does that cost? I’m super overwhelmed at the thought of Disney so I’m very very curious about this.
Sarah says
I found her via our elementary school carnival — she had donated a basket to the silent auction. I didn’t bid on the basket, but I wrote down her info and contacted her the next week. The planners are free. They are paid by Disney, so clearly that kind of cost is built in to the cost of Disney, period. But the prices she was quoting us for lodging, for example, were the same as the ones I found myself. And she knows all the tricks!
Jennifer says
Since I was somewhat forced to de-clutter due to moving around the world, I can tell you how much I love having less. The kids like having less as well and play better together than ever before. As much as I hated giving away a lot of my craft “stuff” having less has made it easier to see what I do have. My stress definitely goes down when less clutter is around me. If my house ever sells, I am looking forward to moving into a smaller space and keeping this mentality even when we go back to the states.