Kitchen.

Cute, but lies. Damned lies. Image: twitgoo.com

I'm listening to Unstuff your Life. The first 2 chapters are a simple philosophy of why stuff is so clingy. I've done a bit of thinking about this. I'm a fairly tidy person, but it causes me emotional pain sometimes to get rid of things. I feel things like guilt, that I bought something I never wore or used, or sadness, that I am losing something from my childhood… My solution lately has been to cut back on the amount of stuff I bring into the house and collect around my life, because it's easier to resist adopting it than it is to let go of it later. So the author goes into that side of things a little bit, how we relate to stuff. And then there is a bit of visualising, imagining a perfect and efficient life. So that by making more space in your house you are making more space to live your life, rather than just losing all your special stuff. Nothing ground-breaking, this is a holding-your-hand help book for disorganised hoarders.

There are chapters on different areas of the house. First chapter is basically 'Keys, wallet, phone' about putting your housekeys in the same place always. His 2 big rules, which he now applies in every chapter, are: 1. Everything has a home, and 2. Like with like.

Last night I listened to the chapter on the kitchen, which was really good timing because I bought a set of 6 bowls. There was absolutely no room for them in the kitchen. We have approx 2 dozen wine glasses. And 20 odd glass tumblers. Almost that many coffee cups. It's funny how you don't notice that stuff for two and a half years, even though it's really annoying and inefficient and space is precious. But when some friends came over last week, I really did need bowls, not wine glasses. And trying to fit them into the kitchen made me actually SEE what we had. So I emptied out the cupboards (this is the worst, most terrifying thing to do), filled a box with unwanted glassware to donate (with my flatmate's permission), put back an adequate selection of glasses, swapped saucepans and plastic stuff around, and managed to fit a food processor and a fondue set in as well as the 6 new bowls. Really, if I was going to completely obey the book, I would be donating the fondue set, but small steps. FYI, I have an awesome fondue set, you are all welcome to borrow it. Also, help yourself any of the glassware.

I'm so productive with this new TV diet. Speaking of which, Kevin McCloud was on TV later last night talking about how all bench-tops look like vomit. Now I can't see anything else, and I haven't even seen that much vomit in real life.

*edit: Em told me how to spell fondue.