LOVE THIS!!!

 

I love this quote, just thought I'd share....

What I'm finding with this vulnerability/authenticity thing is that you spend a lot of your time being uncomfortable. And its scary. But totally worth it. Because once you push through the scary, uneasy, awkward feelings you feel light, happy and finally like yourself. What I've learned so far is that its ok to question things, what's right for someone else is not necessarily what's right for me and that getting to know myself is going to be a life-long process and that's just fine with me.

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On lacking emotions...

I listen to Click 98.9 in the mornings on my way into work and they have a segment called "Tough Love from Siri" or something like that where people can call in and ask Siri questions about life and she gives them an answer. Siri's tagline though is "I can't hurt your feelings because I don't know what feelings are". Sometimes I feel like Siri and I can commiserate on that. I often feel like I'm lacking the normal emotions that other people have, like I'm heartless or something. Today I'm going to let someone else do the talking for me. Read the article from the link below, it paints a near perfect picture of me. --> 16 Things unemotional women will understand

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A small peak into my brain

I've been giving this whole authenticity/vulnerability thing a lot of thought lately. I'm no closer to having any concrete goals but let me lay out my current thoughts on the matter....

I'm a people pleaser, I like to keep the peace and make people happy. Which can be a good thing, I mean at least I'm not purposefully pissing people off, BUT because of that I think I tend to conform to what I think people want from me instead of just being myself. I feel like all my life I've been who people wanted me to be and never given much thought to who I want to be. I mean every so often there will be a little outburst of what I think is the "authentic me" but they are rare. And now I'm almost 27 year's old and I'm questioning whether the life that I'm living is actually the life I want to live or is it the life other people want for me. ( I don't mean in all aspects, I just mean in certain aspects). I don't like to disappoint people. It's a problem sometimes.  I've been better about it recently. I've been realizing lately that if I want to get the most out of my life and make myself really, truly, insanely, shout it from the rooftops happy I'm probably going to have to disappoint a few people along the way and that's ok. They will still survive.

 A friend left a comment on my last post and she said that for her it came back to self-acceptance and trust and I completely agree and I think those are the 2 things I most need to work on as well. First I need to learn to be ok in my own skin. Sometimes I feel like I don't even know what my own skin looks like, so I guess it's a matter of figuring that out as well. I'm going to be a bit arrogant for a second though and say that from what I  do know of myself, I pretty much think I'm the bee's knees. However, I don't always think that other people will think I'm as awesome as I think I am. Which brings me to the second thing I should work on....I need to learn to trust that people will accept me for me. I always jump to the worst conclusions about how people will react if I confide in them or act a certain way around them but I need to trust that they will love me no matter what.

I was talking to a friend about some stuff going on in my life and how an honest conversation with someone else had turned into them being upset with me and how it bothered me. Here I was being vulnerable and opening up about struggles I'm having in my life right now and being super authentically me and they were getting angry with me for being me? No way, that is not ok. The friend that I was lamenting this back to told me that at the end of the day I just had to do what makes me happy and do what I want to and when I said that I would try he responded by saying "you don't try to do it, you just do it!"--And he's right. I think that you just have to be unapologetically yourself, that includes the good AND the bad parts, and hopefully the people that matter will stick around and love you just the same and the people that don't, well they don't deserve to have you in their lives anyways.

I feel like I just word vomited onto this page and I tried to go back and organize it into neat concise thoughts but I think I just made it more discombobulated....but that's how my thought process goes and that's just how I am...so deal with it.

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Authentically speaking, I don't want to do this....

Before I start to open up my heart and soul to you about these next goals, let me back track and give some thoughts on simplicity.  When someone says to simplify something, I typically think make it easier. But let me tell you, simplifying isn't easy. These past 2 months of trying to simplify certain aspects of my life has been damn hard. As good of intentions as you have and as much as you know simplifying will make your life easier, the actual process is really difficult. I don't know why we decide to complicate our lives as much as we do.  I kinda gave up there at the end because life got too crazy (ironic since I was trying to simplify life?) and I just didn't have time to focus on it. But I learned some valuable lessons and do see the importance of keeping things simple.

Ok, now for the good stuff. Authenticity and vulnerability scare me to death. Out of all the topics Kat and I talked about focusing goals around, this is the one that terrifies me most. I can't even explain why but I just don't like to let people in. I have these walls that are built soooo high that I don't even think there's a single person in my life I've let all the way in. I don't like to feel vulnerable, I don't like to get attached to people, I don't like emotions.  It all scares me.  If you know me, then to some extent you know this is true. If you don't know me, you can try to get to know me but I'm not sure you'll make it very far. I don't feel that I'm inauthentic (is that a word?) but I think I am just very careful about what I choose to show people or how I choose to open up. And once in a blue moon when I do start to feel uncomfortably attached to someone, I immediately turn, run and disappear. I don't like to feel like I need people. Someone once told me that I could live in a cabin in the mountains by myself the rest of my life without any human contact and be just fine, whereas most people would go crazy. And to be completely authentic with you, it's probably true. Do I think this is a great way to live? No. Do I think you need to open up and be authentic and vulnerable? Yes
...you can't know true happiness without knowing hurt.. So goals for these next 2 months? I don't know yet. I don't really want to crack myself open for the world to see but since I know I should if you have any thoughts on ways to open up and be more authentic, feel free to comment. I can use all the help I can get.

P.S. I would like all to note though that me admitting to everything above is by definition "opening up" so maybe I'm not as bad as I think. :)

P.P.S I tried to find a cute little comic to put on here to try and lighten the mood a bit, unfortunately I couldn't find one. I guess being closed off isn't something to laugh about. But I did find this quote and I really liked it.

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Updates lately

Life has been so chaotic this past week. I'm sorry that it's taken me so long to write. Here's a quick update....

I was doing really good implementing Kat's 20 minutes of cleaning a day rule. I found that after the first few days of having to force myself to do it, I realized that it was pretty painless and actually made a huge difference. It didn't always happen at the same time everyday but it did happen at some point which is the part that matters. That went well for a week or so, then I started cat sitting for some friends and have been staying at their apartment. Since I'm there most of the time, I only drop home to grab stuff I need for the next few days and drop off a few things too, so once again my room is becoming a clutter zone. I'm leaving town this weekend to go visit a friend and plan on getting all organized in both my spaces before I leave so I don't have to come home to a cluttered mess at either apartment. Because lets face it, there's nothing better than coming home after a long trip to a clean space.

Life-wise, I feel like I'm almost doing TOO good a job at taking time for myself lately. I have said no to almost everything and find that it's now bordering on anti-social. Do I care? of course not. I thrive by myself, but I probably shouldn't give in to my hermit like tendencies quite yet, I mean I'm only 26.  At what age though does it become ok to be the old cat lady (but minus the cats)?

I can't remember my 3rd goal right now, which means I'm probably not doing so well on it. OOOH wait, I remember...money. I'm not doing horrible but I'm not doing as good as I could be. I've been focusing lately on only eating out when I'm going out with friends, and not grabbing food on my way home or going out to eat alone just because I don't want to cook. That has been going better, but I still just need to work on mindful purchasing.

That's all the updates I have for you today folks.

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My brain is still on holiday so I have no great titles for this blog....

Does anyone else feel like they need another day off just to recover from the 3 day weekend? Because I do. Goodness it was hard to wake up this morning! Onto the topic at hand, goal domination did not happen this weekend. I was telling Kat last night that I think my room is more cluttered than when the week began.  I just have too much stuff. I really think the key to it is to get rid of stuff, but for whatever reasons I am really struggling with that.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever read the blog The Minimalists, but they are great.  One of them talks about his journey to minimalism and how he started it by putting everything into boxes except his essentials and then if he needed something he could go pull it out but whatever he didnt' use after a certain period of time he got rid of. So I"m thinking of doing that with my clothes. Since I'm not ready to part with them I'm just going to box them all up and whatever I don't use in the next month (obviously keeping in mind that I probably won't use my winter clothes so I'm not going to chuck those) will get chucked or donated. So the goal for this week is to do that by Friday.

As for my other goals, I'm making some progress on keeping my schedule simple, and budget wise, I'm not sure how much better I'm doing with it but I'm definitely a lot more aware of the money I'm spending.  I find myself often calculating in my head how much money I'll have left in my bank account if I buy this or spend money on this and how if I didn't spend it on those things how much I could put into my savings account. It's beginning to be like a game, I think I might like this budgeting thing.

One last thought for the day. I just became part of a Facebook group called SENSATIONAL September and the whole focus of it is to become more mindful. Now I know mindfulness can be used in a lot of ways but as I've been thinking about that and these goals that I'm working on I've realized that a lot of progress could be made from the simple act of just being more mindful. I think first thing with that would be to be more mindful of my actions. I think I often respond or act without even thinking about it but if I could learn to just take a moment to really think about the decision I'm making then I think that would be helpful. Also learning to be mindful of the moment and be in the now. I often put things off till tomorrow, and even with these goals I've noticed that I'll go to buy something or say no to something, but it's something I really want, so i'll tell myself that I'll just work harder on these goals...tomorrow. But that never happens. So I think being mindful that TODAY is the day to work on myself, not tomorrow. So hopefully as I practice mindfulness with the Facebook group this month, these goals of mine will start to come together a bit more.

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Goal Domination

It's a holiday weekend, and for the first time in how many weekends, I don't have a single spec of plans. I kid you not. At first I was freaking out a bit, thinking I was going to let a glorious 3 day weekend go to waste without even going camping or on a short road trip somewhere and then I remembered I have goals and this is the perfect weekend to work on those. And by staying home this weekend I'm making headway on all three of them...woot woot!!! Talk about total goal domination.

Goal #1: Simplify budget: Helloooo! If I'm not going anywhere I won't end up spending money on things like snacks and gas for my car.

Goal #2: Simplify my closet: I keep putting it off because I wanted a big chunk of time to just sit and tackle it all at once and I haven't had any large chunks of time. I think a 3 day weekend counts as a large enough chunk of time though. If I can't get it done in 3 days, something is wrong.

Goal #3: Simplify my life: Saying no to adventures like camping and roadtrips is hard for me. BUT...by doing so I will have the time to stay home and organize and catch up on the rest of life which often gets overlooked and stresses me out from time to time.

Also lately I've fallen in love with the blog Apartment Therapy. They just have so many great ideas and I could (already have) spent hours scrolling through their articles. One I came across recently had some great ideas though on getting rid of stuff. If the clutter monster has gotten to you, click here to go read it, you won't be sorry!

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And we now have a 3rd...

One of the biggest reasons why I wanted to try to simplify my life is because I figure if I have less stuff, then there's less stuff to make things messy with. Ahh...see that genius thought process?? That being said, my room is a complete disaster zone right now. I would post pictures, but I'm slightly embarrassed at just how messy it is. Plus I'm afraid my Mom might see and then I'd feel bad because she taught me better than that. (She doesn't even know this blog exists yet though, so that excuse is a total cop-out). Back to the point I'm trying to make- I've been in and out of town a bunch over the past month and a half and with every trip it seems like things get piled higher and higher and I keep thinking that if I could just have a few hours I could get it all under control easy....toss out a few things, organize the rest of it and voila, simplified!....But every week I find myself with zero time, which has me thinking it's time to make a 3rd goal in the simplifying category. Simplify my life.

Simplifying my life may sound broad but let me explain. By "life" I mean my social life, the amount of errands that I run and the appointments that take over my calendar. I'm pretty busy, and I like it that way. I'm home usually just long enough to shower, fall into bed and then wake up and do it all over again the next day. I thrive on being busy, it's my way of distracting myself from the things in life I don't want to do--namely clean my room, fold my laundry, etc. If I'm home I can't stand it so I just end up doing whatever chore it is that needs to be done. So basically I need to spend less time out doing things and more time at home. This will be hard because I'm a yes person. You ask me to do something and I will typically say Yes!! I have a hard time saying no to people. But it's time for me to learn to use the word no. Ever seen the movie "Yes Man"? It's about a guy who takes a vow to go around saying yes to everything and it totally changes his life because he use to be boring and say no to everything. Well, I'm going to do the opposite and be the No Woman! I mean I probably won't say No to everything, because that'd just be sad, but at least for the new few weeks I'm going to hunker down and work on organizing a bit. (That'll have to start after this weekend though because I already have fun plans!). This goal of being less busy and staying home more will not only help me with getting myself all organized at home, but it'll help with the simplifying my budget goal too. The less I go out, the less moolah (correct spelling?) I spend, and if I go off the grid for a bit people will be SO excited when I come back. Win, win, win!!!!

Those are all my thoughts for today folks, if you have any great ideas about  a process for going through and getting rid of clothes, please let me know. I'm the worst at that game.

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Michael Scott Jeans

I am failing miserably at simplifying my spending habits.

My favorite pair of jeans, the ones I wear like a solid 80% of the time, are getting to that stage where I know I'm going to have to replace them in the next few months and I HATE shopping for jeans, so I figured I'd just start and get it out of the way now instead of feeling pressured when my favorite jeans finally give up the ghost. Thing is, I made the mistake of trying on this really expensive pair of jeans and holy hell did they look good. I don't know if any one out there use to ever watch The Office but there's this episode where it talks about Michael Scott's jeans and how he think he just looks so good in them and it shows him doing this little jig in the office. Well, that's how I feel in these jeans. My butt in these jeans, is something everyone should be jealous of. No joke. So I bought them. For a lot of money. They were on sale though, so at least there's that.

Moral of the story, I need to get on making a budget pronto so that I have some actual guidelines to follow instead of just talking about spending less money. So my goal by tomorrow (since tomorrow is payday) is to make a budget and follow it until my next payday.

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Shopping Trip

I thought that I'd have nothing to blog about until my vacation ended tomorrow, but boy was I wrong. You know what is a really easy thing to do on vacation? Spend money. When I found myself at the Park City Outlets one afternoon with a really cute sweatshirt in hand I realized that there was no better time than the present to work on simplifying my spending habits or else there was a good chance I'd end the afternoon with a car full of new things and spending amnesia.

I was out in Utah for my cousins wedding. I was a bridesmaid and told to wear a brown skirt, a cream shirt, and brown or red shoes. I had ordered the skirt previously, but I found myself in Utah 3 days before the wedding without shoes or a shirt still. The fix? Head to the outlets of course, so that afternoon my brother and I trekked up to Park City where we thought for sure it'd be a simple task to find a cream colored shirt and shoes. It proved to be a much more difficult task than we thought it would, which made it so we had to go into several stores than we planned. Stores filled with delightful sales and beautiful things. 

It's a funny thing because I honestly don't even really like to shop.  I get too impatient having to walk around the store and having to comb through each rack. And even more than that I hate trying clothes on. So typically I walk into a store, do a once over and wait for something to catch my eye. And if it does, I buy it. Depending on the price of course. But I'm a really great justifier so not many things go unsought. I usually figure that I go shopping so little that it's ok to go a little overboard when I do take a shopping trip.

Long story short, despite many cute things that caught my eye and several amazing sales, I walked away with just one thing....a cream colored shirt. Oh, I lied...and a pair of really cute earrings. All in all, I'd say that was a success! For all you who are wondering if I ever found shoes....because I know you're on the edge of your seat with curiosity, I took the smart route and borrowed some cute red flats from my partner in crime Kat. Pays to have a best friend with similar size feet as you.

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Hello from Brooke

If you've ever questioned the validity of the phrase "opposites attract", Kat and I are proof that it's true. More and more evidence of that will come to light as you get to know us better. One example of that is while Kat is organized almost to a fault, as she mentioned in her last post, I am pure chaos. We have been talking about this blog and planning for it for awhile now, and our plan was to both unveil our Simplicity goals on Monday and say a hello. Kat succeeded, and here I am a few days later still struggling what to figure out to write.

The thing is, my life is already pretty simple. I don't like to complicate things, because complicated things just stress me out and I don't like to be stressed, I like to be happy. So as I've been trying to think of ways to "simplify" my life I've been coming up a little short. I don't need to work on organizing my desk because I only have like 2 things on my desk at work. And I don't need to simplify my planner or calendar because I don't have either of those things. I just sort of take things as they come. I've never been good at planning things and I like it that way. As I came to think about it more and more though I realized I do have things that stress me out and maybe working some simplicity magic on them could help. Thus I came up with 2 goals to start off with.

The first one is to simplify my closet. I hate getting dressed in the morning. It honestly is usually the most stressful part of my day. I have a lot of clothes and a very tiny closet, so either I end up feeling overwhelmed by all the choices OR I can't find the outfit that I actually want to wear because it's such a mess. So maybe I figure out a way to organize my closet better or maybe I get rid of some of my clothes. I'm not quite sure yet, but I'm going to figure out a way to make the process simpler.

The second one is to simplify my spending habits. I'm a spender by nature, I swipe my card and don't even think about it and then a week later when I look at the balance on my bank account I wonder where all my money went.  I also think that I "need" that really cute shirt, or I "deserve" that dinner out because I had a rough/great/lazy/whatever day. I want to work on making a simple budget and becoming a more conscientious spender. I want to learn to spend only on the things that are absolutely necessary and come to know the joy of getting to splurge on something after months and months of really hard saving.

So those are my two overall goals right now. "Overall" being the key word. Next post I'll start to dive a bit deeper into some of the smaller steps I plan on taking and come up with a solid endpoint for each so that I can declare success at somepoint and not feel like a rat on a wheel. I'm on vacation this week though so I'll start working on that next week. So really, it's ok that I didn't post when I was suppose to because I'm not even starting to better myself until next week. But regardless, here are my goals and welcome to our blog, I hope you come back :)

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