I’m sitting here on the couch, wanting to heat up my tea in the microwave, but cannot, as I have a doggy snuggled in beside me. As I’ve been thinking about spending less, I have been hoping to do some decluttering in my condo. I recently started to read, “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” by Margareta Magnusson. The idea of this is that we have a ton of stuff, and to be kind to our loved ones, we need to start the process of getting rid of things that we have no connection to so our family members aren’t charged with the tasks of rifling through oodles of stuff when we pass. I have a ton of stuff. Even now, after I did Marie Kondo’s “The Art of Tidying Up” 3 years ago (I’d gotten rid of 24 large garbage bags of stuff that I recycled, threw out, consigned or donated). And I could do it again because I have been buying stuff every week since then. It all adds up quickly! Magnusson says that when loved ones sort through your stuff, most of the clothing can be donated unless you know someone the same size as the deceased. And the rest of the stuff can be sold or donated, with just a few special items (journals or a couple of pieces of jewelry) kept as memories. I think we get into trouble when we drag boxes and boxes of our family member’s stuff to put in our own places or into storage. Then we are just making our family members do loads more when we die.
I am taking two courses right now, but am off for July & August, so I will go heavy in the Swedish Death Cleaning then. And I can be content, knowing that, because of the shopping ban, I will not fill my condo up with more junk. I can just head my dad inhale sharply and say, “Yeh. More junk!” and roll his eyes as he did every time I brought some great new purchase home!
I went to my first writing conference this weekend, and it was so interesting. We had lots of writers presenting, and I volunteered to work at the book table, selling the presenter’s books, so I got to attend the conference ($325) for free! I was so tempted to buy one of the presenter’s books, but I didn’t break down. The book was called Bad Cree. It is on my holds list at the library. I thought that maybe I should support the writer, but I followed my no book rule.
Money this week was spent on a Pilates class in Edmonton, parking for the writer’s conference downtown, birthday money for my sister and nephew, gas to Edmonton, and three meals out. It was a bit of a wash for cooking as we went for wings after the park, I had Subway and McDonald’s too. Bad nutrition week!
And as I finish writing this week’s update, my doggy jumps off the couch and my tea can finally be heated!
