We have just moved again. When you are moving, less definitely is more. After packing up and unpacking for the third time in three years it feels good to be given the chance to trim down my stuff to just the things I love, need and use and what makes me happy (a little bit of a positive spin on a stressful situation never goes astray).
The house is lovely, light and airy (read 'drafty' but I have a few months to fix that) and has a warm 'coming home' feeling to it.
With the prospect of having to move again, in perhaps a year if the pattern continues, I have made this the year of making the most of things. By 'things' I mean physical things, as opposed to earthy, fleeting things like moments, which I hope I make the most of... mostly.
I have clothes that I keep just waiting for a time to wear them but never do. I have lotions and potions such as 'Goddess Bath Powder - for reinvigorating the halo' but I never seem to bathe in it. Bottles of exotic ingredients from far away lands, a magnificent castle-shaped cake tin in which the turrets get stuck and the cake looks like something left over from the Crusades. [Having made a delicious lime cake this morning and meticulously painting 'cake-release' grease all around the nooks and grannies of the tin, the above is the result. The proof is in the pudding! Castle cake tin is OUT (but I will still eat the cake!)].
I have stationery, cards, paper, ribbon, books, trinkets, necklaces, toys, seeds, cleaning products and project ideas that remain, well... stationary. They never quite make it out of the cupboard, drawers or my head.
I am wearing clothes that I haven't worn in years. If I don't feel comfortable or gorgeous in them they are out, no matter how much I love the idea of me in them. I am cooking with ingredients I can't pronounce. I am writing letters on nice cards and sending off parcels to friends wrapped in beautiful, saved and recycled paper, I am trying to read books and grow plants from seed in the vegetable garden. I am seeing how much Corningware I actually need to cater for a small party and if I really do like felafel mix.
And so far it feels good to 'use or lose' and not to hold on to stuff for a special occasion, but to make each day into a special occasion.
So where is the 'green' in this message? I am not sure, but I think my Granny and Grann would be very proud of me. They didn't know what green was but just by the nature of the times they lived in, they used stuff that they had. They made the most of things - probably because they didn't have many of them. They were amazing women.
For my own green perspective it has made me very aware of the stuff I buy and have. I hope this awareness leads to savvy purchases, ones that I will not want to throw away when we next move, but ones that fit well into my life and not jauntily balanced on the surface of it.