Monday 14 July 2014

Music Monday

I came across this on Facebook and investigated.  Hope you enjoy it.


And the story behind it.



In what way are you blessed?

Saturday 12 July 2014

Decluttering Diary pt 1

An interesting conversation took place on my Facebook page during the week.

I had written: 'My plan today is to start decluttering. Thankfully some lovely ladies have been willing to help me by buying some of my stamps.
Stamps & Magazines parcelled up to take to MyHermes and the Post Office
My problem with tidying in general and decluttering is that I seem to get the house in a bigger mess in the process and lose the will to do it once I get to that point.'


There were various comments from people about how they coped with throwing stuff away and generally tidying up but one comment started me thinking.  Part of the comment was this: 'I let God step in and take control of the situation. He told me what areas to work on and in what order. People thought I was crazy jumping from room to room, but he was getting me to clean up access to all my closets and shelving that was blocked, so I would have a space to actually put away the things I was keeping.'

Let God step in!  Well there's a thought.  Do you ever have those moments in a meeting where the person at the front talks about letting God into every area of your life and you rack your brain to think of any area you've left out.  Well here's one of them.   It had not occurred to me to ask God for help in clearing up my house.

We started decluttering the house in 2012 and managed to half sort 2 rooms and get them decorated.   Then my Dad was ill and we were travelling 200 miles each way to see him and living half the week at our house and half at his. Then when he died in February 2013 we cleared his house so I couldn't face doing my own as well.

Interestingly, it was much easier to clear Dad's house than my own.  I was not emotionally attached to any of the stuff in his house and so it was easy to do the 'this goes to the charity shop', this goes to the recycling' etc.  Even having the furniture taken away last week wasn't a problem.   Maybe the fact that the house had to cleared for the new owners was a greater motivation than just needing somewhere to be tidy.

Of course the two rooms that we half sorted are as bad as ever!
The spare room

The stuff on the bed is out of a cupboard in the room and is on the way to the charity shop.

The study.
 

See the empty(ish) shelf on the bookcase.   I cleared all of this from the bookcase.
 A friend is going to sell it all on eBay.

So I have started.  I have been flitting from room to room but not because I asked God about it but because that's my tendency.  Facing a whole room at a time is too much.  A shelf here and there when I think about it seems much easier.  But I'm impatient and I want it all done yesterday.

One suggestion the lady made was to read the Beth Moore book 'Breaking Free'.  Fortunately I already have it - unread of course! - on my Kindle app.   So off to read that and have have a chat to God about this area of my life I had not included him in.

Any decluttering ideas would be very welcome.

Thanks
Bernice







 

Monday 7 July 2014

Music Monday

I have loved this song for a very long time.  It really speaks to me.  If you haven't ever heard it before please really listen to the lyrics.


I did this scrapbook layout using this song as inspiration.

What creative response have you made to a song?

See you soon.
Bernice