Hetty, Betty and more decluttering

Sadly, Anais and Lily have recently passed away - I think as ex barn hens they were just 'egged out' and exhausted. This left Violet wandering around the huge run on her own and looking rather sorry for herself so i've got her a couple of new friends, a couple of bantams named Hetty and Betty:

At first there were fireworks as Violet chased them around the run, ensuring that they knew that she was the boss. I brought out extra feeders and drinkers, lifted them into the coop for the first couple of nights and by the end of the week she had accepted them as part of her flock. As you can see from their barely visible combs, they're only young so i'm not expecting any eggs from them until spring, but they seem happy and quite clucky in their new home.

I've also got another, rather exciting, new addition to the run coming very soon, but i'll save that for another post...

On the 'housey' front, I spent yesterday morning decluttering the cupboard underneath the stairs. I've found a few old coats that i'm going to drop off at the charity shop tomorrow and i've managed to finally organise my tins of paint and painting supplies from my 'decorate two bedrooms in two weeks' challenge in August (yes I do like to put the pressure on). I also got rid of two bags of junk that were lurking in there, recycling what I could, and I also discovered a bag of hay from my guinea-pig keeping days (over 2 years ago!) which i've rehomed in the shed ready for when I build my no-dig raised bed in the spring.

Today, i'm hoping to keep up with the decluttering vibe that's currecntly enthusing me by cleaning out the cupboards under the kitchen sink. I'm sure i'll find more junk, but hopefully some useful things too!

Progress

Remember the junked up area at the bottom of the garden that I posted about here, well four months later and i'm pleased to say that i've finally finished it (I said I was a flighty person!). The junk area has gone from this:

to this:

As you can see i've created another compost area and have started to lay down some cardboard to kill off the weed growth. I've also been given a load of tyres which i'm planning to grow next years potatoes in. The area isn't completely finished yet as i'm planning on building a no-dig raised bed there but i'm waiting until the weather's a bit warmer before I begin that, otherwise the bed will keep in the cold.

Well at least that's one thing I can tick off my list and my life now feels slightly more clutter-free!

Cutting down on caffeine

I've decided to take my self nurturing routine one step further and reduce my caffeine intake. I've always been a tea lover but the effects the caffeine might be having on my body has bothered me for a while now so i've decided to cut down, partly for health reasons but partly just out of curiosity to see if I feel the benefit. Tea has always been a family ritual with fond memories attached to it, whether it be sitting around a roaring coal fire at my grandparents, chilling after a busy day at work, or  idle chats in cafes, tea has always conjured up feelings of warmth and security. I think it's the nostalgia of tea, rather than the taste, that i'll find so hard to give up so I need a plan to keep me on track.

What i'm hoping to do is gradually reduce my normal tea and replace it with herbal and rooibos teas. I usually only drink about 5 cups of tea a day so i'm hoping to gradually replace these with 'kinder' teas, hopefully by taking it slowly i'll avoid too many withdrawal symptoms. I've stocked up on some tempting sounding Pukka and Yogi Teas ('morning time' and the rather lush sounding 'choco' tea) and have a big box rooibos too so i'm ready to take my first steps into a life without caffeine...well apart from the occasional chocolate treat.

I'll also be making sure I keep up my green smoothie routine in the mornings to give myself an extra energy boost!

 Cheers!

Taking time

I've been reading Kris Carr's 'Crazy Sexy Diet' for a while now and it's really hit home and made me consider what I eat. I've not rushed in, all guns blazing, and turned avid raw foodist overnight but it's message has slowly seeped into my brain, colouring the way I view my body and the food choices I make. After reading the book, I wanted to try adding daily smoothies to my diet and so decided to invest in a Vitamix. Five months on and I'm convinced it's one of the best investments I ever made. I now have a smoothie every day before work, nothing fancy, just banana, pineapple, grapes and spinach, and not only does it help to keep hunger pangs away until lunch time, but it has also kept those horrible cold and flu infections (that come as part of the territory when you're a teacher) at bay. 

I've recently been experimenting with making soups too, especially after discovering that the blades rotate fast enough too heat the soup, so no extra cooking is required. I made tomato and basil soup using all home-grown ingredients and I have to say it was one of the best I have ever tasted!

Taking the time each day to look after myself and give my body some much needed tlc has certainly opened my eyes and made me realise just how hard we can push ourselves and the need for us to take time out, even if it's just 5 minutes a day, to nurture ourselves.

Simplifying

I'm in the process of simplifying my space as my home just feels too busy and I feel like I need space to breathe. I can't belive how much 'stuff' I have accumulated over the years, it just sits around doing nothing, untouched year upon year and it has such an impact upon my internal life too, I feel blocked, drained and unable to move forward. So I have decided that the time has come to have a major declutter and get rid of anything in my life that I don't find useful or beautiful, there's no more time for a bit of decluttering here and there - the time has come to be ruthless. So far I have managed to get rid of 3 bags of 'clutter', i've donated and recycled what I can but other things have had to be thrown away. I'm predicting that i'll have cleared out 100 bags of 'stuff' by the end of August, just the thought of scaling down my posessions feels like a breath of fresh air.

Clutter clearout grand total: 29 bags

Creating zones

I'm a naturally flighty person, my attention jumps from one thing to another and I find it hard to stay focussed for long. As a result, my decluttering endeavours seem to be rather shortlived and if I don't feel like i'm getting anywhere fast, I lose interest and move onto the next thing that catches my attention. To help me stay on track i'm trying to break my areas to declutter down into 'zones' to be tackled one at a time, the idea being that if I focus enough on one zone (rather than a whole room/area) i'll be a able to see enough of a difference to spur me on to complete the task. I'm hoping this approach does the trick.

So, to cut a long, procrastinating post short, my first zone is the junked up area at the bottom of the garden. If I declutter it i'll be rewarded with an area big enough to set up another, much needed compost heap.

Wish me luck!

A list of 'shoulds'

Recently i've felt like a hamster running around in a wheel but never seeming to get anywhere. I've had endless to-do lists, ticking one thing off only to find that another thing has been added to my list. I feel drained and run down, which is probably why on Friday I lost my voice and i'm now suffering with a chest infection. My body has made me stop because I was pusing myself too hard. It's a pattern in my life, I push myself too hard, get ill and have to stop, vow never to do it again, then recover and the cycle begins once more. I'm a compulsive overworker, I constantly try and squeeze a little bit more out of my day, the phrase "i'll just do this" is a recurring thought and I constantly fill my days with a list of 'shoulds'. In the process of doing this i'm so busy ticking off things from my list that I don't actually live my life and savour it.

It didn't actually hit me what an ingrained problem this was until a recent fallout with my partner where she claimed that I constantly tell her what to do - "you need to do this, you need to do that", she threw at me. It was only when I tried to explain to her that I wasn't ordering her around, I was only offering up suggestions that I realised there may be a problem - telling someone what they "need" or "should" do is very different from making suggestions in a "how about trying/doing this" kind of way. I use exactly the same phrases for myself, when planning my days they consist of "shoulds" and "needs", they're quite forceful words, I need to be gentler with myself and others.

This morning I woke up with a feeling that I need to change. I guess that the fallout along with being ill has opened my eyes and made me realise that my expectations of myself (and others) are too high and whilst I have recently felt snowed under with a massive workload, part of that pressure has been self-inflicted. From today I will try to slow down and try and live more consciously, the days are whizzing by and they shouldn't be. I'll try to be gentler with myself and rein myself back in when I start composing my list of 'shoulds'.

Hello 2012

Happy New Year! I can't believe that Christmas has been and gone and the New Year is here already. There always seems to be a bit of a lull at this time of year, my mood drops slightly and I become more aware of the post-Christmas void, the low after the high perhaps. I usually use this time for quiet reflection and give myself time to focus on what I want to bring into my life in the year ahead. For the past few years i've chosen a focus word for the year, a sort of affirmation of what I bring into my life. 2011's word was 'growth' which seemed to fit perfectly with the events of the year. For 2012 my affirmative word will be 'peace', not just in the sense of being emotionally at peace with things but also bringing peace to all areas of my life - I will create a peaceful, clutter free home and try and create some peaceful quiet time for myself on a daily basis, meaning less time online reading other peoples blogs and facebooking and more time spent quietly reading, improving my space and focussing on my own life. I suppose what i'm yearning for is a period of withdrawal and some time to retreat into my own space, even the thought of it fills me with a fuzzy feeling of warmth so I know i'm on the right track.



I think all that s left to do this evening is to curl up with a good book, bliss.