Bonjour! I’m back and it hasn’t been two years lol….thank you to all those who stopped by on my last post and decided to follow along and leave a comment. I really do appreciate you hanging around despite my major absence. In fact the number of new readers is quite staggering as you are literally from all over the world, even as far as Sri Lanka! That was a nice surprise, so if you’re from Sri Lanka today, welcome and thanks for being here.

So, as I mentioned in my last post we will be on the move again mid next year and so I’ve decided it’s time to start the culling process and offload anything we have too much of, which lets face it, when your a maximalist and nowhere near being minimalist then there’s too much of everything. Personally I don’t mind but being as we move regularly (every two years roughly…got to love the rental scene) it really is a lot to pack up every so often. In an ideal world (meaning my hubby wouldn’t freak out) I’d be a gypsy and living the caravan lifestyle and simply travel and pack up and move whenever the mood struck. However, when you have two autistic sons and a husband somewhere on the spectrum it’s not that simple. I know hubby would do it to make me happy but he doesn’t cope well with major change and he likes to have routine as do our boys. Although, our youngest, Francis is more adventurous despite his autism and he would make a great traveling companion. For now though, we’re keeping it relatively simple and moving house, unless of course we’re forced into caravan living because of the price of rentals. (that’a a whole other post!)

On the weekend I made a good start and already have two boxes packed up ready to go into storage, these are things that absolutely don’t need to be out and I’m not going to need for the next 6 months or so. I’m sure I’ll forget what’s in them by the time we move but then it’s a nice surprise when you unpack and find something you forgot about. I was so motivated over the weekend that if you had stood still long enough you would have been packed into a box too lol….however, yesterday was a little less motivating as it was a tyical Monday that was flying by and I’d been to do the grocery shopping only to discover when I got home I needed to clean my fridge out before I could put anything away. Raise your hand if you love that job! I will say, usually my hubby is on top of keeping the fridge sorted but being as he’s still on crutches and was hurting yesterday, the job fell to me, ugh, I really can think of better things to do with my time.

However, I was starving when we got home so I decided to have a light lunch first so I had the energy and brain power to tackle that loathsome job (a tad dramatic I know but if you hate sorting your fridge, you’ll get where I’m coming from lol). While I was having my lunch I decided to put some music on as hubby had gotten that old song Breaking Up is Hard To Do by Neil Sedaka stuck in my head, so we started with that and the afternoon just went from one old song to another. It was the motivation I needed to get more than the fridge sorted and then it occurred to me, when I have music going I always get much more done around the house. Even as a kid, if my mum said we had to clean our room and strip and remake the bed, I would always put music on so it was less boring. One time (not at band camp haha) I was vacuuming my bedroom and recording Diana Ross’s Chain Reaction off the radio when my mum came in to tell me something and because I couldn’t hear her above the music and the vacuum she thought she’d turn the radio off at the wall so I could hear her. Of course my reaction was, ‘Noooo, mum I was recording a song.’ Now if you’re an 80’s kid, you’ll know what it means to wait all day for your fave song to come on the radio so you can record it. I mean really, when you think about it we were all illegally pirating music lol and yet no one cared and we weren’t threatened with law suits…..ah got to love the good old days lol…..any how back to my mum, her response was and I swear this is true, ‘what? it’ll keep recording, what’s the problem?’…..to which I replied ‘um, no mum the radio needs the electricity to keep playing the song and you just turned the power off at the wall.’ Mum, with the confusion of a deer caught in headlights, ‘oh, oh well you can record it again later.’ And with that she forgot why she even came into my room….aye, she may be brunette but underneath she’s as blonde as they come, especially with tech.

So, I have always loved music and if you’ve seen my latest Instagram post you would have seen that my music taste is as eclectic as my style in the house as it stretches from 1940’s right through to some music of today. I say some because lets face it there’s very few real artists left these days, well that’s my opinion any way.

With the music going I managed to get the fridge sorted relatively quick and then moved on to a few other house hold chores before ending up in the studio painting some decor items I’m getting ready to sell, which I’ll share when I’m done. As much as I love restoring furniture, I also love doing decor items as they’re smaller and quicker to get done and therefore I get to enjoy the end result sooner. Decor items are great for when you’re in an impatient mood and don’t want the long process of doing a furniture piece. And yes there was music going for the rest of the afternoon from Elvis to Abba and lots in between and then I had to stop what I was doing because it was 5:30pm and time to organize dinner. Don’t you hate it when you’re on a roll with something you actually enjoy doing and the you have to go back to reality?? Oh well, c’est la vie as they say there’s always tomorrow to listen to more music. Personally I would much rather have music going than watch TV. I’ve always said I could live without TV but not without music. Which do you prefer and what kind of music do you like to listen to?

Speaking of back to reality. that’s where I need to go now lol…..it’s been great to be back and I’ll be back soon and next time I want to share one of our favourite healthy snacks and so I’ll be back with the recipe for that. I actually plan on making it today as it’s one of hubby’s favourites. So take care for now, stay tuned and I’ll be back soon.

À bientôt….Michelle x