It's Almost Done

With three days left until we go to Stone Mountain to pick up keys for the new house, I find myself feeling nervous and a bit anxious. The only major thing I have left to pack is my spice cabinet, everything else is little stuff that will be packed Sunday afternoon or evening. It's almost done!

I have been reading a ton lately on organization for your home and decorating tips for those on a budget. I am trying to get inspired so our new home will look and feel like a home not just some place where we store our stuff. I want things on the walls and nice furniture and places for things and maybe even....curtains on the windows! It's hard when you rent a place because you can't make structural changes to the home but I can decorate it. I've never really tried to give a place I was living any character or liven it up but I think that needs to change. I am tired of boring and mundane, I want people to walk in and say "Wow you have a beautiful home."

Now that the move is upon us I am getting anxious. I am excited to be moving into a new state and having all these new areas to explore and enjoy. I have decided that this move is going to be good for all of us because there will be changes made that we will all benefit from. I want to use this new start as a tool to help me on the road to happiness and health. I want to take time for me and learn how to love who I am and the packaging that I'm contained in. I want to rediscover who I am and stop allowing myself to be what everyone wants me to be. I'm a mother, a wife, a homemaker, a friend and a long distance relative to many. It's not often that I'm just Erin anymore. I adapt to whatever people need in life and become that pillar for them, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but one can get lost in all of that from time to time. I dressed the way society would expect me to dress as a Mom and an adult in her 30's. I colored my hair mundane colors that complemented my eyes or my skin tone but never really showed that edgy side of my personality. I am done with trying to live up to what "I think" a late 30's mom and wife should be and just be myself for a change. Well, once I find out who I am again.

There has been so much on my mind lately with everything that there are times when I forget that I need to take care of myself in all of this too. I need to decompress and unwind, I need to have down time. I need to have positive reassurance that I'm doing ok and that I am a good wife and Mom. This week especially I am feeling emotional and needy and I have had one too many self loathing moments. When I think back to when I was younger, this is definitely NOT how I thought my life would be at this age. Nothing went as "planned" for me and I've never been very good at following the rules anyways. I've been living in a shell for too long and it's time to come out of the shell and actually live. I think I'm ready but I know the journey is going to be a long one.

It starts with little changes for me. I dyed my hair right after my job assignment with the temp agency I was working for ended. I decided to go big and it is jet black with bright blue streaks. I love it. I get complimented on it all the time. Next time though, I think I want more blue in it. So I have an edgy new hair color that gives me something fun to play with. I have left the length long because I just can't bear to cut it. It's just past my shoulder blades and working on getting longer. I have the stylist trim the ends each time so they don't split and my hair stays healthy. She tells me all the time how beautiful and thick my hair is, she hates blow drying it because it always takes so long. I have a lot of hair and always have, so I'm used to it.

After the move I want to look into getting into a healthy routine. Being able to shop at a local farmers market and having fresh food choices readily available to me will help with my diet. I plan on incorporating as much activity and exercise into my daily routine as I can so my body can start to gain back some strength. I won't need a gym membership at all when I live in an area with so many outdoor options for exercise. I look forward to long walks through the neighborhood. I also want to get a new bike (I found one a WalMart that I fell in love with) and go for bike rides through Stone Mountain Park. I have options now and I have no excuse to not utilize all the new tools that have been so beautifully laid out before me.

I'm not saying that this move is going to solve all our problems or that it's a miracle and life will be perfect once we move. We are human and not perfect by any means. However I am embracing this change as a way to start a new path. A path of rediscovery and exploration in many areas of life. A way to reconnect with friends and activities that I haven't been able to enjoy in a long time. A way to make new friends and make new memories for myself and my family. These changes have been long over due and I am finally able to accept that they need to happen and I am ready to do this. This time I'm not changing for anybody or because I want to fit into a mold. I am making changes because I want to be happy, healthy and me! I want to be different and daring and if people don't like that, well then I got two words for em!

Less Than 1 Week

In less than a week we will be arriving in Stone Mountain at the new house to get the keys and do the walk through paperwork. I will then take pictures and sketch out room details so I can make a plan of how I want the furniture placed. It seems like the packing and purging has been going on forever. The only thing left to pack is small stuff or stuff that we use on a daily basis. It's almost done! As I sit here sipping on my tea I can look back on all this and know that I've done a pretty awesome job organizing stuff. I'm hoping that when we get into the new place I will be inspired to be much more organized (I am armed with my HGTV magazine and the Zite app on my phone for ideas). I want my home to be comfortable and things easy to find. I know I can do it, it's just a matter of keeping it up on a daily basis.

I've thought about all the things that I am going to miss about our current house and the things that I won't miss at all. I've come up with a short list for both.

Things I will miss:
The huge open kitchen with island and tons of counter space
Kitchen pantry (I got spoiled by this one)
Master bathroom with double vanity
Garage (I will have a storage shed for stuff in the backyard, unfortunately our car won't fit in the shed....lol)

Things I am glad to say goodbye to:
Stairs
Yard with no fence and no privacy
Neighborhood kids who destroy my yard decorations and pound on our door and run
Bad schools
Stairs (oh wait did I already mention that?)

Things I am looking forward to at the new house:
Much more space (almost 2200sq ft vs the 1500 sq ft we have now)
Fenced yard that is HUGE!
Cute kitchen with decorative accent tiles on the back splash (I'm a sucker for a kitchen with personality)
Single story (no stairs!!)
Huge master bedroom (with a bay window)
New city to explore
Close vicinity to walking and bike riding trails for exercise (who needs a gym membership)
Better school options and activities
Having plenty of room to invite friends over for gatherings (I haven't done this in years so I'm looking forward to it!)

Now if only I could wave a wand and get the rest of our stuff packed I'd be great but if that were the case it would already be done by now. Purging as I go is what is time consuming but I will be thankful that all that trash didn't come with us to clutter up our new home. I will post pictures after I take them next week so I can share my new to me home with everyone! Until then, let the packing and purging continue!

At Wits End

I have to admit that lately I have been is a pretty bad mood. I'm so frustrated with everything right now and that is cause for me to have a very defeatist attitude. I think this is going to be a much needed rant post, so if you don't want to listen to me complain, stop reading now.

I decided that 2013 was going to be the year that I work on my health. I want to get back into a healthy eating and exercise regiment that will help me to achieve my weight loss goals. I started using My Fitness Pal in order to track food and what little exercise I do get. Well I saw this morning that I have been using MFP for 80 days now! I looked at my weight loss counter and saw that I only lost 3 pounds! Wait, what? 3 pounds in 80 days? What the hell? That just set me off and I got extremely angry at myself because obviously I'm not doing it right or something. I calorie count like a champ and I count everything I eat. Whether they are desserts, snacks, meals or beverages. It's like a religion to keep myself on track and only eat my calorie allotment daily and there were days on end that I was under my calorie goal. Most professionals will tell you that diet plays a huge part in your weight loss. Well it doesn't seem to have a part in my weight loss at all. So all the calorie counting and water consumption have gotten me 3lbs down. Big whoop-de-doo!

Then there is the daily grind of packing and purging. I started off this moving project with good intentions and with tons of motivation. However the more I pack and purge the more irritated I get at how much crap I have kept over the years for no good reason. Saturday we spent about 8 hours just shredding documents that we didn't need anymore. 8 HOURS! That's like a full time job right there and I've recently found more paperwork in our bedroom that needs to be shredded. My lord, what was I trying to accomplish keeping all that crap. Paperwork from when I lived in CA and moved here to TN. I understand there are certain things you should keep, tax stuff etc. However all that paperwork that I had was unnecessary and downright ridiculous. I'm so over it! We have accumulated so much garbage in the 7 years that we've been together. That's just counting our stuff, don't get me talking about my son's room and all the garbage that he has in there because "It has meaning to me". Every broken toy or rock or piece of paper has meaning to him and he cries when I talk about throwing stuff away. He doesn't understand that for all the stuff we will be getting rid of, it will make room for an awesome new bedroom set and cool updated big boy stuff. I try to be calm and just work through it but at this point it's starting to get to me.

I've not been giving packing my full effort lately at all. I will admit that. I should already have a bulk of the house packed and I'm just not quite there yet. However I am feeling overwhelmed at the moment. It's like it will never end, the packing and purging. I have so much garbage that needs to be thrown out it's like an episode of hoarders in my garage right now. I just want to scream! How can my OCD have let all this accumulate like this! Arrgh! Let me tell you what, our new place is going to be different because I'm not going through this again!

Pulling It All Together

I will admit for as many times in my life that I have moved (over 100), I absolutely hate packing things up. I have a total go-getter attitude until it actually comes time to do it then I lose motivation after about the second day. It's so tedious. This time around I decided to get rid of a LOT of stuff that we either don't need, want or can use. I am tired of all the clutter and crap being everywhere. I think this is why yesterday I just had to take a day off from purging and packing to just chill out and rethink my approach. If I don't plan this organizational packing out right, I will run out of time to do so and that would be a shame. I now have 19 days left to pack it all up and I've made a dent on some of it. However it's time to get it into gear and take it to the next level which is one step closer to completed.

Yesterday I took two huge garbage bags full of clothes to Goodwill. They were clothes that I either never wore or were too small. I also got rid of my hubby's clothes that were too small as well. It felt good to donate them and to know that someone out there will enjoy these clothes hopefully as much as I did at one time. I also have a donation going to McKays used bookstore this weekend. All of my son's baby books and young reader books as well as some PC games and some PS2 games. Those I will actually get some store credit for, so it's not a total donation so not quite as rewarding.

I have managed with some help from the hubby to separate the garage into two sides. The right side is the side that is stuff to be thrown away and the left side is stuff we can take with us. There is so much that we need to get rid of that I'm going to be scheduling pick ups with the city for a few days in order to get it all taken care of.

I purchased bubble wrap and more plastic totes to pack stuff up in. The bubble wrap will come in handy for my nick knacks and dishes. I hate using newspaper because it turns my hands all black then I have to wash the dishes because they have black ink on them too. I have to use plastic totes because I am allergic to cardboard boxes. (I know what a stupid thing to be allergic to right?) I found this out when I worked in a fast food restaurant and had to break down the shipping boxes. I would get a rash all over my hands and arms from touching the cardboard and I would have allergy like symptoms with watery eyes and stuffy nose. It sucked, so now when I have to pack stuff up, totes is the way I go (and they are reusable!)

the totes I use are the clear plastic 

So that is an update on what I've been up to lately. Our new landlady has received our first month's rent and all of our deposits, so we are good there. The moving company has been scheduled and paid and they will be here bright and early on the 26th. I still have to contact the new school for my son to find out what I will need to provide for his enrollment. I will also have to start contacting doctors and making appointments for all of us as needed. Once we move we get to handle transferring our driver's licenses and getting our car registered for the new state and county. All these little things will add up to plenty to keep me busy once we are moved. This will give me a good chance to organize more and get on top of my A game.

For now it's back to packing up and handling the business at hand. The move is getting closer and my jitters are in full force now. I always get anxious before I undergo a change in my life and moving to a new state is definitely big change!

No I didn't start smoking again but you get the point

25 Days and Counting

Today is February first, which means that I have 25 days to get everything that still needs to be accomplished for the move taken care of. The next 3 weeks is going to be a whirlwind of happy chaos in our current household as I clean out closets, rooms and a garage. I must get rid of things we have no need for. I must make sure the proverbial ducks are in a row and that this move goes smoothly. I will of course have help from the husband and the boy child on this mission but the purging of junk will be all my responsibility. I shall bring organization to the chaos, it shall be done!

Yesterday was my last day of work. Once we move I probably won't be returning to work right away. I plan on going to school to get my real estate license for the state of GA so I can become an agent. There is a potential to make fabulous money in real estate and I'm looking forward to learning a new skill and going back into a classroom environment. I know that I'll have to start out at the bottom but hard work and effort should get me moving up the real estate ladder quickly, I can do this and I have set my mind into motion for it.

In the meantime I am going to take the next few months to take care of two things. First I am going to purge our lives of clutter and crap we don't need and we are going to move into our adorable new house. Second I am going to work on me. I want to start losing weight again, I want to expand my social circle, I want to get hobbies that I can enjoy, I want to decorate my home and my life with things that make me happy. I know that the move will not be the cure-all for every issue that I have in my life right now. It's not a miracle move. However, if I am happy and content in my environment then I can easily maintain day to day life and bring happiness to those I choose to surround myself with. I will have NO EXCUSE not to exercise because I can see Stone Mountain Park from my driveway. There are trails close to my home to bike or walk on, I won't even need a gym membership.

2013 is my year of making the changes I need to make to make sure I have a happy healthy future. 2012 was a year that I took some staggering losses (my sister being one of them). It was a year that made me cry more times than I wanted to admit. It made me come face to face with the reality that no one lives forever, no matter how good of a person they are, no matter if they have family who doesn't want them to go, no matter if they always lived a healthy happy life and overcame every obstacle that was put before them with dignity. When it's time, you simply go and there are no do overs or reset buttons. My sister was a person who I always wanted to be like, I respected and admired her so much. So it's time to ask myself "How would Deann handle this?" I know exactly how she would handle it, she would take care of business no matter how difficult or demanding. At the end of the day she would go out and sit by the pool and relax. I won't have a pool at the new house but I will have a little redwood deck that I can go sit on to reflect on my day and my choices. If I don't live the life I want to live now and I don't take care of myself now, then I'm going to have regrets that I will never be able to resolve when my end does eventually come and no one can go in peace if there mind is plagued with regrets.

I have spent too many years trying to be what everyone else needed that I have lost track of the Erin inside. Who is she? What does she like and dislike? What does she even look like? Honestly at times I can't answer those simple three questions. I put everyone else first because it's who I am. It's who I've always been, take care of others then take care of yourself. I'm a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, an aunt and a daughter. I have so many people whose lives I touch and I want to make sure that I leave a beautiful impression while I'm there. So change is in the works for me and I'm hoping that the path to these changes brings me joy and gives me plenty of awesome stuff to blog about! =D