Simplifying Life

Charis

rosieben wrote: »

no, to a different field in Gloucestershire - I'm only moving about 2 miles along the road

which direction are you viewing the Gloucestershire fields from?

From the cusp of the three counties (Ledbury) Been here since 2002 and I think I have at last taken root I can see May Hill from our cul de sac.

Rowan9

Hello everyone:hello:
haven't posted for a bit but have read through your messages. Thanks for inspirational posts and quotes. I have spent AGES reading the zen link, even though i had read the last one - this time I went off at tangents and especially liked the unclutterer stuff (was that what it was called? I think so..)
Latest simplifying- DD has cleared, cleaned, lined (with lovely Christmas paper) and 'ordered' the kitchen drawer. I'm sure every house has one of those chuck-it-in-here drawers. Or is it just me? It looks great now. She has also cleaned out and sorted under the kitchen sink. I'm very lucky because she likes to sort and clean and is soooo good at organising. I'm harnessing her abilities while she is here!
Tomorrow our first organic box arrives - I think I posted last week that we have ordered it to try to simplify the process of making sure we eat well. It's too easy to just rush to the supermarket in odd moments of time and buy what you can at that time. I'm hoping that this will help ensure I eat some organic food (some) and will help on my mission to cook from scratch. One of the articles I read off ceridwen's zen link was one about only eating food which rots. How sensible is that? they talked about some long life bread that doesn't mould within a year (I think!!). I love the idea of eating simply. I had to throw out a few organic dried apricots which i'd forgotten about (really un-OS of me to be so unfrugal and I was annoyed!) - they were mouldy! Now that's saying something! They weren't too old either - maybe a couple of months of lurking in the bottom of the bag.
Another simplifying thing I've done is to sit sometimes with a candle. Imagination is a wonderful thing - and can be fearful as people who suffer from anziety know- so, harness your imagination and meditate on something simple. For me, I like 'let there be light in my thinking'. The flicker of the candle helps to focus these thoughts. I don't think we take enough time out in busy lives to just 'be'.
This week's simple menu plan hasn't been planned yet but hoping to do that tomorrow when i see what the veg box actually holds.
I plan to paint our hallway - eeeek - I'll have to do it now that I've *said* it! I want it painted white. At the moment it is very vivid and turquoise and green sponged with a matching border which also has orange. Sounds horrible? I really liked it - it was the first thing i did when I moved in here 10 years ago, decorating-wise and is kind of wacky. Maybe I'll try to load up a photo before I paint over it. The time has come now for that lovely wacky stage to allow a clear, white stage to come in. The whiteness and clarity will help me focus my thoughts on where I want to go in life and what really makes 'me'. This is what i believe.
ok - I'm off to throw out 9 things. Isn't 9 the lucky number in feng shui? Maybe I'm wrong but I know it is the optimum number of gold fish to have.
Take care all
W

rosieben

ceridwen wrote: »

...
(Now - can anyone point me in the direction of that "Good Enough"Thread?)

here you go Ceridwen - Good Enough Thread

I'm glad you're able to reclaim a little more of your time - our most precious commodity!

rosieben

Charis wrote: »

From the cusp of the three counties (Ledbury) Been here since 2002 and I think I have at last taken root I can see May Hill from our cul de sac.

Ledbury used to be a regular haunt when I was younger and later a favourite place for a Sunday drive (tea and home made cake in a little cafe there!). I live at the 'Gloucester end' of the Forest of Dean, and May Hill is quite close. You know the old Forest saying - you're not lost as long as you can see May Hill?

lilac_lady

ceridwen - your plan for retirement mirrors mine. To have enough time to appreciate whatever life one has left, plus a little money not to be broke is the best start one can have in retirement. I'm at the age that you let some things that have worried you go and make space in your mind for a positive future. The crocuses are out and the days are lighter and hope comes often with the Spring. Decluttering your material things (and your mind) makes you feel a lot better.

mary43

charis -thankyou for your kind words...........I always try and set aside some 'me' time (much easier now that one lad has a job and the other is at school) and as long as I don't get interrupted by inane phone calls from 'the department' then I can relax (providing I don't look around at what needs doing.........lol) I always find making cards very theraputic but I need to be sure I have some clear time for me before starting that, otherwise my little 'creations' all go wrong............lol Sitting here at computer is one of my little 'me' times and I get many of the answers I need for life from all you good folk. Makes me wonder sometimes what I did before I found this site .

roseiben - good to see you around again. What a lovely time to move........with the summer months ahead of you. Good luck and hope all the 'chucking out' goes well.

ceridwen - we could spend thousands (several in fact) on our house and it would go on and on needed yet more. Apart from sorting out the fallen plaster in the 'store room' (better name for it than the 'junk room'..........lol), removing a small side window that is no use to man nor beast and is rotting away and bricking it up, really the rest is 'cosmetic', painting and stuff we can do ourselves or get ex foster lad to do it for us (trouble is he won't let us pay him for anything !!) Ours is far from being the smartest house in the street but once inside it becomes our home with a warm atmosphere........and thats' good enough' for us.
It is a case of getting priorities right................I was going to do some housework (surprise surprise !!) when I came back from town this morning but an ex foster girl I hadn't seen popped in to see me after three years - my time was much better spent with her .........for the both of us. So, the housework can wait...........the dust will still be there tomorrow.........another layer will make no difference to how I write my name in it will it ?

wmf - you do seem to be doing well. Lucky you having DD who is so keen to get stuck in like that.
I like your idea of the flickering candle. I used to do that - light a candle, preferably a scented one and enjoy the 'sound of silence'............but like you say there are times that it may not be such a good thing to do. Doubt that I could deal with it at the moment -my mind would run amok with so many troubles that I might not have thought about before............but there'll come a time when I can do it again and feel totally at peace with myself.

lilac lady - you're making me wish I'd planted some crocuses........can't think why I didn't. I had some given to me and I gave them to ex foster girl.........she says they're looking lovely, real sign of spring. Still, the forsythia is blooming and that tells me spring isn't far off............if was a lovely morning when I went out - blue skies and sunshine, a joy to be out and about. And I refrained from any spending other than bits and pieces from the charity shops for my christmas/birthday baskets -£6, and three bags of milk chocolate buttons for baby grandson (£)- I'll tie the bags with a ribbon, pop them in a little bucket I had some pressie's in at christmas - along with a little stuffed floppy eared bunny I found lurking in the spare room..........(can't remember where that came from........lol)

Rowan9

Oh dear mary43 I didn't explain myself very well!! What I meant was to harness an over-productive imagination and use it to visualise healing or peace or whatever you 'feel'. What I meant to say was that if you have a good imagination it can sometimes run amok, so use it to good for yourself through creative visualisation. Exactly when time feels kind of full and waaaah is the time to look at the flickering flame. Or when your thoughts are just too much - bring yourself back to here and now through a mantra/ thought and a candle. Sounds easy huh? I know it isn't but I know that everyone of us deserves peace in our lives. Maybe deserves is not the right word - maybe would appreciate peace in our lives sounds better. But with your creativity in card making, mary43, you are probably recharging your batteries - it doesn't have to be about a still moment of meditation - we are all different. I think it is good for us to take time out of hectic lives to do something simple just for ourselves, whether that is baking a loaf of bread and enjoying the texture and smells while making it, or hand making cards, knitting, gardening, meditating - there is something for everyone. I enjoy the candles and my peace corner just now but don't take time to do it every day - I want to change this as I think it is really relaxing.
You are right about my DD being so helpful - she has certainly helped me a lot. I know I am lucky with her.
I'm thinking ahead to summer plants in pots - I want to do some salad leaves this year but also want some flowers. Anyone got any garden plans yet?
w

mary43

I get your meaning wmf - trouble is at the moment its hard to 'harness' my imagination if you know what I mean...........it drifts off to the negative things in my life instead of the positive if I;m not very careful.
Card making is a great therapy for me it really is. Used to write poetry (of a sorts) as well and that was a great way of getting things out of my system. Not done that for a while though as it seems to draw on negativity where making a pretty card for someone I care about has an opposite effect......far more positive.

On the gardening - nothing I like better in the summer than sitting either at the bottom in the wild life area where the wild flowers (weeds to some) grow randomly or sat around the garden table nearer the house losing myself in a book or writing letters.
We don't have a lot of what I'd call 'garden'...........a large area of concrete with a lot of tubs, old wheelbarrow, chimney pots etc. filled with whatever I happen to pick up at a boot fair or what the birds kindly drop for me.
We have veg in containers - runner beans, courgettes (they're leaves are quite ornate),potatoes in a tub - and we created a sort of herb garden with rows of old bricks surrounding tubs with different herbs in. The bricks are tall enough so the pots can't be seen.
Flowering plants in our garden seem to be trial and error or whether they like the soil or not. I always get a few red geraniums in terracotta pots in the summer and dot them around (we've put a couple of old step ladders up against the garage wall and sit a few pots on each step)
Good plants for scent are lavender and the tall white tobacco plants (Nicotina ???) can't remember the proper name. They grow to about three foot and smell beautiful. Hollyhocks are good for height as are foxgloves and delphiniums (I've given up on those though.......too many snails eating them)
Morning glory are a lovely flower either up against a wall or trained around an obelisk or some canes in a pot...........same with Black Eyed Susan -sorry don't know the proper names for all these.

Have a look on the Green Fingered forum........you might get some ideas from there. We usually get more interested in our garden once April gets here and the boot fairs are full of plants............sort of gets us into 'kick start'



Our garden tends to stay much the same year after year with just the variation of annuals.

ceridwen

Ummmmm...... thought struck me today everyone.....we're going to be "virtual godparents" in "5/6 weeks time" - ie thats when JoJoB's "bump" is due for delivery. Never mind "virtual friends" - I think we're acquiring family status!:D Oh well - thats a bit of good news coming up on this thread - when JoJoB comes back on it at some point pretty soon now to announce she's just had her baby.

Kettles/kettles - got to go boil hot water. Never quite sure why (speaking as a childless person) - I just know loads of kettles of boiling water come into this somewhere. Cups of tea for all the "virtual visitors"? LOL. Cue "Oooh....hes got his mums nose and dads mouth"....

mary43

ceridwen - don;t think you need to panic about kettles and boiling water and endless supplies of towels.............and the 'oooh and ahhhh' language...........something we're almost all guilty of, I wrote about in a letter to my grandson when he was born last year. The letter welcomed him to our weird and wonderful world and went on to explain how he might well think adults are really odd because of the language spoken and so on and so on.........His mums keeping it for him and I'll do another one this year for his first birthday.............a sort of 'Well baby grandson......a year on...........etc.'

Change of topic- just been blubbing away like a mad thing..........cooking roast veg and sausage........sliced the veg a bit too small so it all sort of 'shrunk'............not much there I thought as I hacked away at half a cabbage to boil up. OH comes in from work looking all in -aching back (knew it) and looked a bit bemused at me clatting about the kitchen in state of panic wearing my 'get out of the way' look ! Dinner served and the cabbage filled the plate and it actually tasted not bad. So that was ok.
Then we discuss weekend away...........OH forgot which days we were staying at Travel Lodge - he thought it was Sat. & Sun............its not its Sun. & Mon. (only days I could get at bargain price -told him all this at the time). He mumps a bit about that and 'why can't we go on Saturday to see my son and grandson and then head off to Travel Lodge or pop in for quick visit to Mum, then son and grandson then Travel Lodge.....and why did I book it and why dont I make it clearer in the diary which days we're away' I say 'well we've got ten days so does it really matter when we come back - last time I ever book anything, told you at the time when it was and not my fault you forgot, reminded you last week and still you forgot. Only booked it because you wanted to go away............etc. etc. ' (This is was passes for a heated arguement in our house................lol ) Then I start blubbing like aa total lemon bleating that I can never do anything right, what with dinner shrinking, booking nights at Travel Lodge that don't suit, and we don't have to go and to **** with the fact I paid for it and I'm useless at everything...............' and so it went on till I got to the point where I stood up and announce 'You will go to Travel Lodge when I booked it for, you will go to see grandson and my Mum when we arranged in the first place otherwise I shall turn from being upset and a blubbering wreck to being ***** mad !!!' Phew ! Wore myself out..................but just reading this back to myself ..............how silly to get upset over a misunderstanding and a shrunken dinner...........am I daft or what ??????