It always pays to have a spare...

I'm going to engrave that on Ian the Incorrigible's headstone (which may happen sooner rather than later) - the man has multiples of everything! When I told him this on the weekend, he just grinned and said "Chisel me another one while you're at it, and stash it at the other end in case I need it. Coz you never know ....." OK, I had to pay that one.

A friend just reminded me it's the first day of Spring today; the season we associate with decluttering, spring cleaning, new beginnings etc, and the irony of it isn't lost on me.

Last weekend Ian and I combined houses - well his squeezed its way into mine. Aussie troops were pulled out of Iraq in less time than it took to extract him from his little apartment in Maroochydore - similar to digging an oyster out of its shell.....a very thrifty oyster that likes to hoard things that 'might come in handy one day'.

As we started sorting through his stuff, making Use (ie 'going to Jo's house'), Store, and Give Away piles, I marvelled at the fact that I hadn't started dreaming of oncoming trains and tsunamis...

And as my little 86 m sq Renovators Delight started to fill up with blokey stuff; a stunning variety of packaged supermarket food, (prompting thoughts of separate food cupboards) car thingies, computer bits, spare computer bits (he fixes up old ones for people) .... I wondered if my path towards a leaner, simpler life was about to come unstuck.

At one point we seemed to have unmatched men's sports socks everywhere ..... draped over chairs and in neat little piles 'to be sorted'.... like families of dead otters, washed up on every high -tide line in the house - 30-something pairs, when I did a headcount. Could come in handy in the likely event that we become the uniform supplier to the Socceroos or something, I guess ....

Some of my friends, looking at the increasing, how shall we say, 'diversity' in my house; simply raised an eyebrow and asked, "How?" which could mean anything from, "How do you two have anything in common?" or "How can you handle such 'un-eco' stuff in your home" to "How are you going to bury all those otters?".... who knows.

But I guess that's the beauty of diversity - it forces you to tolerate, appreciate (and learn from) the differences. And while he's learning from me about a more natural way to live, I'm learning about compassion, non-judgement and a whole heap of other things from him...ok, I need a few more lessons on the second one.

For now, I'll pass on his meal-in-a-jar-wonders, and stick with my natural homemade sauces, and hopefully he'll give up buying them. (We had one the other night to try and use up some of his pantry stash ... four jars in reserve of course .... I'm sorry but food just doesn't get any 'deader-tasting' than that, does it?) And god luv 'im, he did give away all of his chemical cleaners before he moved up, so he's holding up his end of the deal.

My lesson is to learn to give up a wee bit of control .... just a bit. And failing that, night-courses in using a chisel and hammer.