We allowed plenty of time to find N's house, which is in the middle of nowhere, but as we didn't get lost, we arrived a little early, but that didn't matter. We met N's friend and her father and all the dogs. The house is a nice old place, but what N had actually invited us up to see was the land, so after a cup of tea and a biscuit, we donned our wellies and went to do the guided tour. They have quite a few acres, mostly rough pasture with a few patches of woodland and their land borders this Forestry Commission land.



The fallen trees are the result of the erosion of the river bank when the river is in flood.

We were lucky with the weather and managed to do the walk in a brief Sunny Interval. Unfortunately, we couldn't stay all that long because G had to be in the college in the afternoon. I hope to get to visit again though because the donkeys arrive next week and I'd love to meet them. All being well, it should be possible because G is planning to do some fieldwork up there.

After lunch, the weather deteriorated seriously, so I finished off the shawl I was making out of the half-finished project I unravelled. I finished the crocheting last night, but there was still the fringe to do.

( Just to create some suspense, the finished shawl is behind a cut... )

I have to admit that I feel quite pleased with it and it's lovely to think that I no longer need to feel guilty about the half-finished sweater. :)

Tags: crochet, decluttering
Current Mood: accomplished

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had managed to make the whole house tidy enough for visitors by piling all the homeless clutter into my study. By yesterday, the piles were starting to make me feel claustrophobic, which meant I had to start finding homes for the stuff.

Now decluttering the house has always been like one of those sliding tile puzzles. Sometimes it looks quite good, but in order to get a stray piece into the right place, you have to jumble everything up again. Also, though you might have a problem in one area, you have to solve it by shuffling things in a completely different part of the house.

Or in other words, in order to find a home for the old story files and folders piled in my study, I needed to clear one of the big storage baskets in the conservatory, namely the Basket of Long Abandoned Sewing and Knitting Projects.

The main project was a sweater I began knitting over 25 years ago. I had got as far as completing the back and about a third of a sleeve and then the project stuck. For years and years and years. During which time, to make the problem worse, everything got horribly dusty and musty smelling.

So it was a tricky basket of clutter to deal with. It triggered the OMG I spent all that money on that wool, I can't just throw it away feelings. Also the OMG I spent hours knitting that, I really ought to finish it thoughts. But at first I didn't have the time and then I realised that even if I did finish it, I'd end up with a sweater that was so dated that I'd never wear it. And so it was that until now, every time I looked in there, my heart quailed and I just put the lid back on again, muttering, "I'll deal with that another time."

Yesterday I finally dealt with it...

I unravelled the knitting, washed and dried the wool and started a crochet shawl.



I also washed the almost finished skirt and I've worked out how to adjust it to fit (I'm fatter now than when I started it!).

Tags: crochet, decluttering, house makeover
Current Mood: creative

Just a quick de-cluttering/house makeover update.

I have been at this some years now. There was a cognitive breakthrough when I realised that I didn't have to get the place perfect first time and I started thinking in terms of "drafts", as in writing a novel.

Well, I'd say I'm coming to the end of the second draft. The biggest job (the new bathroom) was completed last year, G rearranged his study the other week, so apart from having some double-glazing installed the rest is just going to be superficial tidying, cleaning and keeping up with the redecoration.

In order to make the spare room ready for our son and his wife to stay the other weekend, I moved all the stray clutter into my study (mostly files, folders and papers) -- which means that all the rest of the house is now reasonably tidy and I have one very small, very messy room to sort out.

So, as long as I can keep routine tidying and cleaning going in the rest of the house the end of the second draft is in sight!

Just don't mention the garage or the garden. Those are my next big projects and will take some time...

Tags: decluttering, house makeover
Current Mood: cheerful

Not an exciting day by any means. G went off to Bangor to hand in the revised and now utterly finished version of his PhD thesis and I plodded through the pile of paper that had been sitting in a basket on the futon chair and finally dealt with the last papers out of the over-door hanging file.

The over-door hanging file seemed like a good idea at the time and it was certainly better than the huge amorphous piles I tended to accumulate before, but it still encouraged me to leave stuff hanging there instead of dealing with it. The idea was it had half a dozen pockets, so I could pre-sort paper into categories.

Now, however, a la Getting Things Done, I just have one "bucket", namely an in-tray on my desk. And I have reduced the pile of papers that need dealing with or filing to a pile a mere 4" (20cm) high!

This should delight me, but I always find a day decluttering paper leaves me emotionally flat, if not actually a bit dismal. Anyway, we are off to North Wales to see my Dad tomorrow. My brother and nephew will be there, so bit of family socialising should buck me up again.

And then for the rest of the week, as long as it doesn't rain, I need to start getting some exercise again. The leg feels fine, so there's no reason not to get back to the walking.

Tags: decluttering
Current Mood: a bit blah

You know I changed my LJ name recently because I decided that being too mousey was a bad thing? Well, there is just one trait that mousies have that I need to encourage.

They nibble.

For several weeks I've been looking at all the stuff dumped in the conservatory and thinking, "I really must have a blitz on that and get it cleared and cleaned up."

NOOOOOOO!!!

Not a blitz!

That's how I used to work. Let the mess get to a point where I couldn't stand it and then have a huge mega de-cluttering and cleaning spree before collapsing exhausted and feeling that I never wanted to clean anything ever again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

One of the things I learned from alt.recover.clutter was that this was Not Good. It sets up all kinds of negative feelings and makes tidying and cleaning into a big deal.

But see how easy it is to slip back into bad ways? As soon as I start to think that I should be expending a huge amount of time and energy, the reluctance sneaks back in and I spend hours doing anything but what I should be doing.

So, I'm not going to have a blitz on the conservatory, I'm just going to nibble at it, little by little. :)

Tags: decluttering, getting stuff done, house makeover
Current Mood: insightful

A few random observations...

I am plodding on quietly with the decluttering. G has been having a purge in his study. He has removed several rubbish sacks full of waste paper, yet once again, it doesn't look significantly emptier. It does, uncannily feel emptier.

Strange...

Right now the conservatory is looking like a tip, but I'm hoping it's at that, it has to get worse before it gets better stage. For three days running now, I have taken several boxes and carrier bags full of paper to the recycling. Unfortunately lots of other people seem to have the same idea because the paper bins are filling up rapidly. I hope they'll get emptied this week because otherwise my grand clearing plans will grind to a halt with nowhere to take the waste paper.

Other than that, I have done not a lot. Weather is foul so there's been no exercise or photography. I have, however, poked at the novel and written a few words. Word count reports may start to appear if things continue to go well. First person is definitely working better than third, but progress is slow because it seems this novel wants to be written carefully. I don't seem to be able to get into the splat-everything-down mode that I usually use for first draft.

Oh, there are now two squirrels. After the disaster with the squirrel breaking the plastic loop that the old bird feeder hung from, I bought a new all-metal squirrel proof feeder. Yesterday there was a squirrel looking pathetic on the windowsill. I thought it seemed smaller than before, but put that down to the fact that it was an illusion caused by it being rather soggy and hunched, due to the heavy rain. But today I saw two together. I keep trying to put peanuts out for them, but so far have failed to make them grasp the concept that a human is trying to feed them.

Tags: decluttering, squirrel, writing progress

shalanna is talking here about passing things on to the next generation.

I'm in two minds about the charm bracelets. One of the things I'm trying to work on is getting rid of my Sentimental Attachment to Things.

There was a big fire down in South Wales recently and a whole row of houses were so seriously damaged they had to be demolished. Several families lost everything. (I don't know whether they'd had time to grab a few precious possessions before being evacuated, but it can't have been much.) My blood ran cold when I heard about it.

However... no one was hurt and the things are just things. Buddhist teachings stress how everything is ephemeral, which I fully realise intellectually, but find it harder to grasp emotionally.

So on the one hand, I agree with shalanna that it seems a shame that families are just discarding things that ought to have sentimental value. On the other hand, I wish I could be more like them. I would have a lot less stuff in the house. :]

Tags: decluttering
Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Cantata Mundi -- Adiemus

Some progress today in my study, despite being sidetracked for the whole morning into clearing up the garage.

Garage clear up: I managed to remove 5 bags of rubbish and carried several bags of chipped tree out to the back garden, where I will need to find places to spread them. I also put away a lot of Stuff that was heaped on the floor. It is now tidily arranged on the shelves. I then swept the newly revealed floor, put the bike and lawnmower back inside and dragged a few boxes, plus two old hockey sticks and a few bits of scrap wood down to the Swamp Beyond The Back Garden to have a bonfire. As I haven't been down there this summer, I had to hack my way across the bottom bit of our garden with the scythe and then clear a space for a fire. But all was successfully burned before the rain started.

After lunch and a brief rest catching up with email, LJ and rasfc, I managed to empty the bookshelves and chest of drawers in my study and, by manoeuvring the bits of furniture, rolled up and removed the ancient carpet.

All is now clear to attack the wallpaper stripping and preparation stage tomorrow. Oh, what fun I have on my holidays! *g*

Tags: decluttering, house makeover
Current Mood: accomplished

On Revealing Secrets?

Not a lot.

I Googled for some pictures of people who look more or less like my protags. This is just to help firm up the images in my head.

Shorts:

Finally plucked up the courage to submit a story to Escape Pod. I've been enjoying their podcasts over the past few weeks and I had a previously published story that was just the right length and which was suitably upbeat with moments of actual humour, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Decided that as Revealing Secrets is sulking and going nowhere, I'll have a bash at finishing the one about escaping from a desperately dreary life to faerie -- and then regretting it! Found the printouts and notes done at the point where the story stuck.

---

In other news...( boring house makeover stuff... )

But tomorrow I have a day off as I'm meeting my brother and his family in Crickhowell tomorrow.

Tags: decluttering, house makeover, revealing secrets, writing progress
Current Mood: satisfied

• Went to have routine breast screening mammogram this morning.


• Bought dark brown paint for the chest of drawers and bookcase.


• Did more shredding. (mjlayman was right, the shredder must have a safety cut out to prevent overheating. It's fine again now.)


• Have finally dealt with the 3 year backlog of filing that was lurking in the overdoor hanging file. Who knew it would hold so much?


• Bought a T-shirt from Goliath Corp. (aka Jasper Fforde's web site. *g*

Now to quickly file the last few papers and make dinner. Yawn!

Tags: decluttering, house makeover
Current Mood: sleepy