Fixing my Chi ...

Random – Things have been a bit crazy around the house lately. My wife has been doing some organizing of the main living spaces when she's not meeting the demands of our infant. Besides just sorting through and throwing out unneeded stuff she's been analyzing what we use the various spaces in our home for and trying to make them more functional for what we use each room for.

Part of the tool kit she's been using is a interesting book called Move Stuff Change Your Life. This is a useful guide that breaks down the ideas of Feng Shui into something easy to understand with simple fixes to things that could be messing up your chi. 

The basic idea is your house consists of nine zones each of which represent an aspect of your life. Each of these aspects has different colors, materials and concepts associated with them. By putting stuff that is positively associated with each aspect in the right area you bring positivity to that part of your life. If you put stuff that is negative to that aspect you bring negativity to that part of your life.

Pretty simple concept really and with the layout of our house most of the areas already sort of align with the right areas. We spent a day over the weekend moving some stuff around and rehanging art in different places and can already feel a difference. (Of course this could just be because moving things feels good ... but I'm fine with placebos)

That was a long convulted way of getting to my point. After looking at the main living spaces I decided to look at the basement which contains my workshop and hobby area. 

I've been in a bit of a funk lately. Overwelmed with projects I decided to focus on just getting something done. However I'm failing to make progress in part because there are so many distractions in my space that I'm having a hard time focusing. Big boxes of stuff that needs my attention, piles of half finished terrain projects, stacks of scrap foam and random garbage. Honestly it was starting to look like an episode of horders.

Armed with a Sam's Club size box of garbage bags I set about making a dent in the mess. For some reason we tend to hang onto tons of stuff just because we might need it, an example being wrapping boxes, bags and papers. Rather than just throw these things out I held onto them thinking I could use them again, however every Christmas I buy new boxes or get gift boxes from the place I by gifts and we collect more and more.

Old kids toys and crafting stuff also was taking up tons of space. For some reason people just give us "stuff we might use" which is nice and all but if it was junk when they got rid of it most likely it's still junk. Don't get me wrong I did find some gems in this stuff but most of it made its way to the trash. 

Moving into my workshop proper I sorted through all the various "might be terrain" containers boxes and scrap I had and pitched a ton of it. Only keeping things that have a real value or obvious funtion I was able to pair it down to just a few boxes of foam and bits. I also broke down and threw out all the miscasts from my attempts at using mold for terrain. Sure molding your own stuff can save money and time but you also wind up with a ton of wasted material. I always assumed I could use it one day as a damaged part or something ... but really it just takes up space.

After 12+ hours of sorting and reorganizing I feel like I made a dent in it. The immediate effects are pretty amazing, I found a bunch of stuff I forgot I had and set up a list of projects to finish now that I have a clearer picture. I also have several boxes of stuff that has enough value that I'm going to try and ebay it off and generate some revenue from the clean up.

Now I just need to figure out how to pack 3'x3' Malifaux boards up to sell off...if you're interested in any of the various boards I've shown on the site shoot me an email.