A Different Kind of Easter

I have been trying for days to write a post about Easter but I hit such an incredible wall and I can’t figure out why. I have nothing but happy memories of Easter. The new dresses, the speeches, the egg hunts and baskets. Easter and the start of spring have always held a special place in my life. It was such a time of excitement. It still is but things are different now that I am an adult. It’s different because I am an adult without any children. You forget exactly how much of this holiday has centered around the children.

As an adult, my Easter is more a time of reflection. Instead of just a day or two of learning of Jesus’ death and sacrifice, I spend the entire Lenten season learning, reflecting and attempting to make sacrifices of my own. It’s a different kind of Easter but it’s the perfect way to really know and absorb what this season is all about.

In my house, there are no new outfits, no speech practice, no fancy Sunday dinner. But thanks to Hershey’s, this year my Easter does include a very beautiful basket of goodies.



This is the first basket I have had in years and it wasn’t until this showed up on my doorstep that I realized how much this season has changed for me. Who knew I had so many smiles and fond memories tied up in the taste of a jelly bean.

No matter how you are spending this weekend, I pray that you know and understand the sacrifice that was made for us all.

Spring Cleaning to Make Room

Once I came back home from traveling from work, I knew it was time to start tackling a few things. The priority items on the list were…

• Going through and cleaning up two years of mail that had piled up.
• Clearing out and organizing the guest room that had become a dumping ground for everything that didn’t have a home.
• Making closet space for my soon-to-be husband.

I still have a bit more to do but I have made tremendous progress.



This was my guest room before I started. Oddly enough, the picture doesn’t look as bad as it truly was. I went through everything you see piled there, everything in the guest closet and everything in my master closet and I shredded/recycled everything that I could.



I made three trips to the recycling center. I couldn’t believe how much paper crap I had accumulated over the years. I had bank statements and cancelled checks from over 11 years ago. I had paperwork from college that was no longer needed and I had Christmas cards from people that I don’t even remember where I met them. I got rid of all that I could. The main things that I have held on to are tax documents and documentation from past credit problems that I had. I consolidated all that was left into one container and I will be tackling that with GTD in the near future.

My biggest challenge in sorting the closets was what to with my growing collection of purses and bags. Now, I have already admitted that I have a problem so please don’t judge me. There stacked on the end of my bed are all the different bags and purses that I own. I did not count them this time. I have topped over 100 before.



Piled separately on the floor is my collection of Vera Bradley.



And in a separate pile already put away in a closet, is my collection of wallets, clutches and smaller pouch-type bags.



The key to making room for the boy was finding a new home for all of these bags outside of the master bedroom (with exception of the wallet shelf--that stays in the smaller bedroom closet).

Between the hallway linen closet and the guest bedroom, I found a place to store all of these bags. I’m hoping this is just temporary storage as I really need to cut this collection down by more than half.



So, now that these are settled, there is (ALMOST) enough room for the boy. I still have lots of items I don’t need so you’ll see more about my pare down in the near future.

How is your spring cleaning going?

Don't Ditch That Old Technology

In the process of doing my recent house cleaning, I ran across my old Kodak Easy Share camera. This thing is probably about eight years old and still runs on two AA batteries. Since the cameras on cell phones have gotten so good and it’s easy to share the pictures from the phones, I have started to opt for using my cell phone to take pictures.



But when I pulled out this camera, I had to be think critically before just tossing this in the recycling bin. This camera is 3.1 mega pixels which is not good in terms of purchasing new camera, but excellent when compared to the front facing camera on my Android phone which is only 1.3 MP. So, I popped in some new batteries and put my old friend to the test. I have been very happy with results but decided to do a side by side comparison with my cell phone to see if new really is better.

Now, my cell phone is an HTC Incredible 2 with an 8 MP camera. It almost seems unfair to compare them, but take a look at pics.



The first picture was taken with the Kodak EasyShare. The second picture was taken with the cell phone-I put the Kodak in the picture so I wouldn’t get them confused. Both pictures have the same lighting. I used the flash on both. I have to say, I like the picture that the Kodak took better. The colors are not as washed out. What do you think?

Bottom line, don’t be so quick to upgrade. Technology manufacturers like to convince us that we need newer, better, bigger but is that always the best option for us? We really need to step outside of the marketing and use a little critical thinking of our own.