Simple Pleasures--Or, Cutting off your Nose to have more Room on your Face.

Irene, as a clown, aged 5

"Cutting off my nose to have more room on my face." That's how my daughter Irene describes one of my simple pleasures. Decluttering. 

I am taking simple living and decluttering very seriously indeed. I have resolved to own no more clothes that fit comfortably in our bedroom's two built in dressers, one built-in closets, and the beautiful antique tall-boy with inlaid woods I was given. That's actually a lot of clothes, and I am never going to own more.

 So each time, I succumb to temptation on our travels and buy a hand-knitted sweater or a beautiful shawl or scarf, something must go. 

Irene watches this process of chucking or donation with bemusement, especially when she realised that the only reason I am donating my least favourite item, or chucking the oldest is to have unstuffed dresser drawers, and not possess an obscene amount of clothes. "That's like cutting off your nose to make more room on your face," she observes.

Decluttering. A simple mental health pleasure!

Now that Roy is working from home, I have sold my car, and we now, after 20 years, are a one car family. Believe it or not, that gave me real pleasure and satisfaction. One car less to keep tidy, and stocked with water, snacks, blankets, music, and books to read . We avidly listen to books on CD in the car, and how lovely it will be to have just one book on the go. We had Captain Corelli's Mandolin in my VW Golf, and Sailing the Wine Dark Sea in Roy's Chrysler Grand Voyageur, and now we can finish one, and then the other in an orderly fashion rather than being in the middle of two books depending on which car we take!