Homegrown Thoughts

Sadly, I have identified something in my life that is only adding to my urge to impulse buy and take advantage of ‘bargains’ that I do not need to add to my home.  This thing is the RSS feed from Dealighted.  This site collects posts from forums at Slickdeals, Gotta Deal, Fat Wallet and others and kindly sends them all to my RSS feed reader.  The majority of the items I look at each day come from this source.  I am tempted several times a day by a plethora of Amazon daily deals, free samples, $ off offers and the like.  This is NOT good for my Mission: Self-Control!  I have gotten some really good deals that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise…but other than Christmas gifts, I’m pretty sure the majority were not NEEDS but ‘well, it’s free (or a really good buy) so I might as well…’ items.

So, I have made the very difficult decision to unsubscribe from this feed.  Besides helping to cut down on the temptation to add clutter, it will also save me some money (you have to spend $ to get $ off) and a huge amount of time.  There are literally hundreds of posts some days and I scroll through them all and click on too many.  For the time being, I am cutting this out of my daily routine.  I can always search the sites if I have a genuine need to see if there are any deals to be had on a specific item, but the ‘power-of-suggestion’ feed is now being cut off.  So long, good friend - you have served me well.  A little too well.

For being such a timid person who is a recovering worrier, I’m pretty impulsive when it comes to buying things.  I see it, I like it, I want it, I justify it and I buy it.  Especially if it’s on sale. I have a very hard time passing up a ‘good deal’.  I put that in quotes because, of course, the fact that something is on sale doesn’t necessarily make it a good deal or a good buy.  I tend to figure up the savings rather than the cost, which is dangerous.  I need to remember that if something is $50 and it’s on sale for $30, although that is a savings of $20, it will be a savings of $30 if I simply Don’t. Buy. It.  What a concept!

What got me thinking about this today is the A Year Off blog.  This blog is in transition right now, but basically Chris has decided to cut back drastically on their purchases this year.  They are deciding if things are wants or needs and only purchasing the needs.  The purpose is not so much to save money, although that will be accomplished too, but more to cut down on the amount of stuff that is coming into their home and causing clutter.

I so need to do this!

So I’m going to give it a shot.  As I was discussing this with a friend this morning (who may be joining me in this venture), we decided that the basic issue here is self-control.  We like to buy things.  It makes us feel good.  If it’s a bargain, it makes us feel even better and gives us some kind of bragging rights because we are such good shoppers.  Look at us, aren’t we good stewards for saving so much money? Ummm…probably, not so much.  Not spending money on things we don’t really need would be much better stewardship, I dare say.  This seems obvious, but I really haven’t sat down and thought of it this way.  It’s much more fun to just keep buying things, right?

My house continues to overflow with miscellaneous ’stuff’, most of which is pure clutter: items that seemed like good ideas at the time but haven’t lived up to their perceived potential, things that have been outgrown or worn out, and of course the dreaded “I might use/need this someday” treasures.  It’s seriously out of hand, and yet I keep adding to it.  People, I need to locate some self-control and fast!

In my defense, I am not the only guilty party in this.  Everyone in my family is a contributor to the problem.  I don’t know if they will go along with me on this or not, but it doesn’t matter.  I’m making the decision - for myself - that I will be conscious of what I’m buying.  I will not buy just because something is on sale, a good deal or a bargain I can’t pass up.  I can pass it up, and I will.  I hope my family will follow my example, but this is a personal goal - I need to grow in this area.  If they are also convicted, so much the better, but I’m not going to push it.
I’m not going to be militant about this, but I am going to do my best to stop buying ‘wants’ and stick to ‘needs’.  My needs might be different than other people’s needs.  I feel that I ‘need’ to redo my bedroom and bathroom.  They are in the middle of the process and I don’t think putting it off for a year is going to add to the serenity of my home, which is also a by-product of this little venture.  So projects that will actually be completed and not add clutter to the home, but enhance it, will be allowed.  But the purchases made must be consumable or serve a legitimate purpose.

So there you have it.  I’ve gone public with it and can’t back out now. :-)  I plan to post about my successes (and failures, should there be any *cough cough*) so that you can hold me accountable.  This will not be easy for me - but I think ultimately it will be good for me and for my home and family, too.

We’ve been dealing with craziness and illnesses here pretty much since Christmas.  I don’t know what’s going on lately, but we just cannot seem to stay healthy.  I had a lot of plans of things to do once the holidays were over and the new year started.  I am still waiting to get started on most of them.

I did manage to get the Christmas decorations put away and took the outside lights down this morning.  So at least we’re past Christmas on the timeline here.  Well, other than the Christmas goodies that remain to be eaten.  I’m starting a new exercise program on Saturday so I really should be staying away from it all.  But it all tastes so good!  And I haven’t actually made it to get groceries for about 3 weeks now.  We’ve gotten by on what’s in the pantry and what my husband picks up on his way home from work (and the Christmas goodies, of course).  I really ought to start some meal planning…another thing to work on after the start of the new year, right?  Whenever our family hits that point on our internal calendars. :-)

One of my many plans to get started on is updating my blog(s) and website much more regularly.  I’m planning to start adding articles to my website (Homegrown Hearts) about subjects that I hope will be helpful, particularly for homeschool families.  So far I’m thinking I’ll add somea tried-and-true recipes, time savers, computer and internet resources, unit study and lapbooking ideas and maybe some product reviews of things I’ve used.  I also want to add more free worksheets and forms and keep my links list updated and growing.  Lots of work in store for me there!

I hope everyone else is off to a good start to the new year.  I’ll get there…eventually.  ;-)

Ok, so maybe I didn’t finish our story quite as quickly as I had planned. Better late than never, right?

So here is our portion of the weekend. As I mentioned before, we attended a tennis exhibition featuring Andy Roddick and Serena Williams.

Also playing were Sam Querrey and Ashley Harkleroad. This was the first time Roddick and Williams had played together and also the first time Andy had played in his native Omaha as a pro.

It was a fun evening once things got going. For some reason they were very late getting started so there was a lot of filler tom-foolery going on. Once they got their act together, the women were up first. They played each other and that was not very exciting. They were showing very little personality and less effort. However, when it was time for the men, it became very fun! Andy played to the crowd, interacting with cat-callers and bringing people from the stands down to play. In between the entertaining moments, the guys put on a good show of tennis. In contrast to the women, they seemed to be putting their all into their games and looked to be enjoying themselves a lot. The evening finished with Roddick and Williams playing doubles against Sam and Ashley. That was a very short match, but due to the late start the play still went rather late.

One funny thing that happened was that they had some Heisman Trophy-winning former Nebraska football players there along with a big deal former Nebraska football coach whose name escapes me at the moment. What can I say? Being from Iowa, we are not big fans of Nebraska. :-) Anyway, during some of the breaks, they would come out and toss some small footballs and t-shirts into the stands. Everybody was standing up and screaming with their hands in the air, hoping to catch something. My husband and I aren’t really stand up and scream people, so we remained seated and joked to each other about just holding our hands out in front of us and waiting for something to land in our laps. Amazingly, that’s exactly what happened! A football was thrown to our section and after bouncing off of several upraised hands it landed right in my husband’s lap. It was so funny! Everyone around us was astounded. What was even more amazing is that when my husband asked the people in front of us who threw it (we couldn’t see since they were standing up and blocking our view), they said Eric Crouch. The amazing thing about this is that my husband was having lunch with Crouch’s brother-in-law the following Tuesday - they work together in Des Moines. I forgot to ask my husband what his co-worker said about our experience, I’ll have to do that. I just thought it was funny how that happened. Of course now we have a Nebraska football in our house, which clashes horribly with all the Hawkeye items. I think we need to find a safe (hidden from sight) place to store that.

After the exhibition was over and we were leaving the Qwest Center, it had started to snow. We had been to the Old Market area for dinner beforehand and seen some of the Christmas lights and ice skating they have going on down there during the holidays. It was so pretty walking in the snow - but freezing!!! We were going to go back to the Mall (a park, not a shopping mall) and take some pictures, but it was so cold outside we were thinking maybe that wasn’t a great idea after all. As we were walking back to our hotel from the Qwest Center (just a couple of blocks away), I slipped on some ice that was hidden under the new snow and fell flat on my back. I sort of caught myself with my left arm, but I still hit the back of my head on the cement. Things started going kind of fuzzy and I sat up a bit holding onto my husband saying, “I don’t want to pass out, I don’t want to pass out…”. After awhile my head stopped swimming and I was able to get up and walk. Everybody else walking in the area was on the other side of the street and as far as I know, nobody even saw what happened. My pride is grateful for this! Anyway, that sealed the deal on going out to take pictures - I wasn’t setting foot on snow or ice voluntarily again.

We got back to the hotel and called my mother-in-law to see if she had any suggestions about my situation. I was a little concerned that I might have a concussion and I wasn’t sure what to do about it. However, I was lucid and not trying to fall asleep or anything, so we decided I would probably survive the night. :-) More than my head, my arm hurt. I had really hurt my wrist and the pain was shooting up to my elbow at times. Nothing seemed to be seriously hurt, it was probably just a sprain or something from my hand being bent back with force. 2 weeks later, I’m still having pain at times and it’s curtailed my weight training at the gym…but that’s better than a concussion!

We had a little bit more drama on our way home the next morning as the roads were snow and ice covered. We saw several cars in the ditches and one pickup truck slid across all the lanes on our side of the Interstate as it entered. It hit a guard rail where it stopped and the driver wasn’t hurt, but it did set our nerves on edge a bit. After about half an hour, we moved out of the snowy area and the rest of our trip home was on clear roads. We managed to get the dog picked up from where he was boarded with about half an hour to spare. And it was a good thing, too! He did NOT like being boarded and it would have been really bad if he would have had to spend another night there.

So, that’s pretty much it! We don’t do anything exciting very often, but when we do it’s usually a doozie. :-)

Actually, it wasn’t even the whole weekend, just Friday and Saturday. But it was packed with action and drama. I think I’ll have to write this in parts or it will be way too long!

Friday, my husband and I went to Omaha for a tennis exhibition. Andy Roddick and Serena Williams. More on that later.

We left the kids with their grandparents and they were later taken to their cousins’ house to spend the night. This is the first time I’ve really let go of my kids - had them traveling around without us and not being in control or at least knowing exactly where they were at any given moment. Their cousin who is almost 13 babysat them for part of the night while her parents were out. She was *so* excited! :-)

We tried calling that night to check on them, but the phone just rang and rang. That was odd since 1) they should have been there, and 2) they have an answering machine that should have picked up if they weren’t. I tried a couple of times but the same thing happened. I tried their cell phones, but there was no answer there, either. I finally wound up calling my mother-in-law, knowing that if something had happened she would most likely know about it. She hadn’t heard anything and suggested that maybe their electricity was out. I knew they would have called us if something was wrong so I decided to just give them a call in the morning and hopefully everything would be working again. I was surprisingly calm about this whole thing, when not long ago I would have been freaked out by it. I have changed so much in the last year or so!

Anyway, when I tried calling in the morning I figured out why we couldn’t reach them. I’d been calling the wrong number! That explains a lot, doesn’t it? My husband had the wrong number programmed into his cell phone. Oops! We’d been calling an eye doctor’s office and they did answer the phone in the morning. Apparently they aren’t open at 11:00 pm on Friday nights…and have no answering service, either. After getting the correct number from my mother-in-law, we found that everybody was fine. Which I knew, but it was good to have confirmation at that point.

So that’s how the kids’ portion of the whole thing went. Next post will be about our experiences. :-) I need to take a typing break first. I’ll explain why in that next post!