Lent progressing . . .

Lent continues . . . still thinking about the 40 bags in 40 days challenge. I have no idea, to be honest, how many bags exactly we will have shipped out of our place in response to this. Life is too short to be pernickety about numbers. But we are certainly applying the principle in seeing how we can further calm and bring peace and space to our home.

I was well chuffed to learn that a monastic friend right across the world had suggested the idea to her community, and her prioress had put our boxes by the cell doors for those sisters who wished to participate – giving sacrificially of their very few possessions so that others could be blessed.

So here are some more categories of items for disposal that come to mind.

THINGS THAT DIDN’T LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS

I’ve made purchases that seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, I was pleased with them when I got them home, but over time I realized they didn’t live up to my expectations.  I’ve had a few household gizmos in this category – a motorized carpet sweeper that was just the thing until the long hair from various household members seized it up completely and irrevocably (for the dump, then), a spiralizer that I thought would encourage us to eat veggie carbs rather than grain (we do, but without the bother of spiralizing them), and this sweater that is as soft and fluffy as I’d hoped but has changed shape in washing, is still good but now the shape of a quite different woman (for charity shop).

THINGS ONE WAY OR ANOTHER OUTGROWN

If you have children, outgrowing things is an obvious category - these books on the top shelf are now too babyish for The Blur and Little Sardine:

But there are many ways to outgrow an item. You might get thinner (hang on to the outgrown thing for a while, it’ll probably soon fit you again) or fatter (get rid of it).

Maybe you change your style – I got these earrings when I had long hair – they look somewhat excessive on me now my hair is short again.

I wore these legging when I had several voluminous skirts.

Now I wear trousers, or straight skirts for formal occasions – leggings don’t work with either.

I got these bags – a stow-away backpack and the sort you strap round your waist.

The first was superseded by a more sturdy backpack because in this fold-up one the groceries stuck into my back painfully through the thin fabric; the second was superseded by a return to a regular handbag because this waist one was in reality too small for what I carry around.

THINGS THAT ARE NICE BUT FRANKLY NOT ME

This scarf is lovely and suits me, so I kept it a long time, eventually noticing that I don’t wear scarves.

These slouchy beanies look awful on me. The eye-wateringly yellow top looks good but I feel too conspicuous in it so never wear it. It was so cheap on eBay, second-hand from a private seller, I thought it worth a try. Didn’t work.

THINGS WE HAVE TOO MANY OF

In our house we accumulate wooden furniture, because the Badger makes it. We also got some lawn chairs free (left behind by someone else somewhere) that are more comfortable to sit on that the wooden chairs we were using. So, time to thin out some of our wooden chairs.

SENTIMENTALIA AND HEIRLOOMS

It is my firm belief that of all the weeds growing in that garden of domestic life, those with the longest tap-roots are in this category. They come fraught with guilt and a sense of moral responsibility, they cling to us with very strong adhesive.

Here’s an example. This candle-stand was made by Bernard – my previous husband. We loved Bernard, so we kept the thing. Wrinkle – we don’t love the thing. Rest in peace Bernard – but it’s time to move this one to someone who can love it for what it is. It isn’t in fact Bernard; it’s just a thing. We won’t forget him (you couldn’t possibly – he was extraordinary).

SMALL ELECTRICAL GOODS

Near us there’s a supermarket that has a bin to dispose of small dead or otherwise useless electrical goods which, in this day and age, have a special talent for house-cluttering outstripping almost any other category of possession.

INBUILT ENCUMBRANCE

Not the books. The shelves. We’re losing three of them. Sometimes, when things are built in, they disguise themselves as not clutter when in fact they are.

WHAT THE HECK IS THIS?

Oh, do we not all have something in this category?

If I don’t even know what it is, how can I possibly want or miss it?

THE QUARANTINE PILE

And there are some things I want to think about carefully before I finally decide it’s right to pass them on. So I’ll keep this bagful just a few weeks more, out of sight and ready to go, while I practice living without them.

Lent de-cluttering challenge ~ Things That Didn't Work Out

So, continuing through Lent with the 40 bags in 40 days de-cluttering challenge.

On Shrove Tuesday I started to look at categories of clutter, with the first and most obvious one of True Junk; stuff that accumulates here and there and simply needs to go in the bin – whether that be the recycling bin, the compost bin, or down to the dump for sorting.

After True Junk, my biggest category of stuff to be got rid of is ~

THINGS THAT DIDN’T WORK OUT

Most people have a lot of these, because we tend to feel guilty for having wasted money on them and hang on to them in the hope they will work out one day after all. Usually they don’t.

This lovely Scandinavian wall sconce didn’t work out. 

There’s nothing wrong with it, but I rarely use candles – and when I do I go for nightlights in jam jars for safety reasons. I got it on eBay. I think I was channelling Innermost House or something.

These shoes didn’t work out. 

I have hard to fit feet, and the black ones are a make I know usually work for me, in the size and shape that usually fit me. Only these ones didn’t. I bought them at a very low price from a private seller on eBay (new would have been beyond my budget), no returns. I tried to sell them on through eBay – no luck. So off to the charity shop they go.  The slippers were cheapest of the cheap from China (eBay again). They fit and are nice but don’t stay on, which is both annoying and dangerous on the stairs. I’ve washed them, and off they go, too.

 These tops didn’t work out. 

I haven’t had them long, either. I got them in the last bargain-barrel-with-extra-discount-and-postage-off-thrown-in-for-a-laugh end of sale, thought they’d probably be okay, kept them long enough to discover they weren’t (wrong size) but too long to send back. I’ve listed them on eBay (here and here if you’re interested) but if they don’t go this week they’ll be headed for the charity shop.

KonMari is hot on Things That Didn’t Work Out. Her faith background is Shinto, which causes her to look at things with a very different mindset from the standard Western one. She regards her belongings as imbued with life – whether inherently or through connection with us I’m not sure. So she considers that every object that comes along has a teaching for her, even if it’s no more exalted than “I wouldn’t buy one of those again, if I were you.”

Therefore, she says that if you have an item you bought but it didn’t work out – it didn’t suit you as much as you first thought, or proved uncomfortable or whatever – you should waste no time on guilt or regrets, nor impede the flow of life by hanging on to it. You should thank it for what it has taught you, then bless it on its way because evidently its mission lies elsewhere.  

Seems reasonable.

Lent de-cluttering 2 - Where to take your unwanted stuff

On with the Lent de-cluttering challenge!

It occurred to me that here at the beginning, the day after Ash Wednesday (Soot Thursday?), it might be sensible to think about categories of disposal – different things have to go to different places. In fact, one of the most time-consuming aspects of de-cluttering is making sure nothing is wasted, as little as possible goes to landfill, and anyone who can use what I am chucking out gets the chance to do so.

SHOES FOR AFRICA

Near the masonry where Alice and Hebe work there’s a little shop that cuts keys and does shoe repairs. Outside they put a crate where you can drop off shoes in need of repair.

They collect them to send overseas, where people in poverty have the skills to mend shoes, and are pleased to have pairs good enough to refurbish and sell on. That’s where this bag will go. Perhaps there's one near you?

There are also charities that collect underwear for African women. Panties must be new, but bras can be lightly worn. Easy to find on a Google search. The Salvation Army is one of few charities that also accept bras that have been worn. That’s where these are going.

EBAY

There’s good old eBay. A couple of us in our house sell good clothes and shoes on eBay. I’m in favour of the informal economy – it’s a shade better than regular consumerism, reduces waste and allows people with very little money to make a bit more. But we don’t stockpile stuff into European Clothes Mountains – if it doesn’t sell first time round, we move it on.

CHARITY SHOP

This bag is full of nice clothes that didn’t sell in a week on eBay, so they are destined for the charity shop. We have two charity shops at the end of our road – one raises money to help blind people, the other is for our hospice’s complementary therapies initiative started by a local doctor in memory of his daughter who died in the hospice. She greatly benefited from things like reflexology and massage, and he wanted others in a similar situation to have that chance too.

MOVING IT SIDEWAYS

Another category of disposal is what I call “moving it sideways”. In our house, that means simply asking “Does anyone else want this?” Last week, on our bathroom windowsill, a row of Lush bath goodies appeared, along with a “Please help yourself note” – they went fast!

So my item in this category is a small cast iron pot. I used to cook in it, but the Badger found it fiddly and got new saucepans – which I must say are nice.

Our Alice is very low in iron, and isn’t keen on taking iron pills, but fortunately our spring where we collect water is a chalybeate spring (iron spring). And if you cook with something made of iron, that helps. So she has taken on this pot to make her bean stews and soups etc.

CRAFTERS

Buttons, beads, single earrings, ribbons, elastic or bias binding, ends of material, left-over balls of wool – sometimes these accumulate and you know you’ll never use them, really, but it seems wasteful to just throw them away.

We have a friend who makes beautiful craft items and likes to receive such odds and ends – and you probably know someone who does, too.

But all is not lost if you don’t. Sometimes I put together a craft kit or art kit, and post it on

FREEGLE or FREECYCLE or TRASH NOTHING

– all great websites for connecting those who have something to dispose of with those who want it. Even half-tins of paint, or small lengths of chicken wire, or old bamboo garden canes, or boxes of electrical cables that came with something but what?

PLAYGROUPS

My last disposal category today is playgroups. They often like to receive clean junk that can be made into sculptures or otherwise repurposed – washing-up liquid bottles, cereal/laundry powder boxes, yoghourt pots etc.

This bag of foil trays is going to our local home-education group. I’m sending it along with a bag of compost, for the children to plant seeds and learn about growing plants. I was going to make up a bag of our own compost, then I though of all the worms and little beetles escaping and frolicking about the hall where they meet, and decided on a bag of sterilised compost from the garden shop instead.

I hope that gives you some good ideas of where to send on your 40 bags without wasting anything more than you need to!

Tea in the time of snowdrops

There are two occasions in the year – a big deal in the church calendar – that I cannot, will not attend.

One is Remembrance Sunday – when we, who out of our taxes pay for our government to bomb Aleppo to dust and provoke the Soviet Union to war and sell weapons to ruin the lives of people in Yemen, meet to pray for peace and reminisce about World Wars I and II and the Nazis, “that it may never happen again”. To us.

I don’t go.

The second one is Ash Wednesday, when the people file up to have the priest mark their foreheads with ash, saying, “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Now, I know well that this is not only a Bible quote but that God said it, so that should make it extra holy and acceptable to me.

But, look – it’s from the curse of Adam.

We live under a new dispensation now. The whole point of Jesus coming, a second Adam, was to heal us and so we could be filled with the Holy Spirit.

If anyone tried to ash my forehead, they’d get as far as “You are dust – ” and I’d have to interrupt. No, I’m not. I am Spirit. I am the property of Jesus Christ, and to him I shall return. I am made of the Light and I came from the Light and to the Light I shall return. That’s just the way it is, and they can keep the curse of Adam because I do not want it and it has no place in my life.

So I don’t go to church on Ash Wednesday because I don’t even want to think about it.

But aside from that, I wanted to show you my cup of tea from breakfast time, because I thought it looked so pretty. Sorry about the dun-coloured formica table top – that’s just where it was.

The cup is Judith Rowe’s beautiful pottery, just the right size, with snowdrops on - and there are snowdrops now in the garden. And the pale green tea, perfect in the pale green cup, is rosemary tea.

I love it that the herbs do all year round for tea – in the winter garden we have sage and rosemary, perfect for winter teas; in the summer garden there are lemon balm (Melissa) and lemon verbena and different kinds of mint, light and refreshing.

Considering the price of tea, and all the packaging of printed cardboard and foil bags, not to mention teabags, garden herbs seem like the way to go. Entirely free – you can even grow them from roots or cuttings from a friend, so easy, you don’t even have to buy the plant – and no packaging at all. Plus they fulfill the Ayurvedic criterion of being less than two hours from picking to eating.