Day 1 – First Post – The Beginning
So I’m sitting here at my computer wondering just where I should start. Who am I? Why am I doing this? Will it be useful/helpful to me or anyone else? What do I mean by “I Already Knew That”?
The answers are not simple and I’m not entirely sure I know the full answers to any of those questions, but I’ll start slowly and begin to peel away the layers and hopefully uncover some truths, some helpful insight, and start moving forward again.
Who am I ?
My name is Linda and I am old enough that if wisdom does come with age, I should be pretty wise. I am a retired, single, empty-nester. I’m sure I’ll share more as I go forward.
Why am I doing this?
Knowing and doing are not the same thing. Knowing what you should be doing and actually motivating yourself to do so – are sometimes so far apart it would take 2 days for a Priority letter to travel between them.
Will it be useful/helpful to myself or anyone else?
Only time will tell.
What do I mean by “I Already Knew That”?
I can answer this one. Raise your hand if you have purchased more than one book/course/webinar/printable that was going to solve all of your home management issues – organizing, de-cluttering, cleaning, meal planning, home-schooling, and/or financial. Keep your hand up if you’ve purchased more than 5? … 10? Have donated more of those type of books to Goodwill than you can remember? Did you learn anything that was actually new to you … not just a new hack, but a new thing to do that would solve your problems? I finally realized that I wasn’t. I might be seeing something in a slightly different way, but it was all beginning to sound just like the last solution I’d purchased.
Back before March 2020 and everything being closed due to COVID-19, three retired friends and I would meet once a month for dinner. We always chose a day, time and location where we could linger and spend 2-3 hours catching up with one another. (I really, really miss this so much.) Being the only female in the group, they seemed to look to me as the person with good ideas for de-cluttering a worklife’s worth collected stuff so that they could each enjoy the next chapters of their lives. And I admitted that I was indeed well trained and could probably write my own book at this point, but also admitted that I wasn’t any good at actually executing “home management”.
Since March 2020 and being stuck at home all the time, I’ve completed at least 4 additional online courses … and that is when “I already knew that” came to echo in the space between my ears.
I don’t plan to point fingers or name names with regards to the many books and classes that have “failed” me, but in between the moments of being annoyed with myself for thinking I could spent a bit more money and finally find the magic solution to all my issues, I found myself annoyed by the “instructors” and/or amused by the other students. I will likely share some of these thoughts, too.
I do, however, plan to give credit where credit is due going forward. There are a few people that I still follow and appreciate their unique insights into the many areas of home management. They are usually people that I can see myself in and feel that they just might understand me.
So what is my plan for this blog?
At this point my goal is to share my journey of self-help, using what I have already learned and figuring out how to make the necessary steps to make my way forward. This will be my accountability diary – what steps do I plan to take this week, how is it going, how did I finish, what do I need to change, what can I add as the next step.
I’ll be back soon to share what my current action plan looks like and how it has been going.
Linda