Mix It Up!

News Watch: Guerrilla Gardeners

(I'm having troubles of all kind today!  This was supposed to post at 12pm, not 12am.  Sorry about that!)

I found this news item on the Mother Nature Network to be totally wild and wonderful!

If you don't have the time to go read it; in brief the article describes how in London many people are sneaking out at night to plant tiny gardens in the city's roundabouts and meridians.  They plant everything from tulips to cabbages and feel that it's their duty to "liven up places that could really do with it."  

I LOVE the idea of "vandalizing" public spaces with beautiful flowers and vegetables!  If you are interested in their mission, head to the Guerrilla Gardening Homepage and share in the news from the "horticultural front lines"!

Mix It Up: Project Life

 

(This post was meant to go up on Friday, August 20th, but I messed up the queue and had set it to go up NEXT Friday instead!  So I fixed the update and you get a double today!)

Many people have a desire to preserve their precious memories.  Almost everyone takes pictures of vacations, birthdays, and holidays.  Some folks like me go a step further and capture the everyday events -- not just things like baby's first steps but also sweet moments with friends and new foods I've cooked.  

The problem comes when trying to figure out just how to display these pictures.  And just as importantly; how do you tell the story?  Who is that couple you're posing with?  Even when it is your own story you may find it hard to remember once a couple of decades have passed.  

I adore scrapbooking as an answer to this conundrum, but not everyone has the time to craft intricate layouts and story books for every occasion.  (Including me!)  Becky Higgins, a prominent scrapbooking "personality" has come up with a solution; a kit she named Project Life.  Project Life is a book with spaces to slip standard 4"x 6" pictures, and bunches of journaling cards that you can slip into associated spaces to note pertinent information or stories about the pictures.  It's a *fabulous* way to preserve beautiful memories with very little work -- just print (or have developed) your pictures, slip them into the plastic sleeves, and write a couple words about each on the cards!  I have one of these already, and will likely buy a second before too long.

If you're looking for a way to tell the story of what's going on in your life but keep it very simple, mix it up and try Project Life!

(Picture is from Amazon.com; and as usual I am not affiliated with Becky Higgins or Project Life.  I'm just a happy consumer!)

Mix It Up On the Road: Prudence

 

This month, instead of taking a trip, I'll be using my travel funds to get my car fixed.  Not as exciting as jaunting off to foreign shores, but a little more prudent.  My car Sable has been out of commission for a month due to an accident last month, so it's more than time to get it taken care of.  I plan on taking some day trips to Bainbridge Island and maybe Snoqualmie, though, so at least I won't be at home the entire month!  

Mix It Up Musing: Do I Really Need This?

 

A couple days ago I talked about questioning the stories you tell yourself.  It made me think about a more comprehensive question that has served me very well over the last ten years.

"Do I really need this?"

You can apply it to everything.  Your job, your relationships, the clutter in your house, another bite of pie.  Do you really need what you have?  If you do, how can you make it even more precious and meaningful?  If you don't, can you give it away, sell it, let it go, or move to something new?

It isn't a negative phrase at all.  When a friend brings stress into my life and I ask this question of myself, the answer is usually yes!  I need them in my life, so that makes this fight or this stress so much less important.  I can let it go because the relationship is more important than my anger or self-righteousness.  (Which I definitely don't need!)

Mix it up, and ask yourself today of just one thing: "Do I really need this?"  Sit with the answer; it may just surprise you!

Room For Rent!

 

There is a room for rent in Mix It Up's Seattle house!  If you're looking to mix it up and change your living situation, contact me through the website.  Thanks!

Mix It Up: Line Dry Your Clothes

 

Right now, many people are doing everything they can to save money.  Abjuring eating out, maintaining an older car instead of buying a new one, and traveling less are all obvious choices to make.  However, an easily overlooked option is line drying your clothes.

I have to admit, I was not convinced when I was re-introduced to the idea as an adult.  (As a child I have strong memories of my mom putting clothes up on the lines in the backyard with traditional wooden clothespins.)  My immediate thought as an adult, however, was "Why would I do that when I could put them in the dryer?!"

Why indeed?  It turns out that line drying your clothes can save almost $60 a year in electricity from your dryer.  More tangible a benefit, however, is the fact that your clothes last WAY longer.  I'm sure you could find studies on the exact wear ratio, but I will speak from my own experience.  I have a quartet of tank tops from American Apparel that I bought over two and a half years ago when I started line drying my clothes that still fit me perfectly, are almost completely unfaded,  and are in all other respects perfect condition still.  I used to have to buy new tops every six months or so, but these probably won't need replacement for another year at least.  And at $16 per shirt; that really adds up!

Line drying doesn't have to be a huge effort.  I have a simple rack that sits in my room that I drape wet clothes over.  It takes perhaps five minutes, and my clothes tend to be dry by the next morning.  (I do usually put underwear and jeans in the dryer in the winter, though…)  You can even put your things over an unused chair or two.  Although the effort is small, the savings can be nontrivial!  So next time you do your laundry, try mixing it up and line drying your clothes.  You can save money and natural resources at the same time!

(Photo by noaha from flickr.com's Creative Commons photostream.)

Spring Cleaning Week: Know When Enough is Enough

 

I recently found this great blog called Small Notebook and the author wrote an amazing article about "The Lost Rule of Organizing" that I thought was the perfect end to Spring Cleaning Week.

Go check out the article here.  Okay, now that you're back, we can continue.  Rachel's point is that when we are doing all of our purging and organizing and philosophizing, we often don't know when to stop.  

A perfect example in my own life is my myriad scrapbooking supplies.  When I first started scrapbooking, I had neat little boxes for all my tools that I had to take out every time I wanted to work on a project.  Now I keep my paper and brads and other embellishments nicely boxed, but my tools are out on a shelf where I can grab them easily.  Does it make my house look a little more messy?  Sure.  However, it also means that I am much more likely to actually create things with my tools easily at hand.  I enjoy my hobby more, and things are organized enough.

So today, after all this spring cleaning, mix it up and say "enough is as good as a feast!"  Know when to stop, and be gentle with yourself about small messes.  After all, it's more important to have a comfortable home you can live in than one off the cover of Martha Stewart Living!

(As usual, I am unaffiliated with Small Notebook or its author Rachel!)

Spring Cleaning Week: Go Digital

 

One of the hardest things to let go of in the modern era is the desire for physical objects.  Many of us were raised when everything we owned existed in the real world.  When I wrote papers in high school, I turned them in as pieces of paper to my teacher.  By the time I was in college, emailing them to the professor as an attachment was completely acceptable in many of my classes.  It can be a difficult mental adjustment to make, but going digital is one of the best ways you can reduce clutter in your home.

The two easiest things to go digital on are music and photos.  The advantages of putting both on your computer are staggering.  You can take them anywhere (my iPod holds 30 gigabytes -- more than enough for a year's worth of photos and my entire music collection), store them safely offsite with one of many online media storage options, and crop/make playlists/alter to fit your needs whenever you like.  

To go digital on your music you will need various things depending on what format your music is currently in.  For CDs you'll need a computer with a CD drive and a music program such as iTunes.  For tapes, records, minidiscs, and other formats, you can sometimes buy a cable that will permit you to link a player with your computer, but you may also have to investigate a company that specializes in media transfer.  Another great option if you don't have that many CDs in the first place is a site like the Zune Marketplace which allows you to listen to music and even keep the songs you like for a reasonable monthly fee.  It's a great solution to keep yourself clutter free once the majority of your music is digitized.  I use both the Zune Marketplace and iTunes for most of my music needs now!

For photos you will need a computer and a scanner.  Easy enough!  Just scan the photos that you want to transfer to ones and zeroes, and save them in your favorite photo editing/sorting program.  You can easily keep them online on a site like Flickr or Picasa as well if you don't have the storage space on your computer.  Now you can stack all your old pictures into small, efficient boxes (buy archival safe containers!) if you want to keep them, or recycle them if you don't.  

Today, mix it up and look at what you own that could be compressed into a digital format!  Now think about what you can do with all that space...

Spring Cleaning Week: How Do You Use Your Space?

  

How you use your space can be just as important as what's in it.  Many people live in traditional Western houses with a living room, bedroom, bathroom, etc; however, many more people the world over live in studio apartments, one room houses, yurts, and myriad other variations on the home.  So while you are mixing it up with your spring cleaning, why not take a moment to reflect on how you use the space you live in?

Understanding what you use your space for is important for two reasons:

1. How you use it will reflect what goes in it.  This seems obvious, but how many people do you know with piles of mail on the kitchen table, or dishes all over the living room?  Decide what you want to do with the room, and then look at what is in it that doesn't fit.

2. What goes in it reflects how you use it.  Not as obvious, but just as important, is the reverse of the first reason.  If you have a TV in your living room, you will likely use your living room for video games, movies, and television shows rather than for board games or cocktail parties.  Consider what already is in your rooms, and how it affects what you do there.  Do you like it, or would you rather change?

When you look at your home, you may find that you have spaces that you can repurpose entirely to better suit your needs.  My parents turned a spare bedroom into a "creativity room" and workspace for my dad, and I did the same at my house!  Today, mix it up and reflect for a while on the spaces you live in (or work in!).

Spring Cleaning Week: Moving List

I mentioned yesterday that I have moved quite often in the last decade.  Moving frequently has its positive and negative aspects; one of the positives is a tendency to keep my life clutter free.  Leo of mnmlist has a unique take on cleaning for those who don't move quite as often as I do.  

He asks a wonderful question: if you had to move today, what would you take?  Not "If you had two weeks to plan and a moving company and all your friends, what would you take?"  Rather, "You have twenty four hours to pack and move whatever you can."  

Part of mixing it up is asking yourself hard questions because otherwise you're just doing things for the sake of doing them rather than examining what makes your life more or less authentic.  This is a hard question to answer for precisely that reason -- what do you own that makes you you, and what do you own simply because you don't want to offend someone or you think that everyone is supposed to have a certain item?

Conversely, this doesn't mean that you can't own anything!  If you love to cook you might choose to pack your mixing bowls, measuring cups, and pots and pans first because cooking is an essential part of who you are.  I am a voracious reader, so while my clothes might get left behind I would definitely be filling cardboard boxes with my extensive library.  Irreplaceable photographs would be a must as well.  Most of my furniture, however, I could leave -- although the beautiful carved cedar chest my parents bought me when I was young would be one of the first things in the truck.

So today, mix it up and make a list of what you would take if you had to move today.  Then, if you care to, look at what didn't make the list, and ask yourself why.  Whether or not you use this information to aid in your cleaning is up to you!  And please share your lists in the comments; I'd love to see what other people find crucial.

(Photo by *cedro* from flickr.com's creative commons photostream)