I want my life to provide me with:
- A reason to get up every morning
- Interesting and productive work
- Contentment that explodes into happiness occasionally
- A framework in which to live simply
- The opportunity and continued ability to learn skills that facilitate our lifestyle
- A strong and generous family circle that supports every member of our family – during the good times and especially when it’s tougher
- Opportunities to express generosity, kindness and empathy
- The strength to be a role model to the younger women in my family
- The enthusiasm and perseverance to take charge of my home and make it a place of comfort, welcome and warmth
As for me - - - - I have been reading a book about simplifying our childrens' lives. I need to look up the title, but its very interesting. It is
A while ago, during one of the do:work sessions, I was asking the folk on the course, what was bothering them, what undone thing was at the forefront of their minds. Its part of our process. And I sometimes while they are working go through the process myself.
And what was really really bothering me, was the mess in my son's room. It was a SEA of plastic toys. Honestly, poor wee chap, he couldn't be expected to tidy it up as there was not enough room to put everything away. So I wrote down TOY STORAGE. This was the issue that was bothering me most.
As a consequence of that, we are embarking on a major redecoration of his room. Firstly we had a mattress on the floor which was sort of a day bed / spare bed. SO, I thought if we made that into an actual bed, there could be toy storage areas underneath it. And with the idea of building a bed (there is not enough room for an actual bed, as in the one that came with the mattress, which we used to build a built in bed.... another story..... actually you can see that story (here when I find the post with the pictures!) ah, so we needed to build a bed, that fitted exactly under the mattress. Which brought us on to thinking that if we are going to build a bed, then really we need to sort out the wall first. The wall had water damage from a long while ago. Ah, so now we have everything out of the room, the wall is being replastered, and while we are at it the ceiling is being skimmed (it has very badly done artex on it - vile) and - while we are there, we will be repainting......
And so major decoration.
And before I even started reading this book about simple childhood, I was thinking I needed to do something about the 'toy creep', and so was talking about culling the toys, and creating a toy library in the attic, and was then recommended this book. Which is all about how too much choice can freak our children out, and actually stop them from playing creatively.
So I am right back into the whole idea of simplifying. I definitely have a tendency to proliferate and over complicate, and I am loving reading this book, which is all about underlining LESS IS MORE. It advocates a massive cull on toys (and BOOKS!!) to create a calmer more creative environment. You get rid of loads and then create the toy and book library. It advocates
building toys
special cuddly bed time toys
figures (as generic as possible)
a dwelling of some kind (house / farm)
dressing up box
some cloth and rope and pegs to enable the child to build environments themself
and 10 books. (brutal! we won't be going that far!!)
But I am going to reduce the clutter to this other groupings of toys. The huge box of broken bits of plastic crap that came free in various forms or other is going OUT. The rest will be reduced and there is going to be a 'libary' in the loft (or maybe the wardrobe) to swap things around and keep them fresh.
Bub's room, when it is all newly decorated and lovely, with a new bed, a new den (under his old bed) will have significantly LESS in it. Calmer, easier to tidy, more room to actually play.
I am on the case. Am back into simplifying. LESS IS MORE.
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