Organic routines

I have recently been mulling over the commonalities across the individual and unique simple lives - mine and those I see in my geographic and virtual community. I think routines is probably one of them. Whether it's a routine for milking your goat, a routine for baking bread, a routine for getting yourselves out of the house in the morning, we all have routines.

I've made several attempts in recent years to develop my routines to encompass more of the activities I want to undertake. Ideally - in the fantasy life in my head - my routines cover all aspects of housework, cleaning and maintenance, as well as my own health and wellbeing. I go running, I mop the floors, and it all happens easily and almost invisibly because it's routine.

As anyone struggling with self-discipline will know, anything that is already routine is SO MUCH EASIER than pushing yourself to do something out of the ordinary. I want to bring more activities into this.

However, I've made several attempts to 'construct' routines. Last spring, I sat down, listed all the jobs that need to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual basis and divided them up, breaking them into one thing a day throughout the year. It was beautiful and balanced and it lasted about three weeks before it just fizzled out. It was too much too quickly.

Last autumn, I tried again with something smaller. I tried adding one small task - wiping down the bathroom sink - to my morning routine. That also lasted about three weeks before it just fizzled out.

This month, something rather unexpected has happened. Rather than setting out intentionally to add something to my routine, something has just, well, fallen into it. I've started washing up the breakfast dishes before I leave the house. Haphazardly. I wasn't setting out to do it, I wasn't planning a New Year's routine change. It was something I just happened to do on my first day back at work this year - no particular reason, it just occurred to me to do it, as I was running a little early for once and looking for something little to do in that time - and somehow I've kept on doing it.

It's teeny tiny but is having a rather welcome impact on my life. It means I go to work feeling already ahead with the day, feeling in control, feeling good about having achieved something, even something so pathetically small. It means the washing up after dinner in the evenings is less work, which in turn means I procrastinate about it less, do it earlier and have more enjoyable evenings. I suspect it makes for a cleaner, more pleasant kitchen for my boyfriend to cook in because he's even done a bit of evening baking (normally reserved for the weekends.)

It also means I get to do something domestic in the morning. To be honest, and I can't believe I'm saying this, I am starting to find washing up rather relaxing. It's slow. It's meditative. As I wipe the bowls and put them back in the cupboard, I can look out on the balcony at the early morning sunshine and think where I am going to put the herb pot, I look around the tidy kitchen and feel good about the newly oiled chopping board all warm and golden. It gives me a moment of slow and simple living before my mental space and energies are drawn into my job.

I'm not stressing about this. I hope it stays but I'm not going to push myself. I'm now at just about the three week mark, so this might also fizzle out, but I hope it doesn't. I wonder if there are any more habits which might just naturally fall into place? I rather like the idea of organic routine-building, each new leaf gradually unfurling one by one, and no clear idea where the next will be.

Do you have any preferred methods for adapting and building routines?

Architecture and its impact

I never realised before how much of an impact the architecture of your home has on your daily life and rhythms.

One week in our new home, and already there's a marked difference. Previously, the activities which I saw as part of my simple living journey - crafting, baking, faffing around on the internet researching - seemed to pull us apart rather than bring us together. I would be drawn into a different room, a different rhythm, and I spent far too much time with headphones in listening to the radio or watching historic re-enactments, period dramas and other sources of entertainment information.

Week 9: Piles of paperwork

This week, I took a deep breath and tackle one of the bigger problem zones. This consisted of a hoard of magazines, piles of unsorted papers, mail and notes, and a plastic bag stuffed with tangled electronics.

But just take a look at it now!

How to: make an all-purpose cleaner

I use this cleaner in the kitchen, the bathroom, and for cleaning windows, tables, doors, walls... Basically, everything. It works fantastically well, cuts through grease and limescale and soap scum, and leaves surfaces shiny. As it has tea tree oil in it, it also acts as a mild antiseptic, antibacterial and antifungal, but is completely fine to use around asthmatics.

It's really, really complicated. Seriously. It will take you ages. Are you ready?

Winterising: Bleeding radiators

There are many blog entries and articles about preparing for winter around on the internet, not to mention in books about green living and self-sufficiency. However, most of these assume that you own your own home and can therefore make changes to the roofing, insulation, windows, heating systems and so on. There's not a lot out there for renters, so I'm exploring what I can do in my home.

The first thing is to bleed your radiators. All you need for this is a radiator bleeding key and something to mop up water eg a rag or kitchen towel. A radiator bleeding key can be bought cheaply from DIY stores - I got mine from Brico. Instructions are below and can also be found here.

As we are on the top floor of the building, air accumulates very quickly in our radiators and we bleed them several times each winter. They usually tell us when they need bleeding - the apartment gets very, very cold! We were freezing last week, but after bleeding the radiators on Friday, it's lovely and snugly and warm now!

Start as you mean to go on

Best way to start the weekend, methinks? Meringues that have been in the oven overnight, and a pot of fresh coffee. I feel so decadent! Let's hope this continues.

I have been mulling recently about building routines that work for me.

I have observed a pattern in my behaviour, when it comes to keeping my space (both home and work) tidy, organised and clean. I have a period of enthusiasm lasting maybe 2 weeks to one month, in which I keep everything immaculate and find endless energy for sorting old piles and tackling odd jobs that build up.

This is followed by a period of one to two months of sloth and lethargy, when I can see that the floor needs to be hoovered and my intray at work piles higher and higher, but for some reason I let it get on top of me.

Bitten by the baking bug

So what is it about Great British Bake Off that has me dusting off my apron and tutting at the poor array of baking equipment in my cupboard? (Seriously. Can't even do a Victoria sponge.) 

I seem to have been bitten by the baking bug. In the last week, I have made: one loaf of white bread with linseeds (and who'd have thought that the humble linseed could so totally transform bread?); one batch of rotis, ginger and oat cookies, chocolate chip and walnut biscuits, and now I have a teeny tiny batch of meringues in the oven. I've never made meringues before, but I've been meaning to try for a while, and with an egg white left over from the biscuits, I thought - why not? The world's smallest batch of meringue ever made. Fingers crossed they come out well.

Booky cleaning inspiration

After five months of waiting, Amazon has finally come through for me and delivered this thing to my door. "Self-Sufficiency Household Cleaning", by Rachelle Strauss.

The self-sufficiency guides look pretty good - they've got volumes on soapmaking, beekeeping, weaving and cheesemaking. The principle is, as the title suggests, self-sufficiency - doing things from scratch, in enough quantity or with enough regularity that it can become your only source of whatever is in question.

Smugness

Does anyone else feel smug about knowing that they've cleaned behind and underneath the cooker?*

This morning, finally - finally! - FINALLY! - our oven was repaired. We may actually be able to bake and roast and things. I took advantage to hoover underneath and to clean up the grease spills left by previous occupants of the flat.

This is very good news, because one of the things I really want to embrace as part of building a 'simple life' is baking bread - aside from the fact that I really enjoy kneading the dough, the magic of watching the bread rise and the smell of baking bread, I also really noticed the difference at lunch. The few days I have managed to bring in a sandwich made from homemade bread, it was much nicer and much more filling, meaning less temptation to battle in the afternoon. I am really looking forward to the day when I will be able to say that I only eat homemade (or locally baked) bread.

Another of the small changes I hope to make is giving up bought-in cakes and biscuits. Aside from the fact that homemade treats are nicer, cheaper and contain less crap, because they are time-consuming to make I appreciate them more and will probably eat them less often!

When the oven was repaired, the leaky tap** and the dodgy lightbulb on the stairs were also fixed. I am a very happy bunny, and my sister would despair at how happy this makes me. Most of my family look on my attempts to make my own, do it myself and go without as amusing idiosyncracies which I will grow out of.

*Please note - I have not yet cleaned inside the oven, a prospect which looms before me with no little amount of intimidation.

** The now not-leaking tap makes me VERY happy, because the leak was causing a build-up of residue on the sink which I CANNOT get off. Lemon juice helps but hasn't got it all - does anyone have any tips?

Discovering the secrets

I have discovered the secret to a clean and tidy home with no effort! This miraculous revelation really is having a huge impact on my life - I can't stop reorganising, sorting and streamlining my stuff.

1. Don't allow pile-ups - doing the washing up every night before I go to bed and wiping down the surfaces means that I basically don't need to clean the kitchen - it's always clean. (Well, apart from the floor).

2. Every item should have a home - if things are in cupboards and on shelves, you can hoover the floor. This sounds so obvious, but it's been such a pain keeping the living room tidy with stuff everywhere. Now that (nearly) everything is on a shelf, it's so much easier to keep mess and dirt under control.

3. Not all homes are created equal - by this I mean that, again strikingly obvious, if I either never put things in their home or never get them out of it, it is almost certainly because I'm trying to put it in the wrong place. I have found that by moving things to where I want to use them, and putting stuff I don't use in storage or giving it away, I suddenly have a lot more space and I am using it so much more effectively!

These three simple things are so obvious, but I have not always been very good at following them. Over the last month, since our big clean out, I have been sticking to them more and the flat is actually tidier and cleaner now than it was when we moved in... And I keep getting more ideas! I actually woke up in the middle of the night last night, thinking about how I could store my fabric and wool stashes more effectively so that my sewing kit would be more useful. I tried it out first thing this morning, and it's looking good. Now I have space for more fabric, rather than so much fabric I can never find what I want.

In other news, I finished the first ever dress!! It's a bit big, so I will adjust it. Pictures to follow. I am also making a lining for the drawer dividers I made yesterday with some scrap fabric. Is crafting addictive? I can't seem to stop...

Has anyone tried crocheting baskets or anything out of raffia? I'm not sure how durable it will be, but want to use something cheaper and more neutral in colour than wool or cotton.

Tardiness

Well, it's been a long time since I posted here but to be quite honest, between moving into a new appartment and starting a new job, a new Spanish course and taking up several additional activites, I've barely had time to breathe!

I have been very active on the crafty front. I have long wished to dive into the deep end of sewing, but lacked a sewing machine. I looked at second-hand and cheap options, decided that even if I had the money I didn't have the space, and squared up to my options: handsewing or handsewing.

Now, there's not a huge amount of information about handsewing kicking around on the web - a bit of embroidery stuff, and that's pretty much it. I also felt that many of the free patterns were rather uninspiring (in direct contrast with free crochet and knitting patterns in places like Ravelry). My family already have this rather negative stereotypical image of me as some DIY-ecofreak-hippy nutcase, so if I make my own clothes, I really want them to look (at first glance and from a distance) as though they are good enough to be bought. Mostly for that - "where did you buy that?" - moment.

The daunting prospect of spending lots of money on patterns and fabric only to never get around to finishing the stitching then loomed before me - I am very bad at procrastinating and rarely finish projects. So I started simple (but not small) with a tablecloth - fun fabric, very basic stitching. And voila! I am sitting at my kitching table, writing this, with a red cotton with white polka dots cloth which delights my soul everytime I see it.

So now the second tablecloth is in production, and most exciting of all! A dress pattern I ordered has arrived - Very Easy Vogue. (I'm stacking the odds in favour of success!) And I've just found a funky independent not-too-expensive fabric shop. Three guesses what I'll be shopping for on Saturday? :D

Again, I am reminded by how much I love making things. There is such a sense of satisfaction from creating something, from leaving behind me a small legacy of (hopefully) pretty and functional objects which would never have existed had I not decided to make them. The thrill of the tablecloth was even enough to make me do the ironing this week, for almost the first time ever, because I couldn't bear to leave it rumpled...

Systematic failures

I've been thinking recently about the systems we put in place, and how they affect daily life, both at home and at work. This is partly inspired by Rhonda's post on organisation and turning over a new leaf, but also by developments at work.

I am a rather disorganised person. I occasionally have a whirlwind tidy and clean, which leaves everything immaculate and tucked away. (My boyfriend refers to these as my 'Monica moments'.) The rest of the time, I let things pile up. I have generally just beaten myself up for not being 'good' enough at maintaining the space I live in (both physically and mentally) but recently I have been wondering whether it might be more to do with the systems I have in place to deal with problems that arise. More specifically, the fact that I don't have any systems, or any routine.

I see the effects of poorly-designed operating systems daily at work, where essentials are never where they need to be, and teams replacing one another on a shift system are never fully staffed, fully trained, fully equipped or fully up to speed with the current situation. Even small things like not being able to find a working pen can set us back a considerable amount of time, and increase stress levels.

So, learning from my work, I would like to introduce one positive behaviour change at a time to introduce some more structure into my reactions to developments in my professional and personal life. Please feel free to come forward with suggestions.

Holidays!

Ah. Half term. No classes. Such would be bliss enough. But no! There is more. For I have returned for a few days to the house of my parents. Who have an OVEN, ladies and gentleman, an actual functioning oven which can be used for baking. They also have - wait for it! - baking ingredients in the cupboard. Decent quality ones. Which I haven't paid for.

So, naturally, the list of thing To Do has been thoroughly ignored in favour of baking ginger biscuits. I am usually more of a cake person, but these are truly lovely biscuits. I can't believe I've never had a go at ginger biscuits before. Add to this copious amounts of tea made in an actual tea pot, some hot ginger drink for my cold, a good book and no inconsiderable amount of time listening to the robins chattering to one another outside, and you have a definitively Good Day (TM). This is now being polished with a bowl of homemade soup, after which I shall go into London to meet my mother and wander around a museum, before meeting the rest of the family for a birthday dinner.

Would someone please tell me how today could get any better? Oh yeah, that's right. I've got tomorrow to look forward to, as well. I hope you are enjoying February as much as I am!

Expat Excitement

This is the second time I've lived abroad, and the longest, and I am firmly convinced that something strange happens to the wiring in your brain.

I've been to two expat shops in the last week, courtesy of an English friend of mine here. There's an Irish shop a few metro stops away, and an English shop just out of town. She was amused by my reactions in both - I went around squealing and gasping my appreciation at finding items I would never buy normally in the UK. Oh, the excitement at seeing clotted cream, Hovis flour and Cadbury's chocolate! I swear, I nearly fainted when I found the Battenberg and Cherry Bakewells. (He does make exceedingly good cakes, doesn't he?) They had Dip-Dabs, sherbert lemons and sour Skittles. It was like going back in time - I can't remember the last time I had a Dip-Dab, I used to eat them with my sister when we were wee things. (No liquorice toffees, though!)

I did of course spend far more than I should have done, which will result on some fairly strict budgeting for the next couple of weeks. I did get tahini, so I can have a go at making my own hummus soon. And Wensleydale cheese and some pickle, for sandwiches. (This country makes 80 different types of cheese, why am I buying Wensleydale??)

This is the thing. I only came back from England a couple of weeks ago, but it was like a starving man at a feast. Heinz spaghetti hoops in a tin - I ask you! What was I thinking?? It does strange things to your brain, does living abroad. Or perhaps it's just me?

Do you see that grin?

That's the grin of a mad person, as my parents will readily tell you. I'm back home for a couple of days during the half-term holiday, and I've taken this opportunity to treat myself. Ignoring the bag of half-complete crochet projects, the piles of yarn waiting to be worked, the stacks of fabric and patterns, I embarked on a completely new craft - spinning.

Spinning is something I've been interested in for a while, if only for the historical world it seems to open up. For centuries, nay, millennia, spinning was a constant in the lives of women. While you're gossiping, you're spinning. Rocking the baby to sleep? Spinning. Hence the distaff sex (a distaff being a stick used to hold unspun, prepared wool). At university, I studied fairy tales, in which the symbolism of the wheel or spindle is more complex than might at first appear. I learned how to spin at a Viking history event in York, aimed at people approximately ten years younger than me, and I've been dying to have a proper go ever since. Thus the purchase of a spindle and some wool.

I've actually got a spinning wheel upstairs - it's very old, bought from a local charity shop by my mother for my 21st birthday (best present ever!) but before I work out how or even if it works, I wanted to learn the basics with a drop spindle. Which is very appropriately named, I find. But the great thing about spinning is if you make a mistake, it's relatively easy to fix it (although very hard to fix it neatly).

Now my yarn is thinner and more even, with fewer slubs, and I'm starting to plan all the fabulous things I can make with it. I really should finish my last blanket before I embark on a new one, shouldn't I? But craft isn't supposed to be sensible!

The rest of my trip has thus far consisted of crossing many things off my to-do-list (currently several years long) and enjoying the very welcome luxuries of: Georgette Heyer, bath-tubs, Haagen-Dazs ice cream and my own, fabulous bed. In various permutations and combinations.