Looking back...

If you pay attention to my facebook page at all, you might have noticed that I've been working on cleaning up my computer - I've been going through the past 5+ years of photos, deleting the crappy ones, and transferring the good ones over to flash drives. It's been a long process, and I'm nowhere near done yet. But I'm getting there.

Before I started...

Where I am now...

But of course, in order to do this, I have to go through every single folder of pictures and look at every single one. Luckily they're already pretty much grouped in order by what day I uploaded them from the camera, so I have just been going through them one day at a time.

I've been trying not to dwell on the content of the pictures so much. I'm a very sentimental person, and I can look at old pictures all day long - so I know that I have to really focus on the end goal here or it's going to take me forever to get this done. So far, I've gotten 2008 and 2009 off of my computer (except for a huge rogue folder of 2008 that I just found this morning, but I haven't touched that one yet).

Those were 2 very interesting years in my life. (If you're not familiar with the story, this post will explain a lot of it, and there are links in there that can lead you to other stories. Or you can just ask me. Seriously.)

In 2008 we were living in my old house and I was still married to my second husband. So there are a lot of pictures of him. I wouldn't say that I get sad looking at them - but I have caught myself saying "I wonder what would have happened if....." several times.

In 2009, I kicked him out. And my life fell apart in so many ways, but I didn't admit that for a long time. I don't think that even my closest friends realized how bad it was for me.

But you know what? Looking at those pictures from that time frame - wow, was it ever obvious.

This house - this little ghetto-esque house that we live in now - it gets messy. It gets dirty. It's not always clean and neat and organized. But for the most part, it's decent. We got rid of a lot of stuff when we moved (moving into a house that's less than half the size of your old one will force your hand in that department) and I do my best to keep it organized.

The pictures of the old house? Holy wow, how did we ever live like that? Seriously, it was filthy, and it was so obvious in those pictures. I mean it - I let it get dirty. And that's how it would stay.

Every now and then I'd go on a massive cleaning/organizing binge, and it would look good. For a day or two. And then I would just let everything slide again.

It's funny. I don't always think that I've come that far...but then I start looking back - really looking back - and I see the progress that I've made. I'm still not perfect. The house can still be a disaster at times, but the main difference now is that it might only be 2 or 3 days' worth of disaster, instead of months' worth of disaster. Seeing the actual photographic evidence of the change was truly eye opening for me and has really gotten my brain going back into overdrive again (oh yay).

I think I gave myself a virtual kick in the butt. If I could come this far already...... hmmmm...... might be time to go back to the notebook and write down some more plans.

It's a puzzle

This is what my brain feels like tonight.

I'm not sure what's going on with it. Maybe it's the fact that Christmas is over. Maybe it's the impending New Year. Maybe it's the full moon. Maybe it's a combination of a whole bunch of different things that are jumbled up in there.

All I know is that right now, my mind is going in eleventy bajillion different directions, and I can't seem to get it to slow down. I have so many things that I want to do in so many areas of my life, and I'm just feeling a little overwhelmed right now because all of those ideas are running around in a great big unorganized mess in my head.

Yes, I know I go through this every now and then. I think everyone does, whether they want to admit it or not.

It used to be that when I would get into these moods, I would either ignore them and drive myself nuttier than I already am, or I would just jump right into whatever crazy plan was rolling around in my head at that moment. Or worse yet, I would start all 87 plans that were in my head at the same time, and never finish any of them.

I'm going to do something different this time. I'm just going to let my brain go. I'm going to see what kind of crazy ideas develop. And I'm going to keep a notebook and a pen beside me and I'm going to write things down. And I'm going to figure out what it is that has me so restless right now. Maybe, just maybe, if I write everything down as it comes to me, I'll be able to get my thoughts organized. I'll be able to figure out what it is that I want to do vs. what I need to do. I can prioritize. And maybe I can actually feel like I can accomplish something instead of starting it and never getting it done.

I feel like so much is finally starting to fall into place in my life - I am so lucky and so blessed (that is a word that I don't toss around lightly, either) - maybe this is really the time for me to start focusing on some of the things that I want to do with my life. Maybe this is the time to start looking into how to turn my craft hobby into a legitimate business (one of the biggest things bouncing around in my head right now). Maybe this is the time to start looking for a part-time job to help supplement our income. Maybe this is the time to really start looking for a bigger house for us to move into in the next few months.

I'm not usually the type of person to do "resolutions" every year, but I'm starting to think that maybe this could be our year. I can finally say that I'm looking forward to the future instead of dreading it.

I'm ready to get the new year started.

The Notebook

No, I'm not talking about the movie. Although, it is one of my favorites.

I'm talking about an actual notebook, an old one with a broken spiral and a stained cover that is sitting in front of me right now. It's one that's been around the house for a few years but has never really served a specific purpose. Honestly, I'm surprised that the kids haven't made off with it and used all of the paper in it by now.

However, it now has a purpose. I've been sitting here for the last hour or so, carefully crunching numbers. Maybe it's the impending new year with all of its potential, maybe it's frustration with where I'm at financially at the moment, maybe it's just the weird mood that I've been in for the past few days coupled with a few realizations of what I want to do with my life in the next year or so....

Maybe it's a combination of all of that. But regardless of what "it" is, I'm formulating plans. On paper, even. I'm figuring and re-figuring my budget. I'm figuring out a way to actually get some money into savings - starting this month - so that I can make some changes happen when I want them to happen without being totally stressed about money all of the time.

Living on a fixed income is not easy. It is nice to know exactly how much money is coming in and when, and it's easy to live day-to-day on that. But when emergencies like a busted transmission or an abscessed tooth happen, it's hard to come up with the extra to take care of those things. Now that I've been able to pay off some bills, it will be a little easier to build in a cushion each month to make those unexpected expenses easier to handle. And having that little extra cushion will also help us to be able to make some other things happen - including combining two households into one within the next 6 months or so.

Willpower has never been one of my strengths. In fact, I've always been horrible about it. Hopefully,  putting it all on paper (not to mention putting it "out there" for everyone to see) will give me the motivation to be able to stick with it and actually make progress.