Thursday 20 September 2012

My current top three household tips

A couple of weeks ago I had a small but significant revelation. I was lying in bed, doing a bit of pre-sleep internet surfing, checking out some new blogs, when I came across a tip about having clear flat surfaces to enhance simplicity in one's life. I'm fascinated and drawn to simplicity in our complex world. It was a simple and understated tip...'clear your surfaces and leave a few nice looking bits out, plants work well'. I immediately saw the potential and being a woman who likes to get on with things, got up, donned dressing gown and headed for the kitchen. Two hours and well passed midnight later I felt like I was in a different room. A peace had descended, my kitchen had become a pleasant place to be. Gone were the piles of old mail, gone were the random things that just don't live in the kitchen at all ("Plastic ducks, why have you sat there for so long? Swim along! Hammer balanced on the spice rack, goeth home! Dead plant, compost in the composter!"). I rearranged, flung in the bin (ugly useless things mainly, I was stunned how many had taken up residence in my kitchen!), hid previously public things in private spaces, and cleared my surfaces. I strategically placed a few pretty things and the odd orchid. Lovely! The effect was significant immediately, but most fascinating to me is that it has lasted. It is sooo much easier to put things away when there isn't a pile of stuff it could join. I seem to clear up so much easier both while cooking and after meals, everything seems to take less time. Cleaning is much much easier, and far less intimidation. My head is clearer, and I find myself less stressed in the kitchen. Marvellous! Without really saying anything my family all seem to find it easier too. Clutter seems to breed clutter, and confusion, and stress. Honestly, clear surfaces are great, I highly recommend them. I'm slowly working my way through the house. I'm so into less being more! Costs nothing too! So, that is my current top household tip.

My next tip is everything needs a home. Everything. This is not really a 'done in an afternoon' type of job, more like months, but a bit can be done now and again and the benefits soon appear. If something has a home it is easy to put away, you don't have to think about it, you can just put it there. Hopefully, so can everyone else (I know, this is where the tip is possibly flawed!). You will also know where to find it again, saving much precious time and frustration. It might even mean that you and your family don't miss a plane, or a train, or a party. And it might save a few arguments. It has to be worth it. I find all sorts of containers help the process along, they make brilliant homes, defining space and preventing cross contamination. If they are pretty so much the better! This is also a money saving tip. If you know where something is, you will know quickly whether you have enough of it, or whether you have to buy more. How many times have I spent ages looking for sellotape, couldn't find any, bought more, found the sellotape I couldn't find when I came home, and now I own loads I don't really need. Obviously, this could also apply to expensive items, meaning it could cost you lots of unnecessary money! Anyone lost a passport and had to pay for a new one?

My final fave tip, is the 15 minute tip. I can do (almost) anything for 15 minutes. This is a great way of getting particularly dull stuff or stuff I'm resisting doing done. It is a manageable amount of time, not intimidating, but not insignificant. I choose my task, set my timer and get to work, knowing the timer will ring shortly. Because I am up against the timer I am focused and work hard. The timer goes off and I stop. If I haven't finished I can do another 15 minute slot later. I am always amazed at what can be achieved in 15 minutes.

Really I love these tips because they are about making life simpler. I don't want my focus to be on my home and my stuff and my cleaning, they are so not the point but I find they can demand more of my time than I am wanting to give. These tips are about lessening the demands on us from these things, and so creating more time and emotional space for us to be who God created us to be and do what He created us to do.

I would love to hear your top tips, please do share!

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Saturday 8 September 2012

Choosing Thankfulness!

Today I was faced with a job most horrid. I had been building up to it for several days, and today was the day. It was the second time in a week I was giving the chicken coop a good scrub. Last weeks scrub wasn't enough. A tactical six days on it was time to do it again. You see, my poor 'girls' are living with red mite, horrid minuscule blood sucking mites. They're not going to kill them, (unless they really get out of control) but they make life pretty irritating. Anyway, red mite eggs hatch after six-seven days, so to try and take control you have to do the cleaning again after that period. Having done a bit of reading since last week I realised I probably wasn't thorough enough last week either, not going into every nook and cranny; so really today's effort counts as clean number one, rather than two, ho hum. And this one had to be a whole lot more up close and personal with those red mites than last week.

So, I spent the best part of the afternoon with my head practically in the hen house, and scrubbed places never scrubbed before, right up in the rafters where the spiders and earwigs live in amongst a forest of cobwebs, and a zillion tiny red mite, some fat and bloated from last nights dinner and some pale and grey, hungry. As I brushed and cleaned they fell all over me, and soon I'm feeling as itchy as an itchy thing. Cleaning out chicken poo I can deal with, but the itchiness and those little things running all over me, is another matter. I'm not happy. This is not a pleasant Saturday afternoon activity.

The new chooks, Sarah, Felicity and Jeekin

Realising that grumpiness was not going to make the job any quicker, I decided to try and think of things to be thankful about instead. After all, we are supposed to be thankful in all circumstances, (1 Thess 5v 18) so it seemed a more godly response to the current situation. So, I started to be thankful. Thankful for the Vicar's boiler suit I was wearing, protecting most of me ( I had thought about wearing my pink shower cap as well, which to be honest would have helped a lot, but I just couldn't run the risk of an unexpected visitor, it does happen you know). I was thankful for my hand pump pressure washer ( it probably has a proper name, but can't remember what it is!), I was thankful to have the time to do the job ( the kind Vicar had taken the girls out for a milkshake, and the boy was having his forty winks). I was thankful for being able to have chickens, because I really rather like it, and I was thankful in faith for the abundance of eggs I'm going to be getting soon. I was thankful for chicken poo because it makes great manure, and I was thankful that it stinks because then I know whether I have some on my shoe. I was thankful for Vaseline, which is my new secret weapon in the fight, (smear it on the ends of the perches and they get stuck, he he he!  (thank you lady at Farm and Country for the tip)). Oh, there was much to be thankful for! While doing this, by oldest poppet asked me why God had made flies, we couldn't think of any sort of benefit to them and I have to say the creation of red mite rather baffles me as well. I didn't quite get around to being thankful for them!

While I was waiting for the hen house to dry I started to dig up the potatoes, something else on my 'to do' list. They were small but beautiful and not as worm eaten as last year, which were disastrous. Everything else in the veg plot, bar a few raspberries plants have been a complete write off. The slugs got everything right at the beginning. It was unwise of them to eat everything so early really, if they had let it grow a bit they would have had a lot more to eat. Oh well, they obviously haven't thought through the principle of delayed gratification. Actually, much of the time, neither have I.

So, the hen house is dried, diatom and Vaseline applied in abundance. The chooks have been drinking garlic water for days (the red mite don't like the taste of garlic chicken, not sure what they think of lemon...), and have been dusted with anti mite powder. Now we wait and see. It is one woman against half a million red mite, fighting on behalf of four chickens. Having done all that, I imagine my new chooks just lining up to roost in their sparkling home. But no, dusk arrives and they are not interested at all. I physically put them in, but they back out and jump back on the roof of their other shelter, not proper chicken behaviour at all. They remind me a lot of my middle poppet, who also jumps right out whenever she is tucked in. Sleep training is obviously not a strong point for me, we'll try again tomorrow.

Anyway, I was pleased to have taken the time to be thankful. It was rather more fun than being grumpy, and there was much to be thankful for that I could have missed. I guess the ways of our Heavenly Father are the wisest, even when they don't come to us most naturally.

"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" 1 Thess 5v 16-18