Preparing to launch

I listened to this audiobook this week and it enabled me to put some of the practical finishing touches to the project that's been brewing in me for a few months now - see next post.

My project is not about spending or not spending exclusively but that's an important dimension of it - conscious consumption.

Her ten point preparation list was especially helpful:

1. Why are you doing it?
2. Take inventory and declutter
3. Write 3 lists:

- Essentials
- Non-essentials - things you can't buy
- Approved shopping list - specific things you're allowed to buy

4. Unsubscribe from all shopping emails and sites
5. Set up a shopping ban savings account
6. Tell everyone - especially those you spend most time with - and pick an accountability person
7. Replace costly habits with free things to do
8. Pay attention to your triggers and change your reactions
9. Learn to live without (30 days) or become more resourceful
10. Appreciate what you have

♡

Brief journeys - castles and kitchen gardens

Space for sitting and for sparkle...

We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.

Anton Chekhov

It was a very busy week. Mad busy. Two big events back-to-back to plan for, elusive clients and less than ideal locations for practical accessibility (although I'm hoping next week's Scottish loch-side gig will be as beautiful as it is remote). Despite long days that often rolled on into the night too, I spent a large part of the time working with my laptop on my lap. And my feet up. Mostly in bare feet. Sitting in my office, on the floor, on my bed, on the sofa... moving around from room to room whilst trying to work out a design dilemma in my head or wrestle arrangements into a neat plan.... Music or late-night silence in the background, tea always at hand and mascara-less for days in a row, it felt less like hard work than it otherwise might've. I haven't quite struck the balance yet but when I can do this, like this, I'm reminded why this new lifestyle's a better choice for me. Worth riding out the storms for.

I did make time to paint my toes too - always space for that frivolous indulgence! There haven't been many stars visible around here (that'd be due to the continuing and relentless cloud cover in the UK Midlands) so I created some tiny constellations of my own. Hard to capture in a photograph but they sparkle all silveryblackblue, turquoise, pink and purple... Disco Ball over Midnight Skinny Dip, which sounds like a perfect Summer's night to me, although far from the truth of what I'm up to. My starlight toes delight me though and sad but true that I sat for a few minutes last night fixated on wiggling them in the candlelight to make them twinkle. I even contemplated taking a little video to do them true justice, 'though you'll be relieved to hear that sense prevailed. I'd like to blame it on the tiredness kicking in but am not sure it wasn't just an, "Ooooh, look at the pretty!" moment that had nothing to do with fatigue. I'm glad no-one saw me doing it. But now you know.

Anyway, on that note of silliness, I hope that whatever you're up to, you have a lovely weekend in store. With perhaps a bit of sparkle added - inside or out!

Lovely stuff and breathing space

I've purged myself of worldly goods; half my stuff is either being sold or going to charity. 

I need to go shopping.

Christy Leigh Stewart

This quotation made me smile. I can soooo relate.

I've been going through a bit of a clear-out around here. The trigger was sorting through some boxes transferred from my old workplace and that I'd avoided for months. Not sure why. I finally tackled them though and it was great - most of the stuff ended up in the recycling or being given away to former colleagues, who I hope might still find some use for it. A fair bit of it just went in the bin. Why've I been holding on to some of those materials for years and years after the content was out of date? Just in case? No idea. Apparently I have squirrel tendencies!

Once I'd started, I just kept going... sorted through several cupboards and identified more stuff that really needed to go. Some of it was worn out (why do I hang on to that sort of thing, much like the out of date materials?), some of it was excess and taking up space for no good reason, and some of it was junk. Lots of paper junk especially. I swear paper multiplies on its own when left in the dark! All into the pile. For several days my hallway was a box-and-bag-mountain range of stuff to be given away, thrown away, or recycled.

Now that it's done, on the outside, not much looks different. I can feel the breathing room behind those cupboard doors though and it feels good. I still have some sorting to do but it has created a sense of calm even where I cannot see the space. I love that.

So why then is my next impulse to think... "Mmm, now that I have given that away, have the space, I could go out and buy..."? Peculiar. I'm really not in need of anything. Definitely not in need of anything. I don't even really want anything. But I do love beautiful stuff and the urge to reward myself for the clearing out with some new loveliness is strong. I've found though, that in times like this, a little online window-shopping can really help to diffuse the impulse to splurge.

So I went to Etsy and had a bit of a browse. I haven't done that for a while and it was fun. These were some of the goodies added to my already 45-page long wishlist. Just added. Not purchased. And, just like that, I feel it go... the urge. The breathing space remains. Best of both.

Etsy loveliness:

Curious, a mini art-feeling sculpture
Have a bit of a thing for pomegranates at the moment
Long and lovely hoodie
Butterfly leather wrap bracelet
Gorgeousness!
I'm sure it sounds like the sea too...
Turquoise flame
A lesson I'm still learning
Never can resist a beautiful mobile

It doesn't take much...

But even if I'm left high and dry at the end of this wild journey, just taking it is a great feeling.

Olivia Wilde

Even after all these years, and what must amount to hundreds of flights (I took my first alone as an unaccompanied minor, to visit my grandparents, at the age of 5) I still love the little kits one gets on planes, with a pair of socks, an eye mask, earplugs, toothbrush and teeny tiny toothpaste in them*. Whether I use the goodies or not, whether they're really tacky or a bit more stylish in presentation, it makes no difference. In my mind (even when I fly for work) they are inextricably linked with adventure.

I really love this one's name (just in case we aren't sure of its purpose?) and it got me thinking... wouldn't it be fab if everyone could carry a tiny feel good kit around that, on less than great days, senses exactly what's needed and when it's opened up, there it is?! If I could have a magical job, I think it might be to create these... what fun!

The contents of mine would vary from day to day - some days a hug, some days a good book, some days a nice long bubble bath or a nap in a hammock... every day, chocolate.

How 'bout yours?

* I've never yet flown business or first class and I bet their feel good kits are amazing! It's on my list... just once, just for the experience (oh, okay... and the kit! ;)

Beautiful blank books...

Isn't it mysterious to begin a new journal like this? I can run my fingers through the fresh clean pages but I cannot guess what the writing on them will be.

Maud Hart Lovelace

One thing people quickly learn about me is that I have a bit of a stationery "thing"; have had for as long as I can remember. I've no idea how it started or where it might end and I sometimes wonder what madness might ensue if I ever gave it free rein. I don't give in to it (arguably I exert extreme control!) and I still have a sizeable stash by non-stationery-geek standards. I know how bizarre this can seem to some and I also know that I'm (by far) not alone in this quirk. I love when I meet someone who shares it and there is a mutual recognition, an obvious eye-twinkle during a chat about the joys that even a browse through an online stationery store can bring. Being let loose in a real shop - filled with tangible, smellable paper, writing instruments, inks & general stationery "stuff" - can make for giddiness and shortness of breath. Truly.

I especially love a notebook. Books for writing, books for drawing, books for pasting stuff into, books for just running my hands over and sticking my nose into. Any book of blank pages qualifies, lined or unlined. It doesn't have to be fancyschmancy either. A simple exercise book is no less appreciated. There's just something so delicious about the potential that a blank book holds for me. In fact, so much so, that I keep books deliberately empty for years just to preserve that sense of promise... and then I write in them from the back, to further extend the illusion. Yes, weird, I know.

Because it's common knowledge amongst family, friends and colleagues that I find notebooks so swoon-worthy, I'm lucky enough to receive them as gifts too and these are most treasured because they've been specially chosen for me with thought and care. I often keep these for several years before I use them as well and sometimes, if they are really beautiful, I angst over "spoiling" them with my squiggly handwriting.

I do use them though - eventually. In time they all find their perfect purpose... as a journal, a space for work-meeting notes, a place to stick inspirational pictures, to gather life's ephemera or to press leaves... In time.

This week I'm due to start a new journal and I'm choosing from this pile of three beauties - all gifts and all gorgeous in their own way. The bottom one was a Christmas gift three years ago from a colleague at my last place of work. The middle one came to me from New York, bought by a special friend whose luggage was already dangerously close to overweight but she knew its rightful home was with me and tucked it in anyway. And the top one, a Birthday present from my dad and step-mum, who knew that everything about it would appeal to me... the size, the horses, the colours - so me.

I have set them on top of my bookshelf for now and when the time comes, probably midweek, one of them will reveal itself to be the right one. I can't wait to see which it is.

For the love of painting...

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint", then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent van Gogh

She preferred the quiet solitary atmosphere, to create in her own world of paint and colour... How satisfying it was to mess around in paint gear, without having to worry about spills, starch or frills, that was the life!

E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

Writing, painting, singing - it cannot stop everything. Cannot halt death in its tracks. But perhaps it can make the pause between death’s footsteps sound and look and feel beautiful, can make the space of waiting a place where you can linger without as much fear. 

For we are all walking each other to our deaths, and the journey there between footsteps makes up our lives.

Ally Condie

A painting was a translation of the language of my heart.

Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning

If you could say it in words, there would be no reason to paint.

Edward Hopper

Paint + Time + Losing myself in it = Bliss