Queen Elizabeth's Sitting Room

There are certain refrains that seem to run through my life: I love to stitch and I try hard to understand MacSoph, my little laptop.

And right up there along with stitching and MacSoph is -- alas --- too much stash. Too many threads, too many beads, too many papers. Clutter. Yes, fussing about my clutter is almost as constant as loving to stitch and working through my frustrations on MacSoph. Year after year, it never seems to resolve itself.

If de-cluttering isn't at the top of my list of New Year's Resolutions each year, it is always close. From year to year, hope springs eternal in January, tapers off in February and by this time in March is usually a hopeless return to stashes of threads, beads and papers everywhere I look.

But this March was different. Do I mean that I succeeded in cleaning up my mess? No, not at all. So what was different?

I have a favorite English tabloid. From my London years, when DH read The Guardian and the Independent, I read the Daily Mail. I remember the year when Sarah Ferguson had her toe indiscretions. I collected all the English tabloids and brought them home to EGA's seminar. My students that year had a particularly tedious project to stitch  in class and I thought a dose of the English tabloids might prove a worthwhile distraction.

Now I am home in the U.S. permanently but happily MacSoph provides me with continuing dose of Daily Mail amusements. I think the Daily Mail has not improved in the last few years (too many exhibitionist actresses in too little clothing), but this March I was glad I still kept in touch with my old  tabloid favorite.

For the Daily Mail recently had an article on Queen Elizabeth's private sitting room at Balmoral, and guess what...

Queen Elizabeth's just like me!

Here's a link to the article and I hope, if you are like me and you have too much clutter from too much stash, this little article will help you feel a tad bit better.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2291866/Cosy-comfy-ones-sitting-room-Cluttered-treasures-just-little-bit-messy-Queens-private-retreat.html

I have no idea whether the report is accurate and as I don't know the Queen of England, I don't suspect I'll ever know.

But for a little while this month, accurate or not, I took time off from worrying about my stash clutter. If Queen Elizabeth can live that way, well,  so can I.

Gay Ann