reviewing and recycling

Life has been crazy the last few months, and I have made some changes and am planning others to ease stress and make time for me.  Right now, as I'm looking forward to the holiday season, I am working on a long term cleaning out stuff project.  I'm very good at collecting, but not very good at distributing.  And I don't have space for many things that I once thought were important or essential, but aren't really that necessary anymore.

What I am realizing:

•  I know that I will probably never get outside studio space.
• There are so many choices and options everywhere that it becomes hard to choose - which book to read, which show to watch, stuff to see on Facebook and people's blogs, work to do, news to read, art to create...
• I will probably not make everything I want or can think of - I may never learn to spin or use resin or oil paints.
• I know that I want to focus on finding my voice, my style, one more time. I want to use grids and shapes and knitting and words and color.
• I want to dye yarns and fabric.  
• I want to knit.  
• I want to hand stitch.  
• I want to write.  

What I have  done so far:

• kept only those patterns and creative ideas that I want to make and think I will make, discarding ideas that are too complex for me or too "foofy" (as my brother would say!)
• got an Evernote account to put things in to avoid building up paper again - color combos, images, recipes, how to's are all stored and organized and available on the web, anywhere.
• put all my altered books in one place.
• put all my journals in one place.
• stored all but the most meaningful pictures of family and life and stuff, and those are in one container to grab quickly if there's a tornado or something.
• got all my running the household and family stuff files in order (except the budget which will happen very soon)
• got a paper shredder on sale and using rewards points so that I can shred bills and things with names on them instead of storing them
• started saving bank transfer and bill paying confirmation reports as pdfs instead of printing them - computer storage is cheap
• started go go through a couple of my free Kindle ebooks every day, to delete the ones I am not really interested in after all.
• organized all my art and creative books and magazines in the unused dining room space, neatly on shelves.

Some goals:

• to clean out all the art stuff and donate what I won't use but is still good
• to go through my clothes and weed out things I don't like or that don't fit anymore
• to write at least once a week
• to cook healthier meals and plan ahead for meals
• to play in my art journal and not care about how it looks, it's the creating or remembering that is important.
• to revitalize my day job - which is important to me as well

So it appears that I am ready to start the new year.  This season has so many memories, of our house and Christmas trees and Christmas cookies, of getting presents and giving presents, of mom and dad doing all of the traditions, religious and family.  I was so blessed to have so much, not only things but love and caring.