Rise and shine, it’s running time! 
I went to bed last night thinking about my 5-mile run in the morning. At the time, I didn’t think I would want to get out of bed for it, but when I opened my eyes and saw the sun shining, I threw on my running gear and headed out right out the door. Sometimes not thinking about a workout and just doing it, makes it so much easier to get started.
While waiting for my Garmin to load, I snapped a self-portrait. (Yes, I rocked a Dove deodorant tank top. I’m cool like that! ;-))
I tried to work on my pace on my run this morning. Usually, I go out pretty fast and end up losing steam toward the end. I started at a medium pace and tried to pick up my speed toward the end of the run. Here are my splits:
- 9:15
- 9:15
- 9:14
- 9:07
- 8:46
Total: 45:38
Breakfast
After my run, I stretched and showered, and then hit the kitchen to make breakfast. Oatmeal was on my mind this morning, so I made the creamiest bowl of banana oats.
In the mix:
- 1/2 cup old-fashioned outs
- 1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
- 1/2 cup water
- 1 ripe banana
- Ground flaxseed meal
- Chopped walnuts
- 2 scoops of Barney Butter
Stainless Steel Straws for a Steal
If you’ve been wanting to buy some stainless steel straws, today’s your lucky day! 
You can buy the stainless steel straws for just $15 ($7 off the regular price). The deal gets you a variety of surgical-grade stainless steel straws:
- 4 large straws (9.5″ in length)
- 4 small straws (7.0″ in length)
- 1 straw cleaning brush
- They are dishwasher safe and have a bend for your sipping comfort!
To hit up the deal, *click here*. Gina and I are doing a cross promo, so if you buy her glass straws + my stainless steel straws, you can save an extra 10% by entering the code āTinaGinaāĀ at checkout.
Lunch
I’m heading to NuVal for the afternoon, so I packed a lunch to take with me: vanilla yogurt with Kashi cereal, red grapes, and some coconut cashews.
Pack Rat or Minimalist?
I found another thing that I can’t part with: my college acceptance letters! Is that weird? Like my photo albums, I just can’t seem to throw them away. They still mean a lot to me.
College acceptance letters? I find it kind of strange that I can’t seem to part with them considering the other things that I’ve thrown away in the past few days– some of which might horrify you and will definitely freak out my mom. (Sorry, Mom!) Here’s what I’ve tossed:
- Graduation programs from high school, college, and grad school
- School papers, essays, reports, notebooks, etc.
- Old report cards
- Trophies, awards, and certificates
- Notes from middle school and high school
- Programs from school plays, dance recitals, band concerts, etc.
- All prom and formal dresses
- Almost every card ever given to me (accept for a few from Mal and my mom)
- Our Save the Dates from our wedding
- Our wedding program
- Our wedding invitations!!! (I’m pretty sure my mom and sister have a copy.)
I’ve even tried to donate my wedding dress a few times, but my mom won’t let me. She’s very protective of it and wants one of her granddaughters to wear it someday. Oh, Mom. I wonder if there’s room for it in her new trailer? š
Is it weird that I’m not more attached to these things? I guess my minimalist husband has finally worn off on me. He tosses everything!
Feel Great Weight
Check out this week’s Feel Great Weight post about speeding up your metabolism: 5 Ways to Rev Up Metabolism and Jump-Start Weight Loss.
Question of the Day
Are you a pack rat or a minimalist?
108 Comments
I definitely have pack rat tendencies, but try to get rid of as much stuff as I can! My mom is a major pack rat and I don’t want to end up with tons of junk in 20 years.
Pack rat. Althought trying to be more of a minimalist!
I find that moving helps me become more of a minimalist. I still have every college newspaper – for 4 years…
i am definitely a minimalist. my fiance, on the other hand, is a pack rat. he gets it from his mom who literally has an entire garage FULL of old stuff that they NEVER use. i am slowly trying to break him of his intense saving ways!
i am probably more of a pack rat but living in a 1-bedroom apartment makes it hard to keep too much… although I have a ton of things stored in the bedroom i grew up in!
Scan in those letters, or photograph them. Then toss ’em!
Ooooh! I see that you have a Bowdoin acceptance letter! That’s where I went to school….:) I’m glad to see that you liked the school enough to apply to it. Where did you end up going?
A minimalist for sure. After moving so many times in and out of dorms and apartments in college, I appreciate the clutter free method of living. Memories are more important than momentos to me.
I definitely take after my grandmother who keeps EVERYTHING. A few times a year I make a point to take a few large trashbags and go through all my drawers and throw out the clothes, shoes, schoolwork, and other random junk that has accumulated in my room that I don’t use anymore. It feels so good to be rid of things after I’m done because I have so much more space!
I’m a pack rat. I have several keepsake boxes and drawers of things I can’t bear to part with!
I get rid of stuff pretty regularly. It drives my husband nuts. Not so much the sentimental items – he doesn’t care about those. But things like clothes and kitchen utensils and other random crap.
I have one crate where I keep all of my sentimental items. If it doesn’t fit in the crate, I don’t keep it!
I love how the sunlight will motivate me to run as well! I just wish it would rise at 5:30 a.m. when I do go running.
i am a total minamilist. both my brother and i are; my parents are the opposite!
I am the person who throws everything away then 2 days later is like “Ugh, why did I get rid of that? I NEED it!” Love to shirt š
I keep few things of sentimental value (I have my baby blankets, some cards and things of that nature but nothing else really), but have a hard time getting rid of things I spent a lot of money on.
Good job on the run!
For sure a minimalist! The husband and I have been talking non-stop lately about all the stuff that we could live without, and have huge plans to clean out all of our unnecessary possessions in the coming weeks. I.can.not.wait.
I’m definitely a minimalist, I’ve moved so many times over the past few years that I’ve become the queen at getting rid of stuff. The problem is with clothes: I’m a horrible shopper and tend to clean out my closet but not replace anything and end up with nothing to wear! My fiance is a pack rat, we moved recently and it was so hard to get him to let go of even the littlest thing!
I’m definitely a minimalist. I don’t like clutter and I don’t like having a lot of “things.” My boyfriend is the same way so luckily our place isn’t cluttered with junk and useless material things.
Good job on your run!
I am a TOTAL minimalist – almost to a fault! I hate clutter so I am always throwing things away and donating them. But sometimes I’ll need something and then realize I got rid of it without thinking :).
Oh man, I hold on to everything. My parents got divorced when I was a sophomore in college and moved my stuff out of my house without me and it really stressed me out because I didn’t know what they threw out and what they saved!
I just did the same thing this morning with my run; totally was not feeling it at all but since my body somehow woke up around 7, I was pretty sure it was trying to tell me to get my butt moving. As for being a pack-rat I have realized that I sadly am a bit of one. I think as long as things are out of site out of mind I am okay, but when you pull open drawers or boxes it becomes pretty apparent that I have a hard time letting go of things!
Congrats the on good run!!
I am such a pack rat! My parents have never moved from the house I grew up in.. so I have so much stuff there like my collection of beanie babies and pig things, I was obsessed.
Now I move a ton, but I still hold on to so much stuff like photo albums and cards! I have sooo many cards! Along with about 54 bottles of lotion. I don’t even like lotion!
I would consider myself a pack-rat more than a minimalist but I am trying to get better with parting from stuff I really don’t use or need anymore.
There are certain things I would not be able to part with and college acceptance letters def fall in the category!
Congrats on your 5 mile run today!
I lived in a pack rat family so I became the opposite. I also have to move every 5 years or so which makes me want to have the least amount of stuff to pack.
hhmm I can’t bear to toss some of the things you mentioned, esp not my wedding dress!
I’m trying to be more of a minimalist, but there are still some things I can’t quite part with!
As for my wedding dress, i really want to try getting it dyed so I can wear it again. But I’m SO afraid to do it!!
I’m definitely a minimalist. I have no problem with getting rid of stuff! By the way, you look so pretty in the first photo. š
‘Ray Bucknell!! Last week my mom was on my case to go through papers from high school (and earlier) and recycle/toss it. As I was putting it off, I applied to a job that asked for my SAT scores (not really sure why those would be very relevant still) and guess who found her SAT scores, in their original envelope, in a box of saved HS papers? I’ll be using that excuse for awhile š .
I’m more of a pack rat. I don’t know how I fit everything I do in my room at university.
Sounds like a great run, and yummy post-run breakfast!
I’m definitely a minimalist. If I can toss it out, I will. I absolutely hate clutter.
I am a minimalist 110%, but I don’t think I could toss away some of those special things in that list.
i’m a minimalist, but the Mister is definitely a packrat!
Great run!! I was wondering Tina if you had any good tips for easing into early morning runs. I have no problem doing my runs at 9/10 am on weekends, but when I have to get up to do them at 6:30/7 am during the week, I usually just roll over and turn off my alarm!
Unfortunately, I’m a total pack rat. Good for you for parting w/ all of those things!!!
I guess I’m more of a packrat than a minimalist. But I”m an organized packrat. All that kind of stuff that you threw away…I have organized in scrapbooks. š
minimalist! i can’t stand clutter – something i definitely learned from my mother…
Oh no–did you really throw out the dresses, or did you donate them? (Sorry, I worked at a poor rural school where quite a few girls couldn’t afford formal dresses for dances, so I’m big on donating those kinds of things!)
I’m a packrat in recovery. I just moved in with my boyfriend, so I did a major purge of a lot of stuff I was only holding on to for sentimental reasons, and I donated 4 HUGE boxes of clothes and several smaller boxes or random toys and trinkets. It makes me smile when I think that instead of sitting on a shelf, some little girl could be curling up to sleep with all my teddy bears!
omg total packrat here. I uncovered an old keepsake box the other day and the stuff in it was redic. I have every single photo I’ve ever taken, every card I’ve ever gotten, my learners permit, concert tickets, movie ticket stubs, random deflated balloons from God knows what, my diaries (duh) and useless crap like pictures of JTT and surverys I wrote and filled out myself (a list of “favorites” if you will). I was such a dork, and some of the stuff I come across makes me wonder!!
@LindseyAnn: Sorry should have specified. I donated them! š
I used to be a packrat — I would keep EVERYTHING. And then I moved a few times and I got rid of stuff slowly, and just recently Jason and I went through the house and got rid of stuff.
I love having a clean house with lots of room — I don’t like closets packed full of junk (I mean treasures!) š
Plus all I have to do is watch an episode of Hoarders and I am throwing stuff away left and right.
I am definitely a minimalist! It brings me joy to get rid of things, not sure why, but I just don’t get emotionally attached to most things. There are the occassional random things that I have a hard time letting go (ie: college acceptance letters) however I usually have no problem donating a big bag full to Good Will every few months. My mom would freak out if she knew the things I got rid after my last move!! (the only thing she won’t let me have/get rid of is my prom dress…)
Arghhhhhh I really want those straw but no shipping to Australia š
I am a total pack-rat. But an organized one. And I’m under control with it ONLY because of the space constraints I have in my apartment.
I do agree with Holly who said above that watching one episode of Hoarders makes me go into “clearing clutter” mode.
I saved my wedding invites, 17 years ago so far, because I had a friend use them for their 40th anniversary invites, It was such a fun idea I thought I would do the same, in about 23 more years . . .
i’m totally a minimalist, but when it comes to some things i’m a little more protective. my hubby though? total packrat. drives me crazy! š
Devout minimalist!!!
I think growing up with a pack rat did it to me…. My mom kept/collected all kinds of stuff and as a result, I don’t think she got to enjoy a lot of it, cause so much was buried. Not me.
I think my boyfriend tends more toward pack rat but I’m slowly and gently helping him see the light of minimal living. I mean, you can only use so much stuff, why not donate or trash the extras ?
I’m a pack rat when it comes to school stuff. I mean I have old notes from freshman year english comp. even though I’ve gone through all the comp + world lit classes- I’ll never need any of the notes again! But yet, there still packed away..and I just can’t bring myself to throw them away.
@ Andrea… that’s funny.
It’s a good idea, though!
I am totally a packrat!!! I get it from my mom. She has at least 10 copies of everything – my wedding invites/save the dates/programs, newspaper articles I was in, graduation programs, report cards, school certificates, acceptance letters, etc!