Keeping the Mundane Out of My Ballet

For awhile now, I have been noticing the routine of my actions.  Getting up, getting ready for work - the patterns of my routines are mostly an unconscious ballet of concise motion.  On weekends, the pattern is more fractured.  Not burdened by the need to get out the door at a specific time, a certain relaxation of habitual motion is nice.

I have a desire to change all that.  I don't know why I am chomping at the bit to stir things up.  Perhaps it is all part and parcel to my edit and purge sweep to narrow the burden of stuff' to a pleasurable level.  'Simplify, simplify, simplify' - Thoreau. 

I was going through several of my craft drawers and rather than editing, I found myself reminiscing (must be that autumn thing).  Running my hand over needlepoint stitched many moons ago, discovering cards of antique buttons collected in a former life and treasures wrought with sweet memories I am loathe to discard tugged at my melancholy heart. 

It seems that I want freshness in my life without letting go of the comforts which include some of the usual habits.  Like a vase of fresh flowers from the garden's late season offerings, I crave a blend of old and new, comfort and adventure.

Downsizing

I love the organization of my Franklin Planner but, over the years, it has plumped up with notes and jottings of varying importance until it is one heavy little sucker.

When you have a mind like I have which is interested in everything, having it all in one place is a life-changer.  That doesn't mean I don't have file folders with articles torn from magazines and reference photos on my computer for future paintings, it just means that the immediate post-it jottings have a home with an address and they are not on little squares which can be lost to the ether on a whim.

Now, that zippered black book is filled with years of notes.  I like it that way.  What is wearing on me is transporting it back and forth to work because I need said notes and the calendar and the address book in both places.  I do not want to duplicate it - God forbid!  What I have done, though, is get a trim little red binder which holds just my calendar, address book and two tabbed sections of plain notepaper for personal and work notes.  Personal is in the #1 tab, naturally.

I love it - it even slips in my purse.  It is a fraction of a pound.  I can swing said purse onto my shoulder without pulling it out of the socket.  I have duplicated nothing. 

I love downsizing.