And Just Like that the Premise of my Blog is Obsolete: But Lets Get Rid of Boots Anyways

So the challenge is all over and I may or may not have written an all encompassing wrap-up of the challenge, which bumped my grade down to an A- (ain't no thang)...... But here I am, and this is no longer an assignment for schoool!

"Wooooah" you might be saying, tossing your *honey blonde* hair from your face incredulously (whoever you are, insert appropriate hair color) "Why the heck have you revived this moderately blasé blog, then, if you are no longer bound by duty to your GPA to do so?"

Because I have just had the most UNBELIEVABLE BREAKTHROUGH in my life as a consumer (bet you never thought you'd read that anywhere) and as a human who used to be very attached to physical mementos of the past.  This morning my mother and I returned to Glasgow after the most unbelievable 36 hr cleaning extravaganza of my life thus far (here might be another place for you to incredulously toss your hair).

This extravaganza took place at our family farm in Opheim, which, albeit some furniture and art reshuffling and stealing away to Glasgow, has largely remained untouched since my parents half (and I entirely) moved to Glasgow 7 years ago.  For 7 years, my room has not been touched or changed in any way, the mess on my dresser likely the mess that I left it in when my Dad and I moved our clothes into our new house by the high school all those years ago.  My closet a disaster of old costumes, toys exploding from my primary colored rolling organizer and tall white plastic shelves.  Paper scraps of playtime, schooltime, and sports littered everything and everywhere. Tiny plastic barbie shoes (children's toys are an ecological nightmare, wowza) and more working electronics than you would expect (I was always a child who took impeccable care of all of my things, to the point of vicious distrust of even my closest friends [*insert profuse apology to Haylee R.*])

My choice to not touch any of these things, rather unsurprisingly, was a result of my fear of letting go of the past.  Letting go of my old school, my childhood, my memories, my old self, and any remaining physical connection I had of my brother. I was afraid of many of these things and the feelings they gave me. So my closet largely marinated for the better part of a decade.  But during this time, I grew up a lot, and this weekend, evidently, I realized that I was finally emotionally prepared to go through these things. This was a huge deal for me, my Dad really could not believe it (you may take this time to imagine his incredulous hair toss).

And it turns out I was so prepared that it was EASY.  EASY I TELL YOU.  I could finally distinguish things that had enough of a emotional attachment to keep and things that I had no use for and didn't care enough about to keep to myself any longer.  The back of our pickup is FULL of 3 huge boxes and a large plastic bag of stuffed animals, books, clothes, costumes, games, crafts, a really cool model rocket (now at a Soroptomist store near you), and others.  The emotional distance I had taken (thank you parents for being patient enough to allow me all this time) finally made it clear to me what was important to have around, which really isn't a whole lot, and what would be better to make someone else happy.  And what was okay to just toss; I tossed A LOT. Which is another big shocker, but was made possible by emotional distancing and allowing oneself to finally figure out the weight I wanted to allow to my physical possessions.

I cleared out that whole big white plastic organizer (COMPLETELY) and now my Mom is going to use it in Glasgow to file stuff.  And we also went through all the cute little rubber boots and cowboy showmanship boots that have been sitting in the garage for even longer than my room has been sitting idle.  So now my Dad has a place to throw his numerous collection field samples that used to sit on Mom's work bench (and drive her crazy).  We also threw away a whole bed (woohoo!) and still had time to watch a couple episodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmitt together.

I am a happy human.

What physical possessions do you have around you that are weighing you down? Making you feel guilty? Taking up room so you can't do all the things that you want to? Chances are you have much much more than you can ever use.  What is your equivalent of my emotionally charged childhood room?

And now... Pictures!

So many cute 4H boots!

Goodbye cute roller-skates!

Less than half of the donate pile!

All empty and ready for Mom to use!

If you go through stuff you also find some really sweet finds! I found a ton of stickers (I'm still a child at heart) that I will now be sprinkling on ever letter that I write to anyone in the foreseeable future.  Also, I got this really cute picture with my Mom.

I am wearing a paper hat that I made in 6th grade for an Egypt Project on Nefirtiti and a Momma wears a felt three pointed colonial hat that was a Halloween costume worm by Erik waaayyyy back in the day.

And here is a cute kitty! Happy (developing) Minimalism

Thrift Store Skirts and Sweet Clove Tea Will Always be #worthit

Day 28: Let Go of a Goal
At age 16, at the Hugh O'Brien Youth Leadership Seminar, a goal that I set was to be able to speak Swedish by the time I turned 20 years old, a whole FOUR years away from where I was then.  By age 20, I imagined, I would be a real woman.  Living independently and having mastered a language I had only flirted with until that point.

And here I am at age 20, and unable to speak Swedish much better than I did then.  Four years ago.  I have moved forward very little, besides dabbling with my language App at the end of last summer.  I am disappointed and disheartened that this is as far as I have come. That my Swedish is still so terribly inadequate for simple conversation with my cousins and sweet Morfar (*mother's father)

So here is me letting go of this failed goal. I must remember, however, that these past few years have not been idle. So a failed goal of learning Swedish by age 20 is okay because I can do all sorts of things like write a awesome lab report, do all sorts of neat math stuff, do all sorts of chemistry stuff, etc.  But Swedish remains on the list, one of the many fun plans I have for self-improvement this summer (besides lots of sewing, "sew" mush embroidery, etc.)....

Day 29: Turn Off All Notifications
I actually never have any notifications on.  Not even vibrate notification.  My phone sound is always off.  New app download requests to turn on notifications are always answered with a "no" from me.  Most of the time this is irritating for some people close to me.  My Mom has always had to text any or all of my known friends (or "informants" as I call them) in order to ascertain if I have made it home safe from anywhere.  One of my close friend's favorite things to do in these radio silence instances is to spell out my name letter by letter.  So if I am not responding, when I finally pick my phone up I just have 20-30+ texts of:

E
L
L
E
N
M
A
R
I
A
....... etc.

So that's a fun thing to do to your friends that you are welcome to try.  But I very much like having a moderately limited reliance on buzzes and beeps during my day to try to remain focuses (a difficult task for me at times).

Day 30: Evaluate Your Last 5 Purchases

1) Barn Dance Admission ($10)
2, 3) Two skirts from the DBR Thrift Store. ($3.98)
4) Embroidery Supplies (needles, white cotton thread for finishing pieces) (~$5.00)
5) Groceries at Target (Greek yogurt, 3 boxes of tea on sale, rice cakes, etc) (~27.00)


DMN3, a marketing management company that is employed by such companies as Shell Oil, describes consumer purchasing process a 5 step process.

1. Problem recognition
2. Information Search (research)
3. Evaluation of Alternatives
4. Purchase
5. Post-Purchase Evaluation

So here we are at the evaluation stage! But I want to look back on all the steps to walk through my purchases and take a little more time to think about them than I initially did.

Problem Recognition was: A lack of admission to a fun barn thing, No Problem, Inability to Properly thread a needle, and lack of snacks for my room.

Information Search: Previous excellent experience, none, lots of online research (YouTube videos), previous yogurt experience.

Evaluation of Alternatives: "I could sleep instead, cause it's really late.", "What about this other skirt, I've seen something like this on Pinterest", "Oh God, so what do the numbers really mean? Is the 18 bigger than the 22? I'll need this white cotton soon anyways right? For the sign I want to frame?", "There are so many teas, how much caffeine do I want? Earl Grey or English Breakfast?"

Purchase! "Woo, Dancing!" "Woo, cute skirts!" "Woo, let's sew!" "TEA!"

Post-Purchase Evaluation: I got flipped spun around a lot and tossed into an unexpected back flip and that was pretty fun, no regrets there.
I spent the same amount of money some people spend on coffee in a day on two skirts, and they are cute skirts that I've already worn.  Does this justify this purchase? No. But I've already worn them, and I like them, and I'm getting rid of other skirts I don't wear as much when I stop home in May.

I got to embroider a fair amount over the weekend, so below are pictuers of the fun I had when I finally had a needle eye big enough for my thread.
I have been happily staying awake drinking tea with lots of caffeine for the last two weeks, and I am beyond tickled pink to do so. If you get a chance, please go to your nearest Target (a stretch for some of my rural friends and family, sorry you must miss out) and buy Harney & Songs Hot Cinnamon Sunset.

I made up my own leaf pattern! The stem is made with a *shocker* stem stitch, Leaves are just little stitches, make it look a little like a marigold.  Must practice more! And the center is a satin stitch (so proud).

Back stitch monogram.

More leaf practicing with leftover thread from the last two fun pieces. I used s few french knots to try to replicate leaf buds on the green one.