Is It All White and Black?

To keep me inspired and on the right track, just recently I've been watching lots of YouTube clips and reading minimalism posts from other folk in this wonderful Webby World.  Now most of them seem to be totally up-front and show you their journey towards minimalism warts and all, but with some of them you wonder if it's all camera angles and them wanting to be on a bandwagon just for the ride rather than the journey.

I can show you what I mean here.  

A couple of years ago we moved towards having mostly all white crockery with a bit of an embossed stripe, it keeps life simple, looks neat enough to make me happy when I go into the cupboards and means that if there's a breakage I can easily fill any gaps with another purchase of any white item that has embossed  line of any sort in it.  So we have white for crockery, plain glass for glassware and stainless steel for our cutlery ... SO if I was showing you my cupboards on a minimalism post I could show you the photo above and you would all go ... ahhh, hasn't she done well  :-)

Or I could show you the original photo I took, and how it looked before editing... and you could see that I am still on a bit of a journey,and there's absolutely nothing wrong in that ... I love honesty.

I'll be sorting through the top shelf later ... I can see a couple of things straight away that are supposed to be in the touring caravan!!

Unless you want to see my knickers ... look away now!!

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And the 'black' part of this post ... underwear.

For the last few years I have always worn black underwear, nothing slinky or glamorous ... I don't live that sort of lifestyle ... just Sloggi pants, M&S ankle socks and good supportive bras.  Keeping it black, except for a couple of skin-tone or pink colour bras for under pale T shirts in Summer and a single pair of skin-tone knickers for under my one pair of light shorts, means that they can all get lobbed in the wash together, take minimal sorting out, socks that get holes can be thrown away and it's other half can wait for another lone sock to appear and they can once again be a pair.

It keeps life nice and simple and we both used to do this ...

... until just recently.

Now my lovely hubby has thrown a stripey stick into the works and I find myself having to match up socks on the washing line ... yes, I'm totally OCD about them having to hang in pairs.

I bet you never thought I'd share my knickers on a post  😄

The food in the cupboards is going down slowly at the moment, well it will if I keep having a round of toast with peanut butter and black coffee for breakfast won't it!!

Must do better ... must eat more ... haha, I never thought I'd hear myself say that!!

Sue xx

Down to Basics - In So Many Ways

A slightly different post today, because although the interiors of my cupboards must be fascinating and the contents are going down slowly but surely ... we have broadened the whole Challenge concept.  

We are now on a bit more of a push to get Down to Basics in more areas of our lives.  And I say 'our lives' as we are both totally of the mind that we need to simplify things and get our lives on a slower, easier path.

The first big thing to go was listed on Facebook Marketplace on Saturday night and by 6pm last night it was gone.  The big thing was Alan's treadmill, a large ungainly running machine that although used at first had long since been abandoned and had sat in the conservatory looking at us reproachfully every time we passed by.  It was that big and heavy that I couldn't even move it to clean underneath, so this morning has been a brilliant morning of Spring cleaning the whole room one side at a time.

So now we have sparkling windows ...

... and clean floors, skirting boards and every nook and cranny has been hoovered, wiped down and mopped.  

(The mark you see under the mirror seemingly on the wall ... is in fact on my camera lens and will not come off, but I love my current camera so I put up with it!!)

And talking of cleaning ... there were a couple of comments on the last post about how clean everything looked, and then last night I got an email asking me what products do I use and how do I keep everywhere so clean and tidy.  I think our house just photographs very well because virtually all our walls are white and all the floors are pale-ish.  But while they were out I took a photo of the things I use.

A Dyson, a floor mop with a squirty bottle on it ... you push the trigger and it squirts out a dilute mix of your favourite floor cleaning product and refill as and when it runs dry ... Flash Lemon Scented Multi-purpose cleaner that we buy in large bottles from the wholesaler and decant into an old Flash trigger bottle or the other bottle that is kept under the sink.  My guilty secret, and one of the things that I am using slightly too many of at the moment with a tiny puppy in the house, are throwaway floor and anti-bacterial wipes. 

But these and a dash of bleach for the toilets are the only products I use for ALL surfaces.  We do have to be careful not to use too much bleach or too many strong cleaning products as we run on a septic tank and not into mains drainage.  We have to keep our good bacteria alive!!

My best ever buy and most used cleaning thing are a set of Clean and Gleam Window Cloths from Lakeland which I use along with a spritz of the Flash to clean all sorts of surfaces not just the glass that they are advertised for.  It seemed a large outlay at the time for two cloths but I have been using my current pair (one is used damp and the other dry) for the last two years, so the investment was well worth it!

Another comment on yesterdays post was how tidy my cupboards are and yes, I agree.  I think I am getting a little OCD about the neatness of the cupboards as they empty and become more streamlined.  The tins of tuna for Ginger are a case in point, recently I've noticed when I'm putting them away ... the labels all have to face front even though I know they are all tins of tuna  😁 

Sue xx

Down to Basics - Home Stores

I'm back at home in Wales for the next week or so, and it's a good opportunity to eat through the store cupboard, fridge and freezers here as well as well as those in the Van in a bid to get us Down to Basics at both locations.  And just saying those words 'eat through the store cupboard' made me realise that in many ways this Challenge might seem the same as my first Challenge of this year.  You can see it here - Challenge One 2019 - Eat the Stores and also permanently on the sidebar listed along with all my other Challenges.

The main difference between the two Challenges are the end outcomes that I am aiming for.  

In January when I did the first Challenge my aim was to work our way through the food stores, using up the foods and tidying up the cupboards and shelves in the fridge and freezers.  This time at the back of my mind is the realisation that I want to get us back to eating simpler foods, less processed and less packaged foods and to get rid of and stop buying anymore of the things that I want to move away from.

Hence the title Down to Basics. 

This was my one of my cupboards in January before the first Challenge started.

And this is the same cupboard at the end of that Challenge.

And this ... the same as the top photo of this post ... is the same cupboard today.

As you can clearly see I haven't gone back to the cluttered days pre Challenge One, but there are things in the cupboard that I have decided I don't want to store going forward.  The stack of pasta stir-through sauces for instance.  The cake mixes and fillings.  These are things that may be bought in the future if the situation where they are needed arises ... but are not things that I want to store and be tempted to use on a day to day basis.

So the main purpose of this Challenge is to take us down to a base list of food items that will be purchased regularly.  I'm currently using one of the notebooks that I bought last week to start a list of core items that will form the basic store cupboard that I want to meal plan from in future.

It's something that seems to be overlapping on both my blogs at the moment, the need for simplicity in all parts of my life and my journey in heading towards it ... and it's something that I am really enjoying.

🛒