Month: January 2012 | Melanie Bates

I have a confession to make and I feel pretty damn vulnerable putting fingers to keys around it.

(No, I haven’t been watching The Bachelor.)

You ready?

I spent almost two decades of my life wishing I were Native American. What’s more is that, for many of those years, I didn’t consciously recognize it. Essentially I just wanted to be of this culture as part of a tribe of a people and history that I looked up to.

Instead, I was born into a family of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) which traces back to my ^{4th or 5th} Great Grandparents who lived near Joseph Smith and, upon his death, traveled with Brigham Young to Utah. While my family is amazing, the garments just never fit me and I’ve been searching, studying, and “trying on” different religions and different types of spirituality since I wore a retainer and a turtleneck with frogs smattered on it. Read more

I’ve never been more in love. Since I was a tiny tot I’ve been an organizational freak and used to line up all my patent leather Mary Janes with level precision so that I could hide crackers and Halloween treats in them. My shoes are still lined up, though I now keep the crackers in the cupboard and the Halloween candy has its own drawer, so when I saw this 2012 Declutter and Organize Calendar on mysimplerlife.com I nearly passed out with joy.

Why is this the #1 gift you can give yourself in 2012? Well, I wrote about it a bit here but suffice it to say that when you’re surrounded by heaping mounds of crap it affects so many areas of your life; your spirit, your mental health, your ability to get stuff done, your energy levels. There are even health benefits in decluttering. Clearing your space of clutter opens you up energetically to expand (and even to receive more – though do you really need another pair of Jimmy Choo’s?) Read more