A Whirlwind or a Meander

 

A whirlwind is spinning through our place, well a very leisurely slow spinning one so maybe it's more of a meander :-)

 

Yesterday I decided to tackle some corners of the living room, yes the spare room has plummeted to the bottom of the list, in fact it's filling with discarded things ready to be placed in our plastic box stash which is in the shed, I'll retrieve a couple of boxes today and start packing things away.

 

Sat watching television the other night I felt myself more drawn to watch the bookshelves, they weren't very entertaining just starting to annoy me.  Since moving in over a year ago I can honestly say not one book has been read off these shelves (although a couple have been added).  They are mostly fiction and I've simply not been reading fiction recently.

 

 

 

So I decided to start a slow and deliberate cull of the books. First I concentrated on the top shelf, making lots of space I moved some things over from the windowsill which has also gradually filled up.  I also did the bottom shelf and made more space for things to move down, in fact I made so much space all the books that were lying sideways on top of other books on our other large bookshelves were re-homed on these shelves.

 

 

 

The windowsill looking too full, I'm in love with surfaces now not stuff.

 

 

 

Much sparser, and easy on the eye (and also easier to dust).

 

 Also the cat can now sit on either end and look out of the window which he does anyway but usually knocking something off in the process.  Someone needs to explain relative space and size to him, he is the biggest, fluffiest cat ever and he still thinks he can fit in a matchbox or sit in the space where one has been!!

 

 

 

Then the top of the shelves caught my eye ....too much stuff.

 

 

 

Much better.

 

The jugs are reminders of nice things and are used for flowers, the leafy 'bowl' is a souvenir from a wonderful day out.

 

 

 

This jug, not so good memories, the candlesticks never used and the wooden trough, although I love it to bits, I have never found a good use for it, maybe someone else will so it's off to the car boot sale box.

 

 

 

Sorting through my books is always the hardest thing for me, I love books, really LOVE them, but last year I treated myself to a Kindle and now I am slowly and surely putting all the fiction I may want to read onto it.

 

 

 

I mean look at the size of it compared to even one book!

 

Also when I go anywhere where there will be waiting involved I can simply pop it in my bag and have a whole library of things to read at my fingertips.  Definitely one of my better purchases.

 

All these books are now in the car boot box, some of them are now on the Kindle, I'll watch out for the others being available cheaply in the future.  I'm going to sit and look through the Kindle store and see if any of my other books are available for pennies or free as they sometimes are on Amazon.

 

Today I'm tackling a little bit more of the kitchen, taking the cupboards one at a time, there's no rush to do this and I think that's what I'm enjoying, after the mad whirlwind of last year rushing through the house gathering all the obvious things we no longer wanted that were cluttering up our lives, this gentle meandering through surfaces and spaces is calming to the soul and as an added bonus while I go about all this sorting out I'm spring cleaning as I go in a rather nice and leisurely way.

 

Sue xx