Mindful Decluttering

I am a great believer in keeping busy and tidying up so it should be no surprise to discover that this can be a form of mindfulness, particularly if prepared to do a bit at a time rather than in one fell swoop. My workshop is very well organised, except when I have put something in a safe place that I can’t remember. However, I felt that my house had become a place of glory-holes and unnecessary clutter. I have a useful kitchen pantry but it had become impossible to find anything without all of the gadgets and bowls toppling over. It was surpassingly easy to sort everything into baskets, ditching quite a few spare jam-jars and plastic boxes without lids. 

Of course, this had a knock-on effect to the other kitchen cupboards. I discovered several packets of opened or out-of-date nuts and seeds and found 28 missing clothes pegs. Reorganising is so oddly satisfying that it has spurred me on to tackle other dreadful cupboards. Just how many old teapots, DVDs and old road atlases do I really need?!

Nella’s blood results were not noticeably better and showed that she is lacking protein but we have been given a grace period to keep persevering. I have been getting her to eat lots of dried fruit, nuts and grains and I will have to think out of the box to find other sources of protein such as millet to add to lentils and quinoa. She saw a Reiki therapist which she found calming and I am looking into alternative medicine to deal with anxiety and low mood.

We had a lovely day visiting Freya in St Andrews on Saturday, just having a wee wander around the shops and chilling in her flat. She loved the Halloween box that we had made for her with seasonal bunting, vegan wax wraps and home-made almond Nutella. I could not resist a rather nice sewing box in a charity shop. Hopefully, Nella will be spurred on by the idea that if she can get a bit fitter she will be able to stay overnight with her student sister.

I have not worked on any of my own projects or decided what to work on in my screen printing evening class but I had 2 lovely, regular customers drop off half a dozen quilts which they helpfully labelled with measurements and even cut all of the wadding to save me some time. None of their quilts are huge so I should be able to work my way through them while Nella does artwork in my workshop.