More from The Land of Purge

They make everything look neat, tidy, and current.

But do they know of the Whole Phamily? Nope. In the land of nod it's the whole family.  In the land of purge we are the Whole Phamily. 

A few weeks ago I got rid of 10 bags of unnecessary stuff, and yet the stuff keeps coming.  Aside from the fact that we might move later this year, I prefer to keep things minimal. I loathe when things pile up. I learned well from my mom  get rid of stuff you don't use.  I wish I could do better.  I admire friends who really do live minimally.  Less is more is powerful  Extra stuff isn't good for one's feng shui (wow, now that's a blast from the past!)

A tip of the hat to my blog title post

Goodbye to the following:  

I tried teaching Nistar how to make these classic barrettes from my childhood.  Ixnay on that one.

This is a kippah Nistar made at camp. Nice effort.  Stango wore it a few times.  She agreed to get rid of it. 

This is a wallhanging Nistar made for me.  Complete with an original baby picture of me she cut!  No, she didn't ask!  Don't have the heart to throw away yet.

This silly hat was sitting in the boy's kippa box for years.  It is now relegated to its proper spot:  the dress up box.  Which only gets used these days when we have preschoolers over.  

The hat maker is some famous company.   It is from my husband's youth.  Note the old school handwriting inside the hat, identifying my DH as its rightful owner.  As if other kids brought this type of thing to camp.  I guess Stango was long-outside the box.  

This isn't my house but our friend's where we recently visited.  Love this minimal, clutter-free room.  An

inspiration.  

Totally inspired now to finally get rid of my high school and college papers.  Over the years I have been whittling them down but it is finally the time to recycle it all.  Considering I was a poor writer in college, there is zero reason to save that junk.  Maybe I will keep one or two papers.  That is it!  

Boy that's gonna be an awesome feeling! 

Thank you Mrs Hollinger! And belated Happy Hanukkah

The best art teacher ever.  Hands down. My mom saved this for years.  And now I have saved it for years.  And now I put my 2nd or 1st or 3rd grade project in the garbage.  Wait wait. Maybe my children will say, "why don't I have some of mama's original artwork from when she was a kid,"

Nope.  Just asked the 10 year old.  "Yeah mama, put it on your blog. Perfect solution."

We Built This City...

On rock and roll, you hum?  No!  On compost.  Kudos, congrats, kol hakavod to New York City for running a pilot city compost program.

While visiting my sister Reba this week I saw the bins along her street.  Naturally the neighborhood is the perfect place to try it out:  she lives in a part of Brooklyn where you have a lot of organic food pushers.  So glad NYC is moving along with this.

Further to my music reference above, I am happy to report that my end of year visit to Manhattan was wonderful all around.  It was fueled by the music that I love best.  I saw friends and family both at the shows and in the times in between. We went to museums, consumed many a brunch, walked through Central Park with the kinderlach, and hung with the cousins. Levi did well with his mama out two nights in a row and I was grateful to my sister and brother in law for facilitating that.  Sadly I didn't allow my children to watch a movie on New Year's Eve, and that was a break with their tradition.  My children were acting way overtired so I just made them to to bed by 10.   Why I couldn't get it together for them to be sitting at a movie by 8 I don't know why.  Oh right I have a baby.  But what about my Stango help?  Obviously I failed in delegating and giving him some guidance.  Gotta work on that. 

While I would love to wax poetic about how Madison Square Garden is the most festive, fun, youthful, for-kids-of-all-ages-perhaps-15-and-over celebration in all of New York City, I gotta get dressed and make school lunches.

And just because you should see the greatness of what New Year's Eve could look like


 And here's to 30 years of Phish (didn't see it yet as I didn't go to the New Year's show)



If it was the secular New Year that means that Chinese New Year is coming up which means it's time to make Marci's "chinese New Year's cookies!"  I have had the ingredients for a while now.

Oh, so much to do...
And just because