K.I.S.S: Decluttering the Computer Desktop

 

Well, this is embarrassing...

Here I lay bare my ridiculously jumbled, unorganised desktop with you, in the hopes that the shame of it will drive me to pick up my game. Simplifying life for us is an all-encompassing pursuit, and that means the hub of our digital life too - the computer.

Confession Time:


I edit photos and "save" them straight to the desktop. I have files and folders still there from my business (which has been closed for over a year now). Not to mention scores of hours of video and thousands of photos that haven't been catalogued or sorted. Ever.

And please, please, please don't mention the b-word. (Back-up). I did have it setup before the renovation, but amongst moving and having Toby and moving back in and life, I lost one of the cables and haven't ever bothered to find it again and set up the external hard drive.

This isn't going to be a quick project, but I'm putting it out there now, that by the end of the month I will have organised my desktop and put in place a system for blog images, family photos and videos, personal files and home files. Plus set-up my backup again.

Hold me to it. Please!

My Name is Brooke and I am on a Decluttering Bender.

Sorry for the radio silence, friends. Every spare moment lately has been spent clutter-busting our home. I'm only a fraction of the way there, but damn it feels good. I feel lighter somehow.

I've been reading lots about minimalist living and the slow home movement, and buzzwords aside I think they're both really interesting, desirable, accessible ways to live. They both apply to what this whole journey is about.

So far:

Sparky and I have cleared our wardrobes, with the hope of sharing one wardrobe and getting rid of the other, as it clutters up our bedroom far too much. This 30 minute exercise netted us 5 big garbage bags of clothes to donate and two big garbage bags of pure crap, which was recycled or tossed as a last resort.

Yesterday I cleared out both of our bedside tables (netted another huge bag of recyclables/rubbish) as well as our bathroom cabinet. Another big bag full'o'junk there.

Went through my multiple piles of costume jewellery and tossed 95% of it. It was mostly tarnished, broken, mismatched or really really ugly. I actually don't wear much jewellery, so I need very little in the way of this stuff.

I cleaned out my craft cupboard and threw away two more bags worth of random scraps that I'd been keeping for "just in case". Nope, no more.

I sorted through our cookbooks and bookshelves, put aside all those books I've borrowed over the years and never returned (sorry, Dad!) and now have a big basket that I will try to sell to the local second-hand bookshop or otherwise donate to Vinnies.

You know those magazines that you buy/subscribe to and keep for no real reason? Yeah, me too. But as of yesterday: gone. I tore out anything I really wanted to keep and the rest was recycled. (I did keep my Organic Gardeners though - I use them a lot).

This morning I'm tackling the laundry and may just be crazy enough to try and tame the beast that is our "store room". Maybe.

K.I.S.S: Paper Traps!

I'm very very bad at lots of things: returning phonecalls and emails, cooking with chicken (it freaks me out) and keeping our bills and other admin-y type things in order.

As a result of the last one, I occasionally am late paying bills - oops - which really bugs me. It introduces unnecessary stress into my life, and as we know, I'm allll about reducing stress.

I've been looking at my life and trying to pinpoint the recurring stressors, and while there are many, there are a few that I think can do a better job at managing:

- paperwork/filing
- bills
- weekly meals/grocery shopping
- managing appointments/schedules

I read somewhere that the best way to deal with paper traps is to touch it once. That is, to have a place where you bring in your mail, open it, recycle what's not needed, sort what is and pay your bills or take any required action. It means you know exactly what to do with every thing that comes in your mailbox. Of course, my life isn't that predictable and usually when I bring the mail in I have a hungry baby in one hand and a stack of mail and local newspapers in the other, with a nappy beg around my neck and a toddler hanging off my knee. But, you know, the intention is there...

So with all that in mind, and as part of our ongoing renovations, Sparky and I have decided to build a bench in the back family/dining room that will function as a hub for all that kind of stuff.

I saw this one on design*sponge a few weeks ago and knew that was basically what we were after, so hopefully in the next couple of weeks we will put ours together.

The plan being that we incorporate a place for all the following in the one space:

- opening mail
- recycling any unnecessary mail
- box for action (bills to be paid etc)
- box for filing (paid bills)
- laptop
- phone/laptop/ipad chargers
- home phone
- notepad
- shopping list

Ours will be higher than the one featured above, and we will have a couple of stools tucked in underneath which means I can check emails, pay bills etc while keeping an eye on the kidlets. A vase of flowers or an indoor plant, plus a couple of artworks on the wall and it should match in really well with the midcentury/industrial/nanna/eclectic/crafty/diy vibe we're going for (!!)

K.I.S.S: How Not To Worry

A little bit light-hearted, but I love this. Let's all give it a go! (BoingBoing Via Root Simple)

K.I.S.S: Organising the Kitchen

I'm not a natural-born organiser. In my natural state I'm more of a seat-of-the-pantser, but I find that ridiculously frustrating and know that I do much better at life if I'm at least semi-organised.

So as part of the Great Experiment I've decided to put effort into organising my life, bit by bit.

Over the weekend I tackled the pesky drygoods cupboard. You know the one where you shove random bags of brown sugar, cocoa, flour and breadcrumbs in amongst bottles of food colouring, vanilla essence and loose sultanas that have fallen out of their box? Yeah, that cupboard.

It's not rocket science, but I had a strategy in place to tackle it, and it meant a grand total of ten minutes (shopping time extra, but it doesn't count because I went and had a coffee: bonus!) and I was done. And felt amazingly satisfied!

1. Listed everything I had stored in the cupboard
2. Figured out what sized container I needed to accommodate a full bag+
3. Armed with the list I went shopping for the containers I needed (what price is organisation? For me, $30! Thank you, Big W).
4.Transferred everything to its container and labelled each one. (OK, an admission, I haven't actually done the labelling yet, but I will. Because it is very, very important......)

That's it. Simple, I know. But even so I had put off doing this for ages because it felt like such a sucky way to spend my time. But now that it's done, it really does make a difference. It's easier to see what I have, what I need and what I have inadvertently bought 6 bags of (yes, you, desiccated coconut). Plus now I don't have to dodge a cascade of cocoa every time I get something off the top shelf!

Get Out(side)! Plus the Clean-Out Continues...

Ahoy! I hope you all had wonderful long weekends? A pretty wet affair here in Sydney unfortunately. We managed to get one day's worth of outside work done though, which felt so, so, very good (nothing beats gardening and outdoor work to chill my mind and work my muscles) and we now know exactly where the vege garden will be going in a month or two, as well as the fruit trees, compost bins and chook run. I'm ridiculously excited! I'll be sure to take some photos of the work as it progresses.

Aside from the garden planning, I managed to have another big clear out of our storage room, and have culled another 4 big garbage bags of clothes and toys that can go to Vinnies. I also finally organised the craft cupboard and went through all my remaining jewellery stock. I only have one crate of it left, so it's gradually going. I can't tell you how much better I feel with every cull I do. Just releasing ourselves from the excess stuff we've accumulated is seriously liberating.

I estimate that I've got about another 6 crates worth of stuff that can go, it's just a matter of sorting through it all to find what I need to keep, what I really, really want to keep (remember: love it or get rid of it) and what can go.

Adventures in Op-Shopping: A Tale of Success and Woe.

Sorry for the recipe-heavy nature of yesterday - I guess the cold weather has my brain switched to the Food setting!

Last weekend was a busy one, but while I was waiting around for a doctor's appointment on Saturday morning I snuck into our local Vinnies for a quick peek. They usually have tonnes of kooky knick-knacks that are fun to look through, but the real gem is the furniture "showroom" downstairs. It's always hit and miss, and fun to have a look around.

I scored a great raw timber A1-sized frame for the princely sum of $3, that I have plans for (showcasing some of Isy's art and craft) and I spotted a delicious chest of drawers, that was screaming for a makeover and a new home in our living room (maybe even as a TV unit?)

I sent a picture message to Sparky that said something like: "$35?" but he sensibly reminded me that we actually need a lounge first. So I had to let her go. But it hurt just a little bit, I have to say.

I'm really enjoying the process of decluttering, but I'm also surprised by how much I'm enjoying scouring second-hand furniture shops, ebay and garage sales for new furniture for our house. I know it's not everyone's cup of chai, but I love the positive environmental implications of not buying everything new as a matter of course as well as the fact that these pieces have a history to them.

Bonus: this coming weekend is a long weekend (yay!) and it's also hard rubbish night for our area (double yay!) I am going to try and convince Sparky to take a scouting drive with me, but we'll see how successful I am.

K.I.S.S: Love it or Get Rid of it (part 3)

As I've mentioned before (here and here) I've been trying to trim down our worldly possessions bit by bit every week. I'm selling some of our stuff on ebay, having a farewell fire sale on Etsy, giving a lot to charity and throwing out the bare minimum.

It was a bit of a crap weekend here, Sparky had to work and the kids and I are still a bit under the weather, but I did manage to clean out my wardrobe and swap over my summer clothes for my winter ones. (Our wardrobes are on the small side and I keep a box of seasonal stuff, to make sure I have enough room. Annoying but necessary. Plus it forces me to go through my clothes and shoes twice a year.)

I have a fairly decent amount of clothes and shoes for Vinnies, as well as a heap of maternity clothes I'm lending to my sister-in-law. It's so nice to be able to see the bottom of my wardrobe again, and not have to shove millions of coathangers aside whenever I want to see what clothes I have.

Bonus: I was going to give this skirt to charity too, but the fabric is too pretty and I think I'm going to try and use it in some as yet undefined craft project. (I'll add it to the pile of unfinished projects now, shall I?)

Brooke x

Hey There, Distraction. Thanks for kicking my arse.

I whipped into my studio/storeroom just after the kids went to sleep, with all intentions of posting a quick, easy chocolate-chip cookie recipe to help use up your extra Easter eggs (cause if you're anything like us, they're still coming out the wazoo and any pleasure gained from eating them has been replaced with a bloated self-loathing. No? Oh, it's just me then. Carry on.) But I got sucked down the internet rabbit-hole and found myself reading my old jewellery business blog, Trove.

I honestly haven't given it too much thought since we closed the business down last year (a move I in no way regret. The timing was just bad for us to have such a big, involved business.) but reading over the journey Sparky and I (and Isy for some of it) have taken did make me feel...funny. I remember so many late nights, so many books scrawled with plans and calculations and figures and collections and sketches and logos, so many big big dreams. I don't think I realised until just now just how close we were to making those dreams a reality.

But that's the only bad thing about dreams becoming reality: the reality part.

The long, long hours, the crappy pay, the time spent away from the kids and Sparky, the hundreds of hours of stress and guilt.

Life is a constant see-saw balancing act, where you need to give and take to keep the overall balance there. Sometimes you tip one way, other times you lean in the opposite direction. Sometimes you even feel stable and balanced.

For us, Trove pushed the balance too far in one direction and made it really difficult to tip back. So, when I read about the excitement and promise that was in our business, I need to remind myself that this quest for a simple(r) life means there's plenty of time for everything, just not at the same time.

*And here ends today's diary entry.

Continue on for a delicious choc-chip cookie recipe, that allows you to use up your extra Easter eggs...

You'll need: 


125g butter
1/4 cup peanut butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup SR flour
3/4 cup plain flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (I often use muesli if I'm out of oats)
1 cup choc bits or chopped up Easter eggs
a handful of sultanas

1. Melt butter and peanut butter over medium heat. Once combined, transfer to a large bowl and cool for five minutes.

2. Add brown sugar and egg, mix well. Add flours, oats, chocolate and sultanas. Mix well to combine.

3. Roll tablespoons of mixture into balls, place on baking paper lined trays and flatten slightly with a fork.

4. Cook in preheated oven (180C) for 10-12 minutes or until golden. (By around 12 minutes they tend to go quite hard and crunchy. 10 or 11 minutes leaves them chewy.)

Delish, and calorie free when consumed for breakfast. (Not that I ate two.)

K.I.S.S: Love it or get rid of it

so we bid a slow goodbye to our clutter...

In the never-ending quest to simplify our lives, Sparky and I have a heap of stuff we'd like to get rid of. Most of it is in really good condition, but we just have no need for it anymore (if we ever really did have a need for it to begin with).

So I've decided to start getting rid of five extra, unnecessary things every week. It'll be like an ongoing declutter. I'll either be selling them on ebay, donating to charity, giving them to someone I know who needs it, recycling or, as a very last resort, throwing them away.

This week we hope to bid adieu to these, via ebay:

barely used snowboarding mitts

dakine wrist guards - worn about three times

brand new ski gloves

good condition electric ski/board goggles

lightweight snowboarding jacket - worn three times max

heavy duty helly hansen snow jacket

Sparky and I lived and worked in Canada for a year a while back and fell for the snow big-time. Unfortunately we've only been once since coming home and the chances of us hitting the hills any time soon are slim to none. So it's all going. Our snowboards, bindings and boots are on next week's hit list!

Anyone else have some extra stuff around that they can clear out? I bet you'll feel better if you do!

Simpler Living 101: Single-Tasking, Not Multi-Tasking

Simple via Lougan Manzke on flickr

As you know, my aim with this blog is to document the ways I am trying to make our life simpler. After a period of huge emotional upheaval and anxiety, I'm (slowly) learning to value simplicity over busyness. It's a daily effort to remind myself that simple is OK. Busy isn't always better and crazy busy is almost never better.

In that vein, I've come across the idea of single-tasking, and I'm really making an effort to do that for at least some part of my day. It's where you commit your mind to the task at hand and only do that task. Sounds silly, but it means no checking emails on my phone when I'm pushing Isla on the swing, or no planning the night's dinner while I'm eating my lunch or having a cup of tea.

It just means I can really be in those moments, and really enjoy them. Then I can step back on the merry-go-round feeling a little fresher.

I like it because it tends to get me out of my own head for a bit, give me a break and provide much-needed perspective. Because stressing out about the ironing not being done is productive to no-one.

K.I.S.S: The garage sale wrap-up

So, yesterday was the big garage sale day. And after what turned out to be a horrible week, it was the last thing I wanted to do. But thanks to Sparky and my family, the sale went ahead and was a pretty decent success.

The early birds were out in force ("Um, no, you may not open our gate to access our property. It's 7am.") but once opening time rolled around there were a tonne of bargain hunters ready and waiting. Sparky took the early shift and sold 80% of our stuff by 10am, and I sold the majority of the remainder before midday.

Not that the aim was to make squillions (good thing!) but we ended up making a few hundred dollars overall, which was great. Advertising costs were minimal ($12 I think, to advertise in the local paper) and other expenses pretty much non-existent. We bought dinner and added the rest to the ever-needed renovation kitty. (Something has to pay for the thousands of litres of paint we get through!)

Everything that was left over has either been taken to Vinnies already, or left at my sisters for a day or two to see if any passers-by would like to take them for free.

It felt really good to see all the extraneous stuff we've collected over the years go to good homes. It just weighs you down over time I think, and it was a relief to let go. I felt particularly pleased when a lovely young couple came by near the end and bought all my left over market bags from my Trove days. They're opening a store soon and needed bags and packaging material to get started, so they were well pleased.

I have to admit though that Sparky and I came home with quite a haul ourselves. I forgot to take the camera with me, but we scored super well. We picked up:

• a Victorian plant stand that was Sparky's mums
• a quirky round mirror I'm going to hang in the garden
• two travel chalkboards
• a big frame I plan on repurposing for Isy's artwork
• two throw cushions that match the lounge perfectly
• a book on raising toddlers
• a colander

The idea was, of course, to get rid of things we don't need, but every single one of those will be put to good use. In fact, the majority already are.

I like the idea of repurposing or giving something old or mundane a new lease on life, so have added the frame, chalkboards and plant stand to my ever-growing project list. It may well take some time, but I'll be sure to share as I go.

I hope you had a good, fun weekend?? xx

K.I.S.S: Decisions

Chucks by Nan Lawson on Etsy

One of my dearest friends is moving to London today, indefinitely. We had dinner last week (such a pleasure, let me tell you! Great company, amazing Italian food, delicious wine...) and I was struck by how calm and committed to the move she was - no nerves or cold feet or second guesses. Not that it would be warranted mind you, I think this is going to be amazing for her, but you could be forgiven for feeling a little jittery about such a massive shift.

It got me thinking though about keeping decisions simple and owning your choices. Sparky and I have made a lot of big decisions in a seemingly short amount of time - the decision to sell our house in the city and move to the mountains was made early one morning and we were looking for property the same day. We also decided very quickly to close down Trove, just as it was becoming very successful. Both of these decisions have been life-changers and choices we've never once regretted. We made the best decision for ourselves and committed to it. There's no benefit in second guessing after the fact because the alternatives were never an option.

It's such a welcome relief when you commit to a decision and then simply move forward.

I once read an article on happiness, and one of the suggestions to creating more happiness was to simplify our decision-making process. If you need new shoes you should visit just two shoe stores and make your choice. More options doesn't mean you're going to feel more satisfied once your decision is made, it just means that making that decision will take longer and likely be more stressful.

Now, I don't know about you, but I'd quite like to spend a day shoe shopping, so I don't think that that was the best example but I do like the thinking behind it!

K.I.S.S: Garage Sale Tips

Our, ahem, "spare" room.

Since we moved back into the house after the renovation, we've been steadily working through each room, decluttering and sorting out all the things we no longer need. Some of these attempts have been more successful than others - like when Isy rediscovered all the toys I had squirelled away in the hopes of rotating them out every few weeks to cut down both on clutter and over-stimulation. It was messy and joyous.

The biggest job by far was clearing out and sorting through our garage and the huge amount of stuff we'd accumulated in there over the past few years. In fact, I'm currently surrounded by a lot of it, as it's now taking up every spare inch of the spare room, until we replace our garage with a smaller storage studio some time in the future.

Anyway, all this decluttering has left us with a LOT of stuff we no longer need, so we've decided to have a garage sale in a couple of weeks time. To make it a substantial one we're combining forces with one of my sisters and selling off furniture, toys, books, CDs, homewares, knick knacks and random pieces of sporting equipment.

I can't tell you what a huge relief it is to be rid of some of the extraneous crap we've surrounded ourselves with. There is still so much more I could do away with, being a reformed hoarder of useless things like old school assignments, uni books, ticket stubs, newspapers, odds, ends and tidbits, but it's a start.

And it's seriously addictive. I now find myself looking for things to sell. Nothing is safe!

In preparation for the big garage sale I've been reading up on how best to run the day and have come across some tips that I'll be following:

• $1-$50 is generally the price bracket people are willing to pay at a garage sale.
• Group items of the same value together (all items selling for $5 placed in a basket, for example)
• Use colour-coded sticker dots to show the price of items
• Toys, clothes, books, CDs and music sell well. Show them prominently.
• Be prepared to bargain. I know I'd prefer to sell everything rather than lug it back inside the house at the end of the day.

I'll be sure to take some shots on the day and share any crazy early bird stories with you in a couple of weeks time. Is it weird that I'm nervous about holding a garage sale??

Kerbside Ettiquette?

Wish this was my neighbourhood's hard rubbish night. Look at that crib! From here.

Am I crazy for thinking this is wrong??

A couple of weeks ago we put our fully functioning but no longer needed electric hot water system out on the kerb for someone to pick up for free. (It's not something we do often, except hard rubbish nights - the funnest nights, excluding Firecracker Night and Christmas Eve!)

Anyway, a man from our neighbourhood, let's call him Captain McScroogepants, saw our fully functioning water system and rather than take the whole thing, proceeded to remove the copper pipe from the outside, rendering the whole thing pretty useless. He went home, profitable copper pipe in hand, but came back about an hour later and removed the element from the system, rendering it completely and utterly useless! At this point Sparky asked him what he was doing:

Sparky: What are you doing?
Captain McScroogepants: Well, I'm taking the element from your hot water system.
Sparky: Oh, OK. We were thinking someone could, you know, take the whole thing, as it is fully functioning.
Captain: Well, I don't need the whole thing.
Sparky: And now no-one will want the remnants.
Captain: Not my problem.
Sparky: ......

Technically he was right, it wasn't his problem. But I was under the impression that kerbside ettiquette means for you to take the whole thing and then deal with what you don't want. For example, you spy an awesome timber framed lounge in front of a neighbours' but it has disgusting poo-brown corduroy cushions. Too bad. You take the lounge and cushions and then deal with it yourself. I'd never leave the poo-brown cushions. I'd want to, but I wouldn't. It's just not cricket.

Am I being uptight? (Likely. Very likely.)

PS. A junkyard man did come and pick the rest of the system up a week later, which made me happy.

Natural Body Products: Coconut Oil

Hehe. From here.

I'm a relatively new convert to using coconut oil as a body product (or at all, really) as I used to associate it with that nasty coconut-scented tanning oil that people use to bake themselves in the sun. In reality, it's nothing like that and I'm super glad I stumbled across the recommendation online.

Pure, extra virgin coconut oil is generally produced in the South Pacific where the coconuts are harvested and the oil extracted within one hour of the nut being open - super fresh! It's a funny substance in that it is actually a milky-coloured solid oil when the room temp is 26C or under and becomes softer and clearer as the temp rises. In summer when it's around 30C+, it's a clear oil.

I use it as a body moisturiser, but it can be used in a heap of different ways. (None of which I've actually tried yet, but I like multi-use products. It keeps things simple!)

Use it as:
 
• Cooking oil (much like peanut or vege oil)
• Raw and fresh bread spread
• Skin moisturiser
• Massage Oil
• Baby Oil
• Hair Oil (massage into your hair at night and shampoo it out in the morning)
• Base ingredient for organic cosmetics

• Head lice and hair nit control (see here for directions)
• Tooth Paste (weird maybe, but there's a recipe here)



It's super economical and smells tasty too! (Not too coconutty though - that would be weird and tropical). I've found some interesting recipes that use the oil, so I'll try some out and get back to you.

Hope you're having a fabulous Monday!

Keeping It Simple, Stupid

In the quest to live a lavender life, or a simpler life, I'm looking for ways to cut the clutter and get rid of the unnecessary complexities in life. It might be doing things like cleaning out the junk drawer in the kitchen or having a garage sale (in March we are having a garage sale - it will be huge and there will be cupcakes and a sausage sizzle).

But to kickstart this semi-regular series, I'm going to simplify part of myself: my hair. It's a bit dramatic, but this weekend I'm going from this:

Taken a few months ago in Fiji. My hair is much longer now. And much tanglier.

To this:

The lovely Michelle Williams.

It will no doubt simplify my morning routine, it'll cut down the amount of shampoo I use, it'll mean less brushing, less drying, less straightening, less product! I'm quite nervous about it but need to do it. Otherwise I'll always wonder. 

Plus, then I get to wear pretty hair accessories like this:

Gorgeousness from ban.do 

I'll be sure to post my own (slightly less glamorous) after shots next week.