The Case of the Lice Infestation

I have terrible news....There's a lice infestation in my house. Miraculously I didn't get any yet, but I am feeling it creeping up slowly, as though it was some cloud of gloomy inevitability.  My poor mom has been dealing with it for so long and now my dad has got it too. I told them from the very beginning, the moment I heard that my mom had lice that we needed to buy the shampoo to kill them. My dad was having a good laugh so he wouldn't go. Now he's gotten it, much to my begrudging delight because now we'll get the shampoo.  I feel so guilty laughing at them, but its all just so funny.  Sure I feel itchy all over, but I have a feeling its more psychological than parasitic in origin.  Its a little funny though.  I have no refused to go anywhere near the couches or the day bed in the living room.  For that matter I just stay in my room and hope to goodness that there's no bugs in my stuff.

The moral of this story is
 a) DON'T share anything with people
 b) always have lice medicine shampoo around
c) always help someone who has lice because you never know if you'll catch those little disgusting buggers yourself
d) eat healthy and be healthy and keep clean at all times

In other news, I've been making a list of the things that I absolutely want to keep for my new minimalist experiment.  I might keep all my decorations because for one thing, they take up very little space and are super colorful  and for another, the rooms at my college are so incredibly tiny and gringy that you  need a lot of colorful things to make it seem less creepy.  I remember when I was cleaning out my room and it was so depressing and scary to stay in my empty apartment alone that I had to beg my friend to come spend time with me while I finished packing.  It was also at that time that I realized I had a huge problem with the amount of stuff that I owned.  Only a few weeks earlier, I had cleared out at least two to three drawers and still hung on to silly little things.

I have a tendency to become emotionally attached to my stuff, no matter how stupid or cheap they are. I think the reason was because when I was younger, we moved out of our first house and I was forced to get rid of a lot of my things. In middle school and high school, I refused to buy anything because my father would only buy me clothes and stuff from walmart.  I hated walmart though now I understand better its appeal to so many people.  One day in high school, my cousin gave me two huge boxes of clothes. We sat down and I was simply amazed at how many clothes there were.  Sure I would never buy things, but my dad also wouldn't really buy me anything usually.  I loved to wear skirts and dresses and I wasn't allowed to wear any of them.  He would always make me buy clothes that were two sizes too big and for the great part of my life I looked like I was wearing elephant skin.  I hardly owned a coat or sweater either.

My cousin was shocked that this was a lot of clothes and out of pity kept offering me clothes.  At the time, I thought I dressed really well, though now that I think about I probably still looked super frumpy in my jeans and t-shirts.  Since I now mainly wear skirts and dresses, the thought of my clothing past shocks me. But nothing shocks me more than the realization that I had so much CRAP.  For someone who doesn't like pants I certainly own so many of them.  I own so many cardigans, jackets, coats and scarfs; necklaces, books, nailpolish, and paper; pens, lotions, makeup, etc... and its so overwhelming.  Sometimes I just want to toss out everything and start afresh.

This is why I want to make the journey to owning less.  I think if I do, then I'll stop spending so much money and I'll truly be able to focus on what's really important: my career and myself.  It doesn't matter how many cute dresses you own, but if you can't get a job or if you're constantly depressed you will never feel good about yourself.