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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Listography

     I love lists. I mean absolutely love making lists! If you've seen much on my blog, you'll know that I attempted (and still am attempting) to make a list of 1000 things I'm thankful for on a day to day basis, the little things I notice every day. It's the little things I love to be thankful for, because they always add up and they keep me focused on God throughout the day. :) So today when I was at Goodwill, I noticed a small little book called Music Listography: Your Life in (Play) Lists, and my heart fluttered a little. The event was maximized by the fact that my mom had just left me at Goodwill alone so she could go home and turn the oven off which she had forgotten about (my oh my!).
     So there I was, all alone, a grown up girl shopping at Goodwill, and suddenly, a little treasure is seen tossed into a box with Christmas gift bags. It's part of a journaling series involving writing lots of lists, which I mentioned I love, right? ;) I quickly snatched it up, hardly believing my eyes. The unbelievable part was that it was brand new- absolutely no marks in the baby. I continued around the store, eventually finding an adorable tea pot candle holder and a little box featuring ladies and gentleman out on a lawn wearing wonderful hoopskirt gowns and suits. These last two items are part of a bit of myself I lost back in Austen land.
     But the adventure wasn't over yet. Oh no, it had hardly yet begun! Upon looking once more, hopelessly at the book section in our Goodwill, which any citizen around here will tell you is lacking good books, I found, believe it or not, another Listography book unscathed! This time I barely sighted it as it's shy, bland spine was hidden amongst all the large magazines. It was Listography: Your Life in Lists. Basic but still thrilling to me. Upon walking back to my mom, elated with the day's discoveries, I eventually, somehow, made my way back to the pitiful book section of our Goodwill and... found another Listography book sitting face up on the middle shelf! This was the prize and glory of all the ones I had found thus far. It was My Future Listography: All I Hope To Do In Lists. The reason this particular one is my favorite comes from the joy I have in writing out ideas for the future in the format of our beloved lists. It seems it was meant to be. Of course whenever I find a great part of a series, I always wonder if I missed the rest, but in this case I don't think I did.
     It is quite exciting, and I can't wait to start writing some lists. I have a list from each journal that I have marked top priority, kind of: Top Soundtracks (Music), Things I Want to be Knowledgeable About (Future), and Professions I Would Love to Try Out (Life). I'm really into activity kind of books right now, for teens and adults. This Christmas I'm asking for a lot of Kerri Smith books. Remember Wreck This Book, Explore the World, ect.? Those are the ones. They look like loads of fun for whenever I get bored to just kind of pick one and go with it. Tell me if you know of any other fun activity books! I would love to hear of some more!
     Some last few notes. I discovered 52 Lists earlier this year and forgot to keep printing them out. I plan on doing some sort of project with those as well, only I need to keep them in a binder seeing as the ones I do have are all wrinkly now. :( Another quick note: my mom actually ended up telling me she had bought me one of the Listography books from Goodwill for Christmas. Turns out there were duplicates. I felt so bad, but at the same time it felt like Christmas early. I felt so loved from my mother who had known just the sort of thing I would like. Suddenly the list books I own feel like a heart felt gift. I could see she had been so excited about giving it to me, and then here I pick out the same ones when the two of us go shopping. So sad, and yet so thrilling to know she was thinking of me and knew me so well and loves me. It wasn't the gift that mattered, it was the heart, and getting just the heart and not really the gift made it so much more pleasant and enjoyable. :) My heart flutters with joy every time I think that she knew I would want these.
     Perhaps next post I will post my Christmas list, which is almost entirely books. ;)

Friday, January 10, 2014

I Should do this... but I Want to Do...Balancing the Two?!?!?!

Goals for 2014 to do a bit of everything
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      I feel like I've been missing out on life lately. I've missed doing fun little things that I really enjoy. I haven't been listening to the music I really like. I haven't been reading YA romances. I haven't been spinning in circles, laughing. All my life has been lately is very serious stuff. My focus has been feeling guilty about not getting much homework done, doing my best at work, and feeling guilty about not reading enough classics. I guess I'm tired of feeling guilty about things that are fun and not bad when I should just enjoy them; laugh with the earth, dream, dance, dwell on pleasant things. Everything that I should be doing I fool myself into thinking I really want to. And I guess in a way I do. I want to read more classics. I want to listen to classical music (I really do like it). I want to do really well at work and constantly be working hard and getting lots done. After all I would love for the library to be clean and organized. I want to eat healthy because I like fruits and veggies. I want to do my homework because I like learning.
     But I also want to listen to Katy Perry, Lyric Everly, Jenny and Tyler, The Vespers, and Disney songs. I want to wear dresses more often. I want to dream of pretty little things: cute tea cups, flower fields, and a good book. I want to go back to my love of bohemian style.
     Basically my life isn't very well balanced with things I want to do and things I need to do. So here are some simply written goals for 2014:
  1. Wake up earlier
  2. Listen to fun music more often
  3. Do more homework
  4. Read more good books: a mix of classics and YA
  5. Do my devotions each morning or night
  6. Drink more tea
  7. Write in my journal more often- this is a big one
  8. Attempt to write more blog posts (:P haha)
  9. Evaluate when I really need to be on the internet and when I could be doing something better, but yes, let myself go on the computer a little bit each day.
  10. Print out more pictures and things I find from the internet and build an inspiration collage on my wall
    Then there are a few things I really want to do soon to feel more at home in the kind of room I want to live in:
  • Paint my room. What color should I paint it?
  • Completely organize my closet
  • Draw with the new media I just got for Christmas