Wednesday List: Ten More Things in 2010 (An Exceptionally Long Round Up on How Far I Have Come)

id you know that October was a completely list free month? Fascinating. It's like, I completely lost my list-writing mojo. But darlings, it happens to all of us and we just need to take it as it comes. Sometimes, there just isn't the list making urge inside.


Anyway, you may remember that I made a list of things to achieve in 2010. And then another list, which is this list. I thought it must be time to reassess the situation, given that I haven't even looked at the list for a while and that the year is hurtling towards a close.


1. Spend two hours a week putting the photos back into the SCP blog archive, and otherwise generally tidy up the archive so it looks more consistent. Suffice to say, this is incredibly tedious and distressingly close to what I actually do at work, so I am finding it very difficult to get enthusiastic about cleaning up the blog.  I shall do some work on my Lady of Leisure week, which begins next Monday. I have been trying to fill things in as I go, so that's made a bit of a difference to the back catalogue. Overall, I give myself a "Must try harder".


2. Make my bed everyday. Ah. Must try harder, again.


3. Have at least one "Buy Nothing Day" a week. This I've been doing really well at! I'm also on a spending fast at the moment, which is kind of good (and has been giving me a bunch of excuses to get out of things that I don't really want to do). 


I love love love Buy Nothing Days. If you're new to the whole thing, why not try taking part in Buy Nothing Day which is November 27th? You've got heaps of time to aim for it! Read Thrifty Chick's post about it for a bunch of info.


4. Pay back $4000 of my credit card. Check out the Unicorn! Booyakasha! 

I don't know if I'm likely to get pay off $4000 before the end of this year, but I am making some adjustments to get my expenses which will probably bring me closer to the goal. Either way ($3000 or $4000), the Debt Unicorn makes me thrill every time I fill it in. Awesome. I kind of like hanging off filling it in for a while too, so I get an extra surge of excitement from filling in large chunks of the Unicorns torso. Tee hee.


5. Take part in the Six Items or Less Challenge. I'm holding out to know whether there is going to be a SIOL-organised Challenge before the end of the year, and I'm thinking the best bet will be just to nominate a start date for myself and stick to it. Thus, I nominate next Monday (first day of my Lady of Leisure week) as the first day of my own, personal, six items or less challenge. I'll follow it for four weeks (ending 22 December). Rock and roll! It's pretty exciting - anyone else keen to join me? Let me know if you are and we can be support buddies.


6. Spend a month identifying and wearing clothes I never wear, and decide whether they're keepers or biffers. I've been trying to wear things that I don't more often, and getting rid of them if I genuinely have no desire at all to wear them. I'm a bit hampered by the unpredictability of the Wellington spring but I feel that I'm doing pretty well. I have two more bags of stuff that I'm keen as a bean to get rid of and would generally give myself a B for this one. I don't think I ever really settled to the task.


In hindsight, I think it would be a good task to set oneself maybe once a week every two months - having a set week to wear clothes that don't normally get an airing seems like a pretty good idea to me.


7. Either use the hula hoop or get rid of it. Totally gone. Awesome.


8. Clean and maintain my crafty machines. The other day I oiled and cleaned my overlocker, and I think it made a difference, but I promptly broke a needle and packed up in disgust so I can't tell for sure. I know that my sewing machine has been operating a whole heap better since I gave it a good clean. My spinning has dropped off the radar a bit but never mind. I think I can safely say that I'm achieving at this task. I rulez, and am now striking it through. OH YEAH.


9. Get rid of the knitting machine and table in the garage. I need to chase up the person who is supposed to be taking this off my hands, wherever she is. I'll chase her up. With holding judgement on my achieviness on this task.


10. Eat my food more slowly. I'm definitely eating my toasted sandwiches at lunch time more slowly: this is mostly because I had a series of really bad tomato/cheese burns on my chin and it was bloody miserable to be constantly burning myself with my own lunch. I can safely say that I'm making more of an effort to eat my food slowly. I'm going to take a leaf out of my own book and be more mindful when I eat - think more about nourishment while I'm eating. It's harder to scoff your food when you're thinking about the process of eating it.


1a. Make a budget and stick to it. My budget is coming up for a pre-study reassessment. And believe it or not, I'm actually very excited about this. I am also surprised at my excitement? Anyways, my Savings Accoutn has not worked out so well, but I've always maintained that the Savings Account was really for rainy days more than anything (at least, it was while I was getting out of my mountains of debt). I also need to work out a budget for next year when I start studying! Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee STUDY!


2a. Unclutter my life and maintain a clutterless environment. In the weekend, I rearranged my room in the hope that I would be able to fit in a desk next year. I am super stoked with how well it's worked out, and I've managed to get rid of an entire piece of furniture. My bedroom is now a shrine to the Power of Getting Rid of Things That You Really Don't Need.


However: I read this very interesting item by Danielle La Porte on White Hot Truth and it rather resonated with me - especially the part where she quotes a woman called Lianne Raymond who notes that the recent obsessions with minimalism could be read as "pathologizing the feminine in favour of celebrating the masculine". This ties in some ideas I took with me from a book I read some time ago by Penny Sparke called As Long As It's Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste. In this book, Sparke explores exactly this kind of idea in a historical context - namely the shift from Victorian parlours and knick knacks to Bauhaus et al, and the way that this shift reflected an effort to negate the overtly feminine in interior decorating.* And it made me think about decluttering as a sexual political act. 


I must confess I've never loved the idea of extreme minimalism, but I do like the idea of removing the things that are dragging me down - mentally and physically. In conclusion, I intend to think a great deal more about this but mostly sit on the fence with the doing, and also to reclaim my knick knacks that I really love. I'm not going to turf out my lovely teacups just because I don't drink tea out of every one! Organised collections people, organised collections.


And thus ends this round up for November! Congratulations if you made it this far. Contact me if you require a chocolate fish and one shall be forthcoming.




 *This is the briefest summary of these concepts ever, and they really are so much more interesting than this. If you're interested in this kind of thing (and it is really awfully interesting) then I strongly recommend you find the book and read it.