Progress report.

It is halfway through September (okay, over half but shhh) and I am taking a look at how I'm doing on the challenge that I posted at the beginning of the month.

Put things away, not down. I think that this is still going well. Yeah, I have a little bit of clutter here and there, but I have been so busy this month that I haven't had much time to do proper cleaning, and overall the house looks good. I'm getting back to my previous level of clean-freakness that I once had, and honestly I like it. There is something to be said for having a home that is comfortable to live in, isn't there? I've been to homes that are absolutely sterile, and you feel like you're in a hospital and you don't want to touch anything because you were a disease, and I've been to homes that made you feel like you were in a dump and you don't want to touch anything because you were going to get a disease. There certainly is a happy medium with comfortable and homey, isn't there?

30 letters in 30 days. This is going well! I have amended it to be 30 pieces of mail in 30 days, so that includes a swap or a postcard as well. I sent off a travelling scrapbook that I was part of that I had for the better part of a year! Yikes! I have been making very good progress at replying to my inbox, though, and that is great. I hate that I am such a slow responder. Currently there are 11 letters from before September 1 to reply to, and only 3 this month! 14 to go isn't bad!

Do 3 things a week that I have been putting off. Ha ha, that's funny, I totally forgot about this one! Oh well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad. And I still haven't done the thing that I was thinking of when I made that goal. C'est la vie, eh?

Social media fasting... meh. I broke and have been on Facebook, and while I have just glanced at the others, it has probably only been a total of 15 or 20 minutes for all of them combined this month, which I am terribly pleased with. YouTube usage has kind of risen a bit more (of course, what else would happen) but I caught myself so I think I have it under control now. Isn't that silly how when we cut out useless things, more useless things tend to pop up?

Confessions of a lazy lady and a challenge.

I am a lazy person.

This is the thing I like least about myself. I want to be a person that works out, cooks healthy and delicious meals, has an impeccable house, responds to letters in the same week they're received, volunteers tons at church, spends time connecting with friends, and has time to relax at the end of the day. Unfortunately, that is a level of perfection that just isn't in my reality. I am far too lazy to do all of these things. It's easier to just sit on the couch and veg on the Internet all evening. And really it is just because I'm lazy. I do have plenty of time to do all of these things! It's easier to choose the things that are lesser, and that is not how I want my life to be at all.

So I've decided to challenge myself to a couple things in September:

- Put things away, not down. I've been working on this already, and it has been helping the clutter level in my house, especially in my kitchen. My kitchen sets the tone for my whole house, I think. We all have those rooms, don't we?
- 30 letters in 30 days. I'm bringing it back. It was great in January, high time to do it again.
- Do 3 things a week that I've been putting off. Isn't it so annoying that there are always things we put off, when really it would take 20 minutes to just get it over with? Yeah, I'm gonna tackle some of those.

I'll also be fasting from social media in September. I'll still blog and be on Instagram, but so much of my time is spent on Pinterest, Tumblr, Facebook, Feedly, etc etc, and I need a break from those. We also cancelled our Netflix, which is such a huge time suck for me. I just watch things because they're there, not because it's any good. I once spent an hour watching a show about Australian mermaids - it was so cheesy and not worth my time at all, but it was there so I watched it. And Buzz Feed is the absolute worst when it comes to time sucking!! Just the other day I spent an entire evening reading one Buzz Feed article after another. There's 4 hours I'll never get back! I could have cleaned my entire house from top to bottom and still had time for a movie with Chris but no.

Time to get my rear in gear and stop wishing I had the perfect life. I have to make it if I want it to happen. Time to put off the things that hinder me.