I've become quite the little housewife lately...dishes are done regularly, Mr.Q's lunch is packed for him, the veggies in the fridge stand a better chance of being used up before they get...interesting. I'm getting a bit more creative in the kitchen - last night we had a kick-ass tamale pie (Moosewood recipe); tonight will probably be asparagus soup, since it's cold and yucky out again. (And the asparagus needs to be used pronto)
The apartment is slowly (but perceptibly!) getting tidier, as I sort through piles and shelves...today, I even dusted! Also, as I go, I find I'm getting rid of a lot of stuff. It's quite liberating. We've taken a several loads to the thrift store over the last couple of months, and I've got another one started. Today, for example, as I was putting dishes away, I had to just stop and look at what I was doing. Then I went to get a box, and I loaded it up with dishes. There are two of us here. Two. How many different matching sets of 4 dinner plates do we need? The answer is not three sets, plus a few odd ones out.
The tidier it gets, the easier it is to keep it that way...and the more I want to. Mind you, it will never be a Martha Stewart model in here...there's only so much one can do in a small, 2-bedroom apartment with hundreds of CDs, records, and books. Not to mention the growing yarn stash, and the dozen or so musical instruments! When it's chaos, it bothers me. But as long as there's some kind of method to the madness, I can't say I mind a bit of clutter when it's made up of music, literature, yarn...creative stuff.
The trick, of course, is implementing the method. Made more challenging by Mr.Q's OCD hoarding genes...he's definitely his parents' child there! (So much so that he once wrote me a song called "My Husband's a Pack Rat." The chorus simply repeats "books and records and records and books" over and over.)
Getting rid of superfluous stuff, like the dishes today, helps. A lot. Simplifying. It's a question of what's truly important. Guitars? Absolutely! Enough dinner settings for a hockey team? Not so much. Simplification - more challenging than multiplication, and so much more satisfying to learn!
One of the other projects I'm working on is applying that to transportation...and getting rid of the van. We don't really need it in the city; we hardly drive it. Not to mention the cost of feeding the greedy beast! Besides public transit, there are a couple of different car co-ops we could join. The trick is persuading Mr.Q, since it's his baby. But as the van is currently in the shop getting a new fuel pump...well, I think he's a bit closer to being convinced.
'Nuff rambling. Time to go start that soup....
2 comments:
We've been going through the house and doing the same thing...so far we've brought 4 loads down to the thrift store. Unfortunately most of the clutter we have is useful - things like paint and yarn and such....
Yay! What a great accomplishment! Now spill the secret - how do you do it?! I just look at one of my many disaster areas and want to crawl back in bed.
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