Feng Shui, My Favourite Home, and Christmas Preparations by Margaret Ullrich

Tonight is Full Moon number eleven for 2013.

We've been enjoying very mild Autumn weather for Winnipeg.

Yesterday the Santa Claus parade was staged, and folks in downtown Winnipeg - both those marching in the parade and standing on the sidewalk - were comfortable.
Yeah, well, we woke up to about three inches of snow this morning.
Seasons change in an instant in Manitoba.

Back to Tisha Morris' book Feng Shui Your Life...  

My least favourite room is now just another room.

I know I can never make it my most favourite room.

And that's fine with me.

It's a room, not a book or movie.

A few days ago I posted Ma's Tuscan Sun Chicken recipe.

The recipe I cooked after we had seen the movie Under the Tuscan Sun.

Tuscan Sun has lovely ideas about friends, home and food.

I mentioned that Lindsay Duncan, as the character Katherine, had a few memorable lines, such as:

Regrets are a waste of time. They're the past crippling you in the present.

Diane Lane, as Frances Mayes, the movie's heroine, also had a few quotable lines.

I really liked what she said about the importance of a home:

What are four walls, anyway? 

They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. 

Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It's such a surprise.

I want to return to thinking of our home as a shelter which was built to protect us, not as a stage for a project in which I hope to reach some level of perfection.

Tisha Morris had some finishing touches for the least favourite room:

• clean the room: vacuum, mop, dust, paint the walls.
• create my vision… only put in it what I love… be creative.

Right.

I gave it a good cleaning.

I didn't paint it.  The room hadn't seen much activity - the paint was fine.

Create my vision?  Put in it what I love?

Oh, please… it's a spare room.

The things I love are in rooms where I actually spend my time, where I live.

There were other suggestions in the phase two section:

Make repairs and improvements.

Okay…  good idea to do some touch ups, especially before the holiday season.

Create a sacred space.

I don't think so.  This is my home, not a church.

Change your wall art.

Do Christmas decorations count?

Hang a vision board.

Uh, no.  The walls are filled with pictures I like and Christmas decorations.

Enhance the lighting.                   

Do scented Christmas candles count?

That's it… I'm done with phase two.

Sorry if I'm sounding like a crabby old Grinch, but there's something about all the advertisements for all the things that should be bought to make this the perfect Christmas season that made me think twice about following Tisha's book.

I'm all in favour of a clean, organized, festive, uncluttered home.

I'm glad I threw out stuff I don't need any more.

It's just that well, between the pressure to create the well Feng Shuied home and all the commercials, which started on November fourth, about what a proper home should look like at Christmas, I've had enough pressure.
I'm tired of thinking about my home as a never ending art project.

I want to live in it, not just work on making it perfect.

Back on November third I posted:

Once the next full Moon arrives on November 17, you'll have a chance to stand back and take a look at everything you've accomplished!

Alrighty then… I'm looking at what I accomplished.
Good enough is good enough.

About tonight's Full Moon in Taurus… according to the folks at astrology.com:
Since Taurus rules finances you can expect to have a few interesting conversations about earning, spending, and saving money! But since Neptune changed direction only a few days ago, you'll want to make sure you use common sense. 

Still, this is a good time to make tangible, practical investments in your life that could help you feel more comfortable, whether you make a plan to save money, vow to treat your possessions more kindly, tune in to nature, or formulate values that accurately reflect where you are at this point in your life. 

In the days following the full Moon, but before the next new Moon on December 2, take the time you need to find your comfort zone.

Use common sense… make investments in my life to feel more comfortable.
I've found my good enough comfort zone.

As Katherine and Frances in Under the Tuscan Sun would say...

It's a nice little villa. Rather run down, but redeemable... Are you going to buy it?

      The way my life is currently going, that would be a terrible idea.

Mm, terrible idea... Don't you just love those?

Home… rather run down, but redeemable.

Be it ever so imperfect, there's no place like home.