Day 4: Caturday

I missed yesterday’s post but will make up for it at some point this month – today it’s Caturday and I’m sharing a photo of my girl Coco. She turned 11 this July and is still her usual chatty and demanding self. It’s firework weekend (Guy Fawkes Night on 5th), and they’ve just started up as of 6pm GMT so that’s not fun for her but she seems relatively calm (except for a bit of complaining).

Today I’ve started small with a decluttering task as a precursor to the rest of the decluttering we all need to do – I cleared out three shelves in a kitchen cupboard that I’ve been meaning to do for ages. With ADHD it’s an unfortunate fact that I tend to buy things, put them away, and then ‘forget’ what I have, especially if they’re hidden away behind other things.

It doesn’t help that I also had a bit of a food anxiety flare pre-Brexit and during the first part of the pandemic where I bought quite a few tins! I did use most things but there are some stragglers that need to be checked and I’m sure we all end up with extra things we don’t need sometimes.

I know the answer is to have systems that work for my brain, but for the moment I’m not sure if they’re as important as decluttering and seeing what we have or need to get rid of, ready for this move. It has been good to realise that we don’t need to buy more pasta for a bit (the four of us have a whole shelf just for pasta, I’m pretty sure it’s a same-food/favourite!!), or rice. And for some reason, we had a lot of bulgur wheat and I can’t even remember why. I think it might have been for a recipe from Ruby Tandoh’s Cook As You Are (so good!).

As with all things, though, I’ve made a thorough decluttering plan and I’m in process of making a plan for packing things up for moving too (complete with deadlines!), which makes my autistic ADHD brain happy, and makes things simpler to navigate. I think I’m just relieved that things are moving forward again rather than being stuck in a state of limbo.

Wishing you all a calm and gentle day/evening, whether or not you have feline friends!

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