New Personal Alignment?

My personal alignment for the last 11 weeks has been Self Care, which at the time was what I needed.
However, Rachel recently said in class that she changed her alignment because her old one was no longer motivating her to do her project. I felt the same about mine so I did some thinking and decided I needed a change as well.
I feel like I have absorbed a lot of the self-care practices I have been using. There are things that when I chose this alignment I hoped I could achieve, but it doesn't align with my most important goal, which is to pass my classes and finish school. Self care kept telling me to go to bed early, prioritize myself over my work... which hasn't worked out too well. I have a hard time working on anything because I'd rather be taking time for myself.

I thought, what would motivate me to do my projects? What is the thing that gets me excited about my work? What makes me feel good?

Beauty.

Making beautiful art, and beautifying my home... that is the goal.

I experimented with it this week, and tried to find little ways to make my space more beautiful. Part of that was the pictures I put on my desk. I also used to have a fern on my desk that was looking pretty shabby. So I replaced it with a simple lucky bamboo, planted in a ceramic pot that I made myself. I also rearranged my giraffe collection in my bedroom and hung up my antique style map that makes me feel like home.

 
I guess the goal is not only to have a clean house or a beautiful house, but make it MY house. Since I moved in with Thad I haven't really felt like it's our place, more like he was sharing his place with me. It's nothing he's done, it's just me feeling insecure and unimportant. So doing these little things like putting up maps and lighting candles and putting out pictures of my family make it feel a little more like my space too, because I deserve to have some sanctuary that makes me feel safe and at home.

Beauty doesn't have to just be visual things either. You can smell, taste, hear, and even feel things that are beautiful. For example, I made a home cooked meal today, which made the house smell beautiful and tasted even more so. And we lit candles as we sat down to dinner, with beautiful music playing in the background.
The recently vacuumed floor feels much better on my feet, and we just replaced the sheets on the bed with nice soft cotton ones, which feel nice.

As I surround myself with beautiful things and experiences, I will begin to notice things that are less beautiful and work to make them better. Instead of ignoring the dog toys lying all over the floor, I grabbed a crate and put them all in it so the dogs can grab out toys when they want and we have a place to put them when they're not in use.

So as I work to declutter and clean my home, I have two criteria for whether something stays or goes.
1. Does it actually serve a purpose or have I used it in the last month?
2. Is it beautiful?

Sometimes things don't have to serve any other purpose but to beautify a space. Bonus points if it's functional AND beautiful (like handmade ceramic pots!)

So far I like this new alignment. We'll see how it goes.

Sorry for the long post, but I was kind of working all of this out as I wrote. A lot of this was vague ideas to me until I got it into words.

A new place to stay! (Maybe?)

Part of my project is trying to find a place in Redmond to sleep during the week to cut down my commute. It would save me around $250 a month in gas, plus between 9 and 12 hours a week driving (that's like 2 classes worth of homework time!). So far nothing has worked out that is in my price range, until now.

I visited my family for my birthday recently. While I was with them, I told them about some of the projects I'm working on for school, including  my house project. I told them about how I almost had a place in Redmond but it didn't work out. My dad then offered to let me use his 28 foot trailer since he only needs it 2 weeks out of the year.
It's a really nice trailer with propane heating, a full kitchen and bathroom (including a shower, though it needs a little work).

That makes things much easier. I don't have to rely on someone else now, and it should be easier to find a cheap place to park it than to find a cheap place to stay. I'm currently researching options for mobile home parks and private properties. I've talked to a few people who are helping me look for a spot. My only requirement is an electric hookup (which can be as simple as an extension cord), and WiFi would be nice but I can manage without. I can afford up to $250/month.

Progress on My House

This is my bedroom dresser

 The living room

 My desk

Closeup of the pictures on the desk

Just inside the door. 

My shelf

In a Rut

I have this class called Projects that is a time sink. I am putting in so many hours a week on my project, and then weekly animations on top of that, that my other classes are suffering. I'm at risk of failing a 3D texturing class because I have't been able to devote the time needed to make my assignments look good. So the past few weeks I've been devoting more time to the classes that I've been neglecting. But I can't just pull more time from nowhere... And I'm not going to pull even more time from sleep. I need it for my health, and I already sacrifice too much of it.
So as a result, I have not been focusing very much on working on my house. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. Well, at least the living room is. The kitchen is staying relatively clean.
I did manage to clean off my desk and put it all in a box... but it didn't stay clean for long. So now I have stuff piled on my desk AND I have 2 boxes full of stuff I have to organize. That was a fail.

I need to make some time to devote fully to my house. But I'm worried that even after I get it clean it will revert back to the way it is. I know the idea of this whole project is to not just clean and organize, but GET RID OF a lot of the clutter so it will be less likely to get messy in the future. But I still can't help feeling like I should have chosen a project that has a more permanent and definite result.

I know that this was what I needed to do right now. But I don't feel like it's what I want... if that makes sense.

I also need to explore more ways to practice self care when I can't do things like get more sleep. I have physically been feeling really cruddy for the last few weeks due to a health issue, and it's possible that this will last up to a few months.
I have no doubt that self care is what I need, but I'm not sure how much I can do with it at this point.

More Free Stuff

So, I'm fairly good at starting a blog, but traditionally very bad at keeping it up.
The last Free Stuff Friday was just before Halloween. This time I didn't have a box ready to go. Instead of just grabbing what I already knew I was going to give away, I decided to try something new.
In the past, I would choose a box, and sort the things in it into separate boxes for "keep" "give away" and "trash". This time, I took an empty box, and picked through all the boxes to find things to give away with the goal of filling the box. I actually more than filled it. There was much better stuff in this batch. Things that were harder to get rid of.
Some of it included: a Trigun Necklace that was a gift from a friend so many years ago, that I never wear. Also, about 200 gel pens plus lots of black paper to draw on. A belt from Hot Topic with lots of chains and rings hanging off of it. An Eddie Bauer jacket (a contribution from Thad). A polaroid camera.
It was cool to show things to the class and see people shoot their hands up to claim it before anyone else.

I hope that these can get better and better each time.

I have one more presentation before the final ship. I'm thinking I'll bring in one more box for that presentation. Then for the final, bring the remainder of it. If I do this right, it will be a large number of boxes.