Still Simplifying - March

It's been a funny old month this month, but it has been very productive in terms of simplifying areas of our lives, which is good.  The main thing I achieved was that I finally carried out a task that's been on my list for several years now, namely sorting through all of our photos and completing the albums I'd started collating nearly 10 years ago, but never finished.

The job isn't completely done, as I still need to buy a few more albums and then fill them, but several albums have been completed and the remaining photos are sorted into categories ready to go straight into albums, which will make it easier when I finally get around to buying them.

It's been a bit of a mammoth task, but I did it over a couple of weeks, doing a bit on various evenings or free days.  It hasn't been quite as emotional as I thought it was going to be either, which is good, but it has been super satisfying.  I still also need to organise all of our digital photos going back 8 years or so, but I'll save that task for another month.

I completed another couple of small simplifying and organising tasks this month, one being to go through all of my seeds and throw away any out of date packets.  I know that you can often still get them to germinate, but I'm talking 5 or so year old packets here. I've had mixed results with old seeds in the past and to be honest, I just don't have the time anymore to re-sow them if they don't germinate, so I'd rather stick to fresh seeds where possible.

The other task was to use a chalk pen I bought on eBay to label all of my spice jars in the kitchen.  I really wanted to do this job, as I can't tell by physically looking at the jars, which spices are which, so I had to sniff every jar every time I wanted to use a spice to get the right one.  It was a bit of a ridiculous process.  Anyway, now this job is done, I don't have to do that anymore and they all look pretty neat too. (I already had the chalkboard stickers, that I'd bought a while ago)

I now just need to buy a couple more of these jars from IKEA the next time I go, to house a couple more herbs and spices and then the job will be fully completed.

The final and probably most exhausting task completed this month was the digging over of our new allotment, which was covered in weeds at the beginning of the month.  It was a big relief to get this job done in time for site inspections at the end of the month and I can now get on and enjoy the task of sowing/planting it up and making it my own.

Just a note on the decluttering front - I'm starting a new way of recording the items I've donated or decluttered each  month, by creating a special post every month here on my blog of what went and why, so that post will be coming up shortly.

I feel that on the whole it's been a good month for getting on top of organisational and simplifying jobs and I'm looking forward to doing more of the same next month.