Monday 21 March 2011

30 day song challenge

I've been taking part in the Facebook 30 day song challenge.  Basically you have to post a song every day following the rules below...

day 01 - your favorite song
day 02 - your least favorite song
day 03 - a song that makes you happy
day 04 - a song that makes you sad
day 05 - a song that reminds you of someone
day 06 - a song that reminds you of somewhere
day 07 - a song that reminds you of a certain event
day 08 - a song that you know all the words to
day 09 - a song that you can dance to
day 10 - a song that makes you fall asleep
day 11 - a song from your favorite band
day 12 - a song from a band you hate
day 13 - a song that is a guilty pleasure
day 14 - a song that no one would expect you to love
day 15 - a song that describes you
day 16 - a song that you used to love but now hate
day 17 - a song that you hear often on the radio
day 18 - a song that you wish you heard on the radio
day 19 - a song from your favorite album
day 20 - a song that you listen to when you’re angry
day 21 - a song that you listen to when you’re happy
day 22 - a song that you listen to when you’re sad
day 23 - a song that you want to play at your wedding
day 24 - a song that you want to play at your funeral
day 25 - a song that makes you laugh
day 26 - a song that you can play on an instrument
day 27 - a song that you wish you could play
day 28 - a song that makes you feel guilty
day 29 - a song from your childhood
day 30 - your favorite song at this time last year

It's prompted me to go through my music collection to find songs for each day and I've rediscovered gems I'd forgotten all about. It's made me realise you really DON'T need stuff to remember people, places and events.
I went through my music library and just selected random songs to fill up my phone for listening to on the commute.  I've found myself re-living so many memories over the last few days. Reminders of events I'd forgotten, places I'd like to go back to.  

I don't need the physical 'stuff' to trigger the memories and this has just proved it!

Friday 11 March 2011

Mama Nature - Japan Eathquake / Tsunami

I was going to start this post by saying that it has nothing to do with minimilism but then I thought to myself that maybe it has everything to do with it...

For those of you that don't know I work for a police unit that deals with aid during incidents / crisis etc.  So yes, I could be involved in assisting with the events in Japan today.  As this is the case the TV has been on since 7.30 this morning (I was in early) and we all find ourselves glued to the images coming out of Japan of the debris that has been swept in land.

I'm finding it hard to deal with these pictures. One piece of footage appeared to show a car trying to outrun the incoming flood but cut out before you could tell if the driver made it to safety.

So what is going on, why is Mama Nature trying to make her voice heard so loudly at the moment? Does it all come down to our want of more stuff?  More oil to power our production lines to make more stuff.  More buildings to house those production lines, and us and all that stuff. More bridges, homes, businesses, schools, colleges, shopping centres, car sales rooms, office blocks, factories etc etc etc to be swept away.

Where do we go from here?

Wednesday 9 March 2011

eBay - again!

Well, I pulled my finger out (only my little one admittedly!) and put a few more bits on eBay. After a lot of watching and very little bidding the items finally sold!  One of the items was a Myth and Magic chess set so that's a really big box gone plus the space the chess set took up and the dusting it involved!!  I also sold a Radley bag that I'd bought from eBay for more than I paid - hurrah!  I'm waiting for one of the buyers to accept my transaction cancellation as he decided he no longer wanted the item (well he blamed it on his wife), if he doesn't do it soon then I'll get stroppy!

I read a blog recently of someone who is further along thier minimilist journey than me and they now use eBay as a threat when they want to buy something. They used eBay extensively during their clearing out and can still remember the endless hours of taking photo's, writing descriptions, measuring, weighing and calculating postage, packing up and lugging to the post office. Now when they are yearning after something one of the conditions they apply is 'Will I end up having to list this on eBay a few months down the line?' - I will be using this in future as well!

Hopefully this weekend will be productive in that I will either be able to get up to the allotment that I now have and get started on clearing it, or if the weather is rubbish (as it has been the last few weekends) then back to the clearing out.