A lot of this year for me will be about not going into stores. And the time I would have spent shopping is this gift of free time I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Like today, I went to Target to return a dress that I didn’t end up wearing on New Year’s eve. And normally, I’d return the dress and then go into the store and spend around 20-30 bucks on things I didn’t really need. And I’d waste 20-30 minutes of time doing so. But instead of doing that today, I went home and spent 20-30 minutes reading, which felt like a better use of my time.

Tonight, my boyfriend Mike and I went on a moon hike. (For all of you Californians, I totally recommend it. Check out Devil’s Punchbowl, which is about 1 hr and 15 min from Los Angeles.) I don’t know if its just because this blog was on my mind, but we got to the top of the hill and we were looking out at the full moon above a bed of stars, and I started thinking about all the crap we surround ourselves with… how our lives are cluttered with stuff: pictures and decorations, instruments we never played, and dvds we’ll never watch again, and how it just makes me feel suffocated sometimes. Being out under the moon and seeing the land around me, hows vast and powerful and empty it was made me feel like I could breathe cleanly. And I don’t feel like I can breathe that way when I come home and see my overstocked life.

Just a thought.

-Courtney