Basement is coming along

I haven't posted pictures for the past couple of days because I didn't do anything new in the house. I did take things to Goodwill and ARC on the 1st and the 2nd. It felt good to give all that away. We also took our old printer and an old monitor to Office Depot for recycling. That actually turned out to be much cheaper than I expected it to be, so that is always good! I do have another box of old electronics to take to be recycled. I'll get that done tomorrow. Today, we got a lot done in the basement. I didn't get pictures of what we got out. I thought about it in the middle of cleaning, but I was handing stuff to the kiddos to take to the trash, and I figured that I didn't want to harsh that mood! LOL. They were big helps. We got the old cabinet out. That came with the house, and it was crap when we moved in. It's just been a dust and cobweb collector, and it is far too easy to put stuff on there and forget about it. We got three big bags of trash out. I do still have to go back down and take care of some things. We had a bunch of pictures in there that I would like to hang on the wall. They all have to be cleaned because yuck! We had quite a few cans of paint left over from the remodel or rebuild if you will. Right now they are all on my porch. Technically, there were about four I could get rid of because they were empty. They were little ones. Later this afternoon and tomorrow I will be tackling those. There are some that are almost empty that need to be opened up to dry out. We also have some leftover laminate flooring and tiles on the porch right now. I'm going to put them beside the road with a free sign and see what happens. We still have a lot to do in that room. My husband has to go through all his tools and woodworking supplies, but we made HUGE progress:

The last picture is because we finally have a door knob on the basement door! I'm frustrated that I have to say, "Hey! Would you put the door knob on the door?" It still feels like I'm "in charge" instead of having a partner, but it's a start I guess. 

I'm glad to have that done. Well, I'm glad to have MORE done anyway. I mean, we're only on day 5. Our goal for this month though is to get rid of our storage shed. We have had a storage shed since our flood. It feels like there's just a bunch of crap in there. I know it's not "just crap," but if we haven't needed it in two years, we need to get rid of it. Right? My oldest daughter has some of her stuff from college in there. A lot of it will be helpful when she gets her own place after she graduates. My parents also have some things they are storing in there. They moved from a house to a studio apartment when they moved to Colorado last year. We have plenty of room in that basement to store everything we need to store though. I'll be tackling the storage shed next weekend. 

The second "M" that is guiding my 2021 is mindfulness. Having C-PTSD it is very easy for me to "check out." It's not just the PTSD though. It is common for people to drift through a good deal of their lives mindlessly. It's one of the reasons I decided to blog again. I watched a short TED talk last night about mindfulness. I'm going to post it below when I am done. I would like to make meditation a regular practice. I used to meditate when I was young, and I really enjoyed it. It rejuvenated me. I haven't been meditating, but I have been doing some breathing exercises. I have been doing Dr. Weil's 4-7-8 breathing technique. Now, I don't think it is the life changer that he says it is, but I do think it is very helpful. Who knows? Maybe some people have major life changes. It's a good technique though. 

I'm going to try and get my kids to listen to this TED talk and maybe even try what she says. I think my whole family could benefit from meditation. It just seems like we are all so high strung lately. We don't have the patience with each other that we really should have. Our family harmony is not very harmonious. We love each other, but we don't seem to give each other very much grace. I'm trying to start with me and set a good example. I'm still failing miserably, but I wake up every day and try again. I know how important it is to take care of myself. If I don't, I will not have anything left for anyone else. That's a hard thing for a mom though. Everyone seems to always need something from me. I'm still working all that out. I'm a work in progress. In this following video, she talks about saying, "I love you," to yourself every morning. She talks about how she couldn't do it at first. I thought, "Oh, that's silly. I can do that." Turns out, I couldn't. I tried last night, but I couldn't. It felt too wrong. It felt like a lie. It felt stupid. So, I did what she said. I put my hand on my heart and said, "Good night, Misty." Then I went to bed. This morning I tried again. I put my hand on my heart and said, "Good morning, Misty." Still I couldn't say, "I love you." I stood there for at least two minutes just looking in the mirror. Then I said it. Man, did that feel weird. My next immediate thought was, "You're an idiot." Ouch. Not helpful. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe that will be my mantra for 2021 - I'll try again tomorrow. No. Dr. Shauna Shapiro in the meditation Ted talk says, "What you practice becomes stronger." So, how about - I'll practice again tomorrow.