I’ve just finished reading the Subtle Art of not Giving A Fuck and it has led me to consider where I should give my fucks and also to where not to give my fucks. I’ve also been reading a lot about organizing and decluttering and getting rid of stuff. One problem I have got with this is, what is the best thing to do with all the stuff I am purging? Some is easy, I give it to someone who I know will use it. Some stuff has been dragged out to the kerb where it has disappeared in minutes. But sometimes I end up with a couple of bags or boxes with stuff in and I don’t know what to do with it. So part of this blog will include local resources for where to take your stuff and hopefully finding out some more good places where I can take my stuff (ex-stuff).

I live in Toronto, I live in a house with my husband and 2 kids. This is where my life is at. Saying this, is not calling out and judging others. I’m starting where I am at. So I’m not living on a commune, growing all my own food, eating a vegan diet and only using handmade tools and wearing handmade clothes. This does not make me a bad person. Nor you a bad person if this is your life style. Start where you’re at.

This should be one of my “splendid truths of adult hood”. A phrase stolen from Gretchen Rubin, an author who I also love but who doesn’t say fuck much (or at all) in any of her books. “Start Where You Are At”.

I often feel judged when I read stuff online. Much of it seems to say – you are not doing enough, enough parenting, enough for the environment, enough volunteering for stuff, enough work, it’s never enough.

So I have decided to stop comparing myself to others, because after a life time of never feeling enough, I shall speak the words and they will be so. Or not. However, I shall move towards feeling enough.

Perhaps that should be the title of this post – Moving Towards Feeling Enough. All throughout my life, no matter how shitty I have felt, I have always been 100% certain that the only thing you can do is take another step forward. So sometimes I sit on the path and cry and feel sorry for myself, but then I get up again and keep going. Sometimes I sit on the path and want to go to sleep, but then I realize it’s only 8:15am and I have to take the kids to school so I  keep moving. And other times are splendid and I want to hold those times in place too but inevitably time moves on but I try to hold those times in my head to make it easier to get up the next time I’m sitting on the path.

And all of these things are jumbled up in my head and I need a place to put them down and sort through them and organize them. Life is often overwhelming and half the time my inner monologue is a repetition of “WTF? Are you f’ing kidding me??” so I’m moving forward with my, as honest as possible, a little bit sweary, blog in the hopes of catching the useful thoughts before they float away and are once again, gone forever, as age and parenting and adulting are wont to do to our thoughts.

Emma

Emma Nicholson is mostly a stay-at-home Mum to her two boys. While they are at school she is an SEO aficionado (but only for her husband’s website) and dabbles in photoshop. Her other passions include gardening and trying to save the world by using less plastic while staying true to herself and de-clutter the family home.

By writing this blog she hopes to build up a list of local resources to help cut down on stuff going in landfills and live a more sustainable life while figuring out a way to be more content.

Emma grew up in Scotland and now lives in Toronto, and despite having a Masters degree she still has a bit of an inferiority complex, coming from a family full of people with PhDs and various other heady accomplishments. Oh, and she also did an Environmental Management certificate with UofT and some sewing classes because why not?