Tuesday, 30 November 2010

Julie & Julia...



I've been wanting to see this movie for ages! I'm a little obsessed with cooking, so any time something food related comes out, I always have several people telling me to check it out.


Well, this movie was one that a LOT of people had told me I must see, but I could never find the DVD anywhere.


Today, joy of joys, I was doing some xmas shopping in my local Asda, and there is was! Not only that, but it was at a special price of £5, AND came with a free recipe book!


The sticker on the front said "Gift idea - she'll love it!"


Okay, so that slightly pissed off my inner feminist, but I bought it nonetheless and guess what? She DID love it!




What's not to love? Two true stories running parallel to each other - the first, the story of Julia Child, an american woman living in Paris, who discovers that she is as passionate about cooking as she is about eating. She spends years pursuing her dream of publishing a french cookbook for american people. It's an inspirational story which teaches the all important lesson that nothing worth having comes easily.

The second, set many years later, is the story of Julie Powell, a woman on the threshold of her 30s, who feels a bit lost in a world where it seems that everyone else knows what they are doing except her. She hates her job, but adores cooking, and begins a blog in which she cooks her way through the now famous book of french cookery by none other than Julia Child.
There are disasters, tears, tantrums and a lot of work, but the movie is brilliant.
It's easy to assume that great cooks never get it wrong, but this movie reminded me that even the best of us has lain down on the kitchen floor in tears when it all falls apart...well, it's like I always say - I only get so upset because I care!

Monday, 29 November 2010

These are a few of my favourite things...

*That feeling you get when you come in from the cold and your fingers tingle
*Finding a crumpled fiver in your pocket
*Hot chocolate with marshmallows
*Playing board games with my kids
*A clean house
*Good friends
*Discovering the thing you were about to buy is on sale
*Snow days where nobody has to leave the house
*Absolute 90s radio
* http://www.craftster,org/
*reading other people's wonderful blogs
*slow cooked food on a cold day
*making something fabulous from stuff that would have been wasted otherwise
*sleep!

What are your favourite things?

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

The Great Declutter - the black bag challenge




Today I decided to get a head start on the decluttering by first getting rid of anything that needed to be binned. Today was not about tidying, or sorting what's to be sold and what's to go to the charity shop. No, today was all about the rubbish, the tat, the stuff that just has to go!




I put a big bin bag in each room, and focused entirely on throwing things away, and two hours later, I had a good old collection to be taken to the tip. My house feels lighter already!




Of course, among the stuff to go in the bin, there were some things of sentimental value. Mainly my kids' artwork. What do you do with the endless stream of arts and crafts that kids take home from school? Some things are just beautiful and deserve pride of place on the wall or fridge, but what about the piles of coloured scribbles and paint splodges?


I must admit I'm pretty ruthless about these and tend to get rid of the majority. To be honest, the kids don't even notice. I think they enjoy the experience of doing crafts rather than the end result!




As much as I love looking at their artwork, there has to be a limit!
I think I might borrow an idea from another blogger I read recently, and make a "clothes line" with pegs and hang up the kids' latest art projects, then change them monthly.
That way, the kids feel like their work is appreciated and enjoyed, and I don't feel to guilty when I eventually throw it out!
Oh, and in other good news, someone wants to view my house!!!
Having had no interest for months, I'm very excited about this and hopefully all my decluttering will leave the house looking it's absolute best :-)
Tomorrow's mission - getting stuff sorted into charity/ebay boxes...

Monday, 8 November 2010

The Great Declutter - getting rid of STUFF

STUFF annoys me. STUFF stresses me out.
Everywhere I go in my house, there are piles of STUFF, drawers full of STUFF, and generally so much STUFF that I don't know where to start!
Why di we do this to ourselves? We spend our whole lives pushing ourselves to work harder, earn more money and buy more STUFF, when we could just pare down and enjoy the benefits of a simpler life.

Imagine waking up every morning in a tidy bedroom, being able to easily choose an outfit from a small, clean and perfectly ironed selection and spend the day doing something peaceful and enjoyable, instead of waking up in a bombsite, struggling to drag things out of overstuffed drawers and wardrobes and spending the day stressing about how you want to do fun things, but have too much housework to do! Well, that's my life, anyway!

I'm moving house this month. In fact, after tomorrow I'm starting to seriously pack our things up and decide what we need to take and what we can let go of.
I realise that the majority of stuff I want to keep will be for sentimental reasons, rather then practical ones. We need very few things to live well, but some things just have a personal meaning. Do we keep them, just so we can pull them out every few years and remember? Or do we find some other way to remember and let go of the material things that are dragging us down?

I've decided to go for the latter. I've decided that instead of keeping so much STUFF, I will take pictures of sentimental items and blog about them, and then let them go.
It's been such a horrible year for us, incredibly stressful and manic. I'm ready for a simple life. I'm ready to let go of my STUFF, and start enjoying my TIME.

Stay tuned for some sentimental journeys coming soon!