Biblical Decluttering

 is there such a thing I hear you say?

 Tonight I was watching The Salisbury Organist on Youtube. If you haven't seen it, it is a channel produced by an Oxford graduate, the musical equivalent of a gentle read novel. Ben was reading from Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven:

² A time to be born,
And a time to die;
A time to plant,
And a time to pluck what is planted;
³ A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
⁴ A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
⁵ A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
⁷ A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
⁸ A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,
And a time of peace.

 It is my birthday season, the last years of middle age. I could relate to these words so much, even just in fleeting thoughts. I think it was very encouraging. 

 I was amazed that the Bible even has advice about de-cluttering, if you want to interpret it that way. Lately I have been watching another Youtube channel called The Space Saver Method. I find if you can watch a whole series, I was lucky enough to come to the channel at the start of Julia's declutter, the work of April really starts to bless you. Your sub-concious starts to work out what to do from watching. If you are an older person, the current series is really great. But to get the most out of it I think watching another series first would be good.

 I have been de-cluttering my wardrobe. This came about because I had an old wardrobe, and I am a tall person, the wardrobe was not wide enough so it squashed the sleeves. I bought an Ikea Idanas wardrobe with bi-fold doors. I have since found inspiration on how to fit that wardrobe into a farmhouse aesthetic, but I think I like mine plain, it has been attached to our wall, so it functions as a built-in now. 

 If you want a particularly Australian de-cluttering advice from a professional, you may like to watch Zesty Girl, having said that, it is amazing how many things I recognise on April's channel in all sorts of countries she visits, like England, Korea and the US. 

If you are interested in what aesthetic I am following, or want inspiration for an older house, try Ikea, here is a traditional style, and possibly this one is Hollywood Cottage, I have no idea. Shae McGee suggests Hollywood Cottage is a favourite for 2026. 

Lovely Simple Song

Free Design - Love You

How to live a money-less life by Mark Boyle

Costco & Halloween

I came back to my inbox and found this picture from my son. It is from Costco in Canberra. Interesting that it is playdoh not candy.

Never Say Never

Who would have thought that even my own son would see the Great Wall of China.

What Else Is There?

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Keep On Keeping On

Beautiful song.

Melinda Schneider Does Doris Day

Simple Songs

I haven't put one up in awhile, have been thinking about them. Dancingonabladeofgrass mentioned this song. Not sure I have heard it before, lovely



Dan fitz had a lovely meaning here for that song... "appreciate what IS with all you have. appreciate every effort a person makes for another; every song a bird sings; nail a carpenter drives, egg a creature lays. dont waste your breath on the irrelevant, on negativity, on ill feelings, on a quest for money. appreciate that which has real value, that which is important, for it is all there really is and needs to be."

Thankful

I found this song while doing my Thankful Thursday post on my other blog, I looked it up on the ads while doing the post. Lovely song.

Locktober, Remember Me As, Embracing the Seasons

Kuala Lumpur by my daughter in early October

Locktober, Remember Me As, and Embracing the Seasons. These are all the writing prompts I found for today, that aren't memes as such.

Embracing the seasons was the topic of a novel I think I finished last night. It is called Tender Grace by Jackina Stark. It is her first novel. It is about a 50ish woman who lost her husband to a heart attack. She has her house paid for, her two children, a boy and a girl are grown up. She has two grandchildren. She watches 10 hours of TV a day. She feels dead but alive, I think but don't quote me.

I like the way it was written, as a journal on her computer. She was easy to relate to, except maybe to Australians the scenes that involve yukky stuff may not appeal. It makes her not so middle class in some ways.

Basically the woman learned to see the tender graces as she called them of each day.

Break, break, break

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me. ~ Tennyson

She went on a roadtrip and basically got some perspective on her memories I think. And gave herself an opportunity to see people that she wouldn't have had in front of the TV.

Today as I wait for the big event of my second son perhaps leaving home. Loose ends tying up so we can get stuck into renovating again, and the weather going to warmer like it is supposed to, I find that I was doing nothing. The internet was too slow to upload some photos of my daughter's trip to show everyone. I ended up having a little sleep while the children were quite happy, settled they were. I think they liked the clean lounge, the lovely weather and one daughter knew her foot would not allow her to run around too much. My elder daughter seemed quite content and settled after her trip. After I phoned her Dad about why she wasn't in her afterschool cooking class that is.

Then I looked so uninterested, really I was too tired to wait for pages to load, so the sleep must have helped, my husband suggested I watch TV. Not sure why the couch was vacant then, asked where everyone was. The fact that the lawn was nicely mowed probably made it look inviting. I watched The Good Chef and the Bad Chef. They cooked southern fried chicken and a sweet potato and pecan pie to show us how things are done in the US. I noticed that Gary used mixed spice, probably because he knows we can't buy pie spice?

Then a nice salad for tea/dinner. I wonder when we had a salad last? My husband changed around nearly everything in the tuna salad. But it was good and he wrote out the recipe.

So here I am still shocked that I had a nightmare last night, and one of my daughters had a possibly fatal accident with a hair straightener. It gave her a zap, she moved her hand and it shorted out. Is that a tender grace or what? I can't even bear to think about it. I have always had circuit breakers, the electrician on this job didn't come back. We were meant to be moved into our newer house that has circuit breakers. May buy some plug in ones soon.

I enjoyed putting the fan on in my room today. Anyway that was probably a good reason to be not so "up" today. But I find it hard, Facebook is challenging to me. I put a picture of my daughter on it, with nice hair. Others didn't think so, and she does miss her hair straightener, the one I didn't want her to have. When walking around the zoo I thought she looked nice, that she goes to the trouble to look nice.

How do I want to be remembered? I think I do things for myself, to my own standards as much as is possible, because everyone seems to live their life to their own style and they may not like anything I do, even if it is at a good standard. They may not care for them. Hopefully it will be a benefit to someone and they will be pleased. At the moment working out what a person my age is supposed to do when it is no longer necessary to copy what our parents did is challenging. Simple living with a twist? I thought so, but maybe simple living is still fashionable and it is OK for me to do not so much in this season of my life, and I am glad my husband told me to just chill and watch TV, I enjoyed it. And the book is good, I can recommend it, it follows along with the part of the bible called John. I tend to be a little lost after such a big weekend as we had last week and the catching up this weekend. Now back to normality if it is possible with the end of the school year going on. I was pleased with the little debriefing email from the teacher that took the kids to Kuala Lumpur, that helped. Sort of restating the positives of their trip, and I guess our effort.

John 1:16 "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another."

The Good Report

I found this at Pardon my Chaos who found it at the GOOD REPORT.

I have not been able to keep up to my Thankful Thursday's lately, maybe there have been too many things going on having school holidays and trips etc. etc. We had sewerage mains put in at our new house and lots of things happening. However little things crop up that have been nice.

1. Not sure how long ago I heard it now, but at 11pm for a few nights I heard the mopoke owl again. We have even figured out which tree he lives in (pictured).

2. Last time we came back from our new house we had to slow down for a family of ducks that were crossing the road, yes, seriously. It was in the same place that the plover and her baby came out of the grass, or nearby.

3. It is dreamy and flowery outside.

4. I was able to see my daughter overseas via Facebook

5. Blogtoberfest

6. Having money for the times when we need it

7. My daughter has a mild case of chickenpox, and would have had a bad case if she didn't have her injection

8. My husband being willing to sew up my daughter's skirt, she is enjoying wearing it to school.

Everything Is Fine

Get Comfortable with Being Alone

This is the same title as a post I read at My Simpler Life. I typed in something like Simple Living in my Google reader in Browse for Stuff and found it there. The post talks about solitude, and a book the author read that suggests an a-z of being alone. Here is my A-Z. Years ago before we moved house the first time, I regularly had a bath while my husband did his correction for his job, an activity he did after the kids went to bed. I also loved just thinking, and looking out the window in my bedroom in the next house. The thinking was great, I always thought up things to help the kids that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't sitting still. My Grandfather spent lovely time sitting on a fold up chair in his shed looking out into the garden. I have felt the loss of my old deckchair, have you seen the price of new ones? You can also do this in one way with little kids while supervising if they are playing in the garden under a tree, I suppose it qualifies if they are fully engaged with playing with each other.

A - Alone
B - Bath
C - Chair
D - Dog
E - Enjoying
F - Feeling the breeze or the sun
G - Garden
H - Hearing
I - Independence
J - Joy
K - Knitting
L - Listening
M - Meandering around the garden
N - Nature
O - Observing
P - Paging through magazines
Q - Quiet
R - Revive
S - Sleep
T - Thinking
U - Unstructured
V - View
W - Water
X -hale
Y - Yoghurt
Z - Zinnias

Melinda Schneider "Courageous"

I was watching a video by Melinda Schneider this morning on the top 30 on CMC. It wasn't this video, but it is nice too. It was called Still Here.