Master bedroom tour and the organization snowball

Posted on January 14, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Or…what's Dave Ramsey got to do with cleaning my room? He came to mind as we are tackling a major whole house clean and purge. If you aren't familiar with Dave Ramsey's debt snowball method he recommends that you list your bills from largest to smallest. Then you make minimum payments on all but the smallest and throw all you've got on that one til it's paid off. Then you take that monthly allotment plus the amount you were spending on that smallest debt and apply it all to the next larger bill. And so on and so on. Well it occurred to me that it can be a big morale boost to clean that way. I am hitting the rooms that are easily managed and rolling from there.

The master bedroom has always been one of my favorite rooms in this house. The bed linens are from Martha Stewart's Water Garden set we found discounted several years ago and have held up very well. Coincidentally the heavy butter yellow English drapes that were here when we arrived matched perfectly so I bought zero things for this room. Nada. The side table is actually a sewing machine table with another drape thrown over. Since I didn't actually use the sewing machine you see.

Old friends will remember we found the bed our first day in Germany from a local vendor. Some weeks later we found the matching armoire at a junk shop. That story is here. The two pieces are living happily in this old house in England now.

So, organization snowball. That's what's happening over here. Auntie Leila explains exactly how we do things so there is no need to repeat. If it's been a while since you have really deep cleaned or you don't know where to begin please go directly there. Read, be inspired. Like her, I began with the master bedroom. My husband's work clothes are in the armoire. The rest of our things are in two particle board type wardrobes in the closet behind the door. Shoes are hung in bags on the other side of the doors. All my small jewelry is kept in one of these. My necklaces are hung over a couple command hooks inside the wardrobe door. Scarves are wrapped over a hanger like this.

So there you have it. More rooms to follow because ready or not the move is happening.

Wetlands Walk

Posted on January 9, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

This was probably our last visit to the Norfolk coast. Brendan and I rode up with Alannah in the afternoon leaving just before sunset, which is still very early in the day here. It is a wild, windy place. The tall grass was bowing from the sea breeze and our cheeks were ruddy by the time we reached the car.

Staging Life

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Now that the 12 drummers have drummed this move is hitting overdrive. One month. We have one month to download this life and upload a new version in the States. Hopefully a new and improved version. That is always the goal.

There has been a lot of thought put into what that new life should look like. Every new place, every new experience prompts us to reevaluate. What in our lives should stay, what should go, what worked, what didn't. Right now we are in that stage of trying on new lives to see what fits. Still have no clue honestly. We have considered vintage homes in gentrified neighborhoods, small rural spreads, suburbs. We look, we talk, we think.

While I am in this introspective place I am reading through Holly Pierlot's Mother's Rule. I am late to this party for sure but it has been an affirming read. I love that her life changes happened about when mine began to. (late 30s. What? You didn't think Moms were just born organized right? Not I!) I love the whole premise that the outer framework – the home, the routines – are there to support inner order and peace. It is all echoing Becky Higgin's two maxims: Cultivate a good life and The purpose of the task is to strengthen the relationship.

It is more motivating to work towards order when you are clear that the purpose is to provide margin, to create space to think, to enable us to live our vocation with fewer hindrances. Similar thoughts such as these have been strewn across my path lately. January is awesome. A fresh start. I.am.pumped!

Sculpting a life requires a fair amount of carving away extra rubble. That's where I'm at this month. Digging away intensely. I have done some little jobs – got a new bag and purged the old one. Peter Walsh says that women should empty their purses at days end like men empty their pockets. It works. : )

We tackled the tupperware cabinet one morning after it spilled out yet again. There isn't much left. I hope to get pyrex on the other end. Meantime, Mary Kay Clark's advice to use ziplock bags works fine.

We sorted the games. Ditched a whole bunch with missing parts and pieces. Kieran was inspired to finish our new puzzle after this.

We got through my husband's closet. Mine was done last fall but is getting a second purge. Many of my clothes came with me from the States…..5 yrs ago. And many were thrifted then. I have read through the 40 hanger advice. Also the guideline to pick up each item you have and ask yourself if you were in the store would you put it in the cart? If not, let it go. I think the closet will be pretty sparse when that happens but slowly I am getting grown up clothes. That you know, fit.

Next step was the cellar. It's scary. Literally. Have I shown you this?? This house is over 200 years old. The cellar is like the set of every horror movie you ever saw and you know the bad stuff always starts down there. It's a classic single bare bulb swinging from the ceiling kind of gem and it housed a ton of now slightly damp cardboard boxes from the Germany move where the movers combined Christmas ornaments and baby clothes and kitchen tools. Some of it just stayed that way amidst all the travel we have done. The boys and I have spent the last couple days pulling out boxes, purging and neatly boxing and labeling the keepers. Go us.

This has been an ongoing project since we first packed up the farm 5 yrs ago. I read this article with interest. The premise is that we can and should use the guidelines to stage a house for sale to stage lives we want to live in ourselves. This whole idea has been returning to me since my fascination with home selling shows years ago. So this is the vision for the coming months.

There will be many trips to the garbage drop. I hope it happens sooner vs later. Honestly the storage boxes suck me in and tear at my heart. The baby clothes, the letter jacket….. It was sheer determination pushing me through last night and just when I thought I was holding it all together I spotted the diaper pins that fell out of an old box. Do people even use these now? I think cloth diapers now come all elasticized. These are dinosaurs, like me. They drove me to tears.

A lifetime ago and a world so different. And for the record I do not pretend to be a minimalist. There are a lot of treasures collected, but the collections are being continually curated. Some things I am not ready to part with. So I am not. Transatlantic moves are not the time to push yourself further than you know you're ready to go.

Anyway, here we go again. Starting over again. New place. New Life. New us.

In case anyone else gets inspired by organization stories there will probably be updates as we go. Measuring progress helps.

a few moments in Rome

Posted on January 7, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

(another in a series of random, non-chronological tale telling)

The ragged flag flying alone before those old shutters caught my eye while we sat and ate our lunch purchased from a small shop in Rome. Our feet were killing us. Ok me, mostly. I noticed it wasn't just me though. A lady was walking holding her sandals, wincing as she went. If I hadn't been so freaked about the germs and sharp objects that amass after millions of feet walk over pavement I might have been tempted.

Shortly before our break we had been walking down this street lined with vendors hawking their goods. In a split second a crowd came running at us like a scene from a zombie apocolypse movie. They darted around the corner before they reached us. There had been a scare that inspectors were coming around to check for licenses. It's nothing short of amazing how quickly those tablecloths can be gathered up…. and laid back out again as though nothing occurred.

And really nothing did. Nothing out of the ordinary. In moments all was calm. People went on shopping. We went on eating. And a wedding carried on at the end of the street.

Life in old Rome.

Where 2014 Took Us

Posted on January 4, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Pulling together these images from this year that has been amazes me. We have stopped storing the suitcases far from reach. Someone has needed one every.single.month. But oh the incredible places we have gone…..

January:

London

Cambridge

Blakeney Point

February:

Eastern Colorado

One of my first childhood homes in Wisconsin

March:

Nebraska

Colorado

and back to England

April:

Wimpole Estate, UK

May:

Ely, UK

Thetford Forest, UK

June:

Wicken Fen, Suffolk, UK

Leeds, UK (Medical Museum)

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, UK

Southwell Workhouse, Nottinghamshire, UK

July:

Dover, UK

Hastings Abbey, UK

Ickworth Estate, Suffolk, UK

August:

Framlingham Castle, UK

Lydford Gorge, Devonshire, UK

September:

Vilseck, Germany

Dartmoor National Park

Coastline, Devonshire, UK

Clovelly village, UK

October:

Rome, Italy

November:

Manchester, UK (Go Man City!)

December:

Paris, France

game night

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Kim Halloran-Fry

I love the way they think ; D

On the third day of Christmas….

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Giving the Gift Your Family Really Needs

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Kim Halloran-Fry

If you are a mom in the throes of days-before-Christmas anxiety, please stop a moment and read the words I read this morning. Remind yourself that no matter what the to do lists and the Santa lists and the grocery lists say, there is only one thing our family's really, really need from us….

"All mother's – those employed outside the home and those who are full-time homemakers – worry about whether they are giving enough of themselves to their children. At Christmastime this concern is emotionally heightened and produces great anxiety.

If we work responsibly outside our homes we feel guilty because we are not at home with the children during the days preceding Christmas baking a gingerbread house to rival a magazine cover. So we assuage that guilt by suspending common sense in the department store until our extravagance for the children's sake is culpable.

If on the other hand we are at home with the children full time, the family is possibly on a tighter budget and so the money question looms over our holidays. However instead of making the most of being with the children, such as reveling in the fact that we do have the time to bake, we fret over the fact that we can't give them the overpriced trinkets advertised on television.

May Mrs. Sharp make a gentle suggestion? Instead of fretting over things we cannot do, let us concentrate on the most priceless gift we can give to our families for the holidays. It is the gift you long to give them each year, dear Reader, and feel frustrated when your holiday reality does not live up to your expectations.

It is the gift of yourself.

But you say, "Mrs. Sharp, I gve myself to my family. In fact that's all I do, which is why I'm dreading the holidays: gift buying, card mailing, present wrapping, present sending, tree trimming, cookie baking, holiday entertaining, carol singing, organizing the carol singing. What are you asking of me? to do more?"

No my dear. Mrs. Sharp is not asking you to do more. In fact she is asking you to do less, in order that you may give more – to enter fully into this joyous holiday celebration with your children by giving them the gift of Christmas Past. For now, while they are young, you are planting seeds of Christmas memory.

When your children are grown the holidays – their Christmas Past – can come to mean memories of… a loving family smiling in the glow of holiday light. Or their Christmas memories can be of Mother racing around out of breath, our of energy, out of love, out of patience because she is so exhausted trying to do everything for everybody.

It's your choice.

You can decide this year to be happy, loving, fulfilled, generous, peaceful, joyous, calm, festive and emotionally connectd to the important people in your life from Thanksgiving til the first week in January.

Or you can choose to be a wreck.

The secret is…. you can't do everything. You are going to have to make choices so that you are not so overxtended and worn out that you can't give your precious family the important intangibles that make the real difference in their lives."

From Mrs. Sharp's Traditions

almost time

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Kim Halloran-Fry

Counting down to Christmas and she's trying out every combination of red and sparkly and shiny in the closet.

not a place, but a moment

Posted on December 9, 2014 by Kim Halloran-Fry

It might seem silly to some, this decking of halls when the moving trucks will be here in several weeks now. It was however exactly the right thing to do this weekend. In the midst of so much uncertainty and upheaval there came strings of lights, the familiar faces of jolly gnomes, and bright wooden shoes bearing coins. There are clementines and candy calendars, and the tattered books which have journeyed far with us. As I type by the light of the tree tonight life feels familiar again.

I don't know where we will be celebrating our feast days next year. What I remembered while unwrapping sleighbells and storybooks is that wherever it may be, it will be home.

“Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.”

Sarah Dessen

Starry Sky Journal

Reflections from Starry Sky Ranch

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