Declutter/Organize and Re-energize

This month the decluttering/organizing included:
*Going through our coat closet and taking a bag to Goodwill of coats we haven't worn in the last two years.
*Filing the huge pile of papers on the desk that haven't actually made it the last foot into the file cabinet yet.  The paperwork from the purchase of our trailer (over a year ago) was at the bottom of the pile.
*Recycling the pile of magazines on Gabe's nightstand.  (Rolling Stone and Wired issues from the last 2 years.)  And he reads his magazines digitally now anyway!
*"Disappearing" and reorganizing some of Levi's toys.
*Sorting through 2 big boxes of cords, plugs, wires and other miscellaneous electronic items.  Was able to get Gabe to cut the collection by 3/4!  (10 years ago I had no idea Gabe was such a pack rat.)  I will get him in the garage to declutter...but it probably won't happen this month!
*While sorting through boxes of miscellaneous electronic items, we found quite a collection of old cell phones.  (Including both of our first phones!  Those original cell phones logged hours of our first conversations and flirtations.  Is it weird that I should feel sentimental about a cell phone?)  They'll all be recycled tomorrow!
*Total clean-out of my car.  Including vacuuming out sand from beach trips in August.  Now we need to take it through the car wash and get the outside to match the inside.  We took Gabe's RS through the car wash today, which was awesome because it hasn't been washed outside in 4+ years!
*Creating a chore chart for Levi.  He's ready to help out around here and earn an allowance of course!

Oh, and Gabe did a little project this afternoon too.  He ran some new networking wires to make our network run faster.  I'm glad it makes him happy.

Re-energizing included:

The purchase of new running shoes!  And lots of runs after school.
And new pillows for Gabe and me.  The new shoes are awesome.  New pillows...too firm for me but Gabe loves them and is happy with them!  I will have to try again.

I also signed Gabe and myself up for 4 runs this spring/summer.  Portland parks has these $5 5K runs and we're excited to give them a try.  I also signed Levi up to run the kids 1k in May and September.  We had a huge conversation last week about how he really wants to win a trophy.  In discussing the idea more during dinner, he decided (of his own accord) that he wanted to win the trophy by racing.  I don't think they'll give out trophies to the kids.  Anyone have any old trophies they'd be willing to part with...I'm sure we could modify them to please our little runner.

One way I thought we might make this a year of happiness for Levi is to let him have more choice in what we do during our family time on the weekend.  So today we gave him a choice of three activities to do this morning:
1. "Hike" in Tryon Creek park (and coffee/warm cocoa afterward since it was 25 degrees at 8am.)
2. Swimming at the community center
3. Bowling
Guess what he chose?

Pretty hard to believe that January is almost over already!