Mad Cat Capsule: Thinking About Spring

I’m starting to think about my Spring wardrobe and getting ready to create it this month. This is always an exciting time in any capsule wardrobers life. But Spring is especially exciting for me, as my first ever capsule wardrobe was created in Spring 20xx.

Since tracking my capsule more carefully, I have definitely noticed that the usual amount of items I have in my closet (between 40-50 pieces) is way too much. each piece only got worn once or twice per month (if that) with the exception of my favorite items. I started wondering if I could just have a capsule with only my favorite items. This is not a new thought, but one that has been made more clear since tracking each items that I wear.

This leaves me with three dilemmas: 1) I have so many awesome clothes! I was getting excited, especially after a very dark earth toned winter capsule, to add a ton of my colorful and crazy clothing back into my life with my Spring capsule. But not all my colorful clothes are my favorites.
2) I have a lot of favorites! I’m sure if I pulled all my faves from all four seasons, I would have well over 50 items.
3) I don’t really know what my favorites are and it might take me a log time for find out.

Isn’t that one of the points of capsule wardrobe: to find out what you love to wear and want to wear all the time?

When thinking about all this, making my capsule the way I usually do seemed daunting. The method I usually use involves starting by taking a few key pieces out and rotating them into my last capsule, then taking all items of clothing I have out of storage and picking out the rest of the 3 month capsule. What usually results from this is that I have lots and lots of items that could go in my capsule, and I narrow it down to about 40-50 items.

My dream during this process is always to create a favorites bin. My dream would be to identify and separate the most worn and favorite items and be left with a a perfect wardrobe. But I can never seem to make that happen. Space, clutter, indecision, and organization seem to make it an impossible task. But it might be worth it to have a”perfect” capsule.

So will I have a bright, colorful, eclectic Spring capsule or will I have a utilitarian capsule with all my most worn, most loved clothing? I haven’t decided yet, but I will try to make it one with less clothing than in past capsules.

What does your perfect capsule wardrobe look like?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

Around where we live several big corporate restaurants (Houlihans, Eat at Joes ) have closed and the buildings are now being taken over by weeds and time, starting to crumble and return to a more natural state. I weirdly love to watch this process, and imagine a time where nature reclaims all the terrible Red Lobsters and Olive Gardens and Walmarts people once put our faith, money and time in to. Here is a great look at an abandoned mall in NJ (photo).
Here is a good article portal to check out changes, updates, and other resources about recycling in your state.
The beachcomber’s dilemma; Trash or treasure?
One of my March and now April goals is to care for my houseplants. Here is a fun little video for changing pots.
One of my April Goals is to get out into the yard, and a great project to start with is our porch. We have grand plans to change our porch but for now, I’ll settle for somewhere that I want to sit and watch the neighborhood. We have already started by picking up some of the items that were hanging out there, but didn’t need to be.

Getting our porch ready for Summer is really important to us bc a lot of our plants live there in the warm weather. And they love it!

2019 Goals | March Recap and April Goals

I had a lot of high hopes for March but not a lot of success. This month was kind of a wash for me. Work was extremely busy and my energy for everything was pretty bottomed out. Not a lot got done in life or work other than the bare minimum. Let’s take a look at my March goals:

Schedule 1 life admin day
I have to schedule this in, and not let anything bump it off the schedule. I have to write a list of everything needs to get done for this day.
I was able to schedule and stick to getting one life admin day done. I really enjoyed it and it felt good to get some annoying tasks done that I have been putting off forever. I definitely want to make a monlthy life admin day part of my monthly routine.

Plan my next 2 trips
Getting away a lot in February was great! I have a feeling March won’t see a lot of travel, but planing some trips that I want to take will be a good compromise.
We certainly didn’t get to take any trips in march, but we also didn’t get to plan out any new trips, either.

Morning walk 3 days a week
I’m gonna keep trying with this goal.
I didn’t quite make this goal, but I did well enough and had it in my head enogh that I think it’s time to move it over to be a daily/weekly/monthly routine.

Get out into the yard 3-4 times
Every year I want to improve our yard, porch, flower beds, etc… and every year I start too late. This year, on nice days, I want to get a head start.
Writing this on the 30th, I doubt this goal will get done but you never know.

Blog 4 times per week
I want to get back in the swing of this after slacking in Feb.
OMG, I fell down on this goal so hard. This is why I haven’t been able to make this a routine. My blogging is still so up and down.

Move my 50+ plants
Every few months, I like to give my plants a little extra care. I like to repot, dust, top up soil, aerate, and move around all my plants. There are a lot of them so this takes some time.
I had no motivation for this so I’m pushing it to April.

Inbox to 500 and maintain
I did good to get rid of the bulk of emails, now it’s about maintaining organization and not letting it get too out of control.
OOooff, after making so much progress on this in past months, I wasn’t able to maintain this at all this month. My inbox is creeping up again!

Make and post 1 youtube video
I’ve made several in the past, but tis is really something I want to get into and incorporate into my creative life.

Plan our next 2 trips
I want to make sure to get away a little in April and May before the Summer season really sets in.

Get out into the yard 3-4 times
There’s a lot of yard work and garden work to do and we are running up against the planting clock.

Get back to blogging 4-5 times per week
Gotta get back in the habit!

Better health 15 days of the month
I want have some breadless days, some vegan days, some exercise and stretching days, etc…. Overall be more mindful of my body and health. (I’ve eaten totally vegan 1 day of the month so far!)

Move my 50+ plants
Rolling this goal over, too.

Inbox to 500 and maintain
Another goal from last month. I’m ready to get back on track with this in April.

I have set the same number of goals this month as last, but it feels like less to me somehow.

What goals have you set for April?

March Plant Update

I had high hopes that I would be out and about for most of March, but the weather was still cold and I was still in hibernation mode. I did get out some and we were able to check out some local plants in March.

Still brown, but this day spring was in the air.

There was a theme this month.

totally happy to see these babes sprouting out.

And fully popped!

Another.

What are these? I wish my whole yard was covered in them!

These strawbs are ready for spring.

So is our grandma rose.

And these magnolias. They’ve been trying since January.

Current state of our front bed.

What do the plants look like where you live?
Was March a good month for your plant observations?
What were you most excited to take note of this month?

March in Review

I kinda of always expect February to be the hardest winter month of the year, but then comes March.

March was a super tough month, lots of work, stress, exhaustion, and went by in a flash. But March is also when we start to see some signs of spring.

It was a great month for #watchercats and cats in general; all three of our family went to the vet for check ups! We were able to take some walks and do a little exploring despite the month being less than easy. We saw some family and friends this month. I love when people come to visit us in Asbury Park, and that happened in March!

Another of my favorite activities is to visit interesting grocery stores! We got to visit three new and different groceries this month! Bring me all the fruit I’ve never heard of! Although the weather was still mostly chilly we had a few warm days and we opened the windows and threw on some records.

Overall, there was great things that happened in March and there were hard things in March. I can safely say that I’m glad it’s over! April, I have some high expectations…. Are you ready?

Happy Spring!

I hope you were able to catch the Super Worm Moon (photo) last week, last supermoon of the year! It happened to fall on the first day of Spring.

If you’re like me, the first day of Spring is a huge relief. It’s not the first day that I start to feel better, but at least I know that feeling is coming soon. This winter was a particularly rough one for me and throughout March my motivation has dipped to zero. Now that the days are getting a little longer, the weather is a little warmer, I’m ready to get back in the groove.

But I’m struggling with how to do that. Where do I start?

What are some things you do when you’ve been in a rut, productivity wise? What are some tips you have to jump start your Spring?

Share your ideas in the comments!

March Life Admin Day and GYST List

I’ve mentioned it before but I first found out about Life Admin Days friom MuchelleB on YouTube. This is a day that you schedule where you sit down and get stuff done. It’s a day or part of a day to get those nagging tasks that you keep putting off out of your way. Things that have been on your “to do” list but keep getting put off for another time. Action items that require you to do something you really dislike, like for me, talk on the phone. Your life admin day is a time to knock off as many as these tasks as you can in a set amount of time.

A Lot of people and productivity gurus are now also calling this a GYST Day (get your sh*t together). One of the keys to these methods is to schedule in this time and treat it as work, or any other event you have bc it’s easy to constantly push annoying life tasks aside.

I tried to have a Life Admin Day in February but I kept pushing it back and back! Defeats the whole point, right? This month, I decided to do it early in the month to make sure I got it done. I scheduled the time I wanted to take and put it in my bullet journal as an appointment or task just like I would if I were going to work or writing a blog post.

Here was my list for things to get done:
call for car appointment
pay bills
sort out eye doc bill
sort out urgent care bill
sign up for ez pass
start seed/garden list
clean cat boxes
water plants
lunch with mom

I also wrote myself a physical list outside my BuJo to be able to check everything off, carry around, or move as needed. I love crossing things off any to do list!! I blocked off several hours to get things done and proceeded to do as much as I could! Not all my tasks were admin tasks, some were just weekly or daily things that needed to get done.

As you can see, I didn’t get everything done. Some items got pushed to later in the day, some to the following day, some to the next admin day (or the next one). Although I didn’t get everything done, It felt really good to complete some tasks that had been nagging me to weeks. I definitely plan to have another Life Admin Day, perhaps making it a monthly event.

Have you planned a day like this? If so, was it helpful to keep your life more organized? Do you have any other tricks for this sort of productivity?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

One of the very first places my friend and roommates felt comfortable and frequented when we moved to Brooklyn was the Old Carriage Inn Lounge, which we lovingly called Sports Bar. Sadly they are closing after many decades in operation. It as great to learn the history of this business and building, which played such a big role in my personal history.
I love a good list of pet friendly houseplants!!
Have you heard The Hum?
I can’t wait to visit this really quite fascinating town, Roosevelt, NJ.
I was so happy to see Chagin Soap get a shout out on Tree Hugger!

Three Days in New Orleans

In the end of February, we took our first (of hopefully many) Johnson Family Travel Vacation to New Orleans!

Our trip started very out very early and very rainy! But it was all worth it to get to NOLA and the sunny 55 degree weather! We headed straight out to the French Quarter, and into the Marigny to find our first meal of the day.

One struggle we encounter this trip was how meat oriented many of the restaurants in New Orleans. The last time we were in the city, my husband and I ate fish, and we found eating out much easier. This trip, each time we looked for a restaurant we had to pass up one or two before we found one that had enough vegetarian or vegan options. This can be frustrating, but we actually had really awesome luck and stumbled on some amazing restaurants!

After delicious vegetarian lunch at Sukho Thai, we headed back thru the quarter and checked into the hotel. We had no idea that the preliminary Mardi Gras festivities would be going on, but we had fun checking out all the tourists and locals enjoying the New Orleans fun. We saw a ton of dogs all dressed up and later learned that we missed the puppy parade by mere minutes!

It was a beautiful day and we relaxed, went in the hotel pool, walked around, spent time with family, people watched, and ended up in Uptown to find dinner later in the evening. Another thing that had changed quite a bit since the first time I was in NOLA, was that we saw far less cabs and far more ubers/lifts. Since neither my husband or I use those services, we spent a lot of time hoping for a cab but instead walking a great distance. It worked in our favor bc we discovered some great places we may not have. We stumbled upon and ate at an amazing hole-in-the-wall Ethiopian place that we will definitely revisit on another trip!

Our hotel was very fancy and accommodating, and we were happy to retire there at the end of the first long and adventurous day.

Day two started with a touristly trip around the city on a double decker bus. It was rainy and cold which was pretty perfect to get toured around and see an overview of the city. After the tour with the family, we split up to explore some things we saw, or had on our lists.

A tip I would have for visiting New Orleans is to remember that a lot of things are closed on Mondays. This is the second trip that I have spent a Monday in NO, and it’s a bit of a challenge to plan things that we wanted to see around the fact that Mondays are kind of a dead day there. It all worked out since we love to just want around and see different neighborhoods which is exactly what we ended up doing.

One of my favorite things about walking around neighborhood in New Orleans (and everywhere!) is seeing cats and other animals. We were not disappointed this trip and even saw this dog talking to two local cats!

After two days we had walked around 7 neighborhoods; Central Business District, The French Quarter, The Marginy, Uptown, The Garden District, East Carrollton, and we ended the second day by walking through the 9th Ward to get drinks with a friend and see live music.

For our final day we headed back to East Carrollton and ate at one of our favorite restaurants in NOLA. Most of our family was able to come and it was nice to have a big meal together before the end of the trip. Then we went to the New Orleans Museum of Art. None of us had ever been to the museum before, so it was nice to see everything together. I’ll talk more about the museum in another post!

Our final stop before traveling to the airport was to go to Cafe Du Monde for beignets! A must do for every visit to New Orleans!

We left the city with a long lists of places and things we want to see next time we are in town!

Have you been to NOLA? If so, what are you go-to spots?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

This was a great article that Reading My Tea Leaves pointed out.
I really want to try this perfect pancake recipe!
I wonder if they ever found this llama?
Taking wearing a uniform to a whole new level to teach about sustainable fashion. Also, I love to see anyone from NJ (the state I was born in and now live again) involved in sustainable practices!
Speaking of clothing, I’ve been trying to take more OOTD photos, something I used to do when I was a youngin’. At first this was a way to document my vintage and thrifted capsule wardrobe, but I have found that I have totally forgotten/unlearned how to take a photo of myself. When I was in my 20s I spent years taking 365 self portraits, and now, I’m lost. I have read a few articles about this recently but none very memorable. My own conclusion and advice is to never stop taking self portraits. Not to be confused with selfies, which are un-thought-out, repetitive, boring and narcissistic, self portraits are a way for individuals and artists to connect with their image both actual and idealized. By being dormant in this practice, I now find my image foreign and unattractive, but I’m hoping to turn that around and reconnect with it.

Do you struggle with taking pictures of yourself? Would anyone like to for me to make a long post about this issue? Or body image issues? Or body positivity issues?

Pack With Me: Three Day Trip

When I travel, I tend to only take a backpack. For a longer trip, I might take a carry on. But mostly a backpack will do me. When packing for New Orleans, I realized that it was basically, more or less, what I pack when I go anywhere.

My packing always starts with what I’m going to wear for the actual traveling. Since I was flying this trip, I knew I needed something that would keep me very warm and comfy. But since I was traveling from a cold place to a warmer place, I didn’t want to wear a big coat.

So naturally I opted for lots of layers that I could use later in my trip, too. I wore a tank top, a mockneck, a sweater, one of the two pairs of jeans that I brought, a sweatshirt, and a jacket. As always I had a scarf and a hat. I chose to wear my new vans that I had bought the day before leaving. I love to wear slip on shoes when I fly, bc they make the security check much simpler.

Once we arrived, I broke up this outfit, changed into a tee shirt, and switched to my broken in shoes. On such a short trip, I ended up wearing many items over and over, like the sweater.

On this trip, I wasn’t sure how warm it was going to be so I packed a two dresses. These didn’t end up getting orn, but they are small and easy to pack. I could have also worn one as a top if I ran low on tee shirts. The other items that didn’t get used was pajama pants and top. I always pack PJs but rarely end up using them. Better safe than sorry!

Here is the final packing list:
4 tees
2 pants
2 dresses
3 tank tops
1 mock neck
1 sweater
1 sweatshirt
1 bathing suit
under garments and socks
2 sneakers
1 scarf
1 hat
1 jacket

Overall I think I packed a little too much, but with not knowing what the weather would be doing, I the best I could. I’m always trying to streamline packing, use layers, rewear items, and be comfortable when traveling! I also packed my toiletries, my zero waste kit, and my accessories (books, noteboos etc…) for this trip and fit them into a backpack and 1 small tote. Let me know if you would be interested to see those items!

Are you a minimalist packer for trips? Are you an over packer? Share your advice in the comments!

What I Ate 2/20/19

This was a pretty typical of eating for me. And it was a pretty typical day for documenting in that it started off strong, but kinda petered off.

Everyday, always, forever starts off with coffee.

But I’ve also been smitten with ginger tea. So simple, so good! Usually this is just ginger slices in hot water. Sometimes I add honey.

For breakfast/lunch/first meal of the day I had a salad with romaine, homemade crunchy croutons, Quorn chicken nuggets, and store bought caesar dressing. And lots of fresh ground black pepper!
Fake chicken doesn’t always agree with me, but a chicken caesar salad is one of my all time favorite meals and I was craving it! I love getting this brand and type bc it comes only in cardboard (no plastic!) and I can heat just a few nuggs up at a time, so there is less waste. Store bought dressing is one things I want to give up and start making myself, but I haven’t motivated to do it quite yet.

On this day I went grocery shopping and couldn’t resist snacking on some pistachios in the car. We go on various nut kicks and pistachios have been a hot for a while now. I usually by them in a plastic bag, unfortunately. But we take that bag to be recycled at some of our local shops.

Grocery shopping usually leads to unhealthy snacking for me! I have been digging these self-serve mochi lately. No plastic!

My husband prefers the self-serve donuts. If they are around, I’ll take a bite.

As usual, my dinner pics are a little lacking! We had one of our favorite vegan meals this night: tofu, rice, broccoli, peanuts, sesame seeds, and chili garlic sauce. I wish this meal were a little more zero waste, but the tofu and chili garlic sauce only come in plastic near us.

On many nights, I would also eat something sweet at the end of my meals, but since I snacked on so many sweets today I didn’t feel like eating anything else sweet.

I was happy to eat a lot of my favorite foods today but this could have easily been a vegan day of eating, as well. I find myself trying to assess my meals and see where they can become more vegan and more sustainable.

What did you eat today?

2019 Goals | February Recap + March Goals

Here are the goals I set for February 2019. I’m completely not surprised that none of these goals really got done.

Inbox to 0
Let’s keep trying.
I did work on this goal in Feb and my inbox is hovering around 1000. I’m down to really hard emails to get rid of or organize, so I feel like this is a good place to be. I want to work on this more in March.

Have 1 life admin day
I learned about life admin days from MuchelleB and I think I need one! This is where you get things sorted that you would normally put aside, things that don’t need to happen every week, or month, but that you’ve been wanting to do. For me, this might mean making appointments, sorting out billings, taking the car to get serviced, etc…
This did not happen. I thought about it a lot, but I broke the cardinal rule of scheduling by pushing it back at the slightest conflict. To make this goal work, I have to schedule this day and stick to it. I want to do this in March. I also feel that I need to write a list of everything that I want to accomplish on this day.

Study Japanese 2 days a week
This seems doable.
Nope. I was soooo gung ho on this goal at the beginning of the year, but I feel like it’s been pushed aside by other things, or just doesn’t feel as important as it did in Dec/Jan.

Morning Walk 3 days a week
Not sure about this one, but I want to get back to taking morning walks, and them being distinguished from walking to work. This goes along with a goal of wanting to get outside more, as well.
Looking back, I actually didn’t do too bad with this goal. I took more morning walks than in Jan.

Blog 4 times a week
I want to keep this up before moving on.
Fail. Let’s do better in March.

Add tags to 40 blog posts
Seems more reasonable.
Uh, no. I have been trying to be good at tagging as I blog but, see above goal, that wasn’t actually many blog posts. I struggle with this one, bc I want more people to be able to search my blog, but I don’t love the way they look on the actual blog. Does anyone have any advice, comments, ideas for tags on blogs?

Overall, not the best month for goal setting but not as bad as I had thought. March, being longer and calmer, will hopefully be better for achieving my goals. Here they are

Schedule 1 life admin day
I have to schedule this in, and not let anything bump it off the schedule. I have to write a list of everything needs to get done for this day.

Plan my next 2 trips
Getting away a lot in February was great! I have a feeling March won’t see a lot of travel, but planing some trips that I want to take will be a good compromise.

Morning walk 3 days a week
I’m gonna keep trying with this goal.

Get out into the yard 3-4 times
Every year I want to improve our yard, porch, flower beds, etc… and every year I start too late. This year, on nice days, I want to get a head start.

Blog 4 times per week
I want to get back in the swing of this after slacking in Feb.

Move my 50+ plants
Every few months, I like to give my plants a little extra care. I like to repot, dust, top up soil, aerate, and move around all my plants. There are a lot of them so this takes some time.

Inbox to 500 and maintain
I did good to get rid of the bulk of emails, now it’s about maintaining organization and not letting it get too out of control.

So, I’ve noticed that a lot of the goals I’m setting for each month in the beginning of 2019 are the same. When do goals switch over and become habits I want to adopt? We’ll find out, I guess.

What are you goals for March?

February Plant Update

February was a great month for plant observations!! We saw a lot of things, we traveled, we revisited our sacred spaces.

A snowy morning in Cape May, NJ.

A foggy morning in Asbury Park, NJ.

Two of my favorite pine trees.

A pink morning.

This plant scares my husband, but look at it’s beautiful blooms!!

Lovely colors, oxalis never disappoints.

One of the only snowy days so far…

…it looked like it might be a crazy snow day, but it melted quickly.

And then there was New Orleans.

I will never get over Spanish moss.

I also learned about resurrection moss which grows in NOLA all year, sometimes dying back and they spontaneously growing right back.

It was really great and very odd to visit somewhere were flowers were blooming in Feb.

Seeing bees already hard at work was a wonderful sight.

Going somewhere warm with flowers blooming was a great pick me up. Winter is the hardest time for me and seeing some green plants and bright flowers was an awesome inspiration for me. Spring really is right around the corner!

I’m excited to see March’s plants! What was February like where you live or travel?

February in Review

February is always a packed month, but this year it was especially so. We had many celebrations, much work, much fun, visiting and exploration.

The very beginning of the month started in Cape May, NJ, for our 6th anniversary. My birthday is also in this month and we spent that at he beach, as well. At the end of February, we took a very special family trip to New Orleans, LA. I also went on a quick jaunt to Ardmore, PA.

It was super cold this month, with a few weird warm days sprinkled in to keep us on our toes. But #watchercats were out and about in Feb, taking in the sun when possible.

We tried a few new restaurants, and explored NJ a bit this in February. But we also got to visit old haunts in New Orleans! It was a treat to share some of our favorite spots with family!

February is always kinda of blur, being the shortest and coldest month here. There is the faintest whiff of spring in the air, but I have a feeling March will be another long wintery month. Let’s see!

On My Mind on Friday Morning | Animal Edition

This is my kind of cat walks.
Wolf rescue.
Turtle missing since 1982 reunited with family. Portrait here.
Full grown tiger found in abandoned building.
Look at this huge bee, long thought extinct.
At my work, we recently had a fundraiser for our local SPCA and it was awesome!

Bullet Journal Check In: February Clothing Tracker

Starting this year, I was curious to see how often I was wearing each item in my capsule wardrobe. The size of my current bullet journal is perfect to be able to write down each item!

I used a very simple layout, in January, writing down all the items first and filling in when I wore them.

For February, I am writing them down as I wear them. And marking where I repeat items.

As for the wardrobe side of this experiment, so far, I’m very intrigued by the results. Since I have so many pieces in my winter capsule, they only each get worn a few times each month. It has really given me pause about including so many pieces in each capsule. I was also surprised that I really do try to wear just about everything I have included. I was not surprised at what pieces were my go to items that I returned to again and again. I’ll be interested to track the last 1.5 months of this capsule and see what changes in my next capsule wardrobe as a result of this tracker!

As for the bullet journal aspect of this experiment, I haven’t found a tracker layout that I really like. This feels like something I would like to continue for a few more months, at least, but this tracker is pretty boring to fill out. It’s also a little hard to read. I’m sure if I had less items to list, it would look less cluttered, but I’m not convinced that will happen! My BuJo style is very minimal, so I’m not sure what other type of layout I could use. Does anyone have any ideas for me?

Do you tack your wardrobe?

On My Mind On Friday Morning

Have you heard of Loop? I can’t wait to try it!
NYC doors.
Ian McKellen owns a pub, I have to go to this one day!!
I’ve been wanting to visit more cemeteries in NJ. 2019 Might be the year, and here is some inspiration to go.
In my last post we talked about decluttering, here are some things I have been working on:

We have been renovating our kitchen forever, so we don’t have as much shelving as I would like. keeping the area decluttered is a constant struggle. But it’s a fun area to start with when I want to see progress and feel accomplished with my decluttering. Do you have areas of the house that are your go to declutter areas?

6 Month of Zero Waste: Trash Audit Review

In January, I wrote about some things to do each month leading up to Plastic Free July. Are you following along?

Last month, we separated and audited our trash. What did you learn? Here are some questions to ask your self:
How much was trash?
How much was food waste?
How much of your trash was recyclable?
What part of each contained plastic?

Now that you know what your trash really looks like, where can you reduce it?
Go ahead and answer these in the comments below so we can share in your observations!!

You may want to keep separating and auditing your trash for another month, or for several month to see how your waste changes now that you are more mindful of what you throw away.

Now that we are making our way to mid February it’s time to start decluttering things, if you haven’t already. All the things. The decluttering craze is upon us so you can find a lot of resources and ideas out there. I suggest paying special attention to duplicates, paper clutter, clothing, as well as little or never used items and appliances. The goal here is to get rid of lots, but also to organize what’s left.

Do as much as you can do until we talk again!

Back to Cape May for 6th Anniversary

We are not big occasion people. We don’t buy xmas gifts, we don’t go on dates, we don’t dress up. But one thing that we have celebrated for the last six years is our wedding anniversary. We always try to take a little trip around this time and this year, we headed back to an old favorite: Cape May, New Jersey.

We took a leisurely time to drive down to Cape May and stopped at a few thrift shops we enjoy along the way. We arrived just in time for the sunset. They are usually quite spectacular in this town.

The night was easy and we took advantage of a warm room and a strong shower. In the morning we ate at the hotel restaurant before heading out into the snowy landscape.

The Victorian homes and square are particularly striking in the snow.

We always like to take a look at the sunken concrete ship at the end of the state.

Our trip was very brief but relaxing and lovely. Here’s to another year to decide where to go next.

Past trips:
Philly
Princeton
Cape May
Washington DC