Reviving the dormant blog

And then 3 and half years, I'm back! Ethan turned 1 shortly after my last post and then I have no idea why I stopped blogging. Probably got sucked into the world of books again. :) The summer of 2012 I got a part time job with the public library and that December got promoted to full time. We also bought our first house the summer of 2012 and spent a lot of time painting, cleaning and moving in. In May 2013, I got pregnant with our daughter, Rachel, and thoroughly enjoyed the 2 months home with the whole family while on maternity leave. And thus begins our story:

Something about getting pregnant with Rachel changed me. I had the strangest reaction that I can only attribute to being pregnant. Rather than the normal food cravings, I had book cravings. Early in the pregnancy, I became obsessed with the idea of moving back to San Diego because I wanted to give my kids the same kind of childhood I had. When reality hit and I knew that wasn't possible, I felt the need to revisit my childhood and the best (and only) way was through books (makes sense right? As an avid reader, books are as much part of my memories as real life). I re-read many of my favorite stories as a child until I was ready to let that go. In the fall (2nd trimester), "Becoming Odyssa: Adventures on the Appalachian Trail" by Jennifer Pharr Davis was turned in to my library. When I was in college, I had this far-fetched dream of hiking the AT someday, and this book just called my name. (Apparently I had moved up to reliving my college years at this point.) When I finished, I wasn't ready to leave the trail, so to speak, so I looked up more books and discovered the Barefoot Sisters ("Southbound" and "Walking Home"). These books helped me realize how much slow living and nature have always been a passion for me, even though I didn't realize it at the time. I also realized how far myself I had become. By the time Rachel came, I fully immersed in trying to figure out my own identity again. I used to be so sure of myself and that was reflected in my personal style. I lost myself in college and lost that sense of style. I've been dabbling with styles, trying to figure myself out since grad school and still haven't really figured it out. I also used to journal, ALLTHETIME, and lost that when I had Ethan. More on that later.

When I went back to work, I re-joined our book discussion. The first book we read was "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce (coincidentally about a man on a physical, mental, and emotional journey). Then we read "A Moveable Feast" by Earnest Hemingway. Warning: this was published posthumously and is not one of his best works. It's a bit disjointed due to each chapter being a different anecdote and not a continuous story. Also, the editors changed up the order of the chapters in the later edition for some reason and it changes the whole feel of the story. Reading this was important to me though, because it revived the Paris obsession in me. I was driven to look for more books dealing with Paris, and found "Paris Letters" by Janice MacLeod.

This book is probably the most important book I've read in the last 5 years. It accomplished something that nothing else has been able to do since I became a mother: it helped me find myself again. I started journaling again and was finally able to let go of so much of the anger I'd been clinging to over how my life didn't work out as planned. (Don't get me wrong, I love my life. But it's a far cry from the dreams I had that got me through all those college years.) There were several other books that continued in the same vein as "Paris Letters", and by this past spring, I had become inspired by the tiny house movement and minimalist living. One of the things I've realized through my journaling is that I have clung to my stuff and acquired so much more in a vain effort to be happy. It really resulted in a house full of clutter and my stress levels and unhappiness higher than usual. In processing that, I realized that I need to let go of stuff to fully get back to myself. Of course this seems crazy since I've always been that person that dreamt of a living in a huge, multi-room house (craft room, game room, huge kitchen, and most importantly, a huge library reminiscent of Belle's in Beauty and the Beast). I've always been sentimental and letting go of stuff does not come easy to me. But the more I followed that dream, the less happy I was, more stressed, more angry and resentful, and further away I got from myself. Thus minimalist lifestyle. But as much as I tried, my husband is not on board with minimalist and tiny house living. I guess it's a good thing most of the clutter/stuff is mine. Our compromise is small living.

The house we bought in 2012 and currently live in is 1098 square feet. We were both convinced (and Charlie still is) that our house is simply too small for us (read: too small for all our stuff). While this is not a our dream house and we do not want to spend the rest of our lives in this house, it's still ours and still home and we need to be as happy here as we can be since we don't know when we'll move. This leads me to my goal: to pare down and declutter enough to live in our house comfortably by the end of 2015. A good chunk of our stuff is still in storage (in the in-laws' basement over an hour away). Some of that is furniture that doesn't really fit here and Charlie doesn't want to let go of just yet so that will probably stay in storage. Also, since making this goal, life has gotten in the way enough that little progress has been made so far. Knowing that, I'm still keeping the end of the year as a goal, but a loose goal. It will happen when it happens. But I realized I need some help and accountability, which is the reason why I have revived this blog. I started it back in the day as a blog about crafts and food, in the hopes of inspiring others the way I had been inspired. I still want this blog to be a source of inspiration but apparently it will help me move forward at the same time.