Still a mess

At the beginning of the year I was bound and determined to get all of my closets cleaned out and my house organized. I did it, and..... my house is still a mess. I thought that it would suddenly be easy to put things back where I got them and to keep everything nice and tidy. Apparently I am the problem. Lump my husband and a 16 month old into that equation and you still have one big happy mess. The problem is my mess makes me feel very unhappy. It isn't the dishes in the sink or one or two things out of place that makes me crazy, but once the mess starts to pile I feel overwhelmed and want to climb in my bed and hide. Since the first of the year I have been making so many things myself, ie, deodorant, toothpaste, dishsoap, laundry detergent, yogurt, butter, the list goes on and on. This only contributes further to the mess. Not only do I have dirty dishes, now I have a cooler full of jars of yogurt, and ball jars full of different fermenting experiments all over my counters. I am now aware that if I want to maintain the type of home that I read about in the blogs of the amazing homemakers out there, I am going to have to clean up after myself, all the time, everytime. The truth is, I would rather have my happy mess, it is a lovely happy mess. 

Writing

Have you ever noticed that typing doesn't have the same cathartic effect that actually putting a pen to paper does. I was cleaning out my closets ( I will blog all about that soon!) and I found my journal from when I was in high school. Is high school two words??? My computer just auto corrected it, so don't judge me if it's not ;). Anyway, without even reading the words on the page I could tell how I had been feeling at each entry just by the way that my handwriting looked. I don't want to brag, well maybe a little, but I have amazing penmanship. It comes from writing massive amounts of letters and essays, but that is a very long story. I could feel the pressure that I had used with my pen by touching the pages. I also found a journal that my dad had kept. It was just a small journal all about hunting, mostly a log of what he had conquered! It was strangely nostalgic however to know that he had used his massive hands to form each letter and write each word. He did not have excellent penmanship, or grammar for that matter, but it was so endearing because of it's authenticity. I don't think that you can get that from a typed paragraph. I think that I am going to try keeping a journal again. Maybe someday Gabe can look back at the days my life and feel connected to me in a way that nothing else will give him. I hope so.

I wanna win!!!

Green mountain herbs, the company that I bought all the supplies for my homemade Christmas gifts from, is having an awesome giveaway. I am trying to win!!! I still have to get into Russy's twitter account to tweet about it, but don't tell him! Anyway, check it out, but don't enter because they are mine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://mountainroseblog.com/recipes-2011-giveaway-3/