A Mountain of Magazines and Diet Challenge

A few weeks ago, Mary Ann posted about how she was drowning in magazines. Ugggh!! Unfortunately, I know how she feels! For weeks I watched Mary Ann go through her mountain of magazines either through her blog or on Facebook. It was hard watching her do this alone so I decided to join her and conquer my mountain of magazines, too.

With a happy heart(trying to be positive here!) I went through my house in search of magazines. I cleared out the bathrooms, my bedroom, the family room, and the extra bedroom (of chaos) where I had piled magazines and closed the door;out of sight out of mind! I then sat the piles of magazines by my chair in my "not so formal" formal living room and left them there; for weeksa few days.

Here's part of my pile.

Let's see there's Martha Stewart Living, Country Home, Home Companion, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, Creative Home, and Woman's Day. I don't see Family Circle and Good Housekeeping. They must have been camera shy that day.

I have subscriptions to all of these, except now for Creative Home, Country Home, and Home Companion. They are no longer in publication due to the decline of the housing industry.

It was a sad day when I got my little card in the mail from Mary explaining the reasons that the magazine is no longer available. The darn economy!! Mary explains the situation so well here.

So, here was this mountain of magazines staring at me. At first I sat down and would go through 3 or 4 magazines clipping out articles and recipes, but then I had better things to do! Mary Ann had discovered that this was a huge time waster. I agreed. I wanted to sew or blog, but everytime I did anything fun this little voice in my head would say "Hey you! There's a mountain of magazines you should be dealing with! Get up off your butt and get busy!!!"

I got sick of that little voice! I went into my "not so formal" formal living room, turned on some relaxing music, and I sat down in the middle of the floor and started going through them. At first I was overwhelmed. Then, after a little while, I discovered something about myself: Looking through magazines is my way of dreaming. It's good to have a dream; something to hope for. I use my magazines for inspiration in ways to decorate my home, plant my flower beds, and recipes for my family and friends to enjoy. There are places I would love to visit and crafting ideas I would love to make. In a way these magazines are a part of the "me" that I would love to be. I know I can't be perfect like Martha, or have my home look like the pages of Southern Living all the time, but at least I can try. I decided, too, that I needed to start clipping ideas as I go along. It's time to start a new habit.

And then there was the "writing on the wall" or in my case "the writing on the pages of a magazine" right there before my eyes in black and white. It was an article about Spring Cleaning. It said to clear a room out and put back only the things you love. What you don't love, give to someone else, throw it away, or sell it in a garage sale. You have spent way too much time and energy dealing with something that you don't love. Well, it's not that I don't love my magazines, but it was a little much having so many and running out of places to keep them. So yes, they were draining my energy and, besides that, they were making me hear voices in my head!

I came to a decision about some of my magazines. I love Home Companion, so I'm keeping all of those. I mean look at this:

These are antique pot holders made in the 1930's. Now look at this:

I have one of those!! I never knew what it was, though! How cool is that?

I'm keeping my Creative Home ones, too. Better Homes and Gardens has their magazines archived online for their subscribers. I get the annual Southern Living cookbook that has all the recipes for the year. I just can't keep everything! What I can do, though, is pass them along to my Public Library or give to schools.

You may be wondering why you don't see any quilting magazines. I have quilting magazines and there's probably 2 mountains of those! I keep all of them because what doesn't inspire me today may inspire me 6 years from now. For example: baby quilts. In 1995 when I got my first quilting magazine, American Patchwork and Quilting, I wasn't the least bit interested in baby quilts. Then in 2001 when my first grand child, Alexis, was born I was able to go through my magazines and get inspired to make her "coming home from the hospital" baby quilt. The quilt you see in my blog header is that quilt, "Alexis' Butterfly Garden". I have a butterfly garden and she needed one, too! I took three designs from baby quilts I found in past issues of magazines and came up with this quilt. Judy Laquidara beautifully quilted it for me.

I bet you never knew someone could write so much about clearing out magazines! Leave it to me!

Now to my Diet Challenge. Sharon has been patiently waiting for me to post something, and it has been a while. I'm doing pretty well. Of course I have a lot to say (or write) about it, but I'll save it for another day. Just know that I don't know if I've lost weight, but I do know for sure that I have lost inches. I know this because my tape measure told me! My husband has noticed my hips are getting smaller in my jeans, and that's exciting. I've noticed my muffin top ( that stuff that over the top of the waist of my jeans) is smaller, too. I do need to get better about drinking more water and making sure I get in my exercise even though I have been busy clearing things out.



Stay tuned for a possible trip to Paducah to the AQS Quilt Show this week and more. There's lots going on that keeps me busy, busy, busy!



Have a great Monday!



Amanda