Moving On Up

I stopped into the new location of Village Merchants, which I first mentioned in this post a while back.  They are my favorite thrift store in town, which I thought might change after they moved, but they are even better now if that can be believed.  They are now on SE Division & 41st, about 7 blocks from their old building, which I heard I going to be torn down to make way for a new building.  Village Merchants is now bigger and better!  I mean, wayyy bigger!  They even have an upstairs!  There's more parking too, not that that was a huge problem before.  Now it'll be easier to lug bags of stuff I want to sell inside though.  Whoooppeee!!

Today was half great and half "Huh?"  I had dim sum with my friend Ann at a great place called Ocean City on SE 82nd.  We both had a feast with hot tea for under $20!!  After I ran a couple errands I took a long nap without meaning to.  When I woke up I thought it was only 6pm but it was 7:30!  I watched Twin Peaks with some friends and came back home.  I hope I get more done tomorrow, when I went to bed last night I couldn't sleep until about 4am so I think I just need a fresh start.

I've been thinking a lot about where I was last year with mental health and such, and how far I've come with managing grief, anxiety and depression.  Whoever tells you that there are these stages you go through to get to a healing place are full of crap.  The phases come and go.  I really am in a much better place but I've accepted that I'll be dealing with many of these issues for years to come.  This time last year I was having anxiety and panic attacks everyday, so bad that I went to see a doctor to make sure my heart was working properly.  I still have problems but I'm learning how to manage them instead of hoping they fade away someday.

That said, I couldn't help but notice that the blog post with the most hits was the one tagged with "mental illness".  Ha ha ha!!  Sorry, no big revelations there folks.  

Eeeeek!!

I'm so thrilled, you can really see the floor in my new photos!  And those piles of boxes?  Disappearing as we speak, because I'm finally using them up.  I still have a conundrum about getting rid of some furniture, as well as a number of lamps that I don't yet have a use for.  They're kind of heirlooms though, I don't want to say goodbye yet.

So far my blog experiment has been an unqualified success.  I'm really following through on the cleanup downstairs and up, and seeing a big change.  There's a long way to go yet but I'm not down about it anymore. I have a different perspective on the manageability of my stuff and the process.

Having this blog to get people to witness this project has got me thinking about other ways I could use blogging to change some of the things I do, or to accomplish goals that I want to achieve.  I don't need an audience for every single thing, but having one in this case really worked.

Here's another view:

Now you can pay attention to the art on the walls instead of the forest of clutter that was there!  I know it's not perfect, but baby steps and all.

I've been reading a book called 9 Highland Road, by Michael Winerip.  My therapist recommended it to me, because I'm interested in reading about mental illnesses.  It's about a group living home for mentally ill folks who are trying to acclimate to life outside psychiatric hospitals.  The actual house is located in a small town on Long Island.  It's about some of the individuals that lived there, as well as their counselors and their experiences getting along in the community.  There's nothing like reading this to let me know that my problems are small.