Organizing, Part 2: S.P.A.C.E.

This is my bare bones method for organizing of any sort.  It has transformed my hectic world into a fluid & fun experience!  The S.P.A.C.E. concept is something I learned from brilliant organizing guru Julie Morgenstern, author of Organizing from the Inside Out.  This system reduces each item in your world to its purpose in your life, creating vacuous space and facilitating fluid function. YAY!

First, thou shalt analyze the area to be made magnificent.  Refer to Organizing Part 1: Get Real with Your Needs.

Sort

Pull out everything in the chosen area and sort strictly according to how you use each item....K....

Purge

Recycle, throw out or archive or store anything that hasn't been used recently.........Mmmmkay...

Assign a Home

Group the keepers according to how you use them and assign them homes where you use them.  Use sticky notes.  Now you will know what, if any, storage container-y things you might need to get.  Make a list.  *I will list my favesie organizers for different areas of the home in a future bloggy thingy.

Contain

Get the containers you need, put your goodies in them. Put the goodies where they go. Label them if there is even the slightest doubt about the obviousness of what goes where. Labels on people: Not Good. Labels on people's stuff: Way Good. *teehee*

Equalize

Keep up on the putting of things in their places day by day. Your system is set to make

that easy, so stay committed. A space for everything and everything in its space! 

Live it, love it, DO IT!!!  It will make your life so fluid.  YAY!!!

Organizing Part 1: Get Real with your Needs

You have to get real with what your needs are before properly organizing any space, especially your personal clothing closet because it's such an extension of you. This is time to get out a sheet of paper and actually list or bubble graph (my fave) answers to each of the 4 questions that follow.

What works for you? What are the areas you know you got it going on, both in life and in the area you are organizing? What about this space makes you smile?

What doesn't work for you? What are you consistently misplacing? Is there any thing you never have a place for? Is there anything that you can't do because of the clutter? How do the disorganized spaces make you feel? If people visit,

do you sketch out about what they might see?

What is super crucial to you? What makes you? What moves you? What do you need to have ready to go at any given time?

Why are you doing this? Make a list or graph or collage or something like that of all the blessed lightness you will enjoy when your space is organized. Hang it in the space until the project is done (or keep it up if its pretty).

Now you will have real intention behind your organizing project & it will be fun & enlightening, & long term functional. YAY!!!! 

Making Kombucha Home Brew

So, recently I had an excessively fermented kombucha scoby and a buildup of empty store bought kombucha bottles in the recycling bin.   This was my cue to get back into home brewing kombucha- it's the best anyways.

Here you see a close up of the overgrown scoby. 

Like everything, it starts with water:
Boil water.  Make tea.  Dissolve sugar into tea.  Allow to cool completely.  Pour into glass gallon jar.  Add scoby & mother liquid.  Top off with water to fill jar.

This is the original recipe I got from the local soul sister that gave me my original kombucha culture 2 years ago.

I used 3 green and 3 black tea bags. I used organic unbleached white sugar even though I've heard straight white sugar works the best because its so purified.  I should note that everything I used in the process I cleaned with white vinegar first.  Vinegar is awesome for cleaning!!!

The brew.  In three weeks I will have some magical living tea!  Yay!!!!  I'll keep you posted....

Running Away With Myself

I am completely floored by this new running technique. It's a timeless concept, but the book by ultra marathoner Danny Dreyer has been around since 2004. There is a book, and audio guide, a DVD & a whole interwebby world ChiLiving.com that hosts a companion Chi Walking program & a bunch of wellness resources.

So you're familiar with the chi concept, right? Well, chi is our life force and the living force in all things. Immeasurable wavelengths of chi flow within and between and around and (insert preposition) ______________ all things. Hey, what's a preposition? Anywhere the chi can flow. Hahaha.

Chi is constantly in motion. Tensions obstruct or skew its powerful flow. The manifestation of that in the body is stress and inflammation. Those things are notorious demons to runners. All athletes really. Heck, All people really!

The Chi Running idea works the tai chi concept of energy connectivity and flow. Your whole body can move and flow fast and smooth by releasing tensions and connecting your chi with the chi of everything around you in a balanced and circuitous motion.

So running Chi Running style is just assuming a 1 legged pose & falling forward. Letting your instinct prevent your fall, you assume the same pose on the other side. Lower legs and small muscle groups are left relaxed & the big core muscle groups do the work so your joints don't get thrashed by static pavement pounding. The middle of your foot strikes the ground, protecting your ankles & knees. All of the jerky bouncing is replaced by smooth circular motions & you go way farther, faster, without fatigue.

Posture is super important. If you keep very centered and long you avoid being a wobbly wheel on the road- or as I like to say, "running all wonky". I pretend that the crown of my head is hanging from a cable & my spine & neck hang like a cord from my head. From this hangs my fountain of chi- the hip carriage. The cable, in my mind pivots from a central point in the solar plexus zone, between heart, navel & middle spine.

I got a lot of cool visualizations from the Chi Running audio guide (available as a CD or .mp3). The one about the turning of the internal wheel at that solar plexus pivot point strikes me as total genius. I picture a wheel powered by breath & heart that turns me down my path. If my wheel is aligned, it glides smoothly wherever I will it. The four corner connecting points for my limbs become cog-like extensions of that main wheel.

I picture my inner cougar, too. I empathize & imagine myself like the mountain lions that are naturally perfectly adapted to moving swiftly in this environment. I feel myself being supple and relaxed as well a s strong and intentional, just like a real cougar!

Chi Running & focus on running & form & the juju of it all totally renews my motivation to move! I feel like this is a precious gem of knowledge & I want to share it with you so we can all be out there enriching life by running with understanding & flow.

If you've ever been vaguely interested in running, you should check this scene out. It's completely amazing. If you see me on the road, high-five!

Scat on the Path

Sometimes that "Harajuku" moment comes from shit. Literally.

Bear Scat (foreground) & Wildcat Scat (behind, to the right) 

One of my favorite parts of trail running is seeing all of the animal tracks & scat. It makes me feel wild to be out there with the other creatures.

I was on The Challenging Path of Blessings this morning & the trail had lots of poop on it. I especially enjoyed seeing wild cat scat next to bear scat. It is similarly amusing when there is cat poo next to dog poo.

As much as running is one foot after the other, it is one life lesson after another. Integration of body, mind & soul in motion keeps me floating down the path and makes me fairiii flit through my terrestrial existence, even when there's poo on the path. This is a light life.  Sigh.....

The View from a Turn Around.  Eureka is under that fog blanket 😉