Happy New Year and Happy New You
Snowdrops at Upton Library
Apologies to any readers who have been wondering why the radio silence from Becoming Domestic since mid-December. No one reason but Christmas hustle & bustle, working 2.5 days a week at Bealers’ office, and at least three big but top secret projects have meant I’ve very little time to put pen to paper.
Now all the thank you letters are posted off, the festive decorations are back in the loft and the new year already seems like a trusty old chum I’m pleased to find a mini five minute slot to blog some words and perhaps even some photos.
My only resolution this year is to completely de-junk the house. I hadn’t actually realised what a terrible hoarder I am until I chanced upon the wonderful ‘Messie Collection‘ by Sandra Felton. I must have set up a search for her name on eBay eons ago so when an email announcing someone was selling her books arrived in my inbox I had no idea who she was. A couple of Google hits later and I was urgent to be the winning bidder of the set of books. Hooray that I did buy them as they have really been an eye-opener for me.
I realised that I really identified with her description of the loveable yet scatty ‘Messie’ someone who is creative, energetic and social yet hopelessly forgetfull, nostalgic, emotional, always feeling slighty behind in the race to keep up and constantly marvelling at how others manage to do it all and take it all in their stride. There is a sugestion in her books that the more of a Messie one is the more likely you are going to keep boxes and boxes worth of stuff simply because it helps to remind forgetful Messies of things that have happened to them in their lives. She suggests that you don’t need to keep all the textbooks you used at college because you are finished with them now, not every single gift you have ever received has to be kept just because it was a gift and there are more worthwhile places the unloved things could be than in storage in lofts or gathering dust on shelves.
The theory is that the less ’stuff’ I have in my house (first to go are about 80% of my books I’ve got some great books as I do really love getting new ones) the less space, time and energy these things will demand from me.
I wouldn’t say my house is hideously cluttered but I can see that without changing my ways in the future I would need bigger and bigger removal vans each time we move, bigger houses with bigger garages, lofts and basements just to store the ever increasing boxes of things we have. All expensive and all pointless.
I’ve been thrilled to discover that our local library is really really grateful for the daily boxful of books I’ve brought in. As I was turned away by more than one slightly snippy charity shop worker telling me that they couldn’t possibly take my (beleoved) books. I make the librarians promise they WILL tell me when they can’t take another 2nd hand book off my hands. They say ‘We will! Keep bringing them!’ They either add them to the library collection or sell them at the 2nd hand book table to raise funds for the library. As I spend at least half a day a week in the library with the kids its a win-win situation as I can park outside, the librarians are grateful and if I ever need to read any of the books again I can just borrow them with my library card!