I've got nothing to wear!!

It is so frustrating.  I stand in front of my wardrobe of clothes and complain that I have nothing to wear when the fact is that I have plenty of clothes to wear but can't see the trees for the forest.  There certainly is an issue in having too many clothes so it's time for a de-clutter.  I read an interesting article last week about de-cluttering our lives.....not just our wardrobe.  We surround ourselves with "things".  Things that probably meant a lot to us when we purchased them or were given them.  But we have to let go of some of these "things" or they overwhelm us.......just like my wardrobe of clothes.
I thought I would tackle the wardrobe today and slowly work my way around the rest of the house over the coming weeks.  I have, of course, de-cluttered my wardrobe before and the way I did it then was to take every single item out of the wardrobe and only put back what you really, really love.  Anyone who has tackled this way of de-cluttering would know that it takes a looooonnnnngggg time to do this.  The article that I read about had a much better idea.  It suggested that you work with the number 7.  Choose 7 tops, 7 bottoms, 7 coats/dresses, 7 accessories and 7 pairs of shoes.  This was very easy as everyone knows that you wear 20% of your clothes 80% of the time.  I chose these items very carefully however as you MUST be able to mix and match.  I know that I will have enough different outfits to get me through the  autumn/winter months. So once these items were chosen, the rest of the clothes were re-located to the empty wardrobe in the spare room.  I don't want to throw anything out just yet as I think that this de-clutter should be done twice a year.....autumn/winter and spring/summer.  When I do the spring/summer changeover I think most of the autumn/winter clothes will be well and truly worn out.  I must also say that I have kept my "yard clothes" as I will only use my chosen wardrobe  when I have visitors or if I go shopping.

So hear are the before and after photos.

I have been fairly organised with my wardrobe....dresses/coats in one area, bottoms on the top rail, tops on the bottom rail...just too many clothes!

This area has become out of control.....too many t-shirt and tops

Too many shoes.  Some haven't been worn for many years!

The "7" wardrobe.  It looks very sparse but I know that I can work with it.  

What I have noticed is that I still have too many black coats/tops....but good for the autumn/winter wardrobe

It was easy to pick seven pair of shoes because I am not really a "shoe" person.  I just picked the most comfortable!

Winter might finally be here

It's a little cooler here today.  Living in the tropics winter is never very cold but the temperature probably dipped to 15 degrees overnight which is cool enough. The temperature can get down as low as 6 degrees but that hasn't happened for a few years.  Something to look forward to.......not!
We went down to Cairns last night to have a steam boat dinner with friends.  It's such a lovely way to eat, with everyone helping themselves from the large steamer.  We filled the steam boat with prawns, lobster, coral trout, bok choy, baby corn, mushrooms, snow peas, baby spinach, wombok cabbage, noodles and of course the fish stock.  We stayed the night with our friends so that we could have a few drinks without the worry of driving and were back home again by 10am this morning.
The last few weeks I have been enjoying making my own bread again.  There is just something about the taste and smell of this bread that brings back memories of the bakeries of my childhood.  Real bread not filled with preservatives.
I found a fabulous recipe HERE that is so very easy. The recipe is for the Thermomix, that I don't, and will never own, but I just throw everything into my good old sunbeam mixmaster with the dough hooks and "bobs your uncle"!

Love my Sunbeam Mixmaster

Ready for the second rise and then into the oven

 I have made bread rolls , cobb loaves and the high top (Below) and the recipe has never failed me so give it a go.  You will love the result.

Ready for some butter and vegemite!

I've been a bit slack......

.......but also very busy.
The move from "Caleewa" was a huge job, probably bigger than any of us thought but it was 60 years of our life that we had to shift and you can collect a lot of stuff over that amount of time.  All up, there were seven trips, six using both the body truck and gooseneck and the last just the truck. The distance from "Caleewa" to "Evergreen" is 1600 kms.
Our last trip from "Caleewa" was an "all nighter".  Three vehicles departed.  Suzie in the Subaru with  four dogs, the cat and the bird, Marc and a mate in the truck with the remaining 10 dogs and a full load and Philip and I in the Toyota towing the gooseneck trailer.  We started off at 3.00 pm and we couldn't manage more than 80kmh with our fully loaded trailer.  We eventually arrived, after meal stops, at 3.00 pm the following afternoon.  Philip and I shared the drive and I am normally not a night driver but the spotlights on the Toyota are so good that it was almost like driving in daylight but without the traffic!

How we managed to get all these boxes plus the majority of the furniture in the last load was a miracle!

The day before we left "Caleewa", Suzie suggested that we take a picnic lunch to Eureka Waterhole to say goodbye to Kurt.  This is the place that we placed the plaque and spread Kurt's ashes.  It was a glorious day and I'm sure Kurt was with us in spirit.

Eureka Waterhole, "Caleewa"

Kurt's plaque

So we are now home and Philip told me that he had driven 9000 km in the past month.  That's a lot of kilometres.  It almost feels surreal that we have finally sold everything and that we can now make plans and lock them in.  No more droughts, no more poor prices for quality cattle, no more government bureaucracy!
So.....bring on retirement....or as close to it as we can get at this point in time.  We won't be fully retired until we leave "Kur-A-Mar" and that won't be for a few more years but it is something to look forward to.
Marco and Suzie are extremely happy on their new property at Gundiah.  It is a lovely property and I'm sure that they will enjoy it for many many years and that they will do well from it.  Suzie is looking forward to harvesting the first crop of Ginger in July so that will be interesting for them.  She already has a prospective purchaser lined up to purchase the whole crop.

Here are some photos over "Evergreen".  I apologise for the quality of the photos.  All I had was my iPhone!

Looking to the cattle yards

Looking towards the house and machinery sheds.  To the far right is the old Gundiah Railway Station building that was moved to Evergreen some years ago.

Looking towards the house and the two acres of ginger.

One of the many springs on the property.