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De-Clutter Your Life

At 41-years-old my husband and I decided to live our lives as we never had before…by putting ourselves first. In the past we would clutter our calendars with events that we thought we should attend, not that we actually wanted to attend. We would keep gifts from people that we did not like just because we didn’t want to disappoint anyone. And we would invite people into our home who did not necessarily appreciate our hospitality. Now that we have de-cluttered our lives we are definitely happier individually, with each other and as a family of six. Here are some of our recommendations for living a clutter-free life:

  1. Only attend events that you want to attend. If you feel that attending an event will lead to more stress than joy don’t go. There are many challenges involved in attending an event. Scheduling, getting dressed, socializing and arranging child-care. Only a few events are worth all of that effort.
  2. If somebody gives you a gift that you do not like either re-gift it within a few months or donate it. The giver must not know you well enough to be hurt anyway. Useless items can pile up in our homes and create unnecessary clutter. We deserve to have our homes look and feel the way we want.
  3. If you find that people are coming into your house with a jealous or ungrateful energy don’t invite them anymore. This is a big one as I used to think that in order for my children to be happy they needed to feel as if they had a large support system. Most of the people they were growing up around frequently saw their extended family members. But, if the energy isn’t right it can actually be a detriment to them.

With all of the extra time and space we can now enjoy each other. Our home is easier to clean without all the unnecessary items, we spend more time outdoors, we play more sports, and we have more time for friends and family whose company we actually enjoy.

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Corona 2020

What a dewsy! God decided to challenge us in 2020. He may have noticed that we had become too querulous (apparently that means full of complaints). However it happened…covid19 happened. The entire human population was forced to slow down and enjoy the simple things…or face possible extinction.

In the beginning we were anxious and scared. We didn't know much about this evil virus and took the recommended precautions. The scariest thing about those first two weeks was that schools closed their doors to students. Having lived in Los Angeles for most of my life, I had never seen an issue so big that schools and other important institutions stopped operating indefinitely. We stayed home for two weeks and drank wine for entertainment. Thankfully we had a healthy supply of two-buck chuck from Trader Joe's.

After two weeks I started noticing that the information coming from the news outlets wasn't completely making sense. I wasn't sure just how afraid of this thing I should actually be. The general sentiment was that we needed to stay indoors and not interact with anyone outside of our homes. I created social media accounts, deleted social media accounts, texted often with people I normally don't text with much, and became a tik tok fanatic. After a while I didn't understand why we couldn't go hiking or to local parks as long as we stayed away from people. If we were willing to take that risk we should have had that freedom. This confusion lead to more wine drinking and selfie-taking:

Growing more impatient and confused by the data we decided to venture to different counties for outdoor recreation. We discovered a couple of beautiful hikes in Santa Barbara and began to visit them almost weekly. Santa Barbara Hiking is a great source of information about these beautiful pockets of nature. My kids' ages ranged from five to ten-years-old at the time. So, we had a bit of complaining initially but they soon discovered the fun that could be had in nature. My youngest grew an affinity for rocks and sticks and my oldest built his tolerance for things not having to do with electronics.

We also discovered our appreciation for road-tripping. Pre-pandemic I argued with my husband that road-trips were a bad idea with three small children. We would all be nauseous and uncomfortable and irritate each other for hours in a small space. So, we hopped into our minivan and drove to states we had never been to before. While driving we savored all of the new sights. We compared local ordinances and the sanity levels of local people. I'm so grateful for these experiences.

Unfortunately, with the pandemic and resulting lock-down and social distancing hysteria we discovered that we only had each other to count on in times of need. So, we decided to multiply ourselves! That is how we became a family six! Therefore, the pandemic has actually helped us achieve our goal of having four children, with two boys and two girls. In our twenties this seemed like a dream, but here we are at the Hilton Beachfront Resort in Santa Barbara:

Thank you to a lock-down, drag-out, looney tunes year 2020!!!

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Is There An Appropriate Decibel of Sound For Enjoyment?

My kids had a half-day of school today and I made last-minute plans to take them to an indoor playground with some friends from school. A couple of other moms had chosen the place, a popular indoor playground in the mall, and I tagged along with my two oldest. I had been to this playground before, so I knew to expect good food, a relatively clean environment and a few other kids for them to play with. What I hadn't noticed in the past or perhaps forgotten was the uncomfortably loud music and microphone volume. As the children played the other two moms and I tried to carry on a conversation. I began to feel stressed out because I had to pay close attention to them just to hear and understand what they were saying. And I could tell that they were leaning forward and trying to read my lips as I spoke, which made me feel like I needed to speak louder. This may not sound like a big deal, but the longer we sat there trying to pretend we were enjoying ourselves the harder it became to do so. The music continued blaring and then every few minutes one of the employees began to speak into the microphone about various things including raffle tickets, cup cake crafts, simon says, etc. The noise did not seem to add to anyone's enjoyment. On the contrary, I could tell that the other mothers and I were feeling annoyed by the loud announcements every few minutes. I went ahead and said something to the moms I was with, hoping they wouldn't think that I was a grouch. Both of them agreed with me and one of them even asked the manager to turn the music down. I was relieved that I was not the only one bothered enough to say something about it. We felt some relief for a few minutes until the employee with the microphone continued to zealously make announcements. I was so confused as to how the manager did not notice how unnecessarily loud these announcements were. This got me wondering if there is a scientific volume at which ambient noise should be played. Also, how much louder should an announcement be than the ambient noise in a given room? Upon doing some research I found that the World Health Organization considers loud noise a health hazard. It can cause permanent damage at 85 decibels. I wish I had a decibel detector with me today. According to an article I found on lifehacker.com several studies have indicated that stress resulting from ongoing noise can induce the release of cortisol. Too much cortisol impairs function in the prefrontal cortex, which can disrupt a person’s capacity to think clearly and retain information.
Lastly, I was happy to learn that I am not the only one bothered by unnecessarily noisy rooms. According to Zagat voters in Portland, New York, Boston and San Francisco cite noise as their chief complaint after visiting a restaurant. Most importantly, I don't think that mothers of young children need to deal with any more stress than usual. Many of us choose to have playdates in places like this because it is supposed to be easier and less stressful than having people over. After my experience today I may offer to host the next playdate at my house.