What It All Means and How Things Have Changed

Oof, six months since my last post here? Yikes. I can honestly say that we've been busy, but not the kind of busy where I can't find time to do anything else (like blogging). It's been the reasonable kind of busy - learning to say no to the nonsense helps keep it reasonable. :-)

The lack of blogging has more been from not being sure what to write about. Getting my thoughts in order regarding our simplifying journey has been tricky. But I've had a few thoughts roaming around my head for the past few weeks, so I figured it was time to sit down and write them out.

What does minimalism mean for us?

It's been around four years since I "discovered" minimalism and simplifying. Four years since I realized how we were living was making me miserable. I find that while most of our closer friends and family understand that we are working towards a minimalist lifestyle, there are still a lot of misconceptions about what that means. We strive for what is referred to as "rational minimalism", meaning we are not going to only have 100 possessions or live totally self-sustaining out in the woods. It means this:

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.”

--William Morris

It is is not useful to us (just sitting there...taking up space....gathering dust....been sitting in a box for five years), or beautiful (does it bring us joy or is it causing us frustration?), it will not be in our home.

I've gotten some flack for continuing to buy books while proclaiming myself to be on a minimalist journey. Here's the thing: Books are useful (yes, I really do read all of them. And hey, knowledge!), AND they are beautiful (they bring us SO much joy). So yes, I am going to continue to buy books because they fit into rational minimalism. Here's the other thing that has to go along with that though: I get rid of the books I no longer find useful or beautiful. It's all about continually re-assessing the items in my home.

Rational minimalism is about making space and time for what is truly important for you. For us, those things are family time, travel, and books. It's a journey that is going to look different for everyone.

How has it changed us?

Four years on this journey is mind-boggling to me. I can't believe it's been that long already! I often still feel that we are struggling to figure it all out. But then I can actually see our results and I KNOW that we are living more intentionally and are on the right track.

It's not just me on this journey, it's the whole family: It took a little while to get the family on board, but a few weeks ago we were watching AFV and one video showed a family's living room that was just filled with stuff. I mean, stuff everywhere in piles. Out of nowhere, John says, "Man....they need to simplify!". I smiled. He wouldn't have made that comment four years ago. It makes the journey so much easier to have him on board.

My house is so much easier to clean: My house still gets dirty and messy. I have kids, I have dogs, I work outside the home. Things get insane sometimes. But now, even when it feels like there's crap all over the place, it doesn't take very long to clean it up. That's because we don't struggle to find where to put things. Turns out when everything does have a place, it takes no time at all to put it back where it belongs. Goodness knows I don't want to spend all of my free hours cleaning, and now I don't have to!

I am able to easily change what I don't like about my home, and I have fallen in love with my house again: Clearing out all the unnecessary clutter has made it so much easier to see what we want to change about the house. We've been able to add shelving, clearly see where our furniture works the best, paint, update, and modify to our hearts content because there isn't a ton of stuff blocking our vision (literally and figuratively) for what we want for our home. In the process of changing things, I have fallen in love with my house again.

Cutting out unnecessary shopping has done wonders for our finances: We've paid off a student loan, another loan, and a credit card over the last year. We were able to take the boys to Disneyland and Legoland, and take a three day anniversary trip to Vegas. There have been a few emergency things: John's car needed work and his computer kicked the bucket. But we didn't have to freak out when those things happened. I look forward to paying down our remaining debt even further this year. It feels really, really good.

Something I've definitely learned over the last four years is that it's not easy and it will not happen right away. But if you know you want it, just keeping working at it. Have patience, set small goals, take a breather if you get discouraged. And before you know it, it will be years later and you'll see what a huge difference it's all made.

Learning to Say No

I don't know about you, but I used to subscribe to the popular idea of "the more we have scheduled for ourselves, the more successful/popular/happy we appear". Yeah, that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. How does over-scheduling everyone make you happy or successful? I just don't get it. So, over the last year or two we have worked to reduce and limit what we have going on. We're definitely happier for it, but it's certainly a learning process. I now have to recognize when to say no to things. It's not always easy.

Last school year I attended the very first PTA meeting of the school year. I had been an involved parent at the boys' preschool (it was a co-op, after all) and had been feeling guilty that I hadn't jumped into the PTA yet. Finally my youngest was out of the preschool and into the public school, so I figured it was time. I went, I listened, and I hated every minute of it. But that's what involved moms do, right? They are part of the PTA! I didn't go again and I beat myself up about throughout the entire school year. As this school year approached I started thinking that I should go and be involved. Every time I thought about it, I'd cringe and feel tense. It didn't take long for me to realize that it was something I should avoid. So.....I said no. I am not going to be a part of the PTA at my kids' school. As soon as I said that (yes, I said it out loud to myself), I felt such a rush of relief. I have found a very limited way to help (I grade spelling tests every other Friday for an hour) and my kids like seeing me there on occasion. But I figure we all need our space and this is what works. Saying no was the best thing to do in this situation. I didn't do something just because that's what I'm "supposed" (by whose standards, I ask?) to do. And I'm not any less of a mom because I'm not on a board or volunteering for every little thing.

Over the last few months, I've had a lot (like, a lot a lot a lot) of friends begin home businesses. They are stay at home moms and have found something that works for them to make some extra $$ and be there for their kids. I get it. I did it too. Because I used to do that years ago, I would say yes to any friend who started a home business. I wanted to support them and I felt bad saying no. This is where the learning part of it really comes in. I finally started saying no just this month. I still feel terrible saying no and I don't know that those feelings will go away.....however, I realized that I'm not losing friends because I decline hosting a party. I explained that I have a personal rule to say no to these events, but that I am so happy they've found something that works well for their family and that I wish them the absolute best. And you know what? They totally understood! They weren't mad and they thanked me for my encouraging words. Because they are my friends, they understand that we are choosing a lifestyle that minimizes the amount of money we spend on things that we don't feel we absolutely need. I appreciate their understanding, and they appreciate my honesty.

As I adjust to being comfortable saying "No", I have found that it is effective for many things. I have begun to unsubscribe from emails because I am saying "No" to those sales and that advertising (and the inbox clutter it provides). I am working on opting out of pre-screened offers for credit because I am saying "NO!!" to more unnecessary debt. Now if only there was a way to opt out of political mailers to say "No" to the massive amounts of negative ads filling our mailbox (and seriously, what an absolute waste of paper).

I would like to leave you with a quote from Tiny Buddha's 'It's Ok to Say No' (if you don't read anything else today, read that post!):

"So today I invite you to join me in remembering it's ok to say no, and our world won't fall apart because of it."

Let's Get This Party Started! (Or The Refrigerator Project)

Ah yes, I am back at it! We finished up the summer with a bang (road trip to camp in Yellowstone for five days!) and have sent the boys happily off to school. The 6 year old is in 1st grade and in school full day now. I'm still adjusting to having them both gone for so long during the day, but I sure can get a lot done!

One of my first projects was to tackle our refrigerator. It hadn't really been cleaned all summer, there was orange juice "glue" from when the boys had spilled an entire container of OJ all over the place, and the side and top of the fridge was covered in layers upon layers of grease with dust on top. The OJ was our fault, but the grease and dust was there when we moved in four years ago. I swear the people who lived here before only cooked fried food.

 It's so disgusting.....UGH!!!

The reason the orange juice turned into glue is because when it happened I didn't have time to take the inside of the fridge apart to deep clean. Then it turned to glue. Then I couldn't figure out how to clean it up. I tried multiple things but it would not come up. Same thing with the grease and dust all over the fridge. Nothing was taking it off. Bleach, Comet, magic erasers, Goo Gone.....nothing.

Finally, after poking around on Pinterest, I found mention of mixing hot water, vinegar (which I already use for cleaning anyway), and a bit of Dawn dish soap. Honestly, I figured it wouldn't work - nothing else had. But this was touted as "miracle solution". What did I have to lose?

Turns out, it does work like a miracle. It took the orange juice glue right up. (I should have taken pictures of that but since I wasn't expecting it to work.....) The inside of the fridge was sparkling. Then I used in the freezer where a jar of jam had leaked and then frozen to a shelf. It took that right up. Then I turned my attention to the outside of fridge. If this worked on the inside when nothing else had, would it do the same for the years-old grease layer with it's protective coating of dust?

Yes. Yes, it did.

Do you see that?!?! I've been frustrated with that grease layer for over four years, have scrubbed and scrubbed until my arms hurt, and all I needed to do was mix hot water, vinegar, and Dawn?? I literally jumped up and down, giggling like a crazy person. There were a few tiny trouble spots, but the Goo Gone worked on those. I guess I'd taken up enough layers of grease that the Goo Gone was able to do what it's meant to do.

The kitchen looks cleaner as a whole and I feel happy when I don't see grease staring me in the face when I cook (the side of the fridge is right next to the stove and would catch every little splatter). Now if there's anything that splatters, I can just wipe it down and it comes right up.

I am so happy to be back, working to simplify our lives. The best part is, my husband has totally gotten on the bandwagon over the last few months and his hoarding tendencies are diminishing. It really helps motivate me to keep going!