Spending time...

I've been pondering this a lot for the last couple of weeks...

Not least because I've been doing a lot of fun things to celebrate my birthday and our anniversary (having lunch with friends, getting parcels in the mail, visiting bookshops, seeing movies...)

Then comes the pay-back - sheer exhaustion, aching muscles, sleeping for 10 hours, waking for a few hours, then needing a nap again...

In my waking hours, I've managed to shower, then nap, then read, then nap, watch comfort TV (for me, it's The House of Eliott on DVD), then bed...

While The House of Eliott is my go-to comfort viewing, it's also stimulating. I LOVE that inter-war period in the 1920s - the fashion, the politics, the social history - and it always inspires me... The sheer passion of the Eliott sisters to create the world they want to create, to inhabit the lives they want to live.

So yesterday, in a fit of New Moon madness, I decided to finally tackle the 'stuff' piled under/on/around my desk and art cupboard (it's been 2 years since it was last tidied!) It's the area where fun, creative things happen, but also where 'stuff' gets left when I haven't the energy to put it away. So gradually the-left-stuff crowds out the creative stuff to the point where I give up altogether!

And every time I see it, I think of all the things I want to do, make, read, write... Then I turn away in sadness and disappointment at my lack of energy and motivation.

But yesterday, I made a start... 

I'm in that mid-tidy chaos at the moment, when I have to stand back and decide what things I really want to keep, and where I want to put them. It requires A LOT of mental energy, as well as physical, which is why I'm taking it slowly with lots of rests (and the odd nap).

It may take me over a week to complete, but right now it's how I want to spend my time. I have a very clear image of how I want to spend my future days in this space, and the only way I can make that image a reality is by tidying and organizing what's there right now.

I'm adopting the Holstee Manifesto - every single word - but especially the last few, which the Eliott sisters certainly practised :D