Someone asked me on Friday what I would do when the 365 days were gone. Would I stop pruning out things?
Well, yes and no. I hope by the end of the year I will have got my possessions down to so calmed a state that I am happy with Things As They Are. But I like the idea of continuing the one-thing-in-two-things-out principle, not least because it should act as a powerful brake on my bad habit of acquiring things!
But it sank in today that this is a leap year. So there are 366 days not 365. That feels auspicious. I will have to think of something for the 366th day, the Threshold of New.
Meanwhile I am very interested in and impressed by Maria’s challenge for 2012 – she’s having a whole no-spend year, buying only toiletries and food! Having reviewed what I have managed to acquire in the first month of the year alone (though I did faithfully part with two items for every one I acquired), I am even more impressed at what Maria is doing. I’ve decided to join her through Lent, which runs from February 22nd to April 8th.
And, during the night the snow fell here on the southern coast of England.
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A tealight. Sigh. Some of the things I have got rid of are very small, I admit. But again, this small tealight actually represents a whole category of things – items that get put back in the drawer half used, always passed over in favour of a newer, more effective version of the same thing – but never thrown away. I know why I still had this tealight after a very long time. Once they are part-burned you can never be sure if they will light again successfully and burn all the way down without giving up the ghost. Tealights are better just lit and left alone. Out of fear of burning the house down I don’t always do that though (I don’t want to see the moon more clearly that much). “WHAT IF ?” is etched deep upon my psyche. I often come to my stash of nightlights in a bit of a hurry; wanting to make the house pretty for guests, while the soup is cooking I dash up to the garret to grab a handful of tealights for the Moroccan lanterns and Bernard’s celtic cross in the porch and the candelabra Susanna gave us. I leave behind any that are half-burned, because I know I want these actually alight. So as part of 365 I went through methodically and actually chose the dodgy ones, so they would be used up; otherwise really they’re only clutter in the drawer.