Weeds, they say, are simply flowers that are in the wrong place. A clump of thistles encroaching on my lettuce seedlings will end up in the composter, but the field nearby that has been left running wild with swathes of thistles that dance in a rich tapestry of colour are a favourite sight at this time of year.

Garden weeding has taken a back seat this week - the rain rain rain has kept me inside, and I have unleashed my frustration on some of the boxes and clutter that have encroached on the room that is supposed to be my creative den. I've been weeding the house, you might say.

Sometimes I imagine what it would be like to give it all away, what it would feel like to have nothing that needs to be tidied, organised, stored or dusted. Then I lay my hands on a tattered piece of paper with some scrawny handwriting that reminds me of something I never want to forget...

So I let go of the idea of turfing it all and focus on weeding out and discarding the real clutter and I sort the seeds of memories into boxes for the loft.

I wonder about this modern need to store memories and trinkets and souvenirs in rooms we never visit, rather than keeping the stories only in the mind... but the creative den is starting to look like the room I've been conjuring and less like an excuse not to create things.

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Weeding originally appeared on Taexalia on August 8, 2010.

I kid you not, I have just had a blast! I am now bereft because my wee abode only boasts three plug-holes and I am considering going door to door with my cup and ingredients offering to do domestics for free.

You see I am a child of consumerism, by the time I came along marketing had become big business and the simple pleasures in life had been obscured by catchphrases teaching us that the only way to domesticity was the use of the latest triple action wonder product. The problem is that your average triple action wonder product underplays the labels and symbols hinting at the hazardous industrial chemicals stashed in your wee pink bottle. Carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxic solvents and mood-altering chemicals abound - and that's just your shampoo, never mind the stuff you pour down your bog once a week.

So my quest for a chemical free life has just become exciting - almost as frothy as the language I may use for my NaNoWriMo novel! I decided to clean my drains. Now I don't think my drains are particularly dirty - the one in the kitchen has some brand new bits - and none of them are problematic. But I had all these old skool things and a method so I decided to give it a blast.

First, the method

Combine 1/3 of a cup of bicarbonate of soda with 1/3 of a cup of vinegar in a large container then quickly pour it down the plug.

If you read the link you may feel that there is some time delay before the fizzing starts indicated by the paragraph length and also the huge gap between paragraphs. This is not so. I put my vinegar into my cup and then poured my bicarbonate of soda in. Luckily the cup was vaguely over the sink because the explosion of foam was instantaneous!!! I whooped in shock!!! What fun!!

I immediately ran to the kitchen plug to try it again, then the bath had to have a go...

I think of all the years my mother spent arguing with me, trying to cajole me into helping with housework - how depressing the idea of a cloth and cleaner seemed. If only she had kept to the old methods and bribed me with this - "If you do the hoovering I'll let you clean the drains with bicarb and vinegar" - I would have been Little Miss Domestic!

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Eco-Friendly Cleaning Is The *Most* Fun! originally appeared on Taexalia on October 31, 2007.

Actually it's clutter and us, but I am only responsible for my own shit (although I confess to seeking creative ways to hide house his).

I hate clutter. I really do. So if you were to walk into my home on any day this year knowing this, you could be forgiven for being confused. Of course this year I have had the luxury of "being gentle with myself" based on the fact that we had our central heating hauled out and replaced. We also had half a kitchen, for several months, before the incompetent git we hired finally turned up to build a new one. Do not even ask me about the incompetent git - but if you are planning to replace your kitchen and you live in the Lothians, feel free to run your chosen kitchen man's name by me in case I can save you from disappointment, ineptitude and a wall unit that seems to be sliding down the wall. I feel entitled to publicly rant about this and use the term incompetent git since he has now avoided coming to fix his mess for months.

Anyway, the truth is that clutter did not suddenly happen to me this year - it has been following me around for years. Literally. It is a combination of lack of space, lack of organisation, pack-rat tendencies and two people who collect *stuff*. OK and yes - sheer laziness plays a part too.

So I have been trying to conquer this demon and it is an interesting journey - when I am paying attention to what my inner tape player is saying. I de-clutter better when I can get myself into a ruthless type of motivation - when I cleaned out my wardrobe I went like a dervish and filled a bin liner in the space of 30 minutes. Then I thought about listing it all on eBay and then I realised that was just a sneaky way to really keep the stuff for longer - I just know some of it would have sneaked back into the wardrobe... so off it went to a clothing recycling bin. Pronto.

Other stuff is medium easy - you know the crap you get at Christmas that you keep because you don't feel right dumping it immediately? Well I purged that and it feels good! I see Crimbo looming with trepidation, but I will try not to be so *nice* on Boxing Day.

But the books. The books HURT. And I'm never going to stop buying books, and clearly I've been book buying in my sleep this year! But in light of the fact that the floor may not actually take much more book weight, and the fact that I managed to muster some self-discipline, I took out (that sounds so violent!) more than a bookshelf's worth of books yesterday. The bookcases are still full, they just don't have the horizontal piles on top of the books now, and I confess the books now sit in a forlorn pile having been listed on Amazon (one sold so far) so they may not go anywhere fast.. This may qualify as a cop-out.

So I am making progress and I really like the feeling of calm that prevails when I spend time in a newly conquered room. The problem, though, is maintenance.

I'm thinking about the "reasons" I gave earlier and wondering how valid they really are. I just don't buy "lack of space" - two of us live in a flat that is bigger than the one I lived in as a child with four other people. It isn't lack of space, it's Too Much Crap.

Then there's lack of organisation, which is relevant - and sadly linked to laziness. Which I'm really not going to manage to deny. Really. And with too much crap, it's just never going to be organised.

The most interesting one (your mileage may vary) is the "pack-rat tendencies". I say I get it from my Mum, and we both get it from Grandma ~ but in Grandma's day keeping things was to do with survival and things not going to waste. In this day and age consumerism is so rampant we end up with so much crap that when the "save it for a rainy day" thing kicks in it means we have a couple of skips worth to deal with.

You could say my pack-rat gene just hasn't modified to the modern throwaway lifestyle.

But the truth is - I don't want it to! I want to do away with the consumerism and stop buying/collecting crap.

This leaves me with two problems ~ what to do with the remaining clutter I haven't yet tackled.

And Christmas.

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Clutter and Me originally appeared on Taexalia on October 22, 2007.

I hate clutter. I can't stand it. It creeps and crawls across the floor and takes over. It hides things. I am quite sure it dissolves things. It gets out of control and it overwhelms me. I hate it. I rant about it and I rant at it. I feel like I will never see a day when there is not a clutter pile growing somewhere in our home. I dream about being a neat-freak and being able to locate every obscure object at the touch of a good looking, dust free, well organised storage solution.

To be fair to my chaotic living space, it has been subjected to a long haul upheaval this year. First we had the central heating replacement and then the long wait for the kitchen replacement. Things had to be moved, things had to go, carpets and flooring came up, chaos reigned. The problem is that the chaos danced hand in hand with the general propensity of the residents to create clutter.

Now I am faced with the prospect of trying to regain control (this suggests I once had some - this is not really so). I am faced with the prospect of motivating myself to *finish* the kitchen - paint the walls, put up new tiles. I am faced with the prospect of other DIY adventures - like turning the new cupboard we gained when the old hot water tank left into a well designed storage cupboard, one that is a pleasure to open and bliss to locate objects in.

It has to be said that I am about as excited about DIY at the moment as I am about housework - my commitment never to become someone who wastes her life on dusting is really what comes between me and neat-freak bliss. I have way more interesting things to waste my life on!

The thing about working at home is that I have to be here more than I ever had to whilst in employment. This means that my moods, my productivity, my creative spurts are somewhat influenced by the state of the place. So it would be logical that I would learn to keep my space Zen like.

If anyone knows how to learn that, please tell me. I have tried FlyLady and in the end my response to the Shine Your Sink emails was to re-route them to an email account that was only for FlyLady, never log in and pay for the stupid sink to be replaced.

Anyway, I tidied my Workroom today. I rediscovered the floor and it feels like such a relief. I actually have room to put my easel up again and think about starting a new painting. My desk is so shiny it is begging me to please do some polymer clay playing.

But above all else, there is now one room I can retreat to when the clutter in the rest of the rooms attacks me.

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Clutter Free Carpet! originally appeared on Taexalia on July 12, 2007.

Seeking Calm

My home is in chaos! It's driving me mental! I need to rant! I know this will be over and I know that millions of people have far larger problems but holy moly I want it to be over!

We recently had our central heating system totally replaced and now we are in limbo as we organise the ripping out and replacement of the kitchen. Better planning might have ensured that we moved elegantly from one week of heating replacement into the next phase - but it strikes me that I have never involved myself in such a large home maintenance project, or series or projects and frankly have no idea how to plan something this big! We have the design for the kitchen, now we just need to organise the timing/buying etc.

Until then I am stuck with boxes everywhere, more clutter than we usually create, and a sense of frustration because it all seems like such a huge mountain to climb! I want to open a window and throw the whole lot out and sit in a space where there is nothing but me!

*flailing wailing*

Still I did manage to locate my telephone and reserve my space in another storytelling workshop - so I'm looking forward to Friday.

If I could just find my desk I might be able to do something more creative... Tammy has just opened a shop on etsy and reminded me that I only have one polymer clay item listed there... I have been dreaming ideas for new polymer clay projects for a while now but the clay just sits on a shelf untouched - maybe if I find my desk I could have a space to play...

"I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place." ~ Rufus Jones

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Clutterbug! originally appeared on Taexalia on April 4, 2007.

The lovely men left a couple of hours ago and I must say I will miss them. A nicer couple of guys, father and son, you couldn't hope for. Aye well when you work at home the company is a nice wee change.

Today they fitted the towel rail and finished connecting everything up, filled the system with water and tested it. WOW - these radiators are way more effective than the old ones and this is good for my toeses, the environment and our pocket.

They also bricked up the old fireplace and plastered the wall - this area puts the rest of the walls to shame with it's sleek, smooth, flat wall-like surface!

We still have stuff everywhere, bare floorboards and a sense of upheaval but there's a guy coming tonight to see about the next phase - kitchen replacement.

This is the all new set of pipes that connect all the radiators to the boiler... I snapped this before they put the floorboards back again.

A new wall! Getting rid of that fireplace is going to make such a difference to the whole room - not just because the thing was ugly, but in terms of space. I resisted the urge to write my name in the wet plaster...

This is the only reason *I* wanted new heating!

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It Works! originally appeared on Taexalia on March 16, 2007.

Well it has been an interesting week - much less traumatic than I anticipated, but then I was a little pre-occupied with the the loss of a friend.

On Monday morning we took up the rest of the hall floor:

Then the lovely men came and started to get to work. They did lots of things like tying off the hot water tank - isolating it so that we could still have hot water before draining the radiator system. They removed floorboards and took out pipes and removed the old radiators and then measured up and ordered all the new bits.

On Tuesday all the new radiators and the boiler arrived. I was closed into my office and working hard on my business and was pleasantly surprised by how little noise they were making. They put in a lot of new copper pipes and fitted the new radiators:

I realise you can only get so excited about radiators, so I will spare you pictures of the other three...

The next day there were funny smells as soldering and things went on and the kitchen sort of got dismantled...

But we closed the day with an almost boiler:

On Thursday this picture was transformed into:

And then things happened like the old hot water tank was emptied, my Heated Towel Rail got delivered, more soldering sniffs and some thumping and banging as the lovely (!) antique 1970s fireplace became this:

And the hot water tank cupboard became an almost great new storage space:

And just to show how pleased I am, here is the towel rail waiting to be installed:

So last night we had no heating or hot water but the lovely men are busy at work as I type finishing things off...

I say finishing things off - the heating will be installed but that is really only Phase 1. But before we move into Phase 2 I will be off to the Lake District in England with my parents!

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Heating Installation Update originally appeared on Taexalia on March 16, 2007.

This is a long story and it is growing...

Last year the council decided that the chimney stacks on this row of flats was in need of compulsory repair. Needless to say no-one got off their bum and organised the repairs so the council went ahead. They put up lots of scaffolding, made a lot of noise and very occasionally they did some work. When they got to our chimney, they had to send in a gas fitter to disconnect our gas so they could block up the fire place. He informed us that our back boiler was a death trap. I did not even know we had a back boiler because i am not very clued up on how radiators work. I thought because we never used the gas fire we were safe enough.

So the roof work continued and we sat and had some panicked conversations about luck. And we decided to investigate replacing the boiler. Well. Back boilers are out of fashion and they would have to be specially made. So the concept of a Combi Boiler was brought into the arena. This would have to go on a kitchen wall - which means losing one of our kitchen cupboards. And, well the kitchen is so old and decrepit and really disgusting that I almost cheered at the idea of replacing it.

At this point we were talking to Scottish Gas about the replacement boiler and he quoted us quite a lot of pretty pennies for a combi boiler and some new valves for our radiators. That's quite a lot of pretty pennies.

We decided to get a second opinion because we would rather spend our pretty pennies on beer and wine.

The next man who came to visit hummed and hawed and looked at the state of the tanks. This man wasn't a salesman, he was the actual guy who would be doing the work. He told me that he would not fit a combi boiler onto the current system because basically it's so old that it couldn't handle the pressure. I imagined the pipes bursting and flooding the folk downstairs and decided on the spot to fire Scottish Gas from the equation.

This man's quote was also for quite a lot of pretty pennies but we will be getting a whole new system. I can't get excited about radiators - but I am excited about the one going into the bathroom - A HEATED TOWEL RAIL THINGY!!!!

So the work starts tomorrow and I kind of managed to motivate myself to begin the prep work this afternoon. I am going to bore the pants off you all by blogging the progress. Apart from the fact that it might be nice to develop a daily blogging habit, it may be the only way to retain sanity as my home gets torn apart... new central heating, new kitchen, removal of old gas fire and fireplace and hot water tanks, redecorating lounge and deciding what crap to fill the NEW CUPBOARD with.

Here's what I did today:

This is the entrance to my Den, the site of the new radiator - oh did I mention that the radiators in the bedroom and my Den are under windows and the new ones won't be... Anyway, these are my "art shelves" stuffed with beads, polymer clay, sewing stuff, tools, paints, sketchbooks and all manner of stuff. I had to clear the shelves and move them into the room so that the carpet can come up.

A picture of our hall before I started to clear it to lift the carpet. The carpet was fairly easy to lift except for the very last corner. Some bright spark used a nail instead of a carpet tack and the corner ripped. The words I spoke were not ladylike and I was right behind the front door. I hope my neighbours don't think less of me...

And yes, confirmation that someone used one million nails and put down hardboard over the original wonky floorboards. Did you get that - one million nails.

It occurs to me at this point that I am a lunatic for starting this by myself.

I pulled up all the narrow bits in the doorways and these were piddle easy. Then I began tackling the larger boards. I developed a nifty system with my hammer and actually got one whole board up before 6pm - when I decided it was sensible to stop so as not to drive my downstairs neighbours mental. I couldn't give a fig about the upstairs ones but I haven't figured out how to aim the noise through their stupid laminate wood flooring. And yes, as I type Mr Elephant is practising tenpin bowling above my head.

Note to Dawn - no punging but you would be proud of my floor lifting ability

I pulled up This Many Nails!!!!!!!!

I am knackered, now have a fair idea of just how unfit I am and I am sucking back red wine.

Tomorrow the real fun starts!

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Preparing for the Invasion originally appeared on Taexalia on March 11, 2007.