Striving For A More Simple/Minimalist Life Tribe - Page 9

[zebrachick83]

Originally Posted by MusicalMeg

I have found more and more that the more clutter there is around me, the more cluttered my head feels, and then I feel lost- like I can't focus on anything because there is too much around me.

Could not have put it better. That is me to a T.

My name is Selena and DH and I have three littles. Our house is roughly 1600 sq ft, so it's just big enough for the three of us. (Our boys share a room.) We're HS'ing and I will admit to overbuying school supplies. I tend to do that when I initially begin something. I did the same thing when I started freelance writing, when I started sewing diapers and when I started knitting. I have IEPD - initial excitement and purchasing disorder. (Totally just made that up.)

As I get older, though, I feel like it's time to slow down, especially as the kids grow. I don't want them to pick up my frantic pace and feel pressure to accomplish a quota of things everyday or to learn everything about something new all at once. I want them to learn naturally through their daily lives, so I have to set the xample and learn to relax and simplify myself. Looking forward to getting inspiration from you ladies!

[landgyrl]

I am relieved to have found this tribe!

We are a family of 3 + 2 four legged friends.  We live in a 1200 sq ft. house, which when we initially purchased seemed spatious to us (we moved from a small rented casita in Santa Fe, NM).  However, being closer to family, we 'inherited' lots of furniture, which we proceeded to fill with stuff we just don't want to deal with.  Until now. We want to move cities eventually, and rather than drag our now even larger load around the country, we would like to purge, simplify, etc. Especially now that we have an almost 2-year-old who also is receiving more 'things', we do not want him to grow up in this accumulation craze we are so used to.  Our extended families live alot larger than us (both as in larger homes, more stuff, need for more, etc.) so we need live more simply, so that we can all walk the talk when DS will be influenced by his cousins, society, etc.

Most of the time, as a SAHM, I feel too overwhelmed by all the projects I mean to get to but do not know where to start. I also have  IEPD - initial excitement and purchasing disorder  as stated by zebrachick83 above.  I have oodles of material to sew, oodles of yarn to knit, etc. but with a house full of clutterable things, no time to get to them. Or when I do, I have a tiny meltdown of being so overwhelmed.

I also have issues with purging. I come from a father who is a pack rat and a mom who gets rid of things asap. I admit I attach sentimental value to junk and need to figure out how to move beyond that.

My question to anybody in the tribe: what do you do with boxes full of pictures of people you don't know anymore? (for example)

Looking forward to moving on this path with all of you!

[southernmommie]

Just totally threw 2 trash bags of plastic toys, torn books, extra dolls, and those stupid little happy meal toys that we got ages ago! Now GONE!! I admit that I do plan on buying a few more toys, but wooden ones that can be played with by all. Not just a select "age". And that will last for many years. And not NEAR as many as we had. I still have a big plastic bin in the garage of toys that are incomplete, don't work, broken, or missing companions. I have to wait a while before I can really break the house down and get rid of extra clutter. But we are going to rearrange a couple of rooms in a couple of weeks and I'll do a little more decluttering then also in between nursing this newborn.

[marimara]

Hi there! I know I was on the old thread but don't think I've joined this one yet.  We downsized to an apt earlier this year about 50% of our space and we have lost a LOT of stuff.  We recently purchased our "forever" home nearby and are transitioning to living there full time by next fall.  I currently have a trash bag full, and a box being filled to go out this week.  Our new home is small and right now it is mostly bare because we aren't living there full time yet and I looove the feeling I get when I'm there.  It's hard to explain, but when I come home to the apt.  I look around at all the stuff and realize that I don't want to live with tons of things.  I NEED a barer landscape in the home for my sanity.  I am moving more and more close to actual minimalism.  Trying hard.  The color of the new house is all white, white walls, bare floors, white couch, everything is white (or some black) so that I display my colorful artwork and not have it compete with stuff.  

I've been getting rid of so much stuff I feel like my life is disappearing sometimes.  My entire family are hoarders and they give me so much stuff it's rediculous.  It's hard to say no to my 75 year old grandmother though.  My goal is to have the whole home pared down to the basics, and beautiful art.

ETA: Also wanted to post this blog, while not Minimalist per se, it has tons of photos that def. inspire me to live smaller, more consciously, minimally.  http://www.thetinylife.com/

Edited by marimara - 11/10/10 at 4:32pm

[LambQueen]

hi

I am LambQueen

SAHM to 3, 5, 7 year olds

DH is wonderful

all are sleeping now

What do I want?

a neat, tidy house

What do I have?

Not a neat, tidy house.

There seems to be constant work

so much to do

how will I keep things minimal, orderly, organized...

I keep reminding myself:

I cook a lot

We are home a lot

We wash our clothes a lot

We make messes a lot

I do not have full time help like lots of people I know

I recycle much

we entertain a lot (we will have over a few families for sabbath meals, complete with all homemade food and it's at least a 3 course meal.  think Thanksgiving every week)

We have separate dishes for meat and milk (kosher...)

And yet I want my place in order!
 

Every week I have at least one give away bag, but it doesn't seem to keep on top of things

I am ALWAYS organizing

I want to keep on top of my photos for my children and family

and yet I am behind at least 2 years...with some intermittent months mixed in where I ended up printing photos.  Just did an album from summer 2009

..and yet what will I do with all the albums?

I am afraid in the digital age we won't have access to the files, so I want hard copies.

---and yet the albums take up space!
I live simultaneously in 2010 as well as 1988

I know a lot of women in my community who have become professional organizers

They charge upwards of $100 an hour

They are all smart, educated women

I think to myself:  their homes are all tidy and neat

But they don't have craft closets

They don't bake bread once a week

They dont' recycle their tissue boxes.

Argh, I guess it's just baby steps

I should pat myself on the back for doing that album tonight!

[marimara]

Hello wise ladies.

I've finally made the plunge to purge my closet.  I've kept only items that I love, look great on me, fit right, and fit into my coordinating color scheme (neutrals-black, white, grey, beige, blue, purple).  Those are the colors are I like and look best in.  

Sooo, I'm missing a couple basics here and there and really want to look for made in the U.S.A, lovely fabrics-like organic cotton, bamboo, soy, good quality, and style.  Where do you guys shop?

[Smidge]

I'll jump in :D

My name is Lacey and I'm married and we have a 3 yr old dd and a 20 mo old ds, 2 dogs and 3 cats......plus a skunk some where in our back yard.....o, and 3-5 stray cats eat at our house.  ;)

I'm here because I've become a simple living advocate this past year.  I decided to do The Compact (buying nothing new for 1 year) this year (2010) and it has transformed our household over the months.  We used to have a SUPER CLUTTERED home.  There was junk every where...every flat surface was filled.  It was awful and I convinced myself that we needed a larger home as our current home is 900sqft.  So, I started going thru my closet and ditching clothes that weren't flattering or my color.  I also did this with the kids and make a habit of doing the kids' clothes every other month as they grow out of them.  The toys were also a large problem.  Family members love getting the kids stuff, so just yesterday I finished purging.  It is sooooo much better :0

My hubby has a harder time with purging than I do.  His mom and dad are somewhere on the hoarder's spectrum, so he of course inherited some of those traits.  However, in the past 2 months he's been much more willing to declutter...no more negative comments or grumpy attitude.

I feel that the last 2-3 months have made us realize that we can live here and that we don't NEED more room.  Decluttering and living simply have made cleaning the house a breeze.  I no longer HATE to clean the house, I actually enjoy it.  Everything has a place and a place for everything :D

[accountclosed3]

that's how i feel too, smidge. :) i used to hate cleaning house, now it's quick and easy and i love it. :)

i love living simply, and i'm learning more and more how healthy it is for everyone. it's just good for us.

big disappointment this week, though, our landlord wants to up the rent. it's not so much that we can't afford it, but we wanted to stay here for a number of years, and if it goes up again next year, then it might not be good for us to stay. bummer really. but, who knows/ :D

[accountclosed3]

marimara: a bit pricey, but blue canoe is great. i also liked bamboosa and their customer service was great. :) i also do american apparel, but very little of their stuff is organic.

[K'sMama]

Hi!  I'm mama to two little ones aged 5 and 1 1/2.  We stirve to live a fairly simple lifestyle.  It's nice to find a place with other like-minded individuals.  With Christmas just past and all of the materialism and consumerism it just makes me cringe.  Everyone talking about all of the *stuff* they got for Christmas drives me insane.  We did get more carried away than I would have liked with the kids - the mountain of stuff that they ot this year makes me cringe.  But, it has made me resolved to make a really consious effort to not bring anything into the house unless it is needed, and to increase the rate at which I get rid of stuff.  I am also going to try and get rid of the things that I keep for sentimental reasons.  Things that I think are so important and then forget about until I find them years later.  If I was single and childless I would love to get my belongings down to what would fit in a single suitcase. With kids, that isn't quite so easy, but I'm going to see what we can do over the next few years.  I just feel that life would be so much simpler without so much stuff cluttering our house and my mind.  Not to mention home much easier it will be to keep the house up with so much less stuff!

The hard core simplifying started yesterday.  I went through my closet and filled two large green trash bags with clothes to donate.  I also had DD go through a few of her toys and choose 5 things to get rid of.  I need to get rid of some of the baby toys and other things that the kids do not play with (and which I don't like!).  I rounded up some movies to get rid of and some books that I will read to the kids one last time before getting rid of.

Originally Posted by landgyrl 

My question to anybody in the tribe: what do you do with boxes full of pictures of people you don't know anymore? (for example)

I tossed them.  I only have photo albums of my kids now.

[Paigekitten]

I was just thinking that our scrapbooks take up a lot of space I don't want to dedicate to them, but I just don't know what to do with them and it feels wrong to throw it out.  I am not a scrapbooker, so they don't even look good and no one looks at them.  Same thing for my old journals, and I journal a lot.

[PeacefulSeams]

Introduce yourself

I'm Alicia,  mom of 2 fabulous boys ages 7 and 1, wife to a wonderful husband. I am also a full-time nursing student.

 what brought you to this place

I have this internal need to live simply. I used to be able to fit everything I owned into a suitcase but since having kids and a DH, stuff has accumulated. I find myself more irritable and grouchy. I really want to get back to the simpler life.

 how is this path and what has it taken you to?

We have recently bought our own mobile home. I would really like to minimize things so I can spend more time with my family and less time dealing with stuff. I have so much going on right now that the stuff just adds more stress to it. I have already made my goal for 2011 about this crap and plan on starting on it this week.

Is it material things, an overabundance of too much in your life or something else?

I have too much of everything. My DH doesn't mind the stuff, in fact, getting him to part with anything is a goal in itself. My kids have too much and I have a small amount of stuff....most if it belongs to DH and kids. I am always busy with schoolwork that dealing with stuff takes time away from my family. I want to be able to travel and with all this crap around, that's next to impossible without getting a storage unit....and I WILL NOT do that!

[PeacefulSeams]

My question to anybody in the tribe: what do you do with boxes full of pictures of people you don't know anymore? (for example)

 I actually did that this evening. I went thru my photos and tossed all the bad photos, photos of people I don't no or no longer care to have, random pics of ??? and photos from old trips that I don't want. My photos fit neatly into a shoe box now.

[landgyrl]

Originally Posted by zenenlightened 

My question to anybody in the tribe: what do you do with boxes full of pictures of people you don't know anymore? (for example)

 I actually did that this evening. I went thru my photos and tossed all the bad photos, photos of people I don't no or no longer care to have, random pics of ??? and photos from old trips that I don't want. My photos fit neatly into a shoe box now.

wow. i'm inspired. i started doing the same and only made it through 2 shoe boxes and widdled them down to 1. i thought i was on the right track! must get at it again!

thanks!

[ponderingtruth]

As I'm reading your post I'm also realizing how trapped my family is in the definition of our life we've received from our families. We have a house of beautiful furniture (antiques my husband's mother refinished) and other furniture I inherited from my family.  We appreciate much of what we've been given because we understand our loved ones took time, money and resources to bestow these things upon us...BUT how then do we rid ourselves of things that bog us down.  I don't want so much furniture.  I would love a mattress on the floor, but we have a bed my dad used, my brother used, now we're using (and it's over 100 years old).  How cool!  but I'm trapped by these things.  How did you let go of items given to you by family & friends without insulting them or appearing ungrateful?

Well, I'm Sarah.  Mama to my daughter (almost 3 years) and son (6 months). Wife to my husband (obviously).  Sole "breadwinner" in household as husband is SAHD.  But I'm reducing my hours so I can pick up when I want to /need to and have more time for my family.   It's taken me a long time to realize how much I need to simplify my life.  It feels like we have stuff everywhere, not just physical stuff, but my brain feels full, my heart feels full.  I read through these posts and I'm drawn in.  I want to be free.  My husband wants to be free.  We want our children to experience life without all of this baggage.  But our house if full (at least by our standards).  Now some of this is because it's hard for us to throw away.  We want to reduce, reuse, recycle.  But our time is limited and things that we may be able to use in the future sit in our garage or our basement.  One of the posts I read mentioned getting rid of things she doesn't use, trusting that she'll have what she needs.  How liberating.  I'm inspired.  Now to find the time to declutter.  My daughter hates change.  I will get so much more done if it's just me against my stuff.  Maybe it's time I take that challenge.  

[septmama]

i'm heather.  married, 30 yrs old, i have a 3yr old daughter and we had our final home study tonight to be foster (and hopefully adoptive one day) parents. 

-discuss what brought you to this place

I guess, really, my parents started it...they both grew up on the farm, and while i didn't, it was still kind of a simple childhood.  i didn't have all the latest toys my friends had, but i could go play with everyone else's loot, so it wasn't like a stance on anything, it's just how it was.  the next part would be just not having a ton of cash after marrying and the idea of chasing our dreams instead of a career.  we've settled down since then, but we had a great start to our marriage with this philosophy. part of it is a knee-jerk reaction against what i saw when working in a very affluent part of town. the utter spoiled shallowness of it all....i can't swallow it.  then, a friend put the bug in my ear about natural childbirth way before we were even thinking of having babies, so when the time came, i did tons of research and ended up having a home birth.  from that, from everything i learned about pregnancy and birth and early parenting, the rest has stemmed from that.... i believe in a creative Creator and i believe everything fits together in a circle of life kind of way.  the way we eat, the cycles, the seasons..everything natural is made that way for a reason.  when we change one part, it can mess the whole thing up.  i LOVE learning about this stuff!

-how is this path and what has it taken you to?

it's caused me to think about everything.  sweat shop labor, how i'm raising my child, the materialism in every purchase i make.  it also helps soothe me when people around me are driving big fat shiny cars or wearing the latest fashions or living in a big mcmansion.  on some levels, it's kind of made me feel like i'm almost being belligerent b/c i'm often the only one i know making these more simple decisions.  but i'm a reader, a researcher.  so every major choice is made after i have seen all my options out on the table and deliberately choosing the right one for us.  that, along with 100% support from my husband (and like 95% support from my parents) helps a lot. 

Is it material things, an overabundance of too much in your life or something else?

i don't think it's an overabundance, i think to some extent it's a coping mechanism for not being able to have the indulgence that others have.  i believe my choices are right, but i have to be careful not to come down too harshly on others who aren't where i am..... had i had a bigger budget all these years, maybe i would be driving a big fat shiny car myself...but probably not.  i just didn't want to get to the point where i had to throw out half my possessions b/c it was too much.  trying to be proactive about this.

LOVE this site! thanks!!

[septmama]

Originally Posted by marimara 

Hello wise ladies.

I've finally made the plunge to purge my closet.  I've kept only items that I love, look great on me, fit right, and fit into my coordinating color scheme (neutrals-black, white, grey, beige, blue, purple).  Those are the colors are I like and look best in.  

Sooo, I'm missing a couple basics here and there and really want to look for made in the U.S.A, lovely fabrics-like organic cotton, bamboo, soy, good quality, and style.  Where do you guys shop?

I have stumbled upon Fair Indigo (they have a website as well as a catalogue..and a couple stores, but I'm not sure where.)  they're all fair trade clothes and every catalogue has more and more made in the US stuff.  American Apparel is also all made in the US, but their...morality..is questionable to me.  i can't usually afford the fair trade/made in the US prices (though fair indigo always has great sale items too) so i've found great consignment shops in my town.  good quality used stuff...cheaper than new, keeps stuff out of the landfill, doesn't support sweatshop labor and supports local businesses.  that hits all my ideal shopping wishes.  oh..sorry..that didn't cover the nice fabrics, though Fair Indigo will have some of that.

good luck!