Celebrating a year of abundance

It has been a long time since I posted about "Celebrating a Year of Abundance". Sallie's post last week at A Gracious Home was a much needed reminder. Speaking of which...I hope your first Mother's Day was a blessed one, Sallie!

If you are a long time reader of Coffee Tea Books and Me, you will know I love garage sales and thrift stores. This is where I've found most of my beautiful and inexpensive treasures. However, this spring I've been driving by the garage sale signs and making few trips to Goodwill. There have been a couple of times I've had that "Goodwill feeling"...the inward sense that I should stop by and see what is available. In this case, I found a gorgeous Royal Albert birthday plate (June...lots of roses on it) for my sister Bonnie's birthday present...99 cents. Also a pretty, pink Starbucks mug that looked brand new for 49 cents.

I walked around for awhile with a teapot in my cart...great price...but I found myself wondering where I'd put it and how I'd have to rearrange things in my kitchen to display my new found treasure. Nada...put it back...that is always an indication that I don't need to bring it home. It's meant to be someone else's treasure.

I've got enough right now. I'm certain I'd find beautiful objects I think I couldn't live without and they are the right price...right? Well, they're the right price but my priority right now with a tight budget is the purchase of annuals and perennials for the yard. It's all a question of timing and seasons. This is the season for money to be set aside for gardening and landscaping.

There will come a time...perhaps as early as next month...when I'll find myself out early on a Saturday morning, searching for just the right teacup, vintage linens, old books, new candles...treasures to add to my home that will bring joy to my heart and a smile to those live here.

Seasonal living...

Continuing to free myself of free stuff

I spent hours yesterday going through magazines and such. This is a good time to do it with the temperatures so cold outside. My son and I took a quick trip into town to pick up his paycheck from the bookstore. Since it is not far from the library near the University, I took a few dozen magazines that I'd skimmed and put them on the free shelf. Most were cooking magazines but six or seven were Traditional Home decorating magazines. After going through a couple, I set all aside to return to the library. They were beautiful homes but none of them looked lived in. There wasn't anything I could pull from to use in my own home. Perhaps in some of the issues I didn't look through I would have found some treasure I doubt it. My style is different.

I did find some pictures and ideas worth cutting out in a few Midwest Living magazines (always has great recipes) and Better Homes & Garden. BH&G had an article about a mother and daughter's decorating styles with side-by-side pictures. I really enjoyed that as I can go to my daughter's house and "see" some of my own style but she makes it entirely different. One treasure I took away from this article, the mother had a pretty crystal pitcher displayed with a collection of teaspoons in it. Hmmm...I have a variety of teaspoons, also...collected from Goodwill from time to time to replace spoons left behind by my husband at work. I've always thought the variety was actually pretty. Hmmm...I have a little crystal pitcher that I purchased in a thrift store at one time, hiding away in the back of a kitchen cabinet. Well, out came the beautiful pitcher, now holding the uh..."collection"...of teaspoons. It sits near the glass cake pedestal in a corner of my kitchen counter, exactly where it is needed for coffee and other beverages. Now that was worth hours of sorting through magazines even if my husband rolls his eyes and can't figure out why they were taken out of the drawer where they belong (engineers...sheesh)!

Last night I stayed up late waiting for my son to return home from a friend's house. Most of the time, he calls me before heading back out to the country (unless we agree ahead of time for him not to call, usually if I need to turn in early). He arrived home close to Midnight to find me reading a stack of Creative Ideas For Living. I was so happy to find these in a sack at the library, they had been one of my favorite magazines at one time (Victoria being the other favorite). It was fun to go through them and see all the 1980s hair styles and such. I set aside a few that I will more carefully read today, those which had some articles to cut out and put in my files. The remainder are all ready to drop by the library. I have to admit great nostalgia reading those magazines, they reflected so much of my own life at that time...happy days filled with the creative projects of a young mom.

My goal for today is to go through all the remaining magazines and drop them off at the library when I pick my son up from work this evening. I'm thinking half of them can be returned completely unread! If you see me pick up another free copy of Country Woman, Taste of Home, or Quick Cooking, slap my hand gently and remind me that I have plenty of recipes now to file and use! No longer will I bring home a sack of Mary Engelbreit magazines just because they are available. However, be careful if you come between me and any Victorias on the shelf. :)

When abundance brings work and guilt

I have accumulated dozens of free magazines from my library. I've spent literally hours going through them to cut out pictures and file and I still have too many because I keep bringing more home. When I look at them stacked in a corner or in a box, I get a twinge of guilt and that feeling that I must go through them soon.

I realized recently, when I bring home something, I need to think ahead. Nothing is free or a great bargain if it sits around and causes me great guilt because I haven't taken the time to read it. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy going through decorating and food magazines to cut out new recipes and pictures but too much is not a good thing.

Instead of enjoying myself on a cold, winter night...I feel a burden. Not a burden brought on by others but by myself in my exuberance over free stuff. When does "just enough" become too much? Hmmm...for me it is when the stuff starts getting too much to handle. When, instead of bringing value to my life, it is tearing me down by the demands of another thing "to do". It's much different than clipping out recipes or an article from just a few magazines I've enjoyed.

Yes, even books can do this to me. A few years ago, I took boxes of books to the library in Michigan because I realized we just didn't need them, anymore. They were taking up space on shelves that I needed for the new homeschooling season in which we were entering (Jr. High, High School, College Prep, etc.). It was time to let another homeschooling family be delighted in finding them at a sale. I set aside those that were rare books and those I knew my daughter could use. I had my son keep those he wanted to keep for his bookshelves. Then the remainder went to the library sale. It freed me and I knew by giving the books that I no longer needed, it would bless others.

How do you know it is time to let go? When what you have becomes a burden. When you are having to move things around to make room for what is more important. When you get irritated because you have to dust it again. When you know you will never use something again, you don't love it, it doesn't bring you joy just to look at it, it has no value for you anymore. Perhaps it is time to let (it, them, they, all of them) find a new home where they will be appreciated and the burden is no longer on you. Someone may be longing for that very item.

I've had to do the same thing with teacups. Now I see a teacup or teapot at a thrift store, I do not automatically purchase it as I did when I first began my collection. I will pick it up and look at it to see if it adds something new and fresh to my collection, as in...does it make my heart sing? Will I enjoy looking at it and/or serving tea from it or will it be just another object to dust? Am I buying it because it is cheap or taking it home because it is free? I've been putting a lot of pretties back on the shelf and keeping them there to bless someone else these past couple of years. When I do bring home a treasure, it truly is a treasure to me.

So today I am loading up magazines and taking them to the free racks at the library. I will keep those magazines that I KNOW contain information I want to keep. They may have cost me nothing in money but their demands on my time are too much.

I have too many treasures, books and important magazines, which are waiting for my attention. Those that do not burden me because I must read them but instead call to me because I want to read them. Life is too short to be burdened by too much "stuff" that is not important.

Celebrating a year of abundance

I'm a little late getting on board with Sallie at A Gracious Home's "Celebrating a Year of Abundance". Chalk it up to my "things to do while the guys are working book rush" list. Well, I came in just under the wire by getting my mending projects (glue and needle/thread) done this afternoon.

I love the concept Sallie is talking about, using what we have, being frugal, being creative...great ideas. I actually did that this week with the family room redecorating that cost me all of $8.99 for the rug. If I had a digital camera, I would take a picture. (All my photos on the blog are from disposable cameras being developed into digital format.) The room looks wonderful and the proof of how much I like it...I'm spending time there even when not watching TV.

I had taken my decorating options for the family room from the color, which is the same butter yellow as the kitchen (they are only separated by the stove and overhead cabinets). My husband didn't want me to paint the room so I thought I'd make it light and airy. Well, light and airy is beautiful in pictures and in my daughter's house but it didn't work for me. When I brought in accessories from other rooms, brought the "fake fig" tree back into the family room, changed around a few pictures, and put the big spider plant that had been on our porch in that room...wallah! (Hmmm...is that how you spell wallah?) Anyway, I digress...it looks wonderful.

The only accessories I can see purchasing down the road are different throw pillows to bring in a bit of dark red or burgundy. I'll be keeping an eye out at Goodwill for just the right pillows. Now the room has my favorite deep jewel tone colors, lots of greens and reds (can you tell from the colors in my blog that I love greens and reds?) and some dark blue tones picked up from the Goodwill oriental rug.

I not only saved money by decorating with what I had but I won't have to purchase new curtains as I had planned. You see, the room is a butter yellow color (light), has beige carpeting and beige curtains...yikes. With the rug and accessories, I've added so much warmth that you don't notice all that beige, anymore. The curtains can stay.

I'm looking forward to reading what others are doing for Celebrating a Year of Abundance.