Even if the British weather hasn’t clocked on that Spring is in the air, my mind already has. Spring cleaning is well and truly on my mind.As is living with intention. I’ve been sitting in the living room looking at the clutter that surrounds me and mentally going through the processes I need to do in order to clear it up and make life less cluttered. As I mentioned in the title, I’m thinking of spring cleaning my home and my life. Because there’s no point in me decluttering my house if my mentality doesn’t change. It will only go back to looking the same way within a week. Two tops. Also, by being intentional and really thinking about the way in which I’m currently living, I’m hoping to find myself with more time and money on my hands.
I’ve realised something over the past few months. For someone who moans about how little money I have after rent, utilities and all the other boring adult stuff, we still manage to indulge ourselves when it comes to food. I mean, it may be the only area where we really splurge out once in a while, but still, I think we spend way too much on food.
I’ve never been the kind of person or came from a family where you’d be served soup for dinner. Or salad. Growing up, it was more likely we’d be fed a nice Nigerian stew packed with assorted meats, spinach to be eaten with some semolina or garri. Another regular occurance was macaroni cheese with chicken and some vegetables, or a West Indian soup packed with lamb neck, pumpkin, cho-cho and dumplings. Dinners have always been intricate affairs with loads of ingredients and taking quite a lot of time to prepare. I’m not quite sure how my parents did it, seeing as they both worked full time jobs.
Even though I also work full time, I mostly find myself coming home and making time consuming, but heart warming meals. We very rarely have simple, quick eats. So much time and energy is put into what we eat, perhaps because it’s the one time we can guarantee we come together as a family and we want to make that as special as possible. Or maybe we’re just so conditioned to this way of living that it seems surreal to do anything else. I can’t think of anything nicer than sitting down with my family. A hearty meal in front of me and a tall glass of wine , (thank goodness for my Naked wines voucher)in my hand. But maybe I need to rethink this image? Again, if I’m committed to living with intention, shouldn’t more thought go into what and how we consume?
The only day that we ‘live simple’ when it comes to food is on a Tuesday. That’s because The King takes charge and makes what to me is the blandest meal on earth (I love you boo, it’s not you, it’s the dish!). On Tuesdays we have baked potatoes and a filling of our choosing. I was looking inwards this week, trying to figure out why I hate this meal so much. Is it because it’s so simple? Do I need to find a way to inject more of a punch of flavour into it? I’m not sure. I think it’s because we eat pretty lavish the rest of the week that this almost seems like a punishment. Which probably means we need to rethink the rest of the week and spring clean those meals too!
Another area of life where I’m thinking needs a dose of spring cleaning is our clothes. There is just far too much of it! I’m the main culprit. So many items that don’t seem to go with much and has no real buy in with the rest of my wardrobe. I mentioned it in this post here, I tend to buy what fits at the time, without much more thought put into it than that. This ends up with me having no real one style and too much clothes!
I want to have a capsule wardrobe. It doesn’t have to be minimalist in style. I just need for there to be less clothes! When you do a search for the term minimalist warrobe, it tends to be rather uniform, grey, shapeless items. These won’t work well with my personality nor my plus sized body shape. Colour will be allowed. Tailoring will be allowed. But pieces will have to be interchangeable and timeless!
As my spring cleaning post may suggest, I’m in the mood for change. Or more, I’m in the mood for some streamlining in order to allow us to make better use of our time. Of our money. Of being a family. I’m trying to live in the present better and a bit of planning will go a long way with that.
If you have any good resources on spring cleaning, be it homes or lifestyles, do let me know. Additionally, if you have and blog recommendations, I’d love to see others who’ve been through it and have decluttered their lives, their finances, their homes etc!
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I am playing The Minimalist Game atm and writing about it on my blog. If you go there and scroll down you’ll find some posts and you can click n the link to read all of them. It’s amazing – my home feels so much bigger and cleaner and calmer and more conducive to sitting down and working. As for food, you have to make lists. Also go onto You Tube and search for minimalist vlogs.
Oh good! I’m going to take a look through your posts for some inspiration! I’m working from home today and looking at all the clothing sitting in laundry bags waited to be folded away, we just have too much stuff! Also, looking at recipes which my work colleagues have recommended to help me get out of my menu rut. They’ve got some awesome suggestions, many of which involve quinoa which I haven’t cooked with in ages! Will look on YouTube too, thanks for the advice!!