As most of my readers know, I have a messy garage which I call my cluttered hideaway and as there’s so much stuff to sort out, I go in there to reclaim some space and get ‘clearing’ out of my system. I also have another good reason to be in there this week… to make room for Rentokil to comfortably walk around the edge nearest the house.

Yesterday I had a day off from the garage and spent some time resting and sorting through some paperwork and old notebooks in the study. I love the room now particularly when the afternoon sun pours through the window. I sit at the desk every morning and evening to write, plan, read etc. It’s an amazing space. I had a long video call with my friend yesterday and she commented how tidy it was looking. It was lovely to catch up with her and we had a laugh.

Roast lamb for Easter

Today my husband offered to cook the roast lamb and I didn’t hesitate take him up on it. He enjoys cooking and I enjoy not having to cook so it actually worked out perfectly. He always slow cooks the lamb and coats it with herbs and garlic and it tastes amazing. All of the hours that the lamb was cooking, I spent in the garage.

It was also a sunny day and I didn’t want to miss out on that, so I took regular breaks and sat in the garden or pottered about every hour or so.

I achieved a lot today

I emptied and flattened a few more cardboard boxes in the garage. I also found tonnes of carrier bags. I decided that I’d never want to use them for shopping as they’ve been in the garage for years so I kept half of them for future use to bag up rubbish etc. and I disposed of the rest. It felt really good doing that. I found a whole bag of spare charity bags as well (I thought we’d run out) and kept those for obvious reasons.

By rearranging the remaining boxes that I still need to go through and organising some of the other stuff, I really felt like I’d made progress today. I’m starting to create a bit more order in there but I still have a lot more to do. I’ll probably spend a couple more hours in there tomorrow.

Discovering Tai Chi again

After a lovely Skype with my mum and dad for a couple of hours this evening, I thought that I should really do some exercise. I was going to put on a yoga DVD but ended up doing some Tai Chi instead. About 20 years ago I used to go to a class every Sunday evening and I was telling the girls about it yesterday after I also found the t-shirt. They were quite amused by the strange and slow moves I was trying to remember. I decided to learn them properly all over again.

I played the video tape (yes, a video cassette, not even a DVD!) and relearned the first 50 moves (15 sequences) again. I practised the moves over and over and it slowly came back to me. You don’t forget that sort of thing once you get back into it. The girls popped in to watch and still found it quite strange, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was so calming for me.

Although the sequence of moves are quite slow, it’s so good for you as it combines deep breathing with relaxation and also improves muscle strength particularly in the legs. I think I might ache tomorrow as I ended up doing it for two hours. I feel so energised though.

Anyway, still another day left of the long weekend which is good. I’m hoping to have another productive day tomorrow sprinkled with some relaxation.

Happy Easter everyone!

Until next time…

Sandra