Use it or lose it.

Things last better when they are used. With a few exceptions. China breaks, DVDs scratch. But, I think there are only a few exceptions. Although books get a bit scuffed from being read, it still helps keeps them fresh, lets the air into the pages. Books that have sat closed on the shelf for years get spotted and musty, which is far worse. Same with shoes and bags and clothes. At my house, they get mouldy. Wearing them gets them out in the sun and fresh air.

Why I Hide It.

Interesting. Can't upload a screen shot of facebook. It goes blurry.

Anyway. I am a rampant hider of posts on facebook. But none of the reasons they ask me really apply. Annoying is the closest, but it's not really annoying, it's just annoying me. It's not spam. I want to tick boxes that say:

• I've seen it already, I'm bored, and I want to see the other posts fb filters out.
   
• It's ugly or stupid. Seeing it once was too much.
   
• It makes me feel bad or jealous, when I should be feeling happy for someone. Easier to hide it.
   
• It's political.

The Buffer.

Elsie and I were talking about flat-breaking, which is where your flat is sold or your flatmate(s) moves out or you have some kind of BIG uncertainty about where you will live and what you should do and how much your rent will be and specifically, how long to pay the rent on a 2 bedroom unit while you try and find a flatmate. We've both been very lucky and never had to pay the whole rent on a unit in a flatmate gap. And the idea is quite frightening, paying 2 or 3 times your rent for an unknown number of weeks. I mean, my rent is not far off 1/3 of my income already. What a horrifying thought. Anyway, Elsie said "I actually shouldn't stress about spending my buffer, because that's what it's for." Mind Blown. I'm the kind of person who saves a buffer, which is to prevent stress at times of financial uncertainty. But then if I stress about spending the buffer, that defeats the purpose of the buffer. It's there so you don't have to worry. You've got the money, it's for a rainy day, it is actually raining right now, so don't worry about whether you should stay wet or spend it! Focus your worrying on other things, haha.

Daily Bin Challenge.

James is back on the radio! It was some kind of "personal renovation project" theme on his first day back. A lady said she is going to throw out one item every day. SOUNDS LIKE A CHALLENGE. She started with an old pair of undies. Every journey starts with a small step. And then a lot of other steps about the same size.

I think the reason I am often obsessed with decluttering, other than the effort of overcoming the pain of throwing things away, is that if you aren't decluttering, you are cluttering. It's like gravity. If it's not being pushed one way, it's being pulled the other. Without deliberate intent, the default is towards overconsumption and overflowing storage.

A colleague recommended a blog about the whole slow and steady decluttering thing. 52 weeks of decluttering. It's just one small project a week, like the front of the fridge or the handbag.

But as we know, I don't do small steps, I do obsession, so while there is nothing on TV I'm filling the bin. I'm addicted to decluttering. It's like you ignore your surroundings most of the time and then you get rid of one thing and the feeling of letting go of it is strangely empowering, "I DON'T NEED THIS!", and it goes to your head and you see everything with new eyes. For a week or two you weed the house with clarity and dedication, and then it's another 6 months of the fog of mess.

But I'm trying to push through as long as I can with the getting rid of one thing a day. I'm calling it Daily Bin because it's catchy, and just writing what I get rid of in my diary to maintain momentum. Not all things go in the bin though. Some go to other people, or the op shop. I gave a Bill Bryson book to Julia for the plane. I took my old computer to the recycling place. I am giving some very good quality shoes to Anglicare. One day it was just a sock. Another day it was some old sunscreen. Cos sometimes even when things are rubbish I don't get rid of them promptly, but the challenge motivates me.

I'm also reading about minimalism. Not as an architectural style but as a way of life and attitude to stuff. Just because it actually asks the question "Do I need a coffee table?", which by the way you probably don't. I hate coffee tables. They fill up the best floor space and they aren't close enough to put your cup of tea on but they are good for putting your feet on and they just become a dump zone for your handbag and mail. If you want a thing to put cups on, a side table is the thing.

Shoes for orthotics.

I have done a considerable amount of research into shoes that are good for your feet, with hot tips from my podiatrist.

First of all, if the sole bends where your foot doesn't, that's an unsupportive shoe. Podiatrists like shoes that bend like an L, not like a C.

And if you wear orthotics you need shoes that hold firmly to your food, so for preference things that have laces, but at least a good strap over your foot.

A lot of people do wear orthotics even if they are just from the chemist. This is the results of my research for shoes that have removable inner soles / removable footbeds, and also look like young people's shoes not Grandma shoes, and are made to last. They're all about $200 a pair, which isn't cheap, but I'd rather have good pair I wear every day and last a few years than 5 cheap pairs that I replace regularly. And of course, I "shop the sale"!

Bared. If you shop in Melbourne, this is their current "orthotic friendly" range. Quite bright and trendy. I was considering ordering some online if I couldn't find any Sydney shops where I could try things on.

Naot. These are shoes from Israel. They have a range when you search under "removable foot beds". There's a big shoe shop outside Bondi Junction that sells a lot of these, I found them by accident and they look great but I don't think I've tried them on.

Ziera. This is from New Zealand. These are the orthotic ones. They helpfully show you weather you can wear half or whole foot orthotics. I went here because it's in the city close to work and the lady was great and they had a very good sale. I tried on a lot of pairs and they were all pretty comfortable, and they have half sizes eg 39.5.

I tried to check out Waldlaufer shoes at Peter Sheppherd (also in the CBD) but they didn't have anything my size in store and it was completely fruitless, but the lady was as helpful as she could be, and the shoes look nice enough.

Finally, if you have the luxury of buying shoes based purely on fashion, chunky soles are on the way in. It's not just the black sandals, look at these. Hilare.

Fashionable shoes.

I found out last night what the trendy shoes are for teenage girls at the moment. Because a mum was wearing her daughter's shoes. If you had asked me what was fashionable with the young ladies I would have said thongs and ballet flats, but these shoes are the opposite of thongs and ballet flats. They are black clumpy sandals from Windsor Smith. The sort of thing you choose for comfort over fashion. From the sort of brand that sells work shoes for adults. Until now.

See what I mean here.

Peeved.

Bus riders will know what this means. I looked at my bus ticket in the morning and thought "I can go there and back!" but the 9th trip hadn't printed so there was no trip back. NO RIDES LEFT = peeved face >:|

Stonehenges.

I've now seen BOTH Stonehenges, the stone one and the bouncy one, in real life. And both of them through a fence because I wasn't interested in hanging around in the weather for too long just to appreciate the history/inflation up close.

Sloths.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sloth

You may not have noticed, but sloths are a trend. Like owls, but owls were about Harry Potter and folk music, and sloths are about ridiculousness, sleeping and hugs. Ice Age and Kristen Bell have raised the profile of sloths, which is fine. But I can't get into it. I don't like sloths. Firstly, their heads are disproportionally smaller than their bodies. Weird little faces on big hairy long-armed bodies. Secondly, they have long nails. I like short fingernails, and sloths have long claws as big as fingers. I rest my case.

Old diary.

I just went through my old diary, saving a few important things like addresses before I chucked it away. One of the things I found in the diary relates to throwing away old diaries: a list of thoughts from the book Unstuff Your Life.

- I am not my stuff.
- We build stories into stuff, so interacting with the stuff becomes interacting with a powerful story.
- Don't value stuff over relationships. Lend.
- It all ends up in landfill eventually, after you die if not before.
- Yes throwing out is hard, because I feel responsible for wastage and the environmental impact. Learn from that feeling not to bring things into the house in the first place.

Everyone is different, and different systems and thoughts work for different people. I personally need to acknowledge the "stories" of my stuff, but not let them control everything. Throwing away an item means throwing away the memories. Throwing away last year's diary means throwing away lots of reminders of events, random lists, even the way I organised my work in 2013 on paper. I got it for free from Elsie, it's from some French business. I glued a map of the CBD inside the front cover. The elastic broke and I repaired it and it broke again. So much history in one item! But I'm learning, I am not my stuff, life needs constant pruning, and I threw it away.

Post holiday Monday.

There are some good things about being back at work. I moisturise my hands regularly, for example.

Conversation that sums up how I feel about the word "hipster".

J1: That cafe is really popular now.

J2: It always was popular because of the doctors and people from the hospital.

J1: Well now it's trendy and has hipsters. Ugh I hate using that word but I mean cool young people who aren't working.

Being frugal on the bus.

I use travel 10s. I walk as often as I can, partly to save money and partly because I just generally walk as much as I can. I rarely use a MyBus 1 at all. I walk a MyBus 2 distance once or twice a week, so I usually manage to carry my MyBus 2 travel 10 over into the next week.

When the opal card comes in the cost works out differently. You get 8 rides at the full price ($3.50 each) and then any trips after that are free until the end of the week (cos it's capped at $28p/w for the MyBus 2 distance). So it won't save me money if I walk once a week, in fact if I walk I'm increasing the cost per trip. That's bad. I'll be able to get better value by taking as many bus trips as I can. To bring the cost under $28 a week I'd have to walk to work 3 times and then anywhere else I go on top of that as well. I've thought of one sneaky trick though, to go a MyBus 3 distance such as city to Maroubra I can get off half way (eg Kingsford) and get on the next bus to come along (they are very frequent), which makes two free bus trips instead of one paid trip.

Things I always do before I go away.

Eat the perishable food in the fridge.
Wash clothes so I have the full range to pack from and clean things when I come back.

Beach hair.

Swimming wrecks my hair. I need to find some cunning trick for salty water. Before I swim in a chlorine pool I've found that if I wet my hair in fresh water first, the chlorine doesn't soak in. So maybe that works for salt water too, or there's some other trick. Some have suggested putting conditioner in.

Anyway if I'm going to swim a couple of days in a row, there's no point washing my hair properly. I'll just give it a water rinse, because salt water doesn't dry at all. But it still keeps that salty stickiness which makes it hard to work with, and gets tangled very easily. I have found that once I do get it into a bun the salty tangles hold it together in a nice loose-looking casual bun. I'm treating it like a styling product rather than a problem.

Faking it

Whenever I feel unsure or insecure about something, I think, "What would a secure person do?" Then I do that.

Remember your own face.

Now I have BB creams it's been a long time since I have gone outside without one, mainly for the sunscreen factor. When I look in the mirror in the morning now though my natural skin is starting to surprise me with its uneven tone and light freckling and pores, and I never used to think it was that bad. I've just got accustomed to my BB face, and now my clean face is becoming a slightly disappointing surprise. I can see why some women describe their make-up routine as "putting their face on" because the make-up face is the face they are used to seeing in the mirror, and the clean face is unfamiliar. I must be honest with myself. It's kind of like Elsie's thing about not wearing makeup to church, because she wants people to see her as she really is. It's not a big deal, make-up or not, but it's good to like yourself as you are and face your fears. Haha pun.

Enclothed cognition

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/12/psychology-of-lululemon-how-fashion-affects-fitness/281959/

Half of this article is very good, the rest is about something called Lululemon. But I find the connection between the outside of the person and inside of the person very interesting. Lab coats make you smarter and workout clothes make you more energetic.

On parenting.

Several years ago when I went to church at the Cathedral in the CBD one of our pastors recommended this talk by Tim Keller called "It takes a city to raise a child". I found it very fascinating. A lot here about singles and their part in the church family.

http://sermons.redeemer.com/store/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=26

Spotlight.

Spotlight is terrible. So is Lincraft. But on Saturday, while standing obediently at a queue point which was actually not being served, I had time to reflect on the terrible retail experience that is a large craft shop, and I realised that it is in fact an accurate representation of craft itself. A place where creative ambition comes and meets reality. A lot of potential, but infinitely more disorganisation and mess.