I have a fairly addictive personality. Once I’m into something, I am INTO IT. The flip side, is once I drop something, I am OVER IT.
Things I am INTO right now:
My fireplace
I love it. I want to make fires all the time. I read this article on “winterizing” your home and it said that if you build more than 6 wood burning fires in the season you should get the chimney professionally cleaned once a year. Ummmm, I’m going to build 6 fires by the end of the week. I am day-firing right now. That’s right, it’s 3:30, I’ve got a fire going. I had beginner’s luck big time the first time I lit the fire. I think the wood was just extra dry because it had been sitting in the fireplace for over a year. I’m getting the hang of it, and am now aided by actual fireplace tools and not just my grill tongs. I was thrift store shopping last weekend when I spotted a set of fireplace tools in the kinda shiny brass finish I was looking for to match the current screen and future overall living room design. Love that I got what I wanted for a fraction of the cost of new ones!
New to me fireplace tools!
But I do not know what this one is supposed to do… Ideas?
I am also looking into buying a half-cord of wood. This is a phrase that is brand new to me, as is the idea of buying a whole bunch of firewood. Right now I’m picking up those bundles you see outside of a grocery store or Lowe’s. That’s going to get pricey, fast, yo. I didn’t even know how people got firewood. When I lived in Carbondale I remember passing houses that had “Free firewood” signs. I’m sure those are around somewhere in Ohio, but I’d have to find them. And get it back to my house. So, I googled firewood delivery – and it turns out that’s a thing! A half-cord is about a pick up truck bed’s worth. That should get me through December…
As obsessed with the fireplace as I am, I did get the good advice to rethink building the mantle over Thanksgiving break. I have plenty of other little things to do around here (basement organization! Especially if I want to find the Christmas decorations!) and maybe the mantle can be a January project. Maybe I can just relax a little. Maybe I don’t need to buy a miter saw right now. Maybe I need to do some more research into what a pocket hole is for screwing the mantle together. I feel good about waiting.
Serial!
If you follow me on FB or Twitter for a minute you’ll see I’m obsessed over this podcast. And I’m not the only one. I should qualify that statement by adding I’m not nearly as obsessed as some. I mean, I’ll read some message boards so I can see what everyone else is saying about the show – but I haven’t FB stalked any of the people or hired my own detectives to do some digging into the case as I’ve heard other super fans have done. If you haven’t been listening, I cannot encourage you enough to start. You need to begin with episode one – listening in order is imperative.
It’s so great.
Journaling
You’d think this little corner of the internet would be all I need to air out the crazy thoughts, review the things I like, talk about what I cooked, etc. Not any more! I’ve become a little obsessed with all the ways one can journal and record and reflect.
Of course – there’s here. This blog has never had much of a point of view – it started as a place for the far away friends to keep up with me and morphed into some other stuff along the way. Maybe I’ve let it get a little too personal over the years, maybe I could have kept some things to myself. Maybe I could have kept the blog to recipes and running and home improvement. Oh well.
As we get to 2015, I decided to pursue a few other journaling options…
One is the Passion Planner. I’ve used an Erin Condren Planner for the last few years and I like their layout and size. I like that it’s easy to customize and has room to doodle and make some of your own lists. When a friend posted a link to the Passion Planner on Facebook last week, I thought it was all the things that made the Erin Condren planner cool PLUS some journaling space and writing prompts, gratitude space, larger project breakdowns… The Passion Planner was a Kickstarter campaign last year – the campaign is over – but you can still watch the video about the journal here. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted one. It’s on it’s way here and I’m excited to get started with it. I’m sure I could have found the space for those prompts in the Erin Condren planner – maybe next year.
Every year, usually about the time I start thinking about Christmas cards, I wonder what books I read and movies I saw that year. I always think I’ll do a little recap of stuff I loved and put a list on the back of my cards. Sometimes I can scroll through the blog and remember what I saw or read or listened to (SERIAL!), but mostly that stuff is gone forever. NOT IN 2015! I’m getting my stuff together next year. I recently learned of something called a Smash Book. It’s referred to as the anti-scrapbook. A messy (perfect for me), less organized look at a time, vacation, or project. Get on Pinterest and search Smash Book – you’ll see so many examples. I thought maybe that would be the fun answer for the places I ate, movies I watched, playlists I was loving, and books I was making everyone read. It also allows me to keep the artifacts from some of those places. The blog is great, but I can’t put the physical ticket stub, a receipt, a bookmark or some other small token on it. I mean, I guess I can take a picture and put the picture in here, but it’s not the same. I’ve always loved photo albums and kind of miss them. I know I do stuff, I want to be able to look back on it. So – I’m going to try this out in 2015. (Quite frankly, I’ll probably start this bad boy next weekend with the ticket stub to my first OSU game!)
There you have it. Things I’m crazy about right now. Build a fire, listen to Serial while writing you’re little heart out and you can be crazy about all of them too.
