Life editing
What's important to me? What do I want? Who do I want to be?
In our little witchy WhatsApp group we’ve been discussing life editing a lot lately. I’m not sure how it started, maybe when Laura mentioned ‘Marie Kondo-ing the f*ck out of her life’ (side note: is Marie Kondo still assessing what sparks joy, or has she retired and turned into a hoarder or something - I’m sure I saw an article about her giving up tidying). Plus there’s the ongoing conversation about social media - how Facebook has become really ugh (gave that up a while ago - too many people talking about St George’s flags and Farage. Just no). And, I guess, just a general musing around what we all want our lives to look like.
This journal prompt: What’s important to me? What do I want? Who do I want to be? is a great one to really start you thinking about life editing. This little life is short, and having been given a precious second chance at love and happiness, I’m not about to waste a second. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about:
Down time: I know I always bang on about it, but we both work reeeally hard in quite stressful jobs. Our home life is utterly precious, and October evenings are for fluffy socks, a squishy sofa, a fire, a scented candle, a book, a cuppa and maybe a little sweet treat. I shall not be moved on that.
Talking of books… I’ve been going down a little philosophy rabbit hole recently and really enjoying it. Check out milk fed for some fab dark academia inspo and some great reading lists. I’m currently immersed in Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder, which is a great, easy introduction into philosophy. I’ve learned from Caitlin that it’s not about racing through a book, it’s about taking your time to absorb, enjoy and maybe even take a few notes. It’s a great way to switch off and lovely to feel my brain processing something other than waiting lists and staff appraisals.
Values: I’ve written about this before, but certain things are really important to me, like the quality and provenance of the food I eat, what I care about, and what I wear. I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ll adhere to my values much more - shop for food thoughtfully, and slowly edit down my wardrobe until there’s just a core collection of beautiful, sustainable items. I had a massive clear out on Saturday and sold a ton of things, and feel better already.
This week’s things
Home things
In big wonky cottage news, we’ve decided to paint the beams to lighten them up a bit. This includes the frankly terrifying first step of painting them cream, then covering with a layer of dark wax. So far so good. I’ll report back. Not much else going on here apart from a pesky leak in the bathroom, which is currently being fixed. Ooh, and thanks to India Knight I decided to try Purdy and Figg and wow - not disappointed, the scents are delicious.
Food things
For date night, we cooked this absolutely delicious cider glazed honey and mustard sausages recipe with M&S plant based vegan British bangers. OMG SO GOOD (sorry about the photo).
I also made Em the Nutritionist’s delicious fluffy dark chocolate orange cottage cheese pancakes (skipped the chocolate because we didn’t have any) on Sunday and they were delicious. We still have an enormous amount of tomatoes so currently cooking tomato EVERYTHING including soups, sauces and pasta, oh and apples in every form.
Random lovely things
A very lovely lady in the town that I sometimes chat to when I’m walking the dog gave me two quinces (no, me neither, but they smell delicious). I also found some treasure for my vase of dried things in the window, and LOOK AT THE SKY!
Garden things
The aforementioned tomatoes are still going crackers. Definitely planting these Indigo Rose ones again, they’re absolutely beautiful and really tasty. We’ve also got loads of apples, beetroot, two whole pears, leeks, and - erm - an awful lot of celery.
And I think that’s me up to date. have a lovely weekend and let me know if you have a go at the journal prompts xx