Hold on tight and strap in friends because several fires have been lit under my butt and I’m itching to share.

Firstly, I have been working slowly on the decluttering process of the house for a while and was delighted last week when I managed to remove 2 boxes, 1 black bag and a carrier bag full of stuff no longer needed. Add to that several items from the garden (although I forgot a few bags which I’d placed in an ‘obvious position’ but we’ll skip over that). There is still some way to go but I am actually feeling like progress is being made and that makes me happy. I have never been, nor will ever be a minimalist but I’ll settle for tidy! The biggest problems seem to be books and dvds which we justify by saying all the new films are rubbish and we’ll need the books if there is a powercut, for something to do. The main person responsible for lighting this particular fire for decluttering is Cas from the Clutterbug site/yt/podcast.

We are back to homeschool high school this week so there are a number of books involved in that too which I can’t declutter at the moment. I’ve just had a thought – do any of the ‘declutter’ experts/minimalists homeschool their own kids? Would love to see how!

The other fire which has been lit comes to my health and weight. This is the year I turn 50 and I don’t want to look or feel it when I get there! I haven’t coped all that well with the ageing process in my late 40s so even though I know 50 is coming, it’s still a bit of a shock to me. Now, I did do a post about not making resolutions and I’m not – this has to be a bigger change than that. I’m currently doing a juicing detox week which I’ll post about next week as I’m keeping an honest diary about how that’s going.

However, on youtube, I saw a channel called ‘My 6 Month Transformation Challenge‘ and I have been inspired! Now I’ll be honest, the woman on that channel follows an exercise plan which I haven’t actually started yet for reasons I hope will become clear when I post the juicing diary, but I have plans forming in my head along those lines. I won’t be posting how much I need to lose etc as nobody needs the gross details but I did hope that by posting about it publicly I am holding myself to account and can’t duck out of it.

(I’m pretty sure there was a third thing I wanted to share with you but I’ve forgotten what it is…thanks to another ‘change’ I didn’t ask for.)

I am looking forward to these positive changes but I know it won’t all be sunshine and roses so I would be very grateful if every now and then, one of you lovely readers would remind/ask/encourage me as I continue on my merry way to a happier and lighter me and a tidy, clutter-free house!