Is there any way to turn back the clock a week or two? How about a couple of months? It feels like all the progress I’ve made in August and September have been lost over the past two months. I enjoyed my time in London and stepping out of my comfort zone a little on that trip (going to the Nature Job expo to network), but since getting back it seems like I’ve been sliding backwards.

Tomorrow will start week three of T25–I should have restarted it last week, but was feeling slightly under the weather, so I’m going to start week 3 again tomorrow (even if I feel like I should be totally starting over–I won’t). I’m hoping that it will give me the jolt that I need to try to get back into the routine I was slowly getting into before I went over seas.

Nutrition has totally sucked the past two weeks, and I’d been doing so good for about a week and half before everything went downhill.  It sucks when you realize that you only have probably a year or less left with a pet that you’ve had for over fifteen years (canine cancer sucks). We found out that she has cancer (probably thyroid) and its spread. I’d made the decision that she gets to live out the rest of her life being spoiled (she is now getting turmeric gravy every night before bed), until she shows signs of pain, and then it will be time for her to run free at the rainbow bridge.

So if there are sporadic posts at times–that is why I’m spending time spoiling my precious pup (yes, I know she isn’t technically a puppy-but to me she will always be my puppy).

Also I’m still waiting to hear if an informal job offer is hopefully going to become a formal job offer, plus I have a Skype interview for another position this week as well (plus the last unemployment meeting that I should have to have as well).

So I’ve realized that no matter if I get a job that will keep me local for awhile or if I have to move–I need to make sure that I’m staying on top of my finances and also needing to par down on the belongings (this mainly due to the cost of having to move–its pricey when you think of the cost of moving from Oklahoma to basically either coast, or any other state for that matter). That is one of my challenges–try to make sure that the number of boxes that I’m going to have to add to the storage unit are going to be less than 18 (which is still a lot, but not that much if you think about the fact that those 18 boxes are covering basically five years of living at home), not counting the boxes in the garage that are from my office at work.

Having lots of stuff actually doesn’t make a person happy (unless you’re a hoarder, and maybe not even then)–or at least I’ve realized that having a lot of things isn’t making me happy. I’ve decided that once I’ve settled into a place, my DVD & CD collection is going to be pared down substantially (mainly because of the fact that those movies and CDs have been in storage for basically five years and I haven’t dug through boxes to get to them yet). There will be some movies that I will keep (the Thin Man series, the Harry Potter movies, and some others), plus my workout DVDs.

I’m also going to try to pare down on the number of nick-knacks that I have, or at least try to find a better way of displaying them in the new apartment. Clothes will be somewhat easy to deal with–torn denim will become the backing for a new quilt (once I get a new sewing machine), and shirts may become fabric for the front, or may become pillows or dish rags.

Stay tuned to see how the minimizing/de-clutter experiment goes over the next year.