End of January catch up

 

Hi guys, welcome back to the blog.

So, we've finally reached the end of January. I hear a lot of you cheer for that!

To be honest though for me January has gone fairly quick. I'm not sure why as I haven't been super busy, just the usual plodding along and keeping up with my daily jobs throughout the week.

Maybe I don't find January too much of a chore as we always have an easy Christmas, so come Jan it's just a new month, no slog, no expectations, no pressure. Or maybe because I'm living in Spain and even though it is chilly this time of year we still have the lovely sunny days, which definitely lifts your mood and makes the days more enjoyable for sure. Mark hates being back in the UK during the week for work, he gives me the daily weather updates. Must admit my UK trips have slowed up this time of year! The milder winters definitely makes me know we did the right thing moving to Spain and making it our home.

If you follow me on Instagram → @byheathertownsend ← you might of seen that I've recently had some dental surgery. I had something done called Emdogain. I apparently have bone loss and looks like my gum is receding, eek. So of course I didn't have to think twice about getting it sorted. They basically cut a flap in the gum and inject Emdogain gel into it and stich it back up. I had ten stitches in total.

 Hopefully the gel works to regenerate the gum. Fingers crossed it's successful, as it was a blimin' sore and uncomfortable thing to go through. Since having my braces a few years a go I'm really not that great at the dentist anymore. I'm a week into recovery and I think I'm doing OK, it's still awkward to eat and I'm on soft food only. Lot's of mash and gravy and ice-cream and yogurts. I've lost a few lbs so silver linings and all that. It can take up to six months for the gum to regenerate, I just hope I'm back on solids by then. I can't wait for a slice of toast! I've also got some Biscoff chocolate eggs looking at me, teasing me daily in the cupboard, haha.

Following on from my previous post Enjoying January, I've been continuing the tidying up of some of my drawers and cupboards. I really do love having mini clear outs. Bitesize chunks I find is the most productive for me. I don't loose interest half way through and it gives me so much joy when I've tidied up and decluttered a drawer. Are you guys the same?

For example we have far too many towels. There's just the two of us and we never have guests staying. Well too be honest even if someone did want to stay in our crazy cat house there isn't anywhere for them to sleep. We have two spare rooms, one is the study/cat room and the other is the cat-room/our wardrobes. I really do believe to make your house work for you and (your fur-family) but that's something I'll deep dive into on a different post, if you like.

OK back to the towels. We have a 3-drawer chest in the bedroom, which one drawer is the bedlinen, again something else I've gotten down. Then the two remaining drawers are towels. In my bathroom there is also a drawer unit stuffed with old towels that are rarely used. Only for the cat carry box or for cleaning. So, I've kept one drawer in the bedroom for Mark's towels for use in the en-suite, which is obviously off the bedroom, so makes sense them being there. Then The old towels I've refolded and stored in a storage bag in the cat room wardrobe, which freed up room to put my bathroom towels in the bathroom drawer unit. Again makes sense them being in the room they're going to be used in. Which in turn freed up the final drawer in the bedroom chest, where I've sorted out my jumper drawer and put my hoodies in the now spare drawer. Phew, I feel a bit worn out after that explanation, I hope that made sense!

Sorting out those drawers has made a huge difference. It feels organised now that the right towels are in their correct areas and it feels lovely having my jumper drawer also sorted out. I was struggling to open and close it. Every time I'd close the drawer I'd have to stuff the jumpers down to make it shut, you know the one. 

I've also sorted out a bunch of old Birthday cards. That is something I always feel guilty on throwing out, but it really is unnecessary clutter. Mark and I now just tend to keep the last card from loved ones. I do keep all the Birthday & Valentines cards from Mark though. We don't bother with Christmas cards to each other so at least that's something.

Like I was saying in my previous post I love using these quieter chillier months when your indoors more to have these little tidy ups. Going through things and de-cluttering, it really does make you feel a lot clearer and lighter somehow. Does that makes sense?

I haven't done much gardening so far this year. I did have a day out in the garden before my gum surgery where I had a good weeding session and raked up loads of pine needles and just gave it a general tidy up. I am looking forward to getting back out there and clearing up some more areas, getting rid of weeds and overgrown bushes. Also our shed needs painting as it's looking a bit tired now. I definitely want to get that done before the Spring. Our garden definitely is a working progress and constant maintenance. I do love it though.

I haven't done anymore clothes shopping since I shared with you what I bought in my Sales post. I have bought a new clear storage box as I needed to re-organise my handbags. Because of all our cats I can't have my bags out on display or anything so they're stacked in clear boxes. Which I don't mind as I haven't got a dressing room, so I wouldn't be able to display them out even if I wanted too! It also keeps them clean from dust and any cat-litter, plus we do have a bit of a humidity problem in our house at the mo, Spanish house is all I'm saying! So it does keep them clean and tidy. 

Being in clear boxes also means I can easily see which bags I have. But they had got a bit jiggled up so I have organised them a little better into categories, I say categories very loosely. It does make it a bit easier when I want to reach for a bag. When I was sorting them out it did make me realise I do probably have too many bags- don't tell the husband I said that! I love bags so much, but like my jumpers I really don't need anymore at the mo, I'm going to try my hardest not to buy anymore. This will be a challenge for sure, jumpers I can probably do more easily, but bags will take some willpower.

I think that's all really for my January round-up. Just sorting, tidying, the usual weekly groceries trips and household chores. Oo we did re-pot a tree last weekend which I'm really pleased about. We have three more pots to get though to re-pot some more trees. As they're going into bigger pots they are super heavy and quite big. We can only get one in my car at a time, so there will be a few trips to the garden centre over the next couple of weeks, which I'm not mad about, I love going to the garden centre.

OK, I am going to let you guys go now, thank you as always for popping by. I'm off to cook up a big spag bol to freeze into potions so Mark will have something to eat at the weekend if I'm not on solids yet!

Take care guys,

♥ Heather