Being grateful

A morning at the donation centre yesterday, and a chance to catch up on everyone's Christmas and New Year news.  Things are getting a little more organised there, and I managed to get a fair amount of work done.  I always find myself pondering over the problem of 'stuff' while I'm sorting through the donations.  A lot of the goods that are donated (in good faith and for a very worthy cause) are good quality and suitable for resale through the charity shops on the local high streets, but every so often I open a bag or box that is just full of, well, rubbish.  We salvage what we can for scrap value, but sadly rubbish is rubbish, even if it has been donated in a charity bag.  When did the accumulation of all this 'stuff' become so important to us?  

Back at home, we were delighted to be given two big bags of shredding which we are mixing in to the compost bin.  We're novices at composting, and the grass cuttings and veg peelings were getting a bit sludgy, for want of a better description, so a bit of shredded paper will hopefully help the mix.  We'll wait to see in a few months time.

Lots of crafting going on here.  N has another model kit on the go, and can be found most mornings at the kitchen table, glasses perched on the end of his nose, meticulously painting some tiny piece of kit.  It's all about having the time, taking the time, and enjoying the time spent creating.  

Absolutely loving these colours!

I've been knitting (this wasn't even on the list but it was a quick and easy 'tick').  And I'm now tackling one of the projects that has been bugging me for a very long time.  It's a quilt top I began piecing many, many years (that sounds familiar, doesn't it?), and over time it has been put away, forgotten about, rediscovered, had a bit more added to it, stuffed in a bag . . . 

I have promised myself it will be the next project to be completed, and I would really like to have it done by the end of the month.  I think that may be a little optimistic but I am determined to get it finished.  Once I had spread it out on the lounge floor, I saw straightaway that I was going to have to begin by unpicking the borders, which were just too wavy for me to ignore (did I really measure those sides first?)  That was today's task, sort the borders out.  They were clearly too long, which made the edges wavy, so I've shortened and resewn each side and it all looks a lot better.  I dug around in the bag of sheets from the charity shop and have found one that will do for the backing, and I have enough offcuts, if I do a bit of joining, for the wadding.  Making do with what I have.  It's fun.  

We have had two phone calls in the past 24 hours which have served as a timely reminder to us of just how fortunate we are.  We both enjoy good health, something that is so often taken for granted but which I find I am becoming increasingly thankful for, and secondly, we are in the wonderful position of being debt-free.  We are not beholden financially to anyone, and it is the best feeling and one we made a conscious decision to achieve.  We have never regretted that decision.  It has allowed us to leave work early knowing that everything was paid for and it has given us choice and freedom.  We are happy to live within our means but we don't feel that makes us poor in any way; we are far more self-reliant than many.  Our life may be simple in comparison to some, but we consider ourselves rich in so many ways.  We have much to be grateful for.