Make the World More Beautiful, Lupine Lady!

In Canada, we are celebrating our first official long weekend with warm weather. I am sure many of us wondered if winter had become a year round season. This is the weekend when many people venture out to the lakes to go camping while others hit the greenhouses to make their yards bloom. This year I am of the latter group.

We started the weekend off with a family BBQ celebrating my nieces birthdays. When Saturday hit, new beginnings came to the Kasowski household. We gutted out our garage and my husband finally purged some of those University textbooks he had been holding onto. He keeps thinking someday he might need them - they're outdated. I reminded him he has not looked at them in the past 15-20 years. I had some purging of mine own to do as well. Decluttering can be very cleansing. It makes space for great things to come into our lives.

Decluttering is an art. My colleague, Sherry Borsheim of Simply Productive, says it is important to stay in one room until you are completely finished. Don't worry about taking things to where they belong until the end of the day. If you leave, you are likely to get distracted by all the other things you need to do. Focus is the key. Quick decision-making is also essential. Does this item bring mevalue right now? Have I used it in the past year? Everything has its place.

While he worked on painting the garage floor and re-organizing the garage, I ventured out to Home Depot, Wal-mart, and Canadian Tire in search of some bedding plants and perennials. I really wanted to find lupines; the aphids killed mine the past couple years. I have been inspired to plant lupines ever since I read the children's book, "Miss Rumphius" by Barbara Cooney. In this story, the grandfather tells his granddaughter of all of his adventures and his granddaughter exclaims, "I, too, will go to faraway places, and when I grow old, I too will live beside the sea." Her grandfather said, "That is all very well, little Alice, but there is a third thing you must do. Alice wondered and asked what that could be. Her grandfather tells her, "You must do something to make the world more beautiful."  Throughout the story, you will learn of Alice's grand adventures and how she makes the world more beautiful. She becomes known as the Lupine Lady. I do not want to spoil a great book. I highly recommend you read it some time. I did end up finding only two lupines. I plant them in my flower garden to remind my family and I that we must make the world more beautiful.

As the weekend continues, my husband and son have now gone to the golf course for a well-deserved break. I am sipping ice tea with the breeze gently blowing through the window as I spend this afternoon writing. There are still some odds and ends to go through in the the garage but the garage looks amazing. My flowers were planted just in time as the rain drops began to fall - making the world around me more beautiful.

How do you make the world more beautiful? Do you have a symbolic reminder?

Track Your Way

Every successful person followed a path. Each path may vary in length and smoothness. Some paths may be hilly, some may have a slight bend in the road, and some may even be straight. The beauty of each path is that even if two people are heading to the same destination, their path will vary in lessons learned and length of time to get there. Yet they both can get to the same destination and succeed.

One of our family goals is to be more active than we currently are. I decided to get each of us a pedometer. We are going to keep track of all the steps we take in one day and set our own personal goals. We will strive to reach our personal bests. The kids were quite excited. "How cool! Look at how many steps I  have!" as they ran in one spot or dash up and down the stairs. Instant althletes!

Tracking your way to success can be exhilarating!  Watching your progress creates momentum and awareness of the efforts required to reach your goals. Set a goal. Have a clear intention of what you want your end result to look like. Break your goal into smaller steps - daily, weekly, and monthly. At the end of each day, review the steps you have taken and track your progress by writing down what you have accomplished. Celebrate your victories! Plan your next day and realign or tweak any changes you need to. How can you improve if you do not reflect on what you do? Each day is a fresh start to great things!

If your goal is to declutter a room, stay in the room until you finish it. Do not beat yourself up if you have completed 90% of the room and you still have 10% left at the end of the day. Marvel at the beauty of what you have accomplished. Just think - it is way better than it was and there is so little left to complete that you will get it done quickly the next day and move on. Aah! Feels great doesn't it. Feel the weight off your shoulders as you can now relax in your decluttered room, closet, or garage. It is welcoming and now you look forward to spending time in that space.

Success comes in all shapes and sizes. What are you trying to accomplish? Track your way and you will see what makes you the success you are! Now I have to go so I can get my steps in!