Beginning the Chez Stutters Garden - BEDiM Day 4

I'm going off prompt today, because we've just spent the last hour and a half out in the garden for the first time since we moved in, and this did start out as a gardening blog

Unlike Chez Stutters 1, where it felt easy to just start digging and planting, Chez Stutters 2 has a very small lawn and large patches of concrete.  We've got some raised garden beds to put together that can go on top of the concrete, but today's gardening was pretty much all planting in pots.

We're going to have flowers at the front door and herbs at the back, which we started today with rosemary and a bay tree.  At the front door, along with mostly pansies, there's a pot of nastursium, which counts as both flowers and edibles, obviously :-)

Today we also got three little garden gnomes.  I know - garden gnomes!  But Bunnings had Smurfs and the Seven Dwarves and Beatrix Potter, and once it was obvious that the GF was determined to get Dopey and a gardening Smurf, I figured I could at least get Jemima Puddleduck to join the party.

It was cold out there, and beginning to get dark, but at the same time, it was so very nice to be gardening again after what feels like quite a long time.

Less and More - EDiM Day 3

Today's topic is Less/More, which is something I've been thinking about a lot during this move. I have so much stuff, and do I really need all of it?  Will I ever get around to reading all those books I 'rescued', when Borders and Book Affair and other stores were closing down? Is there any point to keeping things bought on sale for a craft project 'one day' when I've now changed my plans to some entirely different crafts? Do I need any more candle holders ever? (Answer: no, and get behind me, Dusk Australasia!)

Yesterday we finally finished the move and handed back the keys. Chez Sutters Mk 1 is no more, but Chez Stutters 2 is now overflowing with stuff (seriously, in my head it's always in italics). One of my goals, listed in my first post for Blog Every Day in May, was to complete a full closet purge, which I'll be doing as I unpack.  I hope I'll also being doing some other massive declutters as we unpack - we have one whole box of books to get rid of already (don't ask out of how many total. I gave up counting).

I think I'm summing this all up by saying LESS stuff - MORE mindfulness. Live simply, that all may simply live. (It's a goal: I'll probably never get there. The consumerism is strong in this one (ie, me), no matter how hard I fight it. 

[Posting now, but hopefully I'll find a photo during the day to add.]

What's in my cup?

(Every day in May - prompt #2)

I have this plan, one of these days, to do a PL weekly spread that's just cups of coffee.  All the cups of coffee from the week.  Even if it's going to end up terrifying me.

Most mornings, I have a cup of coffee before I leave the house.  A sort-of housewarming present from my GF for the new house was an Expressi coffee machine from ALDI, and I love it.  For the last few years we've had my dad's old home espresso machine, but it's never worked nearly as well as the Expressi does.  I feel guilty about it (any coffee pod machine is horribly wasteful) but the coffee is so very much better than the instant (Moccona) I used to have every morning.

I also love my tea.  Especially my T2 tea (which I've been known to review on this blog :-)

Here we have an attempt to collage my two morning coffees today: both at home, one when I woke up at 6am to discover that the sun wouldn't rise until 6.50 and thus we had some time to kill before doing the final (oh finally the FINAL) bits of cleaning at the old, without electricity house; the second right now as I eat breakfast, blog, and complete some paperwork to drop off at the agent's before work. 

(Collage attempted on the "Beautiful Mess" app - lack of ability in collage solely my own fault.)

Every day in May: Day 1, goals

Via one of my new favourite bloggers, Kellie Winnell, comes the "Blog every day in May" challenge from Sunday of Love Happy Daily (I love discovering more Australian bloggers.  I'm getting less and less tolerant of the North American orientation of just about everything - Easter isn't in Spring all over the world, people!)

It probably seems weird to pick up a crazy project like blogging every day for 31 days when I've not been able to blog three times a month so far this year.  But hey, when have I not done crazy projects?  And there are so many things that I want to be blogging about.  Project Life, our new house, the way that we're developing routines in our fabulous new house.

So, this morning, before I go and get into a full day of final cleaning of the old house, I'm giving myself the length of time of episode 2 of the Jim Henson Creature Shop Challenge (I love this show!) to post the blog for this morning's prompt - goals.

My May goals are

• post every day in May
• get my craft room set up
• catch up on Project Life (the move has meant I've done little to none in April, simply because there's been no time at all to get photos printed)
• get our herb garden planted
• track my spending in preparation for a budgeting effort in June.

And I honestly think that's enough!

Edit: Actually, I forgot a couple. 

* complete a full closet purge

* read the Metaxas 'Bonhoffer' in time for book club, and chase down some progressive/liberal reviews. 

March Goals

I found my draft post containing my February goals sitting here.  I didn't meet a single one in its entirety.  And now, of course, the bulk of March forms part of Lent, and the focus changes.  Looking at things in context, I can't even just replicate my February goals for March, even though they all still need to be accomplished in some way or another.  The goals that were about getting ready to move - well, we're hoping to have moved by the end of this month.  The goals that were about Getting Things Done (the non-trademarked version) seem inappropriate in a season of reflection.

So: March goals.  And this time I'm going to publish them, and report back in April.  And see how I've gone.

Reflecting

• Remember to breathe - 'breathe' is my word for the year.  I think I might design a little "Remember to breathe" card or two for Project Life.
• Implement two or more ideas from "Beyond Busyness"
• Post on WGC.

Other

• Read books by queer Australian women (and review at least one).  For more on this, see the post on my book blog.
• Chapters 3-6 to Ruth 

A lot of my goals at the moment are future-fixed: "once we've moved I will..." keep the kitchen organised; make meal plans; make bento lunches; etc.  There's this annoying state of uncertainty while we wait for the date on which we will be settling the house purchase.  Until then, it just this awkward state of interruption.

Decluttering 52 things in 52 weeks

Because I always join all the challenges, and because I love the Australian-based Organised Housewife, I'm joining her 2014 Declutter 52 Things in 52 Weeks challenge. It's week two five, now, but what the hey.

Step one was to set our goals. Here are mine, according to the OH's rubric, with my additions/changes in bold.

I want to feel relaxed while I’m at home, and I won't while there's all this clutter and mess and disorganisation.
I want to spend more time writing.
I want an area of the home where I can craft, (especially Project Life).
I want to organise the whole house first.  (Yes, I know this is a problem. Let's go with kitchen in the realistic version.)
My partner always loses her keys.
I want to be decluttered by 1st April 2014.
The most disorganised cupboard in my home is the tupperware cupboard OMG.
Something that I don’t need anymore, but am having trouble parting with is random stuff I collected/bought for scrapbooking, which doesn't quite work for the Project Life context.


To be honest, I'm not sure how applicable these are anymore.  We're moving house soon - hopefully in six weeks, assuming the Titles Office comes through for us - and so while decluttering and organising are still major needs, (and April 1 a nice goal) the timetable and the logistics are completely different.

That said, I'm still trying to keep up with the weekly challenges (sort of).  The first couple - at least initially - struck me as not applying to me necessarily.  At some point I need to get back to my pinboard, but it's not that bad for now.

Tasks #3 and 4, however, are entirely applicable AND useful to us right now.  I haven't done them yet (OMG the heat! Means I get very little done at the moment other than work, watch television and attempt to sleep.)  When I get to them I'll write them up and let you know how I go.

New Year, New Plans

It's been a while since I posted here, but one of my goals for 2014 is to post to each of my blogs at the very least once a month.

And since I last posted there's been a lot of changes in my house/craft/garden/organisey life.

In April - hopefully - Chez Stutters will be relocating.  We're in the process of buying a house, which is rather scary, even if I am used to the processes because of the whole used-to-be-a-lawyer thing.  We're not moving far, but the house will be bigger and give us the chance to organise differently and do a lot of things we're looking forward to. 

In the meantime, we need to declutter, sort, and pack up the house, and do a whole lot of work in our sadly neglected garden (poor garden) to get it up to a standard that won't upset our landlord when we leave.  Then we get to move into our wonderful new house and organise it.  I might even be getting a craft room!

This would be good, because, in October, almost entirely due to the influence of my friend Mel at Subversive Reader I got seriously stuck into Project Life scrapbooking.  I really love this method, which is a lot less time-consuming (the way I do it) than traditional scrapbooking, which I haven't done much of for ages.  There will be posts on this in the future, you can be guaranteed.