De-cluttering

It happens every year but most years I ignore it or our lives are too busy and well yeah, cluttered to do anything about it but not this year! 5 bags of stuff to the charity shop, a run to the tip and two full bins.

You see what happens is that I make our annual trip to the States and have a fabulous time catching up with family and friends. In the background while all the fun stuff is happening my senses are working without me really initiating anything, and they are seeing bigger houses, more space, different ways of organising things and then that knowledge gets played thru every room in our house. The solution is always the same. Too much stuff. Things without homes? Clear out. Clear out big time.

As I said I can normally side step the urge to sort and it generally diminishes after a few jet lag driven days. Not this year. So I started as soon as I got home. 5 days later and I had moved mountains. I was exhausted and the house? It still looks as crazy and well........ lived in as before. I have had at least three strops with the family about all that work and nothing to show for it.

And I am realising that five days of clearing will only begin to undo five and a half years of gathering in this house. The same way that I am realising to de-clutter my life and find the things that are really important to me is going to take time to. There are things we do because we need to and that is fine. There are things we do because we like to and that is fine. It is the things we do that we feel we ought to. These regularly need a bit of sorting thru.

As maladjusted as ever....

or at least I am committed to try and be.

Today a friend gave us a huge bag of eucalyptus leaves. I had questionned the gift as we clearly do not have a Koala living as part of the family. The response was something along the line of, seeing as I was into making my own soaps and stuff. Yep challenge set! A quick search round with the help of Mr Google and I was crushing leaves in the food processor and putting them in the slow cooker with some olive oil to gently simmer for six hours to make eucalyptus oil. And the result? Well, my better half had to tip the results into the brown gardening bin as I gagged any time I lifted the lid of the pot. He said the smell was OK. I beg to differ. My gag reflex is not that sensitive. I do now have lavender oil on the make and I will let you know how that turns out in a month or so when it will be ready, or not, as the case may be.

I hauled home a huge box of baking soda from our recent trip across that large pond so tonight I measured and mixed and produced shampoo, conditioner, bathroom scrub and rinse, kitchen scrub and general cleaner. All good stuff. I know this because I have been using them for two years now.

And during our trip, (from which we also hauled home a stand for beer butt chickens (2) and a giant cupcake tin, more details on both to follow) I took time to consider my whole thinking on this maladjusted thing. It has always been about more than cleaners and failed attempts to concoct with natural ingredients. ( I have only just thrown out the grape jelly gum/glue/ car reinforcer for those who do read this blog in any kind of detail; not that I am expecting anyone to still be there after this length of break!) I am still committed to my initial challenges but will over the next while be exploring a few more, maybe some a little deeper, a little more intense, and there should still be things to laugh about along the way.

Now where is that Koala, we have some leaves left....................!

New Life

We can only live in winter for so long. We crave new life.

I have looked in great despair at our garden for the last few weeks. So much deadness. I know that is not good English but I am sure you know what I mean. Piles of dead leaves, rotting. Plants that had so much life last summer brown and dry. And in the midst of that I had allowed the recycling to overflow, bits of trash to lie around and the weather being so cold we had an overflow fridge to keep our drinks cool right at the back door.

Two weeks ago I had persuaded my mother and the littler boy to go and buy some plants from the local garden centre, a determined effort to fly the flag for spring. Yet days went by while we continued to live with the mess, not able to juggle our time to get a bag of compost and some time to do a little work. Until today! Friends, people who listen and care in the small and the big things that make a huge difference, pitched up at church with a big bag of compost.

With the sun shining and a very enthusiastic little helper, I set about clearing out a lot of the deadness and replacing it with fresh soil and new life which will soon grow and flower. We swept and filled the garden bin. We got filthy in our efforts but both felt that a good job had been done. We even took a trip to the recycle area to clear out a pile of paper from the garage, just like Peppa Pig.

We need winter. It is about resting and indeed dying. There comes a time though when we need to have a good look round, do a bit of reflecting on what we want and then we need to clear out the things that have no life, get rid of some of the rot and move into a period of preparation, of caring for new growth and indeed expecting new things to come in.

And yes, it is not just in our gardens!

To blog or not to blog

It has been few weeks, maybe even a month or two since I last blogged.

I know.

It is not like I have forgotten. I have been busy. Life continues to happen, and that of course I am glad about, but at times it seems to happen with a little more intensity.

The thing about blogging is that I enjoyed it, I enjoy it. I never wrote to be read. I wrote because I enjoyed writing and if you happened to come along and read it, then great.

So to continue or not?

Am I still committed to the challenge of being maladjusted? Not just getting sucked into the norm without really thinking about what the norm is. Oh yes! But it is so much more than the five challenges I initially set myself.

Do I need to maintain these things but set some new challenges? What would these be? Am I crazy to add anything else into a crowded highly challenged life?

Is it about recognising the challenges that are there already and exploring these? Would that make for interesting blogging?

Maybe I should start with the challenge of finding time for things that I like to do? Like blogging?

Doesn't sound very maladjusted , does it?

Being thankful

It has been over two weeks since I last posted. Sometimes life just happens, and it happens in a way that is a little more intense that normal. Some tough stuff for folks and I needed to be there with them rather than here typing. I have missed the chance to type though because I do that for me. It really is quite a selfish activity. I know there may be a few folks out there who read it, and I hope you may enjoy it, even smile at it sometimes, or think for a minute or two, but really I write it because I like writing.

There was a lot I could have blogged about over the last two weeks.

My friend who in the midst of her child being in hospital, with initial uncertainty of diagnosis, told me how for the last two years she was managing to fill her kids advent calendars with lots of forgotten toys and have delighted children each morning. Great idea and as long as it works go for it. Those of you who have ever tried to pack forgotten toys into a charity bag, while your children were in the room, may have some idea why this would actually work!!

We have the littler boy eating bits of carrots. He will not admit to it if you ask him. He is a wise one and will not want you to get in on the game. Tomato soup too is a recent addition to his diet. These probably do not sound dramatic things to you but in our house they are the cause for much celebration.

We have Santa all organised for this year. He made the decision that while second hand is good and commendable there is a time when it is wise to have a new product with a years guarantee particularly when the second hand products are not that much cheaper. He also decided that one big family present was another wise move. Think the kids will approve, in fact they will be thrilled. They have surprised me in that they do not have a list for him. They are asking to put out a drink and mince pie for him and this year Santa better remember to eat it. The year he forgot caused a moment of panic which required a dear friend to rescue Santa's reputation!

I am having a wrapping crisis. Partly in truth because I have not actually bought the things I need to be wrapping and partly because the store that sold the rolls of recycled brown paper, the mainstay of my wrapping has stopped selling it. They do sheets but that just does not work the same. What to do now? I really like the recycled approach and I think I am probably too late to buy the fairtrade.

The fact is that while I could have blogged about all of these things in detail and enjoyed it, the biggest thing for me over these days since Thanksgiving, with all the busyness, the uncertainty and the bumps that life brings, is that I remain thankful and even more so for that list that I wrote about in my last post.

So if you have come to my blog a few times and have read again and again about being thankful you have been up-to-date with where I am at!

Thanksgiving

I truly have so much to be thankful for and I am truly sorry for the times I fret or downright stress over things that in the bigger scheme of things do not matter.

Here are a few things I am thankful for.

Family

Friends

Home

Education

Food

Health

My faith

........ and each of these things could have a hundred or more bullet points.

The more grateful I am the more I remember that so many are in need of help, support and prayer. There is so much I can be doing to be a blessing to others.

Happy Thanksgiving folks. Whether you are sitting down to a large and lovely meal (And this Scottish girl is getting the hang of this and is remembering to blend the pumpkin before it goes in the pie) or whether it is just a normal day, take a moment to be thankful for something. In fact take the whole day and be thankful for as much as you can!

Wind, rain and wasps.

I do count myself as a bit of a recycler. I find that I cannot actually put things in the bin that I know I could recycle. At times I wish I could, to be honest because recycling can be a pest.

This week our garden was beginning to look like the landfill site as our recycling container got full to overflowing and things started to blow round the back garden. Quite a few bottles and cans ended up filled with rain water. A trip to the recycle was certainly over due. My little recycling buddy was up for a trip. He headed off into the garage to find something he could use as a step so he could do his own fair share. Mum's back is not up to lifting him up so he can be helpful! A wooden box was decided on. All the bottles and cans and glasses were loaded up into laundry baskets and basins and off we headed.

June, July and August you take your life in your hands with wasps at the recycle station and this week, I realised that November, December, January and February, here in the land very close to the arctic, you run the risk of pneumonia. Me wee helper started most bravely and then very soon was heard to be muttering about his hands being so cold they would likely fall off, before he quit completely. When he got back into the car there was no way he could do his own seat belt. I fared no better but quiting was not an option. The moment when I went to throw in a beer bottle, and tipped it up only to empty a whole bottle of rain water down my sleeve, actually managing to have that freezing cold rain water go as far as my waist band was not a good moment.

Sometimes doing the right thing takes a bit of doing!!