Simple Hobby Homesteading

Heya everyone and welcome to Simple Hobby Homesteading where we navigate the ins and outs of life together encouraging one another along the way. Eight months ago my husband announced that we ought to clean our bedroom. Like not just a little pickup but a full blown purge fest where we actually GOT RID of things. I shuddered. You must understand that my husband and I think very differently about “stuff”. I love it and he… well, let’s just say he’s not a fan of a lot of stuff. We are blessed with a house with a TON of storage so I have been able to amass quite a collection of “stuff”… in fact, several collections of “stuff”. It seems my “stuff” has its own collections of “stuff.”

To be fair, our bedroom has Kevin’s adjoining office and my adjoining craft room so the purge Kevin was looking for involved both of our collections of “stuff.” As the weekends would roll around he or I would mention tackling our bedroom and adjoining rooms but lo’ and behold something always came up and we never really got around to it. Then Kevin was diagnosed with cancer and went through treatment so we couldn’t be all heavy duty cleaning out stuff when he was all battling cancer. I breathed a sigh of relief… is that wrong? Wow, I sound really insensitive.

After his treatment he slowly started to get his energy back and we went back to mentioning “The great bedroom clean out of the century” like it was a pay per view event on random weekends but never jumped on any follow-through.

Well folks, guess what happened this last weekend? IT happened. The great bedroom cleanout of the century!  We got the bedroom, master bathroom, closet, and Kevin’s office completely cleaned and purged and it felt… ooh I’d love to say extraordinary or wonderful but to be honest it felt exhausting and I’m still struggling over many of the things I that let go.

Folks I found my pullovers from high school swim team, cross country, track and wrestling! I found my Air Force European World Tour jacket from my time stationed in Europe. Air Force uniforms, prom dresses, chef’s coats and aprons, birthday cards and sweet notes from my sons, journals filled with all my thoughts, worries, celebrations, and triumphs… just so many things that held great memories that I didn’t know what to do with. We found Kevin’s leather jacket that he sent with me when we parted ways after Keesler AFB… don’t worry we got married 3 months later. Just so many things that held very little, if any, meaning for anyone else but flooded me with the best emotions and memories as I held each item.

Let me just say Kevin was amazing through it all, getting rid of 6 huge garbage bags of his stuff… treasured Orioles and Redskins jerseys that he knew he’d never wear again. And yes, I parted with most of my stuff, though truth be told Jackson (my 22 year old son who is a bit of a packrat like his mama) talked me into keeping the swim team pullover promising me that he’d pass it down to his kids after I die so that eventually perhaps it will get to a great great great grandkid down the line who will look at it and say “Who’s Jhenna?” I did find a good home for my Air Force uniforms with the local Civil Air Patrol. I kept one tote worth of memorabilia and that tote is tucked in a closet within our closet… see I told ya we had a lot of storage!

Ok, so where the heck am I going with all of this? Well, now when I walk into our uncluttered space we’ve made in our bedroom I truly do enjoy it. It’s a space that I want to keep tidy and organized and I can honestly say that as I let go of the stuff it felt ok to because I jotted down some of the memories in my current journal… I literally wrote in my journal “parting ways with my Service Dress Uniform and blues today… they are heading to the Evansville Civil Air Patrol and hopefully will be put to good use. I will keep my ribbon rack, nametag, and General’s Aide braid… that feels right. Saying goodbye to a uniform that I never need to wear again helps me close that chapter of my life. I wouldn’t have even been able to fit in those uniforms anyways… I am no longer a size 2!” As I see what I was able to let go of it encourages me to let go of more unneeded stuff.

So now I have this bedroom that is spacious and inviting and I’m actually sitting here thinking, “What do I love about this space?” What things do I want to do to keep it relaxing, inviting, and cozy?”

First of all I love the made bed. There is just something about a made bed that makes a room feel put together and inviting. Also, there is nothing quite as luxurious as crawling into a made bed at night. So folks, just make your bed… BUT, don’t make it right away. Something I learned long ago from an article I read was that it is best to pull your blankets and sheets back all the way to the foot of the bed each morning when you get up and let it all air out for a bit before you make itup. If direct sunlight can hit it even better! I usually come down have a cup of coffee, take the dogs out on their walk , then head up to brush my teeth and I make the bed then. Also another tip on beds… wash your sheets every week at least! If you are a “shower right before bed every night” kind of person then you can go a little longer in between sheet washes but still wash your pillow cases weekly or twice  a week. If you don’t shower before bed then it’s a really good idea to wash your sheets every week. Trust me, research shows that you want to do this. Just to give you a quick idea… dust mites feed on dead skin cells and guess where there’s a lot of dead skin cells? Yup, your bed. Guess what else exasperates allergies? Dust mites! Let’s take the buffet away from the mites! The buildup of normal bacteria in the sheets can often make eczema worse as well so if you or your spouse deal with eczema that’s another reason to wash your sheets at least weekly.

Ooh speaking of sheets, if you don’t have a cedar chest then I highly recommend getting some cedar boards and lining the closet or chest where you keep your sheets and pillow cases with the cedar boards… nothing better than fresh sheets that smell of cedar! Cedar is a natural moth and bug repellant as well!

Some other things that I love to have in my bedroom, especially on my bedside table or in the drawer, are a good lotion to put on my face and hands right before I fall asleep. Ooh and a nice pillow or sheet spray. They are so easy to make… spray bottle (I recommend a glass spray bottle) with witch hazel mixed with a couple drops of your favorite essential oil (lavender would be great or a rosemary/peppermint or lemongrass/sage combo). I do sell those if anyone is interested just let me know. I also love to keep a Bible and my current “bedtime book” next to my bed. My bedtime book is almost always a fiction book… a great novel that I can read when my brain needs some wind down time. A bottle of water is also a must have on the nightstand!

Have a couple plants in your room… live plants improve your mood! I also love having a couple beeswax candles and a diffuser in my room with my favorite relaxing scents.

If you can set up your room so your bed gets the mornings first natural light that would be awesome… it helps your body wake up naturally.

Hmmmm what else is good… ooh a notebook! Keep a notebook and a pen or pencil on your bedside table to write down anything on your mind before bed that you’re worrying or thinking about. It also makes for a funny conversation starter when I wake up in the morning and see I’ve written “oatmeal loves dandelion fog secretions” in the middle of the night because I didn’t want to forget an amazing blog article idea! If anyone can decipher what I was thinking when I wrote that in the middle of the night please do share… to be fair the penmanship was chicken scratch at best and those might not be the exact words that I wrote but that’s what it looked like.

That’s about it… seriously, it’s that simple. Pull out the extra stuff that is cluttering your bedroom and make it a nice relaxing space that you can’t wait to go to each night… or even during the day if you need some decompression time.

~Jhenna