Friday Favorites (and not so favorites)

Last week I forgot to do my Friday favorites post. I'm sure you all had a big gaping hole in your lives due to my slacking. We had a guest at our home and I was too distracted. But fret no more! I am here this Friday to enlighten you on my favorites and not so favorites for the week.

Favorites:
1) Our house guest, my husbands ex-step dad, came to help us do some projects around the house. I now have an extended patio, a gravel flower bed to put my potted plants on, and a raised flower bed (4 landscaping bricks high) in my back yard. Upstairs he put in a door so we could access more attic space for storage. The builders left us with little storage options outside of our closets and our two car garage has only held one car the almost 3 years we've been here.

2)Minimalism- Now I'm not talking the running kind, though I do love more minimal shoes. I'm talking minimalism in our everyday life. I came across this article via a facebook friend. I read the article and it lead me to this blog because I was intrigued by the 100 personal items challenge that was mentioned in the NY Time article. From there I found this blog that led me to the pinnacle of my day at this blog. I've been trying to declutter our home over the past year so that's why I was so interested in the article and blogs. It's a slow process but it is very satisfying. The Minimalist blog gave me a lot to think about when it comes to getting rid of clutter, distractions, excess activity, excess blog following, and even food.

The great thing about striving for minimalism in your life is that you can set the rules and decide what you think is minimal. For some it's owning only 100 personal items (toiletries, cars, phones, clothes, anything that is mostly for your use) for others like me it will be only having what I truly use. I started taking inventory of my things ( I still have some boxes in the attic and garage to count) but I have 75 running/exercise dedicated personal items, out of over 600 personal items. Clearly limiting myself to 100 overall would not make sense because then I'd be wearing running skirts and sports bras for everyday wear. We all know asking me to let go of useful running items is like asking me to amputate my foot for no reason. My goal is to reduce my personal items by 25% in the next three months, hopefully I can eventually get it down to 50% from my starting point.

As hard as it is to decide to let something go, it's just as satisfying to finally release it from my bonds. I never thought of myself as a hoarder but it turns out that I'm not exactly living a hoarding free lifestyle. My house actually looks clutter free, but behind closet doors and in drawers it's taking on a life of its own. You don't realize how much you hang onto until you start to clear it out. I don't think it will ever end, but I look forward to the day where I have less clutter (nick knacks) to clean around and fewer clothes and shoes to choose from. I love a challenge and this is definitely a good one. One thing I always remind myself of when I am trying to let go of an item is that the item isn't a memory or a person, those are inside me and can't be taken away.

So if you are intrigued or need help trying to get started I'd say look at the minimalist blog first, it helped me to come up with a plan of attack. After reading just a few posts I felt calm and uncluttered. I still need to delve deeper into the other blogs because they are inspirational too. (I wish these few paragraphs could have been more minimalist, seems silly to have to use so many words for something called minimalism but I'm not adept at minimal writing yet.)

Not So Favorite:
Very few people outside my circle of friends and family know I'm training for an October trail marathon. This is my third time signing up for one and I'm still a marathon virgin. I haven't mentioned it because I've been afraid I'd jinx myself. Well, the hush hush plan isn't working. I took the week off to give my left shin a rest and I've been having some pain in the ball of my foot that radiates into my middle toes on my right foot. It started off mild at least three weeks back and has slowly gotten worse. I notice it less when I'm on trails and once my foot is warmed up it really isn't bothersome. But after almost a week of rest it seems worse. The shin feels good but the right foot is angry. I've made an appt with a podiatrist for Tuesday and am hoping it will be an easy fix. If not I will cry.