Mrs Tidy

Hi. Happy New Year! How is everyone?

I’ve been having an intense January so far, pretty busy, quite stressful at times, but the tidying up in my house is going extremely well. I’m loving the Orjenise 100 (check out her Instagram). I see it as a tidying up game you participate in with others. You are not alone. Everyone has too much stuff.

So far I have cleared out 81 items from my house. It’s only 7 January. I’m on a roll. I am not a super tidy person, I’m not a super messy person, but I am generally a very busy person, and busyness leads to stuff accumulating in the house when you’re in a hurry and random stuff appearing next to stuff it’s got no business being next to so the house becomes muddled and then worse case scenario, you can’t find things that you know you’ve got.

My Dad realised the other day he has 4 walking sticks, he’s not really sure why. He thinks he bought a couple more when he couldn’t find the first 2….! Imminently I will go to sort and project manage moving some of my Dad’s clutter from one part of the South East to another, until he can be persuaded to part with more of it forevermore. I’m using the same clearance people I used for my aunt’s house several years ago. They pack everything very fast, their team members split into different rooms of the house. They do not get distracted by a photo or bizarre item, they just pack, pack, pack and hit the road to move your stuff into storage or clear as rubbish. It’s effective and allows you to sell the house more quickly. I can’t wait til it’s over.

One of the Orjenise categories was to spend your Christmas gift vouchers, rather than accumulating them in a drawer all year. I haven’t spent my book token yet, but I did buy a book with my Amazon vouchers. I really love cook books and the history of cooking. When I was browsing the cook books in store I realised that I am probably quite a traditional British cook in style. I looked at some of the new cook books on the market. I didn’t feel very inspired and thought David wouldn’t eat many of the dishes at all (lots of fresh, crunchy veg and nuts). Then I found this one… right up my street.

Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE trying different cuisines when I go out. I like sushi, sashimi, Thai noodles, Indian curries, Chinese chow mein and crispy duck pancakes. But when I cook at home, I usually cook quite British style food, or a nice curry. This book shows traditional British dishes from all over the UK. It must have taken ages to research. It contains a little bit of the history of each dish as well as the recipes. Think Shepherd’s pie, toad in the hole, Cornish pasties, fish cakes, crumpets etc. That’s my type of food. I’m not cooking much at the moment due to time pressures but I do really like this book and am sure to use it in the future, I’m just enjoying browsing it for now.

This is the book we’re reading this month for my book club.

I won’t talk about it too much as some of my book club members read The Waffle and we haven’t had our meeting to discuss this yet. My first impressions are that it’s graphic and cruel.. It starts off with a skinny boy killing a skinny cat to eat it and then someone even hungrier killing the boy… very dark. I hope there’s a happy ending (but obviously it’s already too late for the boy, the boy’s brother, mother and the cat!). I could do with a lighter read to escape my woes right now, but I’ll carry on. The point is to push yourself out of your comfort zone and read authors and books you wouldn’t usually choose.

I hope you’re all doing well. Are you doing a January declutter? Please tell me you’ve put away that Christmas present pile, taken down the decorations and cleared out most of the Christmas cards? I found a plastic bag full of 2015 Xmas cards at my parents’ house the other day… know what I’m saying??? X