Today I thought I would share an article with you about Vitamin K, the vitamin that everyone forgets because they never put it in multivitamins (because it’s expensive and can’t be absorbed when there’s vitamin E around).
Vitamin K is super-important as a vitamin. It’s fat soluble, meaning you need to eat it with a bit of fat such as coconut oil or olive oil in the meal to get it to absorb properly. It works very closely with vitamin D and calcium to contribute to bone health, but also plays a part in the blood system. Unfortunately, there are a few problems with getting the vitamin K into your diet, even though plenty of foods have a small amount of vitamin K in them.
Vitamin E vs Vitamin K:
The problem with getting the vitamin K that’s present in most foods, is that it fights with vitamin E for absorption, and only one of them can be absorbed at any one time. You need to eat foods high in vitamin K in different meals to foods high in vitamin E, because the higher the vitamin E value, the less vitamin K can be absorbed, and vice versa, making it no good to eat them together.
So where can I get Vitamin K?
Kale. Kale kale kale. Curly Kale is the absolute best source of vitamin K – just 100g cooked provides 768% of your Daily Value of vitamin K! With that much K getting into your system, there’s no way that pesky vitamin C can stop it getting absorbed! Sometimes I accidentally call vitamin K “vitamin kale” because they’re so closely linked.
Broccoli is another excellent source of vitamin K, with 97% of your Daily Value per 100g. However, kale is the absolute best plant source of vitamin K because broccoli has a lot of vitamin C (102% of your DV per 100g) so this will prevent vitamin K absorption.
How can I get Vitamin E as well?
You can still get all your vitamin E, just make sure your vitamin E- focussed meal is a separate meal to your vitamin K-focussed meal. It’s actually very difficult to NOT get your vitamin E requirements in any given day, given that the majority of nuts and seeds in our diets contain vitamin E, as well as the humble avocado – look up the nutrition facts for any given food so you can make sure your vitamin K meals don’t get eclipsed by vitamin E content.
What does Vitamin K do?
Reduces bruising, helps blood clotting, increases brain sulfatide action (so thickens the protective myelin sheaths around nerve cells – in studies in mice, a shortage of sulfatides caused paralysis and subsequently increasing vitamin K levels reversed the paralysis over several months), reduces nerve cell death (so protects against Alzheimers), stops unabsorbed calcium building up in the blood stream, thus preventing calcification of arteries, there’s also good evidence from Japan that it prevents post-menopausal osteoporosis.
Signs of a Vitamin K deficiency:
Bruising easily, including finding bruises you don’t remember getting, redness of skin, difficulty concentrating and tiredness. Long term vitamin K deficiency has been linked to osteoporosis and coronary heart disease.
What if I still can’t get enough Vitamin K?
Vitamin K is really important. It helps your blood to clot properly and prevents calcification of arteries. Without vitamin K, you can’t absorb calcium properly. If you aren’t getting enough vitamin K in your diet, a supplement is probably in order.
All vitamin K supplements are not created equal, however, as they can either be vitamin K2 or vitamin K1.
NOTE: Do watch out for anything claiming to be “vitamin K3” – it’s a toxic synthetic form of the vitamin which has been banned by the FDA, because in large doses it can cause hemolytic anemia and cytotoxicity in liver cells. Sometimes “vitamin K3” is called “menadione.” Either way, avoid K3 at all costs.
Vitamin K1 is a plant source, which we convert in our bodies to vitamin K2. Conversion to K2 is less efficient than directly taking in vitamin K2, so you will need more vitamin K if you follow a plant based diet. Vitamin K1 is a vegan source of vitamin K.
Vitamin K2 is an animal source, either as an animal slaughter or dairy industry byproduct, which is ready for use where your body needs it. It’s more efficiently absorbed, which is why vitamin K deficiency is unusual in our meat-centric society. If the packaging just says “vitamin K” and doesn’t specify, it’s probably vitamin K2, in which case, avoid it if you’re vegan or dairy free.
Additionally to the actual sources of the vitamin K, you need to check the other ingredients on the label to check for the usual suspects like “magnesium stearate” “stearic acid” or “gelatin” all of which are animal slaughter byproducts, unless the product is stated “suitable for vegetarians” at which point it’s safe to assume they’re vegetable magnesium stearate or vegetable stearic acid. There is no vegetable gelatin, veg*an things that do the same job have totally different names like pectin.
So there you have it. Vitamin K is a very real and important vitamin that is most abundant in kale and broccoli.
Hey guys so I thought I would mix it up a bit today by putting my latest Youtube video as a blog update as well! I know Makeup Geek do this quite a lot and thought I’d have a little experiment.
The video assumes you’ve started by putting on your normal daily face cream, and that you are ready to start putting make-up on. On reflection, I should probably have started with an introduction as I know a lot of YouTubers spend a few minutes at the start introducing what they’re doing, and I just jumped right into it, but I was excited to get on with the make up! This look is for everyday wear and is intended to be understated and subtle.
Let me know what you think of my video either by commenting on this article or on the video on YouTube, and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel if you want to see more delightful randomness, I do videos on allsorts!
Ideas for keeping your bunnies warm, and how to move indoor bunnies outdoors or outdoor bunnies inside:
Sometimes the weather gets cold. Like, really cold. As you know, rabbits love to go out whether it’s rainy, sunny, snowy, windy or foggy. Rabbits just love to play. Pet rabbits are different to wild rabbits because they do not have the same ability to keep warm in the cold – particularly if they don’t have a very large run. Wild rabbits keep warm by running fast over entire fields and by snuggling up underground in big groups for warmth. They sleep during the day when it is warmest and they come out at night when it is coldest so they can keep themselves warm in the chilliest time of day. Domesticated rabbits lack a lot of these instincts, and can become uncomfortable in the cold, so you need to help them out a bit. Also, older rabbits can get arthritis so it’s essential for any bunnies over 6 years of age to be kept toasty warm in winter.
A bit of frost never stopped Katie and Fifer.
Here are some ways you can keep your bunnies warm during cold weather:
1. Heat up a brick: Get half a house-brick and put it in the bottom of your oven after you’ve finished cooking dinner, while the oven cools. When the brick is warm, put it in the rabbit’s housing. I never put bricks directly in the hutch, but in the shed where the hutch is kept, to warm the air and so they have the option of snuggling up with it but aren’t forced to keep going past it every time they want to leave the hutch. If you only have a hutch and no shed, however, put the brick in one corner of the hutch, moving the food bowl if necessary so they can lie next to it. Don’t put it in the private sleeping area as this should remain undisturbed as much as possible (see below).
2. Give them extra straw: During winter, rabbits like to build a big snuggly nest in part of their hutch. Females especially love to do this. Make sure they’ve got lots of straw available to do this (but don’t put it directly in the nest – they like to build it themselves), and try not to disturb that part of the hutch – they probably won’t poo in there until Spring.
3. Fill their water bottles or bowls with warm (not hot) water: This will mean that if temperatures go sub-zero, their water will take much longer to freeze, because there’s more temperature to go down. Team this with a thermal bottle cover and it will take an extremely low temperature to make ice out of their water.
Fifer, enjoying a brisk morning hop, has bulked up for winter to stay warm.
4. Give them extra food: Only a bit, mind – you don’t want fat bunnies! Extra food gives the bunnies more energy which they will need to keep themselves warm. Staying warm burns extra calories – just ask any mountaineers – so the extra food is very important.
5. If it’s really cold, or if it’s snowed heavily, bring your bunnies in periodically to warm them up – at least once per day. This will enable them to fight the cold and you will get a chance to check them over and make sure they’re healthy.
Katie wishes it would snow more so she could build a snowman.
6. When you check your bunnies, check their bottom for mud build up. Rabbits who have been playing outside in the mud sometimes get a shell like coating of mud around their bum and back legs that needs cleaning off ASAP to avoid skin and fur problems, especially if they’re old and can’t or won’t clean themselves.
7. Cover their hutch with a blanket: even if their hutch is in a shed or conservatory, covering it with a blanket will ensure they don’t get too cold. Make sure they still have ventilation, though, otherwise carbon dioxide will build up which can kill them.
8. Protect the hutch from the wind. Either situate it so it’s touching the house (but not where any guttering might leak onto it) or so it’s touching a fence. Ideally, make a double-skinned hutch by getting a small shed and putting their hutch in it, take the hutch doors off and improve the shed with some extra platforms. This would keep them warmest of all, if you can’t have them in your house. It also means they have lots of play space for days when they want to stay in their indoors.
Katie and Fifer’s hutch is in the brick shed in the background, to keep it extra warm.
Katie and Fifer used to be one of our two pairs of houserabbits, and used to play outdoors about six to ten hours a day, but one day we expanded their outdoor play space and they’ve refused to come indoors since (they literally hide under their wendy house – although they do also love playing in the whole garden when we let them out of their run). All the photos taken are of them in their run, which is pretty huge.
They didn’t like being cooped up in the living room without a constant supply of fresh grass, so even though we have read lots of articles about how rabbits are best suited to living indoors, we have decided it was the right decision for this particular pair of bunnies to move them outdoors. We repurposed a brick outdoor shed and took the downstairs doors off their two storey hutch so they had 24/7 indoor outdoor access. They have been a lot happier since then, since they don’t have to wait to be put outside anymore and if it rains they can go into their hutch now instead of under their wendy house. Banacek and Cleo, on the other hand, hate outdoors and run straight back inside when we try to get them to go out into the garden, so we would never move them out permanently and certainly not in winter.
I have been told and read from a number of sources that if a bunny was kept indoors last winter, they should not be put outside the next winter, and vice versa. This is not true, you just have to make it a sensible, managed move that takes their needs into consideration. Cleo used to be an outdoor bunny and lives indoors now, and Katie and Fifer moved out in September. You can’t just throw them out in a 3 foot hutch and expect them to cope. Be aware that they may be surprised at the temperature difference, make sure their hutch is snuggly warm and cosy, and that they have a constant supply of hay and fresh water (especially when it snows as this covers up the grass and plants). If they are coming indoors, they might honk, circle and generally display sexual behaviour (even if they’re neutered) as bunnies think it’s spring when their temperature suddenly and prolonged increases, and their hormones all come out in their behaviour. It passes after a couple of weeks. Make sure indoor bunnies have a cooler part of the house to retreat to for those times when they get too hot as rabbits don’t cope well with heat either and don’t adjust very quickly. The main thing is to ensure your bunny is happy. If they’re happier outdoors, put them out. If they’re happier indoors, bring them in. If they like both, get a cat flap and show them how to use it.
What do you do to keep your rabbits warm and toasty in winter? Do you move them indoors or let them get accustomed to the weather?
My Citroen Xsara Picasso Camper Conversion has a minor problem today.
In the UK, there’s this pesky thing called an MoT (short for Ministry of Transport, as in, inspection on behalf of the Ministry of Transport) which means you can’t have a car on the road that doesn’t meet some specific criteria. It was actually a pretty good system, if a little annoying once a year, until the EU intervened 18 months ago. Basically, they changed the rules and added a bunch of things that were aimed at high-end car users, but which us ordinary people with cheap cars can easily fall foul of. My car is 10 years old, it cost £600 last summer, and it has taken us all over Europe last summer. I was rather hoping it would do the same this summer, and get us to Morocco.
1. Light alignment – this was because of all those cray cray bright headlights on expensive cars (you know, the ones that are always dazzling you when they pass, even though they don’t have their brights on). Instead of saying “these headlights are stupid, and cause accidents by dazzling oncoming traffic” they decided “these lights reduce accidents because drivers can see better.” Y’know, totally failing to see that most drivers don’t actually have these headlights (they’re even brighter than Xenon) and just get dazzled. So they decided that they might *might* be a problem if headlight alignment was slightly incorrect and decided to make that an MoT fail (regardless of type or brightness of lights). This, of course, means that anyone with a car that’s been accident repaired (like mine) now has an MoT fail on their hands. In my case, the headlight is literally millimetres out of alignment but the first garage I took it to deemed it an MoT fail.
2. LED anything – any LED in your lighting system has to work. It’s because of the propensity for these LED brakelights on fancy new cars. What this means is that if any one LED in any part of your car gets blown, you get an MoT fail now instead of an advisory. It used to be a common sense line, where as long as the lights were fit for purpose (i.e. lighting up your registration plate etc) they were good to go, but now, if one single bulb has blown, you have an MoT fail, because they didn’t know how else to draw the line so brake lights were 100% functional on all cars. This carries over to any LED so my car failed on a registration plate bulb.
3. Bush damage – any cover that is covering a part of the car has to be totally 100% ok. Previously, it could be damaged as long as it was preventing the ingress of dirt, Now, if it is damaged at all then it’s an MoT fail. BUT… if you have a fancy car with an under-car tray such as a lot of Volvo estates have, they can’t actually remove it to check the components so your car is exempt from being checked for this and a raft of other, potentially dangerous damage to components. How messed up is that??
It cost me just under £300 (plus a £40 MoT) to get my car fixed. A well known garage chain who advocate a rapid fitting service quoted me over £500 then refused to do the work because they said my car was dangerous (but they knew someone who could fix it) due to the accident damage under the front bumper. Thing is, my car is a category C accident damage.
Here’s the categories of accident damage:
Category A – must be crushed, no part of the vehicle can be reused.
Category B – some parts can be used, car will never be allowed on the road again.
Category C – car is unsafe to drive and must PASS A SPECIAL TEST BY VOSA once it has been repaired before it’s allowed on the road.
Category D – the car is damaged and the damage was too expensive for the insurance company to fix, but you can buy it back and fix it yourself.
As you can see, it’s actually safer to buy a Category C than a Category D, because the Cat C car must pass a special safety test whereas the Cat D can just be put straight back on the road no questions asked. My car was a Category C, so the repairs made to the car might not have been picture perfect, but they were certainly sufficient for VOSA to certify it as safe to go back on the road. Not only that, but its accident happened in 2008, six years before I bought it, and it’s been passing MoTs since then with no problem. I had this worry that my car would have to be scrapped if no-one would do the work to fix it. Luckily, I was worrying unnecessarily. I left it until 21st January (my MoT runs out on 27th) then realised I should take it to another garage for a second opinion. So I did.
For under £300, they fixed up the car so it could pass its MoT.
That should be the end of this story, but I have been left with a lot of questions about the garage industry. For example, why can one garage say “this car is unsafe, but my friend round the corner can fix it up for you” while another garage can say “well if it’s been certified legal by VOSA we’ll just do the work no problems.” I thought the whole point of an MoT was to make sure that cars all met the same standards, but instead it seems to be a reason for people to extract more money from you and fund their sidelines. I wondered how many other people with Category C cars had been told the same as me, had accepted it and gone and paid hundreds of pounds to get the unnecessary work done.
Before I took my car to a second garage, I researched it thoroughly online. Sites such as Pistonheads are really good (although they have a no badmouthing policy, but people get around this and if you’re vaguely intelligent you can work out what garages they’re talking about). The discussion I found on Pistonheads narrowed my search down to three garages in my area.
I dismissed one before I even went to make enquiries, because I used to live on the same road as them and they’d been really unhelpful about four years ago, when my first car was being pronounced dead, such as quoting me £200 for a new petrol tank when I could buy one myself for £70, then, when I questioned them on it, they said “but that’s not one of our suppliers and we couldn’t guarantee the quality of a repair if we didn’t order the parts” which is funny because other places quoted £70 for a petrol tank. Curiously I decided to fix the petrol tank myself, then found out the chassis was rusted through so badly that it was never going on the road again. I remember crying as the scrap merchants took it away, and I knew I would feel the same way about my current car if I couldn’t get it fixed up and had to scrap it.
The second garage was round the corner from my current house, so I tried there first. I went to talk to them, and the man I spoke to (who I think was the owner, I’ve seen him around) was less than helpful. You know that specific type of individual who won’t actually talk to you about mechanics/plumbing/construction/types of paint because you’re female, and that means you’re a) Stupid and b) Lack the capacity to understand something as complicated as car repairs. I’m sure that if you drive, you might have met someone like this. I smiled and nodded and said I’d get back to him and he was very surprised and confused when I didn’t hand over my car keys. I drove around the corner to garage number three and the woman behind the counter got it all arranged and calculated the price for me and booked it in for two days later. I brought the car back on the allotted day, and they finished two hours before they expected to, having done exactly what they needed to get it through the MoT, with no hidden complications. My car is on the road again for another year. Which means I can finally start planning my drive to Morocco.
1. Aloe Vera Gel – Put it on burns, sunburn, dry skin, greasy skin, dehydrated skin, untoned skin – aloe vera’s soothing and skin-enhancing properties are near-legendary, don’t underestimate this gentle giant.
Courtesy of Wikipedia.
2. Coconut oil – Melt a little between your hands then rub your hands through the lengths and ends of your hair (stay away from roots). Use all-over before blonding to protect hair from the damaging effects of bleach. Use on your face as a moisturiser and on a cotton wool pad as a make-up remover. To get the oil out of the jar more quickly, turn your hairdryer on and aim it inside the jar (but don’t put the nozzle inside the jar – the glass might shatter or the hairdryer could overheat due to lack of ventilation). Put some on before sunbathing to ensure you tan more quickly (but obviously use a sunscreen as well – despite what many people say, there are NO sunscreen properties in coconut oil, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken us until the 1950s to invent a sunscreen that goes on colourless).
3. Water – Drinking enough water keeps your skin plump, healthy and looking hydrated (and therefore younger). Using frozen water (ice cubes) on sunburn will help calm the sunburn before it sets in too deeply. Lastly, washing face and hair in pure water will make you look and feel fresher.
courtesy of wikipedia
4. Rosemary – an excellent astringent to get your skin clean and oil-free, rosemary also works to wash your hair and give it a natural healthy shine – although it will make blonder hair turn brown, and dulls your highlights, due to its strong antioxidant properties, so this one’s only for the brunettes.
rosemary plants, source: wikipedia
5. Cinnamon – The main active ingredient in Lip Venom, the original lip plumper, cinnamon can cause your lips to tingle and swell. Of course, the effects are fairly short-lived and depend on how you react to the cinnamon.
source: wikipedia
6. Tea tree oil – Got some spots you’d like to get rid of? Worried about how to avoid getting nits whilst volunteering in an orphanage? Want to keep the mosquitos away? Tea tree oil works a treat.
source: wikipedia
7. Bicarbonate of soda – cleans teeth, gets the stains right out. Also gets the foundation-stains out of clothing. Just in case you accidentally caught your face on your favourite top.
8. Salt – Natural rock salt is a good all-rounder – it can be used with a teeny bit of water to act as a scrub for elbows, knees, feet etc. It also has the property of making an oil layer where it’s been used, which helps keep moisture in and solve longer-term problems. Lastly (don’t over do this one) you can use it to whiten your teeth, although be careful with that, it’s highly abrasive. It will help remove highly resistant dirt and sterilise gums, but it can also cause its own problems too, like wearing away tooth enamel.
rock salt, courtesy of wikipedia.
9. Parsley – You know those times when you’re out and everyone’s standing five feet away from you, holding their noses? When, every time you try to talk, everyone turns away? If you have halitosis-related networking issues, get some parsley, put it in your mouth and chew it. It freshens breath. It’s also packed full of healthy minerals, so swallow it once your done.
parsley, courtesy of wikimedia commons.
10. Lemon – Lemon’s a useful fruit in the beauty war – it fades sunspots (apply lemon juice directly to sunspots, using a q-tip), lemon can add golden highlights to blonde and light brown hair too – just put some on your hair, then go out in the sun, where the lemon juice reacts to the sun causing a blonding effect.
lemon, courtesy of wikipedia.
Which beauty ingredients do you use that are vegan? I love discovering new ones so let me know in the comments or via Twitter: @InvokeDelight
How much are those first editions REALLY worth??
Or, how I decluttered some of my bookcases (because it’s DEFINITELY not been minimalised yet).
I wanted to leave this until last because it’s going to be the hardest part of the whole minimalism thing, but I have briefly forayed into it today. We have both brought books into this relationship (I came with two entire boxes – and now I have an actual bookcase of books, although it’s also filled with comics and so many sideways stacks wherever there is space. My husband had over 2000 books when I met him and has also acquired more over the course of our relationship). The mere mention of getting rid of the books is enough to put strain on our relationship. But over the last five years I have realised that most of these books don’t get read, and we will probably never read them.
A couple of years ago, we were living in a Gothic Mansion in Bradford. We moved into it from a 2-up-2-down (a Victorian terrace with 2 small downstairs rooms and 2 small upstairs rooms – when I parked my small hatchback out front, the car was longer than the house was wide), and moved out of the Mansion into our current, significantly smaller 3 bedroom house, so, I think the only name for the place in Bradford was Gothic Mansion. It had a sweeping staircase and everything, and cost the same in rent as the 2-up-2-down in York had done.
When we moved out of the Gothic Mansion, we realised just how many belongings we had accumulated over the previous 2 years of living in so much space. When it came time to pack the books, we got rid of about 100 of them – my future husband gave his to other people and I gave mine to charity shops. It was a drop in the ocean. Somehow, when we unpacked at our new house, we still had far too many books. It was shocking. I got my Significant Other to put ceiling shelves up around the top of the two largest bedrooms (we sleep in the smallest because it helps my night terrors significantly), and we filled them with books. We had two full bookcases of books left over, and that was after I got rid of an entire box of books. We gave our other bookcases away to someone who was setting up home and to a community furniture initiative.
The house is so cluttered that you can’t actually see the ceiling bookshelves behind all these boxes on top of the storage unit.
I was just about coping with the book situation because we had worked so hard designing and making the ceiling shelves (they look like a book border around each room, it’s awesome). Then my mum died, and I brought another box of books back, which were books I’d grown up with. I actually brought two boxes back but decided to let the second one go before it crossed the threshold of my house – it was all my Award Reprint Famous Five books, which I’ve by and large replaced with a beautiful collection of First Edition Famous Five books. I decided the Awards would be better served living with someone else where they would actually get read.
Suddenly, though, we are drowning under items, books especially, and I have to make some very hard decisions about books. The thing is, and the big reason that I haven’t addressed it, is because I feel it’s very unfair for me to have to get rid of some of my one bookcase of books when my OH has about five times that many books. Inherently, I am biased towards thinking that my books are better, because I chose quality over quantity. I’ve fallen into the trap of that excuse my pupils come out with sometimes: “Ben is setting his EYEBROWS on fire, why am I getting a detention for SMOKING??” Obviously, just because someone nearby is doing something worse than me, that doesn’t make my behaviour okay. Another problem is that I am keeping more than half of my books for children. If I have any, or if any close friends do, I’m going to be ready to give them books to read. Unfortunately, that time hasn’t come yet. The third problem is that I have a lot of first editions – I very carefully collected them all, and they’re all great books. Because it all seems so complicated, I am trying to be very deliberate and careful in my decisions.
So I decided to throw caution to the wind and do the following:
1. Fill a box with the books I’m keeping for kids.
2. Fill a box with the books I’m keeping for myself.
3. Fill a box with all the duplicates we’ve got that belong to me (then hash it out with my OH about whose copy of each duplicate we are keeping/getting rid of. This will be hard because we both have an entire collection of Terry Pratchetts each, and I think we’re both very reluctant to downsize because they mean so much to each of us and what if we both wanted to read them at the same time????). I can’t decide whether duplicates in a foreign language count, since they clearly serve a purpose beyond the story content of the original (I have a few duplicates in French and English because I find it a great way to help immersively learn a language).
One idea I particularly liked was “if I keep it, is it worth the two (or more) books that I must get rid of when I put this one on the shelf?” (https://unclutterer.com/2007/06/25/read-a-book-and-pass-it-on/). It inspired me to take this further and order my books in a sort of preference. Kind of like book trumps. Which books would I never get rid of another book to keep? Which books would I get rid of any other book to keep? I think this could become a game. Once I’ve boxed all the books up, I am going to do this when I put them back on the shelves – starting with ten of the ones I know are least important, and every time I add a book to the shelf, taking another one off (if there comes a point where I can’t take any more books off the shelf, that’s ten books worth keeping, so I will start again with another set of ten books and do the same). To avoid sample bias, I will need to re-check the shelf afterwards.
90 Minutes Later
That was hard. There was a huge and ginormous problem with my method outlined above – it assumed I had some boxes to put books in. I didn’t. All our packing boxes left over from when we moved house? They’re all full of books from various times when we’ve had to move a set of books to do something or get at something else. All I could find was a shoebox and a box of crisps (now empty). I filled the shoebox with cast offs, until it got full, then I filled the crisp box, until it got full, then I filled the shoebox with the 10 books I would keep if the house was on fire or I was a refugee or something. The books I’d put in a campervan if I took one to places.
There was also a set of books I’d been keeping for their value. I decided to challenge myself on this in case I was holding them for flawed reasons. I looked them up on AbeBooks today to find out how much they’d grown in value:
Jo’s Boys (Louisa May Alcott) – 1886 edition. Worth about £5. Plenty of copies about. Passed down in my family for generations, just inherited from my mother, so not getting rid of it that easily!
School Friend Annual 1955 and Pets Annual 1959 – Worth £5 and 0.66p respectively. Still keeping because they were my grandmas (on my dads side) and again I inherited.
I think the School Friends and Jo’s Boys are my sentimental books. There were other books in both my mother’s and grandmother’s houses that I got, but these are the ones I would have great difficulty getting rid of. The School Friend annuals really sum up the culture and world my grandma lived in and grew up in, and Jo’s Boys is very reminiscent as a glossing-over of my own childhood, which could generously be described as “Old Fashioned” (and un-generously as Draconian).
Artemis Fowl – the Opal Deception. Worth £2.
Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony. Worth £2.
Artemis Fowl. Worth £2.
Artemis Fowl – the Arctic Incident. Worth £2.
Artemis Fowl and The Time Paradox. Worth £3.
Terry Pratchetts – worth £2 (very fine condition hardcover series books) to £8 (Hogfather Screenplay) to £10 (The Last Hero Hardcover) to £25-35 (The Art Of Discworld) to £35 (A Blink Of the Screen).
Anthony Horowitz: Necropolis. Worth 0.66p.
Anthony Horowitz: Snakehead. Worth £4.26.
Diana Wynne Jones: The Game. Worth about £10.
Diana Wynne Jones: Reflections. Worth about £10.
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Worth £5 (children) to £6 (adult), I have one copy of each.
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Worth £1. LOLOLOLOL. Seriously £1.
JK Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Worth £5 (children or adult). I have one copy of the children’s edition.
Agatha Christie: Around £2.50 each. As paperbacks that take up 1/3 of the space of the hardback first edition books, I am more willing to keep these on the shelves. Also I inherited them off my recently-deceased mum who inherited them from my grandma. That shizzle needs time to settle.
I valued my Famous Five red hardbacks at about 66p each. That is fine though – I am keeping my Enid Blytons for sentimental value.
**UPDATE (9pm same day): Tales of Beedle The Bard by JK Rowling? Worth 0.66p. It’s so getting ditched (the story wasn’t that great anyway).**
I should probably ditch the Artemis Fowl novels and the Harry Potter, since the Order Of The Phoenix was my second least favourite book and film and I think the Artemis Fowls have sadly had their day, been and gone. I guess they got over printed. The only Artemis Fowl worth over £3 is the only one I don’t have, because I couldn’t obtain a copy at the time and decided it would probably never be worth anything. Oh the irony. I guess this is the false economy of buying books – I always think getting the hardback first edition is better but I guess it really isn’t because they don’t hold their value as well as you would expect. HOWEVER, the value of the book cannot be judged by price alone, as I have demonstrated with the number of books I am keeping for sentimental reasons. Having said that, the prices are what they’re being sold at and I always think with anything under £3 that you have to work out how rapidly they’re actually selling at that price point, because that could just be what people hope to get for them, and there’s not a lot of price-slash wriggle room to get them shifted and it’s no indication about whether they would sell if I listed them on Amazon for that amount, taking up space in my house while I waited for them to be bought.
That’s my first round of book culling pretty much finished, just a few stragglers to round up from other parts of the house because they don’t fit in my bookcase. I will, of course, have more to do but not right now because I found it very difficult to get rid of a lot of books that I probably don’t need. Also I was very hindered by the rabbits, in whose room my books live, as the books must stay out of their reach otherwise the bunnies will nibble the books, which would be sad. I was comforted by the number of minimalists and de-clutterers who had encountered the same emotional difficulty when parting with their books. I know I can read them online, I know I can go to the library, but it’s not the same as seeing them on the shelf.
Before I try and cull them again I think I need to change strategy. Perhaps putting my “safe” books in a separate room, then sorting the remainder in order of… something. I don’t know. Some of them are useful but not essential. Some of them could be useful in the future. Some of them were 10p and the text might not be available at the same price again.
My OH’s books, by contrast, include a great deal of impersonal and generic sci-fi and fantasy (I love love LOVE sci fi and fantasy when it’s good – but you wouldn’t actually believe how much dross there is. Time Snake and Superclown? There’s a reason you haven’t heard of it), and I’ve got a plan to get rid of some of these – I’m going to read them. Yep. I’m going to open each book and try to read it. If it’s boring, unreadable, overly-pretentious or full of “Said He”-isms, it’s getting queued for removal from the house. No second chances. My OH has given me permission to do this as long as he gets veto power over the books I’ve discarded before they get chucked. I think of it as a secretarial service – I’m filtering the junk mail so the Boss can spend more time on the important letters. I don’t think any of those are worth anything because they’re all a bit crap – he was given about 700 books about 15 years ago by a “friend” who was moving away and needed to get rid of his books.
Why not have a Spring clean of your life and habitat, and make space so you can practise those Blogilates moves you’ve been learning? Do you have no freakin’ clue what this minimalist thing is? Let me show you! Read on to find out what it is, how to declutter your house, find some resources, then read my journey of discovery and see how bad my house was last week!!
When you Google “minimalism,” you get pictures like this:
This isn’t minimalism. It’s consumerism. That’s the opposite of minimalism. The purpose of images such as this one is to get you to buy more stuff. Basically, the consumerists want you to buy their furniture, items, paint etc and get rid of all your old comfortable stuff, and they’re calling it minimalism but they’ve missed the point. Why? Because otherwise, how could they sell you more comfy squishy stuff in 2 years’ time?
Minimalism is not about straight lines or monochrome colours. It’s not about “feature walls” or getting rid of floral prints, or any other type of consumerist style crap. It’s a philosophy.
Minimalism is often presented as something you can buy from a Scandinavian furniture store. The truth is, all you’re buying is what has been termed “minimalist style” by fashion magazines. Comparing minimalism (the lifestyle) with minimalism (the photos of monochrome lounges) is like getting your bedroom designed to look like a pirate ship, then calling it a pirate ship. It’s still a bedroom, and if you put your pirate themed bedroom in the ocean, it would probably sink (unless you live on an actual boat). It’s a theme, and it’s different to the thing itself. That’s the same with minimalism.
Note how there is still squishy comfy stuff and old well-loved stuff in the picture? Notice the lack of clean lines and monochrome media centre matching sofas?
Minimalism is the act of getting rid of everything you don’t need in your life. When you think about it, this is diametrically opposed to going on a monochrome furniture shopping spree. You can’t buy minimalism because minimalism is the complete opposite to consumerism. Are you following?
Here are ten ways you can make your life more minimal:
1. Digitize: Scan your photos, digitize your music and video (there are plenty of online services such as Netflix that make the DVD redundant) and get a Kindle (or better still, get the FREE Kindle For PC app and download books from amazon.com). Then get rid of the physical copies.
2. Get rid of anything you haven’t used for over a year, unless its purpose is very specific (e.g. scuba gear, ice skates), in which case give it three years (if you haven’t used it after 3 years, it’s probably not your hobby any more). Recently I got rid of my flute because I hadn’t used it for about 4 years.
3. Getting rid of batteries and envelopes is silly. You’re buying into consumerism because you will have to buy them again at some point. Getting rid of broken torches and that “solar battery charger” from 1998 that never worked in the first place, on the other hand, is sensible.
4. Detach the concept of “value” from how much you paid for it or how much it is worth now or how much it will be worth in the future. Value is a construct that is human-made and self-perpetuated.
5. When you buy something new, ask yourself if you really need it. If you answered yes, remove one item from your house. This is the one in – one out rule.
6. Start small – get rid of one item a day until you have less things.
7. Queue items to use – many people actually have loads of items in their home that they bought ages ago – and have never used! Make a note – a mental note or a paper note – of which items you’ve never used. If it’s a set of books, they are your next things to read (you might have to make an effort to read more); if it’s a saucepan, make your lunch or dinner in it today; if it’s a cosmetic, either try it out (and either keep or bin it) or intentionally leave it sealed and put it in the give-it-away pile.
8. Duplicates – where you’ve got two items that either are the same or do the same job, get rid of the second one.
9. Find things to do outside your house – don’t be constrained by things like opening hours. One of my favourite things to do is to go for a walk when all the shops, attractions and pubs are shut and there’s nobody about, just to appreciate the silence and emptiness and tranquility. Everything looks different at that time of day.
10. Use your free time (that was previously used to acquire more items) to strengthen your relationships with friends, family and other loved ones.
I love the ideal behind the concept of minimalism, I thought it meant buying plastic angular tables etc. Now I know I can keep my stuffies, because at the end of the day, this is another one of those journeys you can embark on, and it starts with a single step (but has to be followed by a bunch of other steps, otherwise you’ve just stepped around in your own comfort zone).
Minimalism for one person might be a toothbrush and a pair of jeans, whereas for another person it could be a wardrobe full of designer dresses. As long as the items are getting used, fulfilling you and not getting in your way when you want to do things or experience life, your minimalism can be as… minimal as you like. Personally, I’m trying to clear the house out. I want to know how few items I can live with. I will keep you posted as I go. It’s definitely helping that I’m now 40% fruitarian, because that simplifies cooking and eating by a long amount. I’m not getting rid of any cosmetics because I clear out the unwanted ones regularly and they are very important to me because cosmetics. Since they’re only taking up two drawers, and throwing out a couple of eyeliners won’t bring cosmic harmony to my life, I’m keeping the lot. It’s the bigger, more insidious clutter – the stuff I don’t see every day but have to wade around whenever I want something from a certain room. There are two rooms in our house where you have to rearrange stacks of clutter to get to the windows. That’s the sort of clutter I’m talking about.
The main challenge I’m facing is that I’m married, and while my partner agrees that we need to declutter, I don’t think he is as willing as I am to let go of large items of furniture or larger quantities of books (we have over 1000 books), a lot of which he brought into the house. For the longest time I thought this was acceptable (because changing other people is bad, right?) but recently I reached critical mass. There was a bunny emergency, and I had to wait ten minutes to get to the source of the problem because of clutter. I lost my temper. The next day, I realised that actually, I was to blame for all this clutter.
Sure, my partner brought it into the house, but I was the one letting this cycle perpetuate by saying nothing and acting like this situation was okay when it really wasn’t. Then I had a huge wake up call – I’m the hoarder! I’m the one who can’t get rid of things! And at the same time (like many children of hoarders) I am a clutterphobe. I simultaneously hate clutter and have difficulty getting rid of things. I force myself to make decisions and get rid of large quantities of things, out of a fear of people finding out that I hoard things, but then I bring more crap into the house because I’ve never fessed up to my problem and haven’t admitted to myself that I need to address the root cause.
My childhood was hard. Whose is easy? In a world where everything kept changing, where we frequently would lose everything we had (we were homeless a lot), I associated security with “somewhere where I can keep everything.” I guess Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s sums it up: “I’m waiting for a place where me and things go together. That’s when I’ll name the cat.”
Only, I’ve found the place where me and things go together. Oh, so many things. Too many things. Unnecessary things. And now I need to ask myself what will happen if I get rid of all these things.
Nothing.
Do I need coloured candles, a relic of the 15 years I was a Pagan? No! I’ve moved on.
Do I need the archaeology books I bought during undergrad? I was keeping them in case I did a Master’s. Will I ever refer to them again, even if I do a Master’s? Probably not, I graduated six years ago. I’ve moved on.
Every item I was scared of letting go of related to a time in the past that I’ve now moved on from. It was as if I thought having the possessions would bring back the time. As an archaeologist, it’s what underpins our entire discipline – artefacts from the past = our concept of the past. And books, for those written histories.
That was when I realised it was time to let go of it all. I’d already moved on – I was trying to, anyway – and needed my physical plane of existence to catch up with where my head was at, so I didn’t get lost in the past. It felt like such a big revelation.
I never liked museums anyway – why would I want to live in one? It’s why I didn’t have a career in anything archaeological, because it all seemed to start with museums. I feel like I’ve been living in an alternate reality for a long time, that I need to wake up from now. I need to let go. There’s nothing to be afraid of in the empty space.
This is a few pics showing my starting point. I can only go up from here:
Yup that goes to the ceiling.
That’s all gone already in week one!Yep, that’s a rocking horse.You can’t sit on this chair because of all those cushions – which came from a chair we no longer have!!That is another upstairs window we couldn’t get to if there was a fire. How did you guess??
On the first day, I got rid of the stuff on the floor in this photo (the background is also hoardings that will be addressed in due course):
I still have those hangers to deal with (and more) because I have to finish all the laundry to make sure every item has a hanger before I donate the others.
This is my power ballad that really sums up this exciting transition period in my life:
Have you made the transition to becoming a minimalist? Do you find it has helped you achieve your goals? Are you scared of making such a big change to your life? Let me know in the comments.
It’s been a bad week for my hair. Firstly, one of the kids I worked with this week greeted me as “Scary Mary,” (usually I get Elsa from Frozen) then today (an entire two days later) I found out why.
There’s a patch of hair, right at the very back, at the nape of my neck, that is so dry and coarse that when you brush it, as soon as the brush releases the hair, it goes SPROING out into pure frizz, like a ‘Fro but dry and coarse, not soft and fluffy.
I’m so annoyed. The rest of my hair is in really good condition – soft, silky, the colour has held up nicely over the past two months since I bleached it (I am trying to leave it as long as I can). It’s all really well looked after and manageable. Except that bit. I just don’t know what to do… I have this awful feeling (because it’s getting matted at the top, right at the scalp, and I can’t get it all out) that I might have to cut it. It’s about twenty inches of hair from root to tip. I will need a buzz cut to get it all off.
What can I do?
Is it remotely acceptable to just cut that bit off and leave the rest long? It’s at the nape of my neck. I think the hair there is finer than elsewhere and I don’t think it coped with bleaching very well.
To make matters worse, I’ve got a job interview on Tuesday, and I don’t know if it’s better to have one really unsightly piece of hair or a little patch with missing hair…
AAARGH! Could this have happened when I wasn’t so broke the bank are charging me for not having any money? I can’t afford to see a hairdresser about it. 😦
Sebastian has always been a reclusive bunny, Neville always spoke up for both of them and so part of Sebastian’s challenge in the future is going to be to learn to speak up for himself, to draw attention to his own needs without someone else there to do it for him. Obviously, my OH and I will keep a good eye on him, but we rely on our rabbits to tell us when they’re unhappy with something we’re doing so we can change it and provide a better environment for them. Sebastian’s just… never really done that.
Earlier this week, I couldn’t see Sebastian playing outside and felt that familiar worry, so went out to check on him. He was just sat in his hutch staring listlessly into space. I picked up his chewy play carrot and he attacked it with vigour, shoving at it with his nose and tearing at it. I think it still smelled of Neville, and I got the impression Sebastian was taking out his anger, that Neville had left him behind. I’m trying really hard not to project onto Sebastian though, because my mother died at the beginning of last month (literally two days after I started this blog, good job I’d prepared quite a few posts in advance and just needed to do photos and put it all together, but I didn’t think it was a good time to say), and I’m seeing behaviours in Sebastian that I know I’ve been exhibiting.
Anger. Anger at everything. That she went away. That I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to her. Anger that the house got broken into over Christmas and that a lot of her favourite things got taken. That I thought we had more time. Anger at the stupidity and senselessness of it all. She was 53. Sebastian is very angry when he smells Neville on the toy carrot.
Sadness. This feeling that there is a huge rift in your life that will never be repaired, that some energy conduit has been cut away and you can no longer feel a connection to someone. Sadness that she didn’t get to do half the things she wanted to. Sebastian sometimes has water around his eyes. I know people say rabbits can’t cry but mine all seem to when there’s something sad happening. The first night we put Banacek outside last summer, when we came to get him he was sitting in the garden, staring through the kitchen window, waiting for us and crying. The first night we brought Katie home, and she realised she wasn’t going to be separated from Fifer ever, she had water under her eyes too (until he bit her, then she bit him back, then his eyes were watering but that was probably pain because she’s a lot bigger than him. He’s never ever started on Katie again).
Excessive energy. Sometimes when I see Sebastian he’s just running around his rabbit run (which is sizeable) letting off steam. I got an early Christmas present of my OH which was a pair of roller skates, so I could just run and run and run. Sometimes I still lie in bed and just want to go for a long walk and just keep walking until I’ve reached the end of the world.
Aggression. This is like anger but towards other people for no apparent reason. Sebastian does it with me, he bites my fingers, and he’s never been a biter before (except play bites). It’s like he’s saying “you control our lives, you’re all powerful, bring Neville back.” I keep getting aggressive towards my OH, but we have a specific way to settle our differences so it doesn’t get very far.
Sadness. Sometimes this is just sitting for hours staring into space. We both do that.
Looking for answers. I see Sebastian sometimes trying to dig a hole to get to where we buried Neville (which was outside the rabbit enclosure). He knows it’s happened but doesn’t understand why. Why Neville and not him. Why not some other elderly bunny who had an even longer life? He stares at Cleo (who is the same age) and wonders why she’s fine, and he, Sebastian, is fine, and Neville is not. I look at elderly people in Tesco and wonder, what did they do differently that my mother did wrong? Of course, there’s no answer because cancer is just down to bad luck, and old age is just something that catches us out, there’s no reason why some people die of old age in their seventies and others don’t go until they hit 100, thirty entire years later, and the same for bunnies.
Distraction. We both seem to spend an awful lot of time doing the most random things. Sebastian even enjoyed a car ride on Monday when I had bathed him and didn’t want him to go into shock on his own because baths can be traumatic for bunnies. He just sat in a box on the front seat and snuggled up to my hand, which was stroking him whenever it was safe to do so. I seem to spend a lot of time doing housework, gardening, and sorting out minutiae for the rabbits.
Reaching out to people. I’ve become a lot more talkative on social media, as well as more communicative with other family members. Sebastian sits at the side of his run and tries to get close to the other two outdoor rabbits, who are both quite young and don’t really understand what Sebastian is going through. When I brought him in on Monday, I sat him on the sofa and he just did his best impression of a bunny slipper, sat between me and my OH, and let me just continually stroke him. Every time I got up to make a cup of tea, I had to take him with me because otherwise he would get very anxious and start stomping his foot, which we know is a sign of fear.
Not eating. This is another thing we’ve both been doing. We have both been barely eating, and when we have done, it’s been fresh vegetables. I’m slowly weaning myself onto pasta, rice and chips again, and trying to get Sebastian to eat some hay, because we both need our starchy carbohydrates. I’ve recently discovered fruit in a big way, so I’m actually getting three things that look like meals every day. Sebastian is not that into fruit. We do share an interest in parsley, however.
The Replacement Question
I’ve been debating whether to get Sebastian a new friend as soon as possible or whether to wait longer. The House Rabbit society suggests asap, with it being easier to bond a bereaved rabbit because they’re emotionally vulnerable. I think rabbits are all different, and that three to five days is not enough to deal with their feelings before shoving them towards someone new. I feel it’s a bit insensitive to go “oh, sorry the person you shared a womb with and have never been apart from your entire life is now gone. Let’s get you a nice guinea pig…” Also until his anger and aggression have abated it might not be the best time to try and bond him, although the flipside is that new bonding might help get rid of the negative feelings. My OH doesn’t have as much experience with pets so is leaving it to me. And my decision making is worse than ever at the moment. I think the upshot will quite probably be that we’ll take Sebastian to Pets At Home on Saturday and show him the adoptible rabbits (if they have any), and if he strikes up a nice relationship with one of them, we will bring them home. Part of me is worried that he’ll bond to a Giant Rabbit, and that we will be silly and let him, which would be woefully inappropriate for both of them – it’d be like pairing a dog and a horse.
I think, even though we’ve both lost a lot of people we were close to (Sebastian’s dad died 2 years ago, his previous owners moved to Australia eighteen months ago, and obviously being a 3D person who makes a lot of connections I’ve lost at least a dozen people in my life and been to even more funerals for all those people who I didn’t really know but were peripheral to my life in a way that I still needed to pay my respects), nothing has prepared either of us for this depth of loss or sadness. I know I will be okay because I have my wonderful other half (terminology – we’re actually both complete circles that overlap) who looks after me and sorts things out and holds rabbits when I’m trying to pour tea. The trouble with rabbits is they only make a connection to one individual at a time (usually), and in their serial monogamy, they lose the support network that other animals have, because other rabbits who see them frequently don’t seem to understand the significance of the loss.
For now, lots of attention, lots of understanding, giving him the space to act out (but making sure this doesn’t become a time for bad behaviour to be learned. I feel that letting him for-real bite me would be completely unacceptable but play biting me, or attacking his toy carrot is another matter), giving him lots of extra tasty food so he is encouraged to keep eating, My main concern is making sure he feels there is a reason to keep living, because I know rabbits are very emotional creatures and can sometimes die of loneliness or a broken heart.
Plenty of attention, warmth, love and affection, whilst making sure Sebastian isn’t smothered so he can also do his own thing. And tea. But not for him. I think he’s our only rabbit who doesn’t try to drink our tea. Maybe he should start…
There are no pictures today. I felt it would be exploitative of the situation.
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app and download books from amazon.com). Then get rid of the physical copies.
