Simplifying Life

mary43

Don;t think my indecisiveness is anything to do with where I'm living - I wasn''t born in Lincolnshire but been here just over 20 years and love it.
Congratulations on your daughters engagement - how long now before the wedding and the big posh hat you'll have to wear ?????..........lol

ceridwen

Re bad/silly decisions....

we all make them sometimes regardless....and we probably all specialise in making those duff decisions in one particular area of our lives - I'll admit my problem decision area: men. Some of the men I have been involved with....what on earth was I thinking of?!:eek:

Thank goodness I'm past the age where I bother myself much in that direction any more!!! Does save a lot of hassle!

....but if Richard Gere happens to be in the vicinity on the other hand...........who says a woman cant change her mind?

groatie_queen

DAY 3

I can really see that my clothes are almost pared down to the optimum, so 'only' 9 items to go in that category. I added in shoes and recipe books to make up the 27. I have kept the Pauper's Cookbook (Jocasta Innes) and two Rose Elliot cookbooks, and my Mary Berry cake books, both of which have sentimental value - one my late Mum gave to me and I inherited the other from her. And I've kept some others, but said goodbye to quite a few. The thing is, if I need a recipe I can always find it online. When I had that realisation a few years ago, I stopped buying recipe books!

My most precious possessions from my parents were taken from their houses after they died - a wooden spoon from each kitchen - they had divorced and remarried, and survived their spouses, having been their carers. But both spent themselves in the caring, and went fairly soon after their spouses died.

I use the wooden spoons every day, and treasure sharing the contact which their hands had and the meals they cooked and the love they gave, through food and in many other forms of sustenance. When all else failed, a conversation over the phone with my father would always lighten if I asked him what he was cooking.

More than anything else, these spoons connect me so strongly with them and their everyday domesticity and caregiving, and the enjoyment and relaxation both had in preparing and giving food. Something I enjoy too.

So far, this 27 things exercise is stimulating thoughts about what I choose to keep, not so much about what I am disposing of! And maybe this is the correct emphasis, which is after all on simplicity. In keeping the essence of what is important to me, then by definition what is being let go of is not that important - it truly is clutter or interference.

GQ xxx

mags50_2

mary43 wrote: »

Don;t think my indecisiveness is anything to do with where I'm living - I wasn''t born in Lincolnshire but been here just over 20 years and love it.
Congratulations on your daughters engagement - how long now before the wedding and the big posh hat you'll have to wear ?????..........lol

I was born in Lincolnshire over 53 years ago... well, we're North Lincs now... and I love it too.

Think the wedding will be next year...the last girlie of our three to be wed.

Just realised... my 'baby' is getting married! Now, I do feel old!! :rotfl:

And thanks for the congratulations

ceridwen

Itinerary for Saoirse (founder of the Freeconomy website):

www.justfortheloveofit.org

Hes going to be walking:

Wed 13 Feb - Hastings-Rye
Thur 14 Feb Rye-Ashford
Friday 15 Feb Ashford-Dover (probably via folkestone)
Saturday - he'll be at Dover (ready to try and cross the Channel for free - so if anyone from MSE is going over anyway via car with a spare seat?) - look for the "Pilgrim" in orange trousers (his outfit is quite distinctive).

Hes looking for people to walk with him/feed him/provide bed for night/etc.

ceridwen

I finished yesterday on a rather amusing thought - regarding what a "poster" said on here a couple of days ago re the things we are tending to have in common....I know what article you have been reading in a magazine....as I picked up a magazine I had bought on a "whim" and not even glanced through so far to read myself off to sleep with and turned straight to it. I rarely buy magazines these days ...and I found myself reading the research I had in mind when I saw your comment (about the Oxford boffins who believe we are all descended from 36 women way back - 7 of whom predominate in Europe - the "Daughters of Eve theory"). Did the quiz to find out which of these 7 I am (well - none of us can ever resist these quizes can we?).

Result - descended from "Tara" - who lived 17,000 years ago in north-west Italy. This "clan" includes just under 10% of modern Europeans. The personality description was accurate too.

Well - it interested me - after that "posters" comment.

moanymoany

The 27/9 a day is interesting. Over the past couple of months I've certainly fulfilled this, though maybe not on a daily basis.

We are preparing the house for sale. It is now painted and on Monday the downstairs, stairs and landing floor covering is laid. We took up a lot of the flooring to decorate, so it's grim. The YMCA was supposed to fetch the suite and a chest of drawers Monday afternoon and didn't! Instead they came on Tuesday afternoon when I was out...:mad: I put them on freecycle. The woman who wanted the drawers didn't turn up, but as there's lots of interest in the them it should be ok. One person wants the suite.

To say I'm stressed ... Last night I dreamed I went mad and had to be sedated - I then dreamed the loft was flooded and water was pouring downstairs. When I went upstairs I found bedrooms I'd never seen before - complete with tenants I didn't know about. Dh had been pocketing the cash.

Feel my shoulder muscles - like rock!

ceridwen

....reaches out "virtual hands" to Moanie's muscles. Places her on my therapy couch/switches on soothing music/lights the joss sticks (hang on a minute - better check Moanie likes joss sticks:rotfl: )

JenniO

LollopyBear wrote: »

The person who said that instead of focusing on future plans 13 years hence she was looking to see what could be done now really struck a chord with me (I can't remember who said that, sorry). I'm going to be looking at what I CAN do now rather than just feeling caught in a rut because it isn't the time for it yet.

I am humbled and truly honoured LollopyBear, thank you. I would like to add that I did a lot of 'decluttering' first. It's not that my house was overflowing full of stuff, it is just that I had things that didn't match what I wanted my '13 year planned country cottage' to look like. So I sold a lot of things on ebay, gave away to charity and freecycle of what didn't match my ideas. Then I used that money to buy what I did like from ebay, and from charity shops which was really fun. It was darn hard work though selling on ebay but worth it.

Good luck in all you WILL accomplish!

Rowan9

Yes, JenniO, your post also helped me and i discussed it with my daughter who's staying here just now and she is also going to take on the 'plans' to make wherever she lives 'home'. Great idea.

Lots of posts on here which are so full of wisdom and inspiration!!

Moanymoany - when i studied the 19th Century Novel (actually we did 13 I think!), I found that the loft or attic is often seen as our subconscious (mad bertha in the attic in Jane Eyre etc) - at least in feminist readings. So, if your loft was flooded in your dream could it represent you being flooded with 'stuff' as in overwhelmed, and thereby leading you to declutter and simplify as you have been doing? Just my thoughts though!!

Another Susan Salzberg quote that has really got me:

'the fulfilment we have in owning, in desiring, is temporary and illusory, because there is nothing at all we can have that we will not lose eventually. And so there is always fear. We go round and round in circles, chasing after things, trying to have more and more and more, and then we die.Talk about betrayal!'

hhmmm...it ended on a shock so hope this hasn't upset anyone.

My mindful meditation has been going well, albeit only a few days in. One thing I meditated on today was what i 'needed' in order to be happy. What came up was well-being, or acceptance of their bodies, for my family, and then the feeling that what I needed most was contentment. Just to be content and when i thought about this, it was limited choices. that's what i want/ need. Not to have endless choice re what to wear, eat, where to go etc. I can see now how important this is for me in order to be happy within myself. I have already pared down my number of books to those I really want to keep for sentimental reasons or because I like them. I still have to do that with clothes. I pared down dinner sets last year and we just have a 4 piece set in plain white from Asda. When we have more people, I have about 5 or 6 other plates in a separate cupboard. For a while I bought only one type of soap (Tesco pure - about 23p a bar and quite mild for that cheap price) because I felt swamped by choice. At the moment I have quite a few perfumes as I have my favourite one but have a few others which i won't replace as they are used up.
Enough detail here - what i'm saying is that I realised even more fully that i need simplicity in (probably) all things in order to be happy. I am someone who used to love chintz type clutter - plates hanging up, tea cups and saucers out on display, dried flowers. i still love seeing that in other people's houses but mine went a few years ago. Our kitchen is now painted a kind of green - quite a striking colour - can't describe - sea green?? - and our floor is mock terracotta tiles (lovely laminate clipped together by my clever OH). Cupboards are painted yellow from a tin of kitcen cupboard paint and much as I'd like to replace them with free standing wooden units, my youngest dog who is4 now but refuses to grow up, would probably chew the edges. So, I'm content with what i have - I love my dog and accept that the units have to be the old ones with the corners all chewed. I am drawn to buying a mix match of white mugs and cups from charity shops and car boots and use only white. However, I also have 'favourite' mugs and cups which have been given to me as presents by my kids etc. Also, why replace something if i am simplifying? Ah but maybe my mind is wanting just white things.

Regarding the 27 things out a day - yesterday was brilliant as my daughter and cleared out the bottom of the kitchen dresser - loads went in recycle bin (oold papers etc) and out (old videos) and we have some things for the charity bag which is filling up at the door. I didn't count but I know much more that 27 went out. I even took old medicines to the chemist (sighed over all the anti-diarrhoea sachets and tablets for when my kids used to go to Reading and other music festivals - any other parents who used to send them off with those 'just in case'? Luckily they weren't needed and all out of date now). But, for me, I am not going to count only because I feel this would be too much for me at this time.

What a long post. Are you all still awake?

Hope everyone has a good day. We have lovely sunshine here and I'm enjoying seeing it very much.
W