Thursday 14 November 2013

And now for something completely different...Minimalism


            It’s quite a scary concept when you first think of it: get rid of your stuff. You think “but I like my stuff, that guitar is a beautiful ornament”, or “but I might wear that shirt someday”.  The anxiety starts to build and your mind races…

            Let me back up a little bit, almost a year actually. One December 27th, 2013, my husband and I decided to go on a vegan/raw food diet, which means to not only cut out animals and animal products but to also cut out all processed foods. We did it for health mostly, we both wanted to lose weight for our impending wedding. It took some learning and some willpower, but we pulled through. Looking back, something that was really hard for me was throwing out all the bad food in our kitchen. I had the mentality of just eating it up to get rid of it (my mother’s voice ringing in my head about wasting food), but my husband had more willpower than me and just threw it out when I wasn’t home. This was the first taste of minimalism I have ever had.

            Coming back to the current state of affairs, we have now run into a wall that we must scale. I have graduated from college and I still hold the same part time job that I had while attending school, my student loans are coming due, and we need to downgrade our living quarters. We currently live in a 3-bedroom townhouse packed to the brim with stuff, including the basement. Both my husband and I are self-described pack rats so naturally we love our stuff. We decided out of necessity that we needed to start culling our herd of unused items, starting with musical instruments that we do not play. My $1200 guitar stares at me everyday wondering why I never learned to play it, causing me a constant low level of stress; the same goes for my husbands’ 2 guitars and keyboard. I put the items on a local web classified site, and his stuff sold like hotcakes and gave me the motivation I needed to put more things for sale. To date, I have sold over a half dozen items and we have made a few hundred dollars from our unused stuff. Having the money in the bank feels much better than unused stuff stressing us out and cluttering our lives.

            Our ultimate goal is to get down to 1 bedroom, plus a few living room furniture items. A list of the furniture we will have when we are done: 1 desk and chair, 2 tables for the kitchen (1 regular one with chairs and 1 long thin one for more counter space and to place our TV on), 1 leather loveseat (wedding gift), a papasan chair, and our mattress. In the future I would love to have a high quality dresser for the both of us, we have promised ourselves to never buy anything unless it is of high quality and we would use it all the time.

            I am still witling down my massive clothing and shoe collection. I have donated or given away approx. 2.5 garbage bags of clothes and 10 or more pairs of shoes, and I am not done. I want to end up with 4 pairs of high heels (nude, black, red, and metallic), 1 pair of flats, 1 pair of sneakers, 2 pairs of boots (fashion and winter) and 1 pair of sandals or flip-flops. This is a huge accomplishment for me, seeing as I own more footwear than is ever necessary. I would like to get my clothing down to half a closet and half a dresser (husband gets the other halves), this again is a huge feat seeing as I started with a full 6-drawer dresser and 2 (yes 2) closets jam-packed full of clothes, this doesn’t include my night stand with my undergarments.

            As you can see, I had/have my work cut out for me. I find it’s easiest to do this in stages, especially where I have about 1.5 months to perform this magic trick. I look forward to a clutter-free life. Wish me luck!

Tuesday 30 July 2013

Update

After a few months (*cough* or more *cough*) of inactivity, I am back in the game. I finished my Business Diploma and school work term, and am in the process of looking for a job, so I have time to spare.

A few things that I want to accomplish:


  • New and more frequent blog postings
  • Website updates
  • YouTube videos

I am putting a call out to my readers for suggestions for new blogs and videos, if you have anything you want to see or know more about, just let me know. If you have any questions you would like answered, just ask me because I would love to do a Q&A video. If you want to know my opinion on current news items, I would love to give it. Just ask and ye shall receive.

~Janice


Misconceptions

This is the rantiest (is that a word? It is now) blog I will probably ever write, but I have to get it off my chest.

Recently, I was invited to a birthday party for a former classmate. This classmate is a wonderful, strong lady whom I like and admire very much, with the exception of one thing: she selectively forgets important things about me, such as my name and the purpose of my business. Don't get me wrong, I was VERY happy to be invited to this birthday party because I never get out and I never meet new people, so it was a great thing for me.

Three days before the party, the former classmate's friend calls me and asks "(birthday girl) says you are a sex expert, is that true?" Now, i'm always leery of this question because I never know what the follow-up question will be, so I answer "sort of, why?" She proceeds to ask me if I can bring things to the party, such as toys or pictures. I don't have these things available to me because I don't do anything related to a sex toy party, but I have a sexy trivia game I tell her I can bring and she is happy with that.

During the party, the birthday girl introduces me in a way that leads people to believe I do entertainment/party stuff, so I correct her and inform the other guests that I lean more towards sexual health, education, and therapy. I tell the guests that if they have any questions or problems, just to ask me there or email me if it's private and I will be delighted to help them out. I spend the party answering questions and having a good time, it seems like everyone is understanding what it is I do and enjoys it.

We were unable to eat the delicious cake in the restaurant or play the game I brought, so we schedule a follow-up get-together for those reasons. About a week before the gathering, the birthday girl tells me that her friend wants me to bring toys and pictures this time. I tell her again that this is not what I do, and that I have no toys or pictures to bring (what kinds of pictures is she thinking of anyway?). She agrees that the game is sufficient and leaves it at that. At this point, I am getting that sinking feeling that no one truly understands what it is I am trying to accomplish, and that I was only invited to be the entertainment, so I decided that it is best not to attend the party (it helps that something came up at the last moment too). I tell the birthday girl and her reply is "Ahh, u r the main attraction..." and I follow-up by suggesting that someone else bring a fun game, as that was all I was doing anyway.

This was the confirmation that I needed. Despite telling her multiple times, and clarifying things with her guests, they still all believed that I was just the entertainment and all I do is sexy fun parties. This is the problem that I have wherever I go, not just with these ladies. People think that I throw sexy parties, or that i'm a sexual surrogate or something. It is so hard to break that popular media stereotype of a Sex Therapist that I usually tell people I am doing relationship therapy or couples counselling, because there are less negative connotations with those word combinations. It's sad that I have to mainstream the words I am using just to people do not immediately get the wrong impression of what I am trying to accomplish. It is so disheartening to have to explain myself over and over again, especially to the same people.

Maybe one day I will be taken seriously, I have a lot of work ahead of me so I better get started.

Rant. Over.