On Fridays at 365 Less Things I share with you my favourite comments from my wonderful readers and my favourite web finds of the week. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.
Favourite Comments. Enjoy!
I haven’t had much time to be involved in the conversations going on at 365 this week as I have been giving my undivided attention to my parents while they were visiting. So I haven’t been able to choose my favourite comments. Thank you everyone for all of your comments, they are always appreciated whether I have the time to read them or not.
Favourite Web Finds. Happy reading!
The links this week are a little random because I also haven’t had much time for reading. Two I haven’t actually read but were recommended by others so I am sure they are good. The Inside Hook link was bought to my attention by my husband who knew I would be appalled. And I did read The Change Blog post and enjoyed it although it isn’t really about clutter. However getting rid of clutter sometimes requires strength of character which is what the post is all about.
http://www.hoombah.com/knowing-when-to-pop-the-bubbly/
http://www.raptitude.com/2013/06/what-do-you-do-now/
Here is a fine example on how enterprising people can make money out of encouraging you store your clutter. How much money are you prepared to allow your clutter to cost you? Don’t be a sucker!~ Â http://www.insidehook.com/san-francisco/boxbee/
http://www.thechangeblog.com/changes-you-refuse-to-accept/
Today’s Mini Mission
Declutter an item that you are sorry you ever bought but have held on to in the hope that it might finally realise its cost.
Eco Tip For The Day
Don’t throw away that old electric kettle or use harsh cleaners on it because it is all stained inside. Fill it with cold water, add a lemon wedge and bring to the boil, that stain will miraculously disappear.
It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I’m slow
Colleen, these links were pretty interesting. 1. Why do we wait so long to use something? Why does it have to be some mighty moment in time? It’s like saving the china for special times and thus they seldom if ever get used. 2. I always like David’s Raptitude posts. He’s talking about growth of some kind and I think the worst thing that can happen to us is if we don’t grow. If we are so averse to change that we refuse it and thus refuse the growth change always brings. 3. Boxbee makes me so angry. It’s just another way to promote people hanging onto things they don’t need and at a cost no one should really pay. 4. I really understand this persons post. I too had a near breakdown when I pushed my body way too hard amidst a year of very stressful incidents. It took praying, ranting, crying and driving a 55 mile country paper route to get me through it. Then later I too was disgnosed with ME/CFS, FM, IBS, etc. The first response is to push thorugh it and get over it. Unfortunately, these diseases have no cure, are still being studied to try to figure out the full mechanism that causes them and you have to learn to change your lifestyle and live with them. You begin to see life in a whole new way. Believe me when I say that I have come to be thankful for these diseases because they have really shown me who and what is important.
Hi Deb J! About BoxBee: Their advertising in itself presumes that the person who is reading it is an idiot! I was appalled at that… They say that they will store that you don´t need (?) until you need it (?) and they return it to you. But if someone is not using it, why store it??? And if the costs are high in storing in your own house (“Answer: math is hard.” ????) how much is it going to cost to store it somewhere else? Or do they do it for free? 😀 😀 😀
Just wanted to share my indignation with you
Hi Andréia, I obviously agree. It is bad enough when we do this to ourselves but to pay someone else to do it for us is insane.
You have it right Andriea.
Hi Deb J, I am glad you enjoyed the link, except the Boxbee one of course. You weren’t meant to enjoy that one, I put it there is a ~ This is what you should not do ~ kind of post.
It is a strange world we live in these days when it comes to how much we are prepared to stress our bodies until they break. My husband has been seeing this occur around him all too often lately at his work place. Cancer, heart attacks, MS, two fifty year old dying in their sleep last year… . Once upon a time the majority of jobs involved physical labour while these days many are mentally draining and more often than not it isn’t the actual work but the pressure from above, the competition in the workplace, the pressure of society to be the best and even the commute that are big contributors to the stress. And most of this is driven by the almighty dollar. It is a wonder that our longevity isn’t decreasing rather than increasing as it has been. I suppose that is due to modern medicine more so than us taking better care of ourselves though. Lets just hope at some stage we finally return to some sort of even keel.
Colleen, not only is there a lot of outside stress on people in the work place but there is the physical stress of having to get more work done with less people. In my last job I was doing the work of 3 people and was on call 24/7. Added to that was the problem that I had been hired to do a job by the President and Vice Presidents of the company and they all were the ones who gave me the most resistence to everything I was doing. It was not pretty but we prevailed and in the end they were all thankful for the results. Unfortunately, the stress put my body through too much and I am now paying for it.
Deb J – I have a saying “Change what you can, accept what you can’t”. Sometimes we can turn the course of events, and sometimes whatever we are up against, just won’t budge and put all that energy into adapting. I applaud that you have altered your lifestyle to manage your conditions, it can’t be easy.
Thank you for sharing our post, Colleen. Hope your peeps can get a chuckle out of it. @Deb J. We have learned our lesson. So many readers made similar remarks that we are now loathe to wait on celebrating any longer for any reason!!! Really though, we do a lot of celebrating each day. The bubbly post was just great fun to write. No lesson to be learned there except to have fun;)
Hi CJ, I’ll think of you while I drink my apple cider this evening. I haven’t been saving it though I just bought it this afternoon. 😉
That is the spirit, Colleen!!! Now, what’s in the cider? Whatever the case, the Jollyhoos are wishing you the tastiest cider sipping of your life. Thanks again;)
cj – enjoyed your post. It reminds me a little bit of an advert that we had here for the 2011 Rugby World Cup where an All Blacks supporter decides to save the beer he bought at the 1987 World Cup final for the next World Cup win by New Zealand. Alas, it took a few attempts.
If you like, go onto youtube and search “Steinlager We Believe Advert”.
BTW NZ did win this RWC. Finally.
Steinlager We Believe Advert 2011 .
Great links this week. Life is too short to save the good stuff for the perfect opportunity. Granted, some things should be for special moments, but not always necessary to wait for something grand to happen because it may never happen. I agree with Andreia, I think that it was said well in the article on inside hook, if they are looking to store what you don’t need, then why store it? I liked the change blog too. It is tough when you are forced to change due to circumstances which cannot be helped, instead of gradual change which is easier to adapt to and easier to accept. Regardless, we have to take the good with the bad. Change can often make us confront life head on and make us grateful for it, no matter how the cards are dealt.
Great links thank you. I have never been able to get my head round why anyone would want to use a storage facility other than when in between moving houses for example. My parents had a whole load of stuff in storage despite living in a HUGE London house that was itself stuffed to the gunnels with just stuff. It makes me come out in hives just walking through their front door.
Hi Gillie, welcome to 365 Less Things.
I guess you grew up with this arrangement with your parents yet you have managed to move past that yourself. Good for you.
People using that storage service are being way overcharged, IMO. When I started reading the article, I thought “that sounds just like our off-site records storage” for the law firm where I work. We pay a mere 50 cents a box per month, not $6!
I once read an article justifying the cost of a flat screen TV (when they were much rarer and more costly) due to the cost per square foot of an apartment in New York City.
Hi Cindy I dare say they can get away with the charge because they are marketing to people who obviously have more dollars than sense in the first place. If one is willing to through their money away on stuff they don’t need then I am sure they are willing to throw even more away on storing the stuff.
That being said a service like this is useful to people who live in climate extremes where they would prefer to inhabit a small dwelling but have clothing, sporting and leisure equipment etc. that they use only seasonally. I dare say even $6 a month would be cheaper than paying per square foot in a home or needing larger garaging requirements.