on the trolley :: February

We are back to real life with a vengeance, and with real life comes my monthly reset routine! At the start of 2024, not long after we’d moved into our new home, I started a habit of starting each month by resetting my IKEA trolley, clearing it out, reloading it with intention and the things I wanted to focus on. It was such a helpful addition to my creative process, and also a fun way to document the changing seasons of my mojo

I’ve loaded it up ready for a month full of productivity – the show is on at the end of the month and I’m hoping to have twelve items to enter!!

TOP // iPad, kindle, hand cream, sketchbook, commonplace book, 50mm lens, non-fiction books (Deception, and Creative Sketchbook Habits), novel

MIDDLE // cameras (one film, one DLSR), fibre ready to spin, bow of mixed fibres to blend and spin, hand spun yarn to knit up into a cowl, current sock knit, scrap journal/punch/tape runner

BOTTOM // my admin-type creative/making projects. 2024 slip in album (finished awaiting labels), 2 empty albums (for 2023 and 2025), 2025 road trip album inserts, mountain bike pants for Boy2 to take in tomorrow.

For now, my laptop is propped up on top to give me something to watch as I cast on my projects, but I will likely rearrange everything as the month goes on, to make space for my spinning wheel on top of the trolley, and also make the most of the bottom row as space opens up – I’m hoping to send 2025 photos to print tomorrow, and get a stack of labels made so I can get the albums onto the bookshelves. I’ve got my February punch card made, and with the start of the month bringing the start of a cool change (low thirties feels like a cool change after mid forties!), I have a fresh burst of mojo.

Today, I had all four kiddos at home – not a single one working or out with friends. It was a rare chance to spontaneously forget about school, and instead indulge in one of our favourite holiday traditions – bookshakes and milk aka books and milkshakes, renamed years ago when a tiny Beetle got his words mixed up, and the phrase stuck. Each holidays – preferably at the beginning – we would wander down town, buy a book or a magazine, and then park up at a cafe and have a milkshake and read our books. We no longer have a bookshop in town, so the kids convinced me to take a road trip. We got some big-smoke chores done, found ourselves a book or two each, and settled in for a milkshake and late lunch. School and chores can wait for tomorrow; today was about nostalgia and fun and memories, both fresh and recalled. Remember the time? Oh what about when? All four of my babies, all together. A balm for this mama’s heart as we begin the countdown to another uni move in day.