Author: Lisa -Southern Patches

Hello everyone, my name is Lisa I am a southern girl born and raised in East Tennessee. I love discovering new places and things to do. I have a lot of favorites, shopping, traveling, knitting and photography are all at the top of my list. I am married with my fur babies my only children. This blog is actually named after my beloved basset hound Patches. She passed away a few years ago but will always have a huge part of my heart. Come with me and we will explore some wonderful places and discover some really fun things. Are you ready?

How Much Stuff Do You Need?

When I was growing up we lived in a very small house. I had six brothers and sisters and we didn’t have a lot of stuff. When I say stuff I mean extra things like a lot of extra clothes, shoes, toys, etc. We lived a very simple life with simple pleasures and those were some of my best most fun memories ever.

Flash forward to today. My house is bursting at the seams with “stuff” most of it things I don’t even use anymore. I am ashamed to say that I have found clothes in my closet with tags still on them. I had bought them and put them in my closet and forgot about them. What a waste.

I am blessed to have what I need and then some but do you ever find that the more you have the more stressful it becomes. Clutter is something I hate. Too many decisions can cause extra stress. I have heard that 80% of women only wear 20% of their clothes and jewelry. I really believe this is true.

Throughout the year I have tried to reduce the clutter in my house and life. See my post about clearing the clutter part 1. I have tried to be more selective about what I bring into my house. If you saw the things in my basement you might doubt this is true. But I have been clearing, organizing, donating, and getting rid of things I don’t need or haven’t used. It really frees my mind. My husband is the worlds worst pack rat. He doesn’t want to get rid of anything. I found an old Linda Ronstadt T shirt in his closet that he has had since high school. He refused to give it up because he says its a collectors item. He has lots of things like that. Right now some of you might be saying “Linda who?”

I often push clothes that I don’t wear or can’t wear to the back of my closet. After a certain amount of time if I haven’t worn them I take them out and get rid of them. Hmmm yes I admit sometimes it might be a few years. What???? Someone could be using those things.

I am starting with clothes and accessories and books. I have already donated things to a local organization several times this year and hope to do this at least once a week until some of this is out of my house and mind.

Here are some things I have found helpful to ask yourself when trying to decide if you should hang onto those clothes or other items

1 Does it fit? If I outgrow something I really love, I put it in a tub and store it in my basement. I will give it a time frame of 6 months or a year or maybe until the next season. If I still can’t wear it then, I give it up.

2. Is this in style? I am not one to go for a lot of trendy items but if you are, look at those items and if it is not something you can make work then give it up.

3. Do I look good in it? If you don’t like how you look in something then you’re not going to feel good wearing it.

4. How long has it been since I wore this? If it has been more than a year then chances are you don’t like this item enough to keep it in your closet.

5. Would I buy this again today? Maybe your taste in that particular type of clothing has changed. Maybe you don’t feel good in a particular color that you used to like. So if you pick something up and say “why did I buy this?” You probably won’t wear it again.

6. Is it stained or damaged? If it is and you can’t fix it you’re probably not going to wear it. I had a pair of Sperrys, I dropped some oil on one of them. It made a huge spot. I couldn’t get it off and I couldn’t bear to give them up, I had only worn them twice. They sat in a box in my closet for about 2 years. I finally gave them up last week.

7. How many of this item do you have? I have a type of shirt I love. I tend to look for that particular type when I shop. Right down to the same color. How many of one type of shirt do I need? How many pairs of black pants? You see where I’m going with this.

8. Could someone else benefit from this more than I can? If you are holding on to it and you know you’re probably not going to wear it think of how it might benefit someone else.

These are just some of the questions I ask myself when I am trying to declutter. It works on other items as well.

I guess one reason I hang onto these things is because I didn’t have a lot of extra things growing up and maybe it gives me security. But I know now that “stuff and things” can’t give you security. It’s just “stuff”

So how much “stuff” do you need?

Love your day your way!!!

Friday Favorites

Happy Friday everyone I hope your week was great. As I promised this will be a weekly post to share with you some of my favorite things from throughout the week. O.k here we go:

1. Some books that I am currently reading. I recently joined a book club and Monday night was my first time attending. I really enjoyed it. There are about 19 ladies in the group and we will meet at a different person’s house or a restaurant every month. We met at one of the members’ houses on Monday and she made baked spaghetti and Christmas punch and several other people brought salad, garlic bread, and dessert. We discussed the book for that month and gave it a score. And then all the scores are averaged to determine what everyone thought of the book. Each person picks a different book each month and the books are already picked for over a year so you have lots of opportunity to get the book and have it read. This is the book for November:

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I loved this book it is about firefighters but not about them fighting fires throughout the entire book. This is not a book I would have normally picked but I loved it. This is what I love about our book group there are so many different kinds of books. This book scored a 3.59 out of 5.00 from our group but I liked it a lot better.

I am also reading the Girl In The Blue Coat . This book is set in 1943 Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. A teenager, Hanneke Bakker, delivers smuggled goods on her bicycle until she is asked to help look for a missing teen who was being hidden in a neighbor’s house.
This book scored a 4.09 out of 5.00 from our group.

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2. I am also loving this mascara by Revlon, it is not clumpy or messy and it goes on very nice.

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3. This journal. It is called, Me A Personal Journal, I ordered it when we were at the Gift Show in Gatlinburg a few weeks ago. If you are interested I can get you the information for it. It has a place for events that are going on, hopes, goals, new ideas etc. and then a full page to write whatever you want. I love this and have been keeping it beside my bed so I can write in it every night.

4. This hair spray is amazing. When I went Black Friday shopping last week Penney’s had this on sale for $7.99. It is usually $12.00-$13.00 and up when you buy it on Amazon or at a beauty supply shop. You can also get it at Walmart at the hair salon but it still is a little pricier than what I paid at Penney’s. This spray is light weight and adds texture to fine or thin hair. It also boosts volume and hold for any hairstyle without heavy buildup. Love it!!!

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Last Friday when my sister and I went black Friday shopping we went to see this move. Instant Family. It is wonderful and heart warming and will just leave you with the best feeling. We loved it. You have to go see it. Mark Wahlberg, Rose Byrne and Octavia Spencer do an awesome job in this movie. We laughed so much. Watch this trailer.

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I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Love your day your way!!

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The Art Of Saying “Thank You”

“Have a good one” This is probably what you hear, quite often, when leaving a retail shop or really any shop. I noticed it about a year ago. Instead of saying “ Thank you” for a purchase or act, people now say “have a good one” or often times in the south, where I am from, you may hear “have a good un”

I know this is probably just the personal rant of an old school southern woman but it bothers me that saying “thank you” and “you’re welcome” or “have a nice day” seems to have been taken out of the everyday language. If you will notice even if you say thank you to a cashier, when it’s actually them that should be thanking you for the purchase, they will often say “no problem”. And sometimes add “have a good one” Saying “have a good one” seems to have taken the place of, “thank you and “have a good day”

I always wonder. Have a good what? A good day is, I am assuming, what the person means but it could be anything. Have a good meal, a good trip, a good tour, a good time, a good whatever. So I guess in reality it could be anything. But why not just say it. It makes it so much more personal.

I Work at a place where there are several shops and ticketing and I am constantly telling our team members to use an appropriate closing after a transaction has taken place. It is actually part of the criteria on our mystery shopper reports. “Thank you” is so easy to say. I still feel that saying it makes people feel valued.

I think a lot of people actually have grown up not hearing this and it is just something they don’t think twice about. Is it sort of falling by the wayside like cursive hand writing?

Hospitality. We are big on that in the south so why am I surprised when I do get a thank you from a cashier at Walmart, or wherever I have dropped a good amount of money for groceries. Shouldn’t it be the norm? And it’s not just Walmart or the other big box stores it’s everywhere.

Oh well as I said just the rant of an old fashioned, old school, dang I guess just an old southern woman. Thank you for reading and Have a good day!!!

I will leave you with a couple of pictures of my fur babies.

Love your day your way!!

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I am Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving for my American friends. Today I hosted Thanksgiving at my house. One of my friends wanted to know if I was going all “Betty Crocker” and I think I just may have. We only had eight people for Thanksgiving but man it was a lot of cleaning (the house) and preparing food and cooking and then cleaning. We had sort of a blended bunch today from both of our families. Mark’s mom came from the assisted living facility, where she is staying, and Mark’s brother. My sister and her husband and my niece and then my sister in law came so we had both sides of our family there and I loved it!!!!!

I cooked from about 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM just before we ate. I also hate for anyone to be in my kitchen cleaning so I felt the need to clean and load the dishwasher. After dinner several of us took a long walk through the woods and enjoyed the beautiful day. It was a great day all around but I am exhausted. I am getting ready to head to bed because me and one of the sisters will be heading out for Black Friday Shopping around 4:00 AM. We are not anxious to get the bargains or anything like that but we love the Christmasey feel in the air and the excitement of being out at 4:00 AM shopping. I know I know, it doesn’t take much for us. With lots of people starting their shopping on Thanksgiving night early Friday morning is now a great time to go. Anyway we will get coffee and eat lunch and we may see a movie before we head home so its just a lot of good quality “Sister Time” my other sister HATES shopping so we don’t even try to get her to come with us.

Things have been really busy and crazy for me the last couple of weeks. Next Friday I will start a Friday Favorites on my blog where I will share with you some of my favorite things I am really liking throughout the week. I did want to catch you up on some of the things that have been up to:

This is a cowl scarf I finished last week and have already worn it twice.

I have been knitting a lot!!! I love knitting in the winter it is just too cozy. It is soothing and I am thinking about teaching a beginner knitter’s class so that everyone can enjoy this.

I have joined a book club. Although Monday night is my first official get together with the other members in the club (They meet once a month) I have been keeping up with the books they have been reading. The reason I wanted to join a group like this is because I loved the diversity in the group and the very different types of books they read and shared with one another. These are books I may not have taken a second glance at before but I am loving them!!! I will share some of them on my Friday Favorites next week.

58 Thanksgiving Baskets ready for distribution.

I am serving as Secretary, Treasurer of my local Kiwanis Club. This is a Civic organization that is global and the main priority is young children. Our community has so many needs that sometimes it is overwhelming. On Saturday we gave out 58 Thanksgiving Baskets to families in our area. Anyway, being the Secretary, Treasurer of this very active organization keeps me very busy.

I have been working out, maybe not as much as I should, but I have been trying to make it a priority several days a week.

The struggle is real!!!!

Add all of this to a very busy work schedule and time just seems to slip away. So what have you been up to? I have missed sharing with you and hope to get back to posting on a regular schedule.

I’m off to bed, 3:30 AM will come quickly and a fun day with the sister will be here soon.

Love your day your way