decluttering and a ploughman’s lunch

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I’ve been decluttering.

Really decluttering this time.

I am constantly talking of decluttering and even get rid of a small bag or two of ‘stuff’ fairly regularly. However this time around, it’s the big guns. Everything must go. Well not quite, but everything must be re-evaluated and re-assessed to see whether it really is needed or wanted.

Living in a small living space, requires constant reassessing of said ‘stuff’. I try to be very careful of what comes in the door, but still the ‘stuff’ mounts up. And mostly it’s just stored away, under the ‘maybe we will need it one day’ label. With another baby on the way, space is kind of important. Not that babies take up much room, but I know I’m going to enjoy an empty draw or a cleared shelf space a whole lot more once the decluttering as ended.

One thing I have been going through is all my resource folders. I had actually forgotten I had them, as there was a pile of other ‘stuff’ in front of the cupboard door for so long, so much so, that I couldn’t open the door. Front pile gets smaller and shifted. What’s behind there oh…more ‘stuff’. Goody.

Resource folders like,

House ideas- still haven’t bought that house.

Gardening how to’s- I’m still just making do with pot plants, that large secret garden is still a while off.

Massage Therapy notes- too many years ago, am I really going to look at it again?

Old work stuff- come on, it’s been awhile…quite a while.

A years worth of French notes- Parlez vous anglais?

And a whole lot more.

One good thing to come out of all of this, is just moving it somewhere else. Not another folder or another shelf, but online. Having stopped myself from using Pinterest since I heard about it, (as I did not need another digital distraction) I’ve decided that quite frankly it’s a bloody good idea, and now all my scrappy pieces of paper instead of cluttering up my flat, can now clutter up cyberspace. Ahhh, quite liberating really.

So while I don’t need to add any more screen time to my life, I’m loving having a place to store all those ideas that don’t take up my living space and doesn’t gather dust… and I’m quite happy with that trade off.

So what’s all that got to do with a ploughman’s lunch? Not a lot really, but a girls got to eat, and I had had a ploughman’s lunch roll on my mind for quite some time.

Time to get that thought on to my plate.

Ploughmans Lunch Roll

seeded bread roll

lettuce

your favourite strong cheese

apple slices

chutney


Ploughmans Lunch Bread Ingredients

300g starter (100%)

50g (1 cup) unprocessed bran

50g (1/2 cup) linseed meal

3 tbls LSA

2 tbls chia seeds

100g spelt flour

300g strong bakers flour

300mls water

1 1/2 tsp salt

Make it up in your favourite bready fashion.

(I gave an overnight prove, shaped, and proved again. Sprayed rolls with water and then baked at 240C with lots of oven steam.)

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This post submitted to yeastspotting

54 thoughts on “decluttering and a ploughman’s lunch”

  2. I hate clutter and am constantly battling it too. I’ve got pages and pages of menu ideas and recipes in folders too, but that was caused by de-cluttering and throwing out years of cooking magazines. The pages were thebits that were just too good to be gotten rid of – I promise 🙂
    Your lunch looksvfab, I love the addition of apples, yumm…

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  3. Decluttering and nesting are the same thing, right? 🙂 It’s very cathartic to declutter, and I don’t do it nearly enough. Hope the process isn’t too arduous.. 🙂

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  4. My best tip for decluttering? Get ready for a garage sale! I went through everything and anything that wasn’t bought has been sent to Vinnies. Bliss! Some of my blog posts are just Ideas stored online instead of holding on to bits of paper (that is why I have so many ‘money’ posts in my archives.

    I haven’t ventured into Pinterest either but you certainly make a good point…

    BTW I didn’t realise you were ‘up the duff’ (must have missed a pertinent post somewhere along the line)! Very exciting! Congrats x

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  5. Babies may not take up much room, but gosh their stuff does! De-cluttering must surely be in the air..here with the aid of a trailer *gulp*. We’ve had boxes sitting in the garage sucking up space for nearly 5 years that have never been unpacked..time to sort and toss.

    Maybe with some of your ‘can’t bear to part’ with notes, you could photograph them and upload to flickr or photobucket so you’ve still kind of got them, just not in the physical form?

    (PS – it sounds a little to me like you’ve begun ‘nesting’! 😀 )

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    • The photographs is a good idea. Someone suggested for all those ‘precious’ kids artworks as well, that take up a whole lot of space.
      And nothing more liberating than a whole trailer of decluttering heading on out, (although I haven’t got to the trailer stage…yet.)

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  6. It makes so much sense to declutter at this time of year even if Christmas is low-key. I decluttered the freezer last weekend, ie., chucked a few items and wrote up what’s in it on the door.

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  9. I resisted Pinterest. Actually I signed up for an account, went on there, thought “Yep, this is totally too distracting” and deleted the account. Then I decided it would be a good place to keep all my links (I used to ‘bookmark’ them on Facebook as an easy way to find them again… which became too hard after they made some changes) and now I have a Pinterest account again (using one of my other email addresses) and find there are many good DIY/ Craft/ Recipes ideas on there (not just tempting/ consumeristic stuff), and because you can just Pin from the Pin It button, you don’t have to be there getting distracted all them… and I am not into the Following stuff (for now) just using it to bookmark & play around a little… just a little!!

    Anyways, decluttering is good… need to do some more in my house too!

    And…. what!!!! When did you blog about that? Or are you being all sly & tricky and dropping that one in to see who noticed? Congratulations!!

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    • That’s pretty much how I’m using it too Dixiebelle, and it is a good way to bookmark stuff that normally I would just forget where I found it.

      (thanks for the congratulations too, a couple of weeks back I mentioned that two would become three 🙂

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  10. I have Pinterest and have never thought to use it for my “ideas” folder. What an excellent idea! I’m still thinking about what to do with stacks of House and Home magazines that I can’t bear to part with…maybe I should have an online subscription??

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  11. You always have such good ideas- glad you are saving and decluttering at the same time! I need to do this too- even with the garage sale I have-we have too much stuff!

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  12. I love the look of this bread – like the cape seed bread at Baker’s Delight (except I’m sure that’s a really inappropriate comparison, because your bread, of course, is much better and fresher! – but the seeds look similar).

    I also love that you de-cluttered. For someone who is theoretically quite organised and neat, I’m not as good as I could be at de-cluttering. I also have a tendency to use my work office as an overflow area (for work-related things, but nonetheless…) which is really going to backfire when I eventually move jobs or some such.

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  13. Oh my! That looks absolutely delicious. I think you’ve inspired me to declutter our hall closet which is nearly overflowing with coats and bags of stuff. Stuff stuff is my new saying today!

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  14. Ironically, we have the tiniest house (with the biggest yard – maybe 5 acres for the house yard). I’m holding on for the holidays and we are ALL decluttering. A day of forced clearing today after the fridge upped and died. Who knew there was so much food in there? I’m definately a decluttering disgrace!

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  15. auch. please translate some of your ingredients cause I want to do this bread soon! they look amazing!

    linseed meal, LSA, chia seeds???

    sorry, I am a foreigner 😉

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  16. that bread looks amazing, really earthy and wholesome. And as for decluttering …..I LOVE IT!! More than shopping, more than eating even (well maybe not, but almost). We have a small cottage, 2 children, 2 cats and a dog, and its not big enough and yet we can’t afford a move. So I declutter all the time and it just simplifies our lives so much and I feel so light after.
    I didn’t realise there was another baby on the way, congratulations!

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  18. I keep intending to declutter, but get overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the task – well done to you for getting started!

    Bread looks amazing, as does the sandwich!

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  20. well I can see how a ploughman’s lunch is really about decluttering your kitchen! sounds delish

    as for decluttering – I don’t do as much as I should and our house is clutter central but I am determined that if I declutter I do it mindfully rather than just cleaning the place and finding important stuff has been swept out with the rest – good luck with decluttering and nesting

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  22. I am also decluttering. It’s a time-consuming exercise and not something I enjoy but it’s very necessary for me because we’re about to move – no point moving stuff you no longer need/use.

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  23. I am Mrs Clutter. I confess. I have poor executive function according to my sister and that is why. I had to look that up and I still don’t really understand it, but it does sound like me. Your sandwich interests me far more than decluttering. Heck, even the poodles have clutter, do you know how many beds those dogs have? And do you know where they actually end up sleeping? (Don’t answer…) Going off to my clutterful bed to see if I will be allowed a small corner of duvet…. xx

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  24. As i sit here reading your hilarious post, it’s actually not funny. I’m surrounded by you guessed it – heaps of clutter. Eldest daughter would you believe flew to Melbourne last night to ‘live’. Yep. My eldest has left the nest. However. She also left a pile of ‘not wanted’s’. About five large Myer bag fulls of old and dated clothes. I said, yeah sure, chuck them there and I’ll take them to Lifeline. But, as I begin to peruse, I see things that reminded me of a certain time, a certain place, a certain memory. And, I now find myself asking; ‘do I really want to part with these’. I hope I don’t sound too morbid but if anything happened to her and she were no longer in this world, I think I would beat myself up terribly if I no longer had reminders of her. I know when my Dad passed I received much comfort from ‘smelling’ and ‘touching’ his clothes. So now that I’ve shared this with you, it looks like Lifeline ain’t gonna be getting the lot. And the clutter lives on.

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    • Mariana I know how you feel. I don’t have anyone flying the nest yet *gulp*, but so much of the clutter is just memories that are hard to let go.
      Good luck with a new period of your life… and hopefully you’ll find somewhere to house all those bags.

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  25. It is just so cleansing to throw things out, isn’t it? My youngest has gone away on a student exchange and I’m working my way through her room in her absence – not sure how she’ll feel about it, but I’m thrilled!

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  26. Oh brilliant Brydie – you’ve done just what we need to do. Our space isn’t that big either and I hate clutter, but we just seem to keep getting more and more of it especially under the “it may be useful one day” label. I also have folders and folders of “stuff” – including my notes from a massage course I did nearly 20 years ago and haven’t done anything with – ha ha! Not heard of Pinterest and spending even more time on-line trying to get organised sounds a bit scary. Maybe I’ll wait and see how you get on 😉

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    • Pinterest is pretty good Choclette. My account is in the side bar here if you want to have a quick look. It really is a much better system, and not filling up a hard drive either. Massage notes can’t go on there though 😉

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  27. I totally relate – I’m not sure how the ‘stuff’ accumulates but each year I seem to fill boxes of it. I call it ‘kipple’ a term invented by Philip K. Dick in the book ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ If you google it you’ll see what I mean. You’ve got me thinking about Pinintrest again – I registered for an account a while ago but spending more time chained to this machine freaked me out! Haha.

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