Life Without The Stuff

February 22, 2016February 22, 2016 / ktbuchs87

Life Without The Stuff | Life Healthfully Lived I know that I’m a little late hopping on the bandwagon of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, but boy did I jump in feet first.

I told you last week that I had finished reading the book and started going through our apartment and deciding what we really needed. Well, we finished up the process this past weekend and I must say, it feels good. Our apartment is cleaner, neater, lighter, and more comfortable. I would say that over the course of the two weekends we spent doing this we got rid of 50% of our stuff and our home doesn’t feel bare. That’s how much extra stuff we had hanging around. Life Without The Stuff | Life Healthfully Lived

50% of our belongings we didn’t even need. That seems crazy to me! Why was I hanging on to things that just sit in the back of a closet never to be used? Why was I storing random junk items to move from one apartment to the next? Why did I think these things made me complete when they were just weighing me down?

You might think I’m getting a little too deep about just “spring cleaning” my apartment, but it was so much more than that. It was going through every single item in my possession and asking myself, “Does this object bring me joy?” Not do I use it or will I use it or could I possibly use it but does it bring me joy. At this point in my life, if it doesn’t bring my joy, why do I need to keep it? Life Without The Stuff | Life Healthfully Lived

And this idea transitions so well into other areas of my life. Why do something if it doesn’t bring me joy? I want to spend my time and energy doing things that I love and bring happiness into my life. As cliche as it is, life is too short to waste it on things we don’t like. I get that in some cases we have to do things that we don’t like, such as taxes or filling a cavity, but that’s even more reason to spend the rest of your time doing things that you like.

I’ve said this before, but if you really don’t like doing something particularly when it comes to your health, don’t do it. If you really don’t like eating brussels sprouts don’t eat them. You can find hundreds of other vegetables that are just as good for you and that you like so much better. If you really don’t like CrossFit or yoga don’t do those forms of exercise. Again, you can find so many other ways to move your body that you actually like. Ask yourself, “Does this object/routine/food/person/idea/whatever bring me joy?” It really might change your perspective on things and help you live a happier and healthier life. Life Without The Stuff | Life Healthfully Lived

Ask yourself, “Does this object/routine/food/person/idea/whatever bring me joy?” It really might change your perspective on things and help you live a happier and healthier life.

As for all the stuff we recently got rid of, I don’t miss it at all and look forward to keeping only the things that really mean something to me and give me endless joy! Life Without The Stuff | Life Healthfully Lived

Busy, Wonderful, Happy Weekend

February 15, 2016February 15, 2016 / ktbuchs87

Today is just a happy recap of my awesome weekend along with a few pictures from the frozen tundra of Chicago!

Adam and I decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day on Saturday and by celebrate I mean we went out to eat a delicious breakfast. Going out to breakfast is kind of our thing. I know most people like to go to fancy dinners but to me, breakfast is where it’s at.

Busy, Wonderful, Happy Weekend | Life Healthfully Lived

Layer of ice on the last step in front of Lake Michigan.

Adam found this really cool little breakfast joint in Uptown called Tweet. They had an awesome gluten-free menu as well as a packed full menu and it wasn’t hard to find something delicious to eat. I had a build your own omelette with mushrooms and peppers, plus fruit, sliced tomatoes, and sauteed tofu. Adam decided to go for a steak breakfast burrito with Chipotle aioli and was pretty much in heaven. If you’re looking for a neat little breakfast joint, you should check them out!

I think this picture of Lake Michigan almost looks like another planet

After eating, we headed over to the McCormick Place to check out the Auto Show. Neither Adam or I are nuts about cars (we have a car that we rarely drive because it’s RIDICULOUSLY expensive to pay for parking in the city) but it was freezing outside and this was an inexpensive activity that was inside. We wandered around for awhile, looked at cars of the future, (hint: they all look the same and robots are going to take over the driving world) and tried to figure out which car models actually knew anything about the car they were standing in front of. Spoiler alert: Not many.

Ice in Belmont Harbor

After we were done with that we headed home to just hang out and relax. Well, our plan was to relax but I decided to ruin that. Recently, I just finished reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. It’s an awesome little book and a lot of the advice and methods she uses made a lot of sense. I started to look around our apartment and noticed that we had a lot of stuff. Stuff that we never used, stuff that was just taking up space, and stuff that wasn’t bringing us any joy. I decided enough was enough and I started tackling the clutter.

Soon I sucked Adam into the cleaning spree and over the course of two days we drastically cut down on the amount of junk we had accumulated over the years. I would say about 20-30ish reusable bags were filled with things we didn’t need and that was only from 3 rooms. We still have to go through our closets and our bedroom, but I already feel a lot better and I’ll have pictures when it’s all done!

That was our weekend and even though a large portion of it was cleaning it was wonderful. I got to spend some quality time with my husband, made our apartment cleaner and more comfortable, and ate tasty food. That’s my idea of fun!

How was your weekend? What did you do for Valentine’s Day?

Dawson Update

April 8, 2014 / ktbuchs87 / 1 Comment

Sorry for the lack of regular posts here on the blog. It has been a busy past few weeks and the blog has been pushed to the side for the time being. But don’t worry, once the craziness of our move and Adam’s new job has died down I will have plenty of time to devote to writing posts and giving you guys recipes!

I thought that I would drop in today and give you a quick update on what’s going on here in the Dawson house. If you recall my husband, Adam, was offered a job at Aon Benfield in Chicago. Once we found out and talked about it, we decided to make the move to Chicago and thus begun our search for a new apartment. Luckily it didn’t take that long and we found a great place in the Lakeview area of Chicago. We both fell in love with the area and the variety of things that are available to us there. It’s also a short commute for Adam which is pretty much one of the main reasons we were moving. We signed the lease and will be moving towards the end of May.

Now, I’m not sure how familiar many of you are with downtown living, but it tends to be a little bit of a smaller space. Our new apartment is a 1 bedroom, 1 bath, with a living room/dining room and kitchen. While it is not super tiny, it is a lot smaller than our 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom, home here in Sycamore. So we have been slowly going through our things and downsizing to only the essentials. At times, I look around and start to panic and think, “There is no way that we will be able to fit into this new space!” But I know that once we actually make the move and get everything organized, it will all work just fine. It’s also nice to get down to the bare essentials, sometimes we get so bogged down with “stuff” that we think we need but we really don’t. While I may hate moving, it does help to keep us from becoming pack rats because who wants to move a bunch of useless things? Not I.

Stuff we really don’t need…

I have also been feeling my way into the health and nutrition arena of the world to see where I can fit in and start my own career. There are numerous programs to become certified in a variety of things, so I’m not worried about finding the right fit. I am finding that I am most passionate about the food/nutrition side of things and have been leaning towards continuing my education in that sense. While I have nothing definite yet, it is exciting to plan my own future and think about what I really want to do. After the move I will be able to devote 100% of my time to pursuing that and I can’t wait!

That’s pretty much all the excitement that is going on in my little corner of the world. Thankfully it seems that the weather is slowly turning to spring here in the midwest and it has been a little warmer. I really do love this time of year when I go outside and can actually smell things like trees and grass and flowers. It’s also nice to not have to put on 6 thousand layers just to walk to the car and not freeze to death. Hopefully it stays this way and we can finally enjoy spring! I hope that you all have a great week and I will talk to you soon!