dear diary ~ a more productive week

If you don’t know what to say…talk about the weather.

It is wintery – that’s all I can say!

I have found a gap in my time to write this post and now I can’t actually put thoughts onto paper. It has been one of those weeks, where instead of being busy and achieving little, I have done little and surprisingly, achieved a lot.

As I said a few posts back I had planned to look at our finances and paperwork during January and move on to reshaping our health and diet during February.

But February came rather too quickly.

And the paper mountain still resembles a mountain.

I thought I would have to abandon the paperwork task and all I had planned to do in terms of overhauling our finances and decluttering the paperwork to move on and keep up with the original plan, then I read somewhere the other day that there really is no rush to accomplish everything in January and this is the main reason that those well intended new year’s resolutions fail.

This advice has stuck with me and an alternative approach is just what I needed. So the paperwork clearout will continue before I switch to looking at our health and diet.

In the meantime, I can read up on ways to make our diet simpler and healthier. I am sure we will not expire before March through lack of a better diet, and my recent blood test results were good, so I have no reason to rush.

With this updated plan in mind I set about decluttering the files. Not an easy job. I didn’t do them last year and maybe not the year before either. I had accumulated a stack of papers beside my desk and another on the craft table, added to which we brought down a box full of old papers from the loft. The very sight of them each day has done nothing for my peace of mind and other than a kind overnight fairy coming and waving her magic wand I knew they would haunt me until I dealt with them.

So while DH and I have been recuperating from the virus, and the weather has been dreary I made a start on the mound.

Paper clutter is one of those tedious tasks; endless decisions about each piece of paper – toss or file?

Will I need it in future, would I know it was there and could I get the information online if needed?

I know all the advice is to get rid of papers and receipts, but I have been saved many a time because I have kept hold of documents and receipts and could subsequently get a refund or compensation.

So now all the paperwork is suitably sorted and filed away and all the files re-ordered and labelled and the filing drawer is a joy to behold when I open it. The old receipts are shredded and have gone onto the compost heap and last years are packed away neatly in a little box that will be stored in the loft ‘just in case’.

I have a little more packing to do for our week away. The weather has not been good here but it will be nice to have a change of scene and be besides the sea.

I am hoping to do a fair amount of sketching and take my watercolour paints with me. It will feel odd not to have any gardening to do like we had at the cottage. I will miss that and need to get used to a whole different kind of holiday going forward – one that is a holiday and not more work.

We will only be half an hour’s drive away from mum. We will see her on Sunday, but we will not tell her we are staying close by as she will expect us to ‘call in’ every day and that is not what this holiday is about. In fact I have not mentioned we are away because she cannot retain new information now so best not to have that conversation in the first place…for my sanity. Her mind is going sharply downhill now. Everyday she rings as soon as the carer has gone to ask when they will be back. They have a set routine of times but she seems to have lost the ability to understand time now. Five minutes to her is a very long time, so when the next visit is 3 hours away I get numerous calls asking when they are coming.

Once the 3 o’clock visit is over she rings to see who is doing the 6pm one and after they have got her to bed then the calls begin about what is on TV. It is like being in a loop I cannot escape from. I know the holiday will be continually interupted by phone calls but there is little I can do about that – dementia affects everyone around them as much as the person themselves.

DH has made a curry to take with us and some celery soup. We have some slices of nut roast in the freezer that we will pack as well, and I bought a quiche with my Nectar offer. We rarely have anything that is a ready made meal from the supermarket and we hardly eat anything with pastry but I do like a quiche every now and then – it is a shame I couldn’t fit in the time to rustle up a homemade one.

So by the time you read this we might be fully packed, in the car and headed north. I do hope so.

Goodness, I have just realised we will be coming home on Valentine’s day and I haven’t made a card for DH. Oops!

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