To Hell with the Half-o-meter

The Corner from hell is done.

Just to remind us all where we've been and how far we've come, here is how the corner from hell started:

Here is where it was after our last post:

And here is the corner now:

To the average person, the current state of this corner of our home might still seem a bit disorganized and unkempt, but to us, it is GLORIOUS! I personally feel like we've gained back almost an entire room when I measure in the emotional benefit of knowing there is no longer a portion of our dining room that we've given up on, using it as a painfully visible storage unit/dumpster. And it felt good to throw out most of that stuff, especially the 2 shelves worth of all my course packets and notebooks from undergrad that I kept just in case I might need those notes on the Crusades or that paper I wrote on Lady Macbeth....

We also threw out a ton of pictures, since we have gone from printing every picture we take (what were we thinking?) to keeping most of our photos stored digitally with the exception of printing our favorites to use as decorations. It turns out that despite my previous ambitions, I am not a photo album person, so they went with the stacks of pictures that never found there way into the albums anyway. (Don't worry Jax, I saved the photo albums and a few more little frames for you, since unlike me, you are a talented photographer for whom every picture you take is worth printing :)

On to part two of this post: the half-o-meter was begun, then scrapped, then begun again, and before it could be finished, we realized we were wasting more time than we wanted to writing down everything we were getting rid of and trying to finalize our categories, etc., and we asked ourselves whether we wanted to force ourselves to keep going as we were just for the sake of doing what we said we would do, despite the fact that it became very clear to us that what we said we would do was a stupid idea in the first place. Well, sort of. We still love the idea of getting rid of half our stuff, or even more than half if possible, because the more we go through this process the more we realize that less is more, we were keeping tons of crap we did not need that was just cluttering up our home, stressing us out, and keeping us from living our best lives.

But, we do NOT love, or even like, the idea of logging every item in order to continue to play this game we made up to help motivate ourselves and try to make this more interesting, because it turns out that feeling like we can't get rid of anything without writing it down and assigning it in a category has actually been hindering our getting rid of stuff because if we don't have time to catalog it, we just don't even bother, which is what got us into this mess in the first place.

So, we have decided that out new goal is to simply get rid of anything we don't need or love, and make maintaining our home as easy as possible so that we will actually do it.

Take that, Hell

Slowly but surely, we are regaining the use of our dining room table. Once covered with most of the remnants from The Corner from Hell (and it's adjoining closet), about 2/3 of the table now is uncovered and able to be used. Today was a big day - I went through the second half of the closet, getting rid of anything we weren't keeping, and then was finally able to put things back in the closet that will be living there permanently - mainly Christmas tree, ornaments, lights, and then the various items needed for gift wrapping. My baseball cards also went back in there temporarily (turns out I have two full storage crates and one large box of baseball cards), but I've given myself until the end of this month to start the process of getting rid of those. We still have to go through the shelves of the closet, and the bookshelf that resides in that corner - but The Corner from Hell has been largely subdued. At this point, it's more like The Corner from That-Time-You-Had-a-Cold-That-Gave-You-an-Annoying-Throat-Tickle - noticeable, but nothing near life-threatening.

So what went today? Mainly trash. We apparently love trash - we're the Oscar the Grouch's of the homeowners world. There were torn gift bags full of unusable tissue paper, a bunch of gift boxes that were bent and ripped, and a ton of CD's. We're in step one of a two step process when it comes to CD's - for now, we are getting rid of all our jewel cases. Everything is going in large CD sleeves, and then later we're digitizing all the songs/discs we want to keep. We took care of about 200 CD cases back in March, and took care of another 100 today. When all was said and done, here's the outgoing trash:

And then there are the non-trash items. The big item we donated this time was my Playstation 2... and the three pounds of dust that had collected on it in the two years since I last played with it. Turns out I like to play with my Wii much more, and so does Lauren (hey, people, get your minds out of the gutter - this is a family blog...). Along with it went 6 controllers, a "Pump it Up" mat, and about 25 games. We also donated a few pictures, some baskets, and some Christmas decorations we only used once or twice. Here's the loot you can get from our local Salvation Army sometime next week:

While doing all of this cleaning, we've even managed to clean off one of our bookshelves pretty well - here's the "before" (if, by before, I mean "after the first time we cleaned it") and after:

Holy Flurking Schnit! We cleaned it so well that it became invisible! That's amazing - I cannot believe how well we cleaned that... oh, wait - I forgot. We cleaned the bookshelf off and then donated it, too. As of this morning, we had three bookshelves in our dining room. Now we have two, and by the end of the month we plan to be down to one bookshelf. The bookshelf from The Corner from That-Time-You-Had-a-Cold-That-Gave-You-an-Annoying-Throat-Tickle will be donated once we finish going through it's contents as well. We decided that having those three bookshelves is just enabling us to keep more crap around that we don't need and that is not giving us joy - so why not give us two less bookshelves to dust? You know, for that one time a year when we dust...

It's been a good, long evening of cleaning, and it's amazing how I can be simultaneously exhausted from cleaning and looking forward to getting some more cleaning done. I was recently asked by a friend how much of our house we felt like had been transformed by this project, and I told him while I would say over 50% of our house is in a less cluttered state, the real transformation has been in how we think of things. We don't need all these shelves and boxes of "stuff" to remember all these times we've shared together - because we have each other. Keeping things around wasn't giving us joy, it was giving us more things to clean and take care of (or lose track of) when we could be using that time to have new experiences together. And now we even look forward to getting rid of stuff and bettering our lives, because we're learning more and more how making our house simpler is giving us so much more in terms of comfort and piece of mind. So, while I love being able to look around and see a noticeable improvement in our house, I love even more being able to feel a noticeable improvement in our lives.

And, since it's after midnight, I'll wish a happy first birthday to our favorite little boy in the whole world. Happy birthday Sorin! We love you!

At least I still have my trophy wife

The slow process of going through the remnants from The Corner from Hell continued today, as I went through some boxes I haven't opened probably since they made it up to South Bend from Dayton a good 7-8 years ago. And, once again, about 95% of it made its way out the door. On their way out were some of my old roommate's playbooks from Notre Dame back in 1997-1998 (let's face it, those were Bob Davie years - so it's not like there were some dynamic offensive plays in those books...), my childhood collection of gumball machine NFL football helmets, my collection of medals and awards from Cub Scouts, and a bunch of other little things that I once deemed important, but have lost that importance over the years. Also on their way out, my collection of childhood trophies:

I remember thinking that one day I would display these in my basement - I apparently thought people would be impressed by the "Gold Glove" award from my little league days, my array of second place trophies, my blue ribbon from the water balloon toss back in 5th grade, or my "Participant" ribbon from the 3K run back in my home town's summer picnic/festival thing (clearly it's so important that I can't even remember the name of the event). I ended up keeping two trophies. The first one is the trophy from my family's annual family reunion golf tournament. I figure since my Dad and older brother each won it and have their names on the trophy, I'd see if either of them want it. That way they can look at it and see their name on it once, and my name on it twice :) I also saved my 1st place plaque from the 1990 National Jigsaw Puzzle Championships. As far as I know, they have not held the competition since (it was held throughout the 80's), so I guess I'm still the reigning junior national champion! I still have the puzzle I won with, which I completed in 12 minutes and 3 seconds... and after Lauren asked if I could still do it that fast, I completed it this afternoon in 8 minutes and 36 seconds - take that 11-year old me! Anyways, I've clearly digressed - I kept that one, because of all the trophies I have, that's the one I'm most proud of, and am more than proud to display it in my house to this day.

The last thing I parted with was an interesting one. Back in high school I went through a 1-1/2 year stretch that involved a lot of time in hospitals and three brain surgeries after I fractured my skull and did some damage to the membrane around my brain. I kept everything I could from this time period - hospital bracelets, the staples that were removed from the roughly foot long scar that runs from ear to ear across the top of my head, the tweezers and scissors used for sutures, drainage tubing that ran out of my head for a few days after surgeries, and a 4-5 inch long spinal tap needle that I had inserted into my back 8-9 times before it was left in me for a 24-hour period to drain fluid in the hopes that I would heal myself and not need surgery. Crazy stuff - but I always felt inclined to hold onto it. When I laid eyes on that box today, though, I had different feelings about it. I finally realized why I had kept all that stuff. For a significant portion of my teenage and young adult years, I felt like that time period defined me. I felt like it was those events that made me special, and I hung onto that stuff because it was something that made me different than anyone else, and also because there was a part of me that felt like I had done something special by going through all it. And don't get me wrong - it was hell. I still am proud of myself for going through all that I went through, and I know I have a story that is different from most everyone out there. But I don't need that part of my life to define me any more. If I really want to remember those days, I can look at the scar across the top of my head, or the 5 or so other scars on my body from these surgeries.  But now, rather than viewing my life as defined by those events, I can look at myself and see myself as a humorous, intelligent, loving individual who has accomplished a lot in my life, and is excited to accomplish even more as time goes on. I have a truly amazing wife, who to this day I look at and can't believe how much I love (and also can't believe she loves me - but it's too late for her, she's trapped now!). I have two children that I feel lucky to have every day, who have ways of making me happy no matter how bad of a day I've had. I've got amazing friends who I love (and miss, since I rarely see many of you due to distance and life situations) dearly. While that year and a half of my life will always be a significant part of my life, that shaped who I am today, I'm ready to let it go and have it be just that - a part of my life that happened, as opposed to the part of my life that defined me. So out the contents of that container went, and on we go with our lives. And I, for one, am very excited.

Living Life

"Life is a mystery to be lived, not a puzzle to be solved" ~Francis Cliffton, from Oprah.com

I found this quote by clicking on an article that said, "Struggling just to get through the day?", and in my head I answered, "Yes, yes I am."  And this quote really hit home for me because a big part of the reason why I struggle so much is self-inflicted and it is precisely because I tend to view life as a puzzle to be solved, and I spend, or rather waste, hours upon hours analyzing and over-analyzing how I am going to solve the puzzle for today, only to realize I was looking at the puzzle completely wrong and will inevitably need to start all over tomorrow.  This quote was suggested among others in a list of thoughts or sayings that might help someone like me focus on living my life instead of constantly trying to figure it out.  This is something I hope to start today.  When I entertain the possibility that no matter how much I try, I cannot figure out my life because life, much like happiness, love, and God, cannot and perhaps should not be figured out, because that would ruin the mystery that is essential to the essence of each of these; then I finally feel free to experience my life, and even appreciate my life, rather than constantly trying to solve it.

So, I decided it might be fun to try to fill every empty diaper box that leaves our house with things that we are donating or discarding.  We currently have 2 kids in diapers, so this could really help us achieve our goal :)  Tonight we eliminated some clothes from our respective wardrobes (including a dress about which I've finally decided that even if I can someday fit into it again, by the time that happens I'd rather celebrate with a new dress than wear this old one again), collected some hangers that we no longer need now that we are committed to having less clothing (sadly, the hangers did not make it into the picture), and I finally came to my senses about a class set of Glass Menagerie books that were donated to me, which I was clinging onto just in case I ever have the opportunity to teach it again and need to supply the books myself.....a classic case of "what if" clutter.  How 'bout this one, me, "what if I actually got rid of everything I don't really need?  How freeing would that be?!"

Here is the picture of the diaper box filled with our clothing donations, and the crate of Glass Menagerie books:

I also want to say, that I believe I am catching a second wind here in this whole halving process, we've been dragging our feet recently because we got thrown off our game, but I think I'm ready to recommit and start seriously getting rid of more stuff, so no more posts about food to distract you from our lack of halving progress.....IT'S ON!!!

Oh Motivation, Where Art Thou?

You may have noticed we seem to have slowed to a crawl with this project. OK, OK, you're right. We've slowed to a slumped-over-mass that breathlessly attempts to say "slow down" as a baby that is awkwardly learning to crawl scoots on by. I'll be honest - it's gotten downright sad on this end. We started out so well - we both had such fire and passion for what we were doing. But, as things seemed to get busier and we seemed to get more tired, the motivation to do anything other than sit and talk about how busy and tired we are has faded further and further away. If I peek down the hall, I think I can see the motivation... no, wait, that's not motivation, that's a shirt that needs to be put in a laundry basket. Hmm... maybe the motivation is in the freezer (and if it isn't, maybe the Angel Food Cake Ice Cream Cake I made last week is...).

It's bad, though. We haven't been getting rid of stuff, we haven't been training for our 10K - and despite doing a much better job with making healthier meals, we've been snacking as if there is no tomorrow (note to tomorrow - if you don't happen... ha, we win!). And that Half-o-meter that was "coming soon"? Um... it's still coming, at some point... I promise (I feel your skepticism - you should probably keep that handy). Needless to say, we've got to get ourselves out of this rut. Sleep is slowly getting better - Sorin had two teeth cut through in one night and since then he's been sleeping for longer stretches. If that trend continues, hopefully it will be easier to not keep "eating for energy" when we feel like we are gonna pass out (or possibly die of sleeplessness) at noon, 2:00, 5:00 and 7:00-11:00 each day.

In the end, though, no matter how many obstacles we can point to (like lack of sleep and free time), there's only one thing keeping us from really getting things done: Lauren.

Ouch....mostly Lauren.....ouch, ouch, OUCH! OK, it is just as much my fault.

But, as I was saying, the only thing keeping us from really getting things done is us. We've both been choosing to take the easy way out and sit on the couch doing whatever instead of doing the things that will make us happier in the long run. No matter how tired we have been, when we started this project it made us happier and feel a bit more energized just to look around our house and see it clean. The feeling of accomplishment after going for a run, cleaning out a closet, or parting with some useless object that we don't need but had kept on a shelf for 6 years over-rode the exhaustion and made us feel good. We need to get back to that, and we know it. The question is, how?

If I've learned one thing about me, it's that I'm highly motivated by distinct goals. When money, pride, or even just a stupid bet is on the line, my competitive side takes over, and I find extra motivation to get the job done. So, the answer is quite simple - start offering me money and we'll be just fine. What's that? You don't want to offer me money? Fine - but know if we fail, it's your fault, loyal readers (because, after our dearth of posts during April - if you're still reading, you are most definitely loyal). So, we'll have to do this a different way...

12 posts. We are gonna post a minimum of 12 times (this one not included) during May. And we're not talking "we still ain't done shit!" posts - we're talking posts with results. A garage that is finally cleaned out and able to park two cars in it. A corner from hell that hasn't simply migrated to our dining room table. A large amount of clothing donated/thrown out. Half as much beer in our fridge. Maybe even one of those lingering projects of our house like fixing the ceilings in our bathroom or putting the cabinets in our laundry room at least started - if not finished. The possibilities are endless (not really, but I'm on a roll - just let me have this moment). 12 posts of substance. 12 posts with us back on track. Let's make it happen Cap'n.

But that's not all (if you act now, we'll throw in a second set of Shamwows, two extra tubes of Mighty Putty, and the mini point-n-paint for free) - because we know that this idea is just a short term fix. We'll make our 12 posts in May and then you'll get three posts in June about how I picked up dog poop and thought about going for a run twice. So while this month goes on, we're going to be figuring out what the evolution of Dichotomy is - figuring out how we keep our halving, our happiness, and our progress towards a simpler life sustainable. And we invite anyone reading this to be a part of it. Tell us what works for you. Tell us what you'd like to see from us. Tell me why (ain't nothing but a heartbreak). When all is said and done, we just want to make this something that can keep us motivated to create the better life we want to be living.

Leftovers... they never sounded so good!

Our week of eating only non-processed dinners is over - and it was a rousing success. We definitely found some dishes we want to make again, and we have leftovers to feed us most of this week (which, for the first time in human history, we're very excited to eat). Tuesday night was Mediterranean Couscous:

Words cannot describe how good this dish was... because it wasn't good. For as pretty as it looks, it was bland (at best) with a really bad aftertaste. It was surprising - because we like all of the ingredients separately, but together, it just didn't work. So if you want to know how a whole bowl of this tasted... ask our dogs - because we ate leftovers and gave the rest to them.

The rest of the week went spectacular - here's the visual:

Wednesday was a Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie (top left), a Tex-Mex Skillet (top right and bottom left), and Saturday was a Mexican Egg Skillet (bottom right) - Friday night was leftovers night. These three dishes may very well have been our favorites - and the last one was an impromptu recipe. We were supposed to have a Three-pepper stir fry - but neither of us felt like having it that night... so we used a few of the peppers from that recipe, leftover chorizo sausage from the Tex-Mex skillet, some eggs, and frozen potatoes to make this wondrous feat of a meal. Great, great stuff. It will definitely be made again.

But the best thing from the week? This:

A completely made from scratch Boston Creme Pie. I spent most of the day Tuesday making the cake, the custard filling, and the chocolate icing. Not a thing in this is processed, and everything in it is absolutely freakin' delicious. It's been our dessert almost every day this week. Now we just have to figure out what we're making next week :)

This definitely has us looking forward to future recipes to try (and making most of these recipes again). The plan from here on out is to have one or two "easy" dinners a week - mainly the processed stuff (like frozen pizzas) that we still have around from previous shopping trips and the occasional dining out, 3-4 dinners made from scratch, and 1-2 dinners of leftovers. Lunches will be a mixture of leftovers and stuff like lunch meat. We still need to figure out breakfasts (at the moment we have about 4 different kinds of Cheerios - better than most cereals, but still processed). The goal for us is to have 75-80% of our meals be unprocessed (we estimate we were eating 50-60% of our meals processed). And, despite the fact it will be more work, we're both really excited because the meals really do taste better - and it feels better to make them as well. Above everything else, we're really excited at the idea of starting a trend of giving better food to our kids over the years.

As far as the halving of the rest of our stuff goes, as we thought, it's been a slow week continuing going through the Corner from Hell. I've gone through a few of the boxes that ended up on the table, and actually gotten rid of about 95% of what I went through, but in the end going through those two boxes really hasn't done much considering there are about 15-16 boxes on/around that table. Where we did do some work is with everything that ended up on the fireplace. Here's the before and after:

We got rid of everything here with the exception of the poker chip set (the metal case in the center) and the train set (against the wall in the back). Everything else was either donated, thrown out, or given to people we know that wanted them. Hopefully soon we'll be able to say the same about the table!

Let's have dinner... and then go to Hell!

Tonight, we officially had our first food disagreement in our week of starting the halving of processed foods. One of the minor goals of this was to expand our cooking repertoire by coming up with some new dishes and even some new ingredients (which, on a side note, included a delicious Layered Enchilada Bake last night). Tonight's dish: Lemon Chicken Pasta Toss (that's right, it's not just an Italian sport anymore!):

The disagreement was nothing major, but we have found a new ingredient that I very much like, and Lauren incorrectly is not so much a fan of. The ingredient in question: capers. Neither of us had ever (knowingly) had them before tonight; delightful little fellows they are. But even the disagreement over capers couldn't detract from something very important about this dish - it's delicious. We just may have to make it from now on by taking half of it out before adding the capers - you know, until Lauren realizes she's wrong about them :)

After our dinner, we decided it was time to get back to business with this whole "getting rid of half our stuff" deal. And what better way to get back on top of this than to tackle (cue ominous music) The Corner from Hell!!!!!!!!!!! Here's what the corner previously looked like:

Scary, I know. I sincerely apologize if any of you had small children in the room when you viewed that picture, I hope they someday can get over the horror. But, after a few hours of work, we managed to make a dent in the corner. I'll walk you through this... you enter our dining room, look towards The Corner from Hell and all the horror contained within it, and instead, you see this:

"Amazing!", you think, "these are clearly the two most talented 'halvers' in the history of halving!". You see that the bottom shelves are still lined with old course packets from college classes from almost a decade ago, but the overall change is so drastic, you are willing to forgive that. You then decide to take a look in the neighboring closet (the closet Styx?), which had previously looked like this:

(There was more - so much more - but the horror... it was... too horrible) And now, you see this:

The left side... still horrible... but the right side - it's almost empty! You cannot even say enough about the work that has been done by these people - you are so impressed by them you want to pay them thousands of dollars just to clean your living room! And then... you turn around:

"OH NO!!!!!!!!", you exclaim, as all the good feelings you just had flee your body quicker than a sane person can change the radio station when a Miley Cyrus song comes on. "It's like someone has pulled the metaphorical stopper from the metaphorical wine bottle, and pure evil has escaped to take over the entire world!!". And then, someone taps you on the shoulder and says "I think you've been watching too much LOST". You calm down. You look that person straight in the face... and then poke them in the eyes (the groin of the face). "NO!!!!!", you scream, "one cannot watch too much LOST!!!!! I must watch more LOST!!!!!!". Then, out of nowhere, Lauren says "enough about LOST, Brett - this is arguably the most ridiculous blog post you've ever written, and half the people reading this won't even know what you are talking about. Now get back to writing about The Corner from Hell or I'm going to delete all this and do it for you". And thus you are saved.

So, here's what's going on. That corner and closet were filled with things from years gone by, things we just couldn't part with. In the boxes, bags, crates, and baskets that inhabited that area are things from my childhood like baseball cards, comic books, medals and trophies; stuff from my several hospital visits in my teenage years (while this was a terrible time in my life, it was a significant one that very much shaped who I am today); articles and course packets from classes we really enjoyed in college; and a variety of other stuff that we just haven't been able to get rid of over the years. But now, we're really going to go through this. We knew this corner (and closet) was going to be a big project - perhaps one that took course over a few days. And after really getting into this, we know it's definitely going to take a few days, if not a few weeks. This one is going to be especially tough for me, as it is going to be difficult to get rid of some things that while I can logically say "why do I still have this?" and I know they've been stuffed away in that closet for years, there are parts of me that have held on to these things for a reason. Discovering those reasons are going to be interesting, and are very much going to dictate what things stay and what (hopefully) many things go.