Like pretty much everyone who reads Real Simple magazine, I have been using these holiday days off to purge our house of clutter and the piles of stuff that I just keep moving around the house. My piles have gotten smaller since I switched to mostly digital versions of magazines but there is still all the mail, paper I am sure I will use in art projects but never do, things that need to be put in the filing cabinet, and just general life stuff. One great thing about reading the Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn catalogs 6 months after they were delivered is a lot of the stuff I like is on clearance! Another great thing is I have lots of clothes to get rid of after the Fried Chicken Tour Of Nashville, The French Fry Tour of Vancouver, the Ice Cream Tour of San Francisco, and the pitt stop that lasted too long at Thyroid Disease Flare-Up. I like making room for the clothes I do not have yet.
During the Great Purge of 2014, we had a humongous old tree in our front yard removed. It broke our hearts to have to do this but it was diseased and pieces of the tree were falling on windy days. We were so afraid the tree would fall and hurt someone. The front of our house faces east and the back faces west. The tree in the front yard was taller than our house and gave the perfect amount of shade on hot summer days. Not only does the curb view of our house look different without the tree, but the light inside our house drastically changed. It was never dark inside (we have big windows) but now it is just the brightest bright all the time. Our paint colors look different now. And thanks to the natural alarm clock, we wake up when the sun rises. See, silver linings everywhere! We will plant another tree in a slightly different spot in a few months. In the meantime, the change in light in our living room has inspired me to do some redecorating of that space. I was doing a beachy color scheme in our bedroom, which was previously the brightest room in the house. I am moving that theme to the living room and now I am not sure what I will do with the bedroom. I am not letting myself decide until all the clutter is gone.
[That is Ignacio chopping down our tree. He had lots of wisdom to dispense while the tree was coming down, of course.]
If you are doing the annual purge and redecorate drill, there are a few originals in my art shop available. Use code NEWYEAR for free shipping until 1/2/2015.
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