The above passage is from The Captivated Issue of Cottage Hill, a lovely magazine that debuted this year.

As mentioned, this year has been about decluttering my life, not just possessions, but social media feeds, old files saved on my hard-drive, etc, but it has also been about quality. I make conscious decisions to put down my phone while riding in the car with my husband and just sit with him. I put my phone down to fully enjoy my bedtime routine, which involves reading from an actual book.

The author is right; it's become too easy to stage the picture or life simply for the likes. I want to actively avoid that. I want to savor the small moments, even if they aren't instagramable.

Happily, Lara Casey agrees.

Living on purpose means making intentional decisions to live out what's most important to you. It takes doing something that is completely counterintuitive when you are super busy: embracing imperfect. It means letting some things go and letting yourself make a mess. Maybe your laundry won't get done or you won't go to that networking event, but your kids will be loved on or you will have time to sit and have an undistracted dinner with your husband. Maybe you'll step outside and go to the park instead of working through lunch at your desk, feeling drained. Maybe your work will be more productive and purpose-filled because you got some fresh air. Maybe you'll finally do that thing that's been weighing on you or encourage a friend. Maybe you'll make her day : )

Busy is the enemy of peace. Busy is not productive in the big picture. Busy means life's unexpected joys and surprises can't find a way into our lives because we're moving too fast to see and experience them. I don't know about you, but I don't want to move so fast that I miss my life.

Word of the Year: Half way through

2014 was a hard year for me. I purposefully chose a list of goals and an overarching word for 2015 to be, honestly, gentler to myself.

After reading this sweet article, I thought I might do something similar.

-Quality helped me deliberately pick books that I really wanted to read, rather than a bunch to have a high number finished at the end of the year. I thoroughly enjoyed re-reading Harry Potter.

-Quality helped me say goodbye to a lot of things that I didn't need, both before and after reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I had a massive yard sale/thrift store donation last weekend and for the first time in months, I can do a cartwheel in my living room. As one does. I'm even doing a re-examination of my harddrive, a virtual "does it spark joy" exercise with the plethora of pictures. I'm finding a lot I can happily hit the delete button on.

This is where I started in May. We'll see how much nicer it will look once I'm done. The complete size of files was 128GB. I'd like to have that under 100 when I'm done.

-Quality has helped me come to terms with my face and the fact that my inner teenager is throwing a temper tantrum. I posted this picture last summer and while it has gotten a tiny bit easier, my face isn't where I'd like it to be. Surprisingly, the aforementioned tidying book helped me with this. Seek gratitiude. My face has withstood so much abuse, both in trying to heal any breakouts and the effects of my anxiety. My face also has so much character and laugh lines because I don't shy away from a smile. So from now on, gratitude.

-Quality has meant removing toxic or unhelpful things from my life. I stopped hate reading a few things online and purged my social media accounts. I even purged my paper journals. There was a lot of pain that could be let go. So I gathered up all the ones that I wanted to release and burned them.

-Quality helped me appreciate the little things. I have this beautiful bunch of white flowers in my backyard, which are technically weeds. But they make me smile, so they stay.

Quality

I went on a beach trip for a week last July. One of my favorite parts was waking at 5:45 and rushing down the street to watch the sun rise over the ocean. I adore sunrise/sunset, and not only for the glorious picture opportunities. I sat, in the cool air coming off the ocean, sand in my toes and watched the sky lighten. I realized I wanted more of that. Slow, deliberate moments of quality.

2014 was a chaotic year. There were some good moments, but a lot of pain and frustration, too. I'm worried about carrying that over to this year. I have big plans for the end of the summer and I look at my lists, my to-do lists that only seem to acquire more items and not lose enough. I felt the same way when my husband and I first bought our house; get all the things done!

But I have to keep reminding myself that I can only get done what I can get done. Everything doesn't have to be done in an orderly fashion, checked off a list. I don't have a deadline and if I want the house to sit undone for a week or a month while I sit, that's ok too. No one is going to scold me. It's hard because growing up, someone did. I was always rushing to make sure I wasn't idle, that things got done.

And then two of my favorite blogs posted stuff that was tapped directly from my brain and I didn't know it.

Reading My Tea Leaves

I come by the habit naturally. At my mom and dad's house, there's a list taped to the side of the refrigerator. It's written on lined paper and my mom's insanely neat handwriting spells out in perfect rows a series of tasks that she and my dad hope to accomplish around their house. Some of the tasks have been crossed out in thick stripes of yellow highlighter. Others are still left undone. The specifics of the list don't matter nearly as much as its existence. Yes, it represents mundane tasks. But reglazing windows, pane by twelve-over-twelve pane, is also a metaphor for optimism, care, and intention.

Unfancy


When I start questioning if I should buy more, I’m always glad I have a specific limit on my wardrobe. Because I know myself. I spend (maybe a little too much) mental energy on little decisions like this. If I don’t check myself, I can use up my energy on these little things — and not have enough left for the more important things.

I’m still working on my single priority this year, but I’m thinking it may be along the lines of how I spend my mental energy. Something along these lines: Stop giving energy to small things that don’t really matter. Then, pour it out for something that does.


Do Less, Be More

And then I found this list of ways to do less and be more.

My word for 2015 is quality. I aim to fill my year with just that.