In 2014, we moved into our new house four days before Christmas and we have spent most of the last year unpacking. Twenty years married, two kids and eight house moves (the new house being our ninth) and we had gathered lots of mementoes of our life together. To the naked eye, these mementoes might look like junk.
The last move was a temporary six month stop before we moved into our new house, so lots of belongings remained packed up in boxes readily waiting for the last move.
But as my crepe myrtle blooms, now I feel settled.
I am loving my new green room and have been a savvy shopper in buying almost every plant (except my Vulcan Magnolia) in a marked down and partially dying state. I don't necessarily have a green thumb, I just understand that good food and water makes for happy plants and most of the markdown stock that the larger chain hardware warehouses sell are just lacking a bit of love and attention.
We finally got our new letter box operational, a bit bold for our neck of the woods, but it certainly communicates our personality. Our front garden is slowly taking form given that we started with a blank slate except for the established trees along the west boundary.
The cats are rather glad that they are not squeezed into a small 3 bedroom anymore. The large windows out the back act as an excellent cat entertainment system for when we are at work and the local blackbirds, wattlebirds and magpies are happy to perform. 2016 brings the promise of a proper cat run and outdoor alfresco area for the furry children.
One read that has shifted my thinking in the last six months is the cultish book by Marie Kondo, dubbed the KonMari Method. On the surface, a philosophy towards de-cluttering, but at the heart of the book is a statement about modern economic theory and the value of heirloom design and happiness.
Through cleaned glasses, all the family has been looking at what they have, whether it "sparks joy" and how our environment, rituals and purchases can influence happiness. The actions described in her book are similar to weeding the garden so that you can enjoy the flowers and the ritual are the seasonal cut backs and mulching that you regularly need to perform to have a healthy garden.
Marie Kondo encourages simple rituals of asking yourself if something "makes you happy" as a method of justifying it's existence in your life. She touches on lost habits of having seasonal clothing and/or decor and the idea that having one good object, that you can appreciate and use, is better than having five similar items that don't quite make the grade.
However, I have yet to "KonMari" my fabric stash. There are many others in blogland who have attempted it. Looking through it sparks joy in so many unimaginable ways, and I am happy to OpShop those pieces of fabric that don't make the grade, but I don't see myself thinning my craft stash down to minimalistic proportions! I am however, getting all the stuff together in one room and I will go through it, iron it, sort it, stack it and make sure that I am appreciative of it's existence.
So if I am missing from blogland, I am probably somewhere in my house sorting out a cupboard so that it "sparks joy" when I open it. In the meantime, I tend to instagram my adventures frequently and I am also a facebook-crack addict.
What about you? Have you hopped on the Konmari train?
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