clear & clear some more

Somewhere, and I can't remember where, I read a blog post or a blog post response about Uncluttering by a mother. This mother said that when her children were small, every day she cleared out 10 things from her home to create a more serene, functional and peaceful space. It could be big things, furniture or clothing or books, or it could be 10 broken pens from the random pen drawer. It didn't matter. Just 10 things.

That's my goal right now, fast-tracking the 365 Less Things. And if I find I can't do 10, well, I'll step it back down. I'm also trying to do the 10 first thing in the morning, because if I do this before bed, I end up staying up too late, mooning around the random pen drawer feeling confused.

Today: clothes. I'm frustrated with P'tit Minou Deux's sartorial selection. Despite his closet full of a resonable number of clothing changes, he has one preferred outfit that he would like to wear daily. My requests for clean and varied clothing are met with "You can't tell me what to do". Ah, 13.

So why keep all those hopefully selected (by me) items in the closet that are met with daily rejection? Why, indeed? If a "How about this?" has been met with an emphatic "Ugh!" at least 5 times, no let's make it 10, I see no reason why said item needs to remain on his closet shelf. Let's clear it out. As he commented the other day, it's true that most of his clothing consists of hand-me-downs (I personally love that frugal solution!). Which does mean that they may not really be to his taste and were not of his choosing. So by making the space in his closet, we will see what he really "needs" and have more room to boot. And hand these clothes along to another friend.

one at a time

I like this concept of simplifying material possessions.
It is much less overwhelming and easier to approach.
For quite a while I have been reading a wonderful and always evolving blog called 365 Less Things.

The founder, who lives in Australia, got fed up with feeling overcrowded and decided to simplify her home, one item per day, for a year. She took pictures of each thing and gave a bit of backstory for it. She was sure that she would be done within the year.

The blog has been around for several years and still going strong.

Our home, approximately 1000 square feet, would be luxurious in many parts of the world. It is certainly comfortable here, but in the area where I live, it's considered "smallish" for a family of four. I feel fortunate to have two bathrooms but would greatly enjoy a third bedroom. Mr. Minou and I feel very Japanese as we unfold our living room futon couch-bed each evening, and fold it back up and stow our bedding away each morning.

Honestly, this is not a big inconvenience--the only issues are privacy related. Sometimes it's nice to have a door to close for a multitude of reasons, whether it be a nap, couple intimacy, a good cry, or just a place to journal. Also, if someone is staying up late doing homework or a cooking project at the kitchen table, it's hard to go to sleep. Other than that, I kind of enjoy the ritual of it.

I'm digressing though--the point of that foray into sleeping arrangements was that we are trying to pack a lot of living into our smallish home. Two teen boys, an active home office (Minou's architecture business), an online student (myself, at the couch/bed or kitchen table), a passle of cats, a big brown dog...you get the picture. There isn't a lot of storage, and even with a minimum of possessions, things seem to pile up all around before you can blink.

I have found it essential to having a more peaceful, serene home to have fewer possessions. (Note: this does not mean that my home actually is peaceful or serene--see above, I have two teen boys with very different personalities). Also, a designated home for the items we own so that they can be stored away when not in use leads to less clutter and more peacefulness on the material plane.
I see how the phsyical state of our home affects the emotional state of the family.

So, with a busy week coming up, here are 7 items that we no longer use/love.

a bathroom basket

 

some souvenir coasters

 

a small coin purse

 

a CPR face shield, have more

 

much mended gloves

 

seldom-used picnic ware

 

terrible liquor from a White Elephant gift exchange

 

 

minimizing monday

If I were packing up to move to Rennes tomorrow (which I am not), what would I ship across the ocean? What would I be willing to pay to keep in storage?

This is my inspiration for my current round of home decluttering. It's the Act As If phenomenon.
I wrote about that concept last year--I was inspired by something another mom said to me, when she declared that rather than give into fears, she had decided to act as if the world she lived in was the world she would want to live in. In other words, she had decided to create her world as she wished it to be. To dream and think and act it into being.

Although I really would love to move to Rennes, I don't think I really want to move there tomorrow (though if I could just transport back to that cozy little creperie Le Sarrasin for weekly Friday evening buckwheat crepes and cider, I would be pretty content...). My boys are happy at their schools and with friends, Minou's business is picking up and taking off, and I have an exciting professional opportunity starting soon (more on that later). However, I want to be ready to move to Rennes in case the opportunity unexpectedly presented itself. I would want it not to be an enormous headache to prepare myself for a transition. Like the inspiring Minimalist Mom, who had already completed extensive decluttering when her husband had a work opportunity overseas... and she was able to move her family with fairly minimal preparation.

So I am still following the slow gradual approach (it works best for me for almost everything, I do believe). Also, I am leading by example. I can not declutter anything that is not mine. I like to think that I have made vast strides...but then I realize that actually, I have more clothes and shoes than any other family member (and this is after making vast strides!)

So here's to go...

Clothing (mine AND p'tit minou 2's rejects)

Bag (from a conference I attended--we have plenty already)

LP records (we have no way to copy these now)

and the hardest of all, books

...the books are either works that I verified the library had, or that my honest answer to the questions "will I read this again?" or "will I read this?" was No.

winnowing wednesday: minimal closet

At the risk of incurring the wrath of petit minou un, I am showing you my closet. Which is also his closet. Yes, I know that it is messy. The hanging items on the right side, along with the items in the drawers, are almost the entire contents of my wardrobe (I do have a small carry-on bag of seasonal items stored in the attic).

Anyone who knows me personally knows that "fashionable" is not a word very likely to be used to describe me...but I  enjoy clothes! However, as I travel along my path of "less is more", I have become much more careful about a) how I spend money, even on thrift store items and b) what I bring into the house, realizing how much more I value the space and freedom it brings.

I have been thinking about how to create a very small wardrobe of comfortable, versatile, mix-and-matchable, and flattering items, a la Miss Minimalist's ten-item wardrobe. I was inspired yesterday by a post over at the minimalistmom.com about moving toward ethically made, multipurpose clothing items. I followed her link to (r)evolution apparel and was even more inspired by the story of two young travelers who decided to follow their dream and make a difference in the world...with fashion.

Check out the video of the Versalette and "how to rock it"! It's rather amazing, when you consider the design ingenuity involved in creating this multi-use garment (the model is great at showing the quick changes--she could duck into a phone booth and transform her look in a flash). I'm not sure how many of the options I would actually use... but the fact that this one item of clothing can transform from scarf to shawl to hood to top to tunic to skirt to dress is incredible!

I subjected both Minou and p'tit minou un to a complete viewing of the seven minute "How to Rock the Versalette" video, and they in turn subjected me to some teasing. However, Minou did promise (and petit minou un was my witness) that if I gave away fifteen items from my current wardrobe, he would purchase a Versalette for me (from outside our household budget). Game on, mister! (he didn't know that at all times I have a bag of waiting-to-move-out-of the-house items sitting in the closet).

Here is the Versalette in all its glory:

source: http://revolutionapparel.is/pages/sharing-stuff-we-love

And here is the bag of six items ready to go:

I have three more items already selected to be passed on as well, bringing me to nine. Just six more til I order that Versalette. Not a bad trade, fifteen items out for one in that can take the place of  all the others. What color, charcoal or sage? Opinions?

magazine minimizing monday

These are a reoccurring cause of clutter in our 888 sq foot home.
By clutter, I just mean visually (semi) unappealing items that tend to lie around on the couch, floor, and just about any flat surface--not that the contents are not informative or useful.
I'm not sure how we somehow ended up with such a surplus this year. I think it was a combination of Minou subscribing to multiple trade magazines, using up some airline points that weren't enough for a ticket, holiday subscriptions for us and the boys from Grammy, and just generally being too busy to read & reuse them promptly.
The pile you see below, occupying the top of our library & encyclopedia shelf, has already been reduced by at least two-thirds.

before

Magazines are items that I firmly believe we don't all need to get individually. Think of the trees! Although I know I can access some content on-line, I also know that I probably won't. A great solution is reading them at or borrowing from the library, or sharing and rotating with friends and neighbors.

So why are we currently receiving (besides our alumni publications and trade magazines) National Geographic, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Outside, Wired, Popular Mechanics, Skipping Stones, and Inc.? And are we ever going to read all these back issues? And can you predict the response if I ask the respective recipients if they want to keep them? And do you think I should ask?

after

Don't worry, I will ask. And they will henceforth be kept in individual bedrooms, except for a basket with the most recent issues in the living room. I'm ready for clear flat surfaces. Now what to do with the piles of architecture magazines is another story. Any suggestions??

simple sunday

Here's a household item we decided we can live without:

....the humble dish drainer.

Oddly enough, this common kitchen feature has been a source of frustration and even contention for Minou and I over the years. We used to have a simple wooden dish rack--I loved the aesthetic, but he was frustrated by its design functionality and inability to clean (we live in the Pacific Northwest, where things that stay damp have a tendency to develop mold quickly).

So we switched to the cheap, basic plastic-coated wire type that can be found in any drugstore household department (you can still see ours lurking sadly in the background of this picture, ready to be schlepped to the garage, on its way out the door). It initially had a rubber pan-mat thingie that quickly developed pink slime--I can't remember the technical term (biofilm!), but it disgusted Minou and he hated cleaning it. So we discarded the rubber mat and moved to an absorbant towel on the counter that could be quickly thrown in the wash. Now, the rack itself has developed small spots of a nasty blackish mold. Minou requested a change to just using the towel-on-the-counter system--why not?

It works, and it's one less thing sitting on the counter (provided we put away the dishes after they dry).

What common household item have you learned that you can live without?

winnowing wednesday

On Mother's Day, my boys gifted me with a bit of Minimalist Mama bliss: decluttering their closets.

Look what is leaving the house!

too-small shoes

p'tit minou 1 pile

p'tit minou 2 pile

I forgot to count the number before bagging it all up for a friend's yard sale fundraiser to send her daughter to college and for our neighbor friend who is still ever so slightly shorter than p'tit minou 2.

I'm guessing there were at least 25 items. However let's just call it 7 for 7 and put the total at 35.

I can hear the empty space singing to me.

wardrobe winnowing wednesday

to winnow: [transitive]
a) to remove, to get rid of b) to sift or separate c) to blow on to remove the wheat from the chaff

Working on the wardrobe this week.  In part those pesky aspirational clothes. 7 items for 7 days:

1) sweater with a snag

2) color not quite me

3) stained, plus needs ironing, never a plus

4) love this shirt, but I will never, repeat never, be a size small

5) ditto

6) ditto

7) would need to minimize myself to fit into these comfy passed down corduroys

And sadly, keeping these aspirational clothes around, no matter how nice they are, will not make them wearable! They just fill up my drawers. Sigh.

Off to enjoy a cleaner closet. 28 items lighter to date.

winnowing wednesday

to winnow: [transitive] a) to remove, to get rid of b) to sift or separate c) to blow on to remove the wheat from the chaff

So...maybe all this Wednesday winnowing needs a little explanation...
(or maybe not, since I think my main readers are family members who have probably heard more than they ever want to about the joys of minimizing)
...but anyway here it is. I can't remember when I started on my personal journey of "living with less", "less is more", or "Mama's gone minimalist!" (well, not really). I do know that it started in earnest quite a few years ago when I began to entertain the notion that we might move one day. At that time, thoughts were swirling around about a possible future transplanting to southern France (Minou's homeland) or Portland, Oregon for graduate school. And then it occurred to me what a horrendous proposition moving house would be.

Little by little, I began to cull and winnow my possessions. Family was sympathetic to this preoccupation as long as it involved upgrading technology--for example, it was a win-win situation when we got rid of our old, gigantic square box TV and traded it in for a smaller flat-screen one for movie watching. Or the move from stereo system to Ipod. You get the idea. And I learned to keep my impatient mitts off of other people's treasures after one too many enthusiastic suggestions that were greeted with alarm and resistance.

Really, the roots of wanting to live with less go much deeper. But let's focus on the results and not the roots for now. Although we have remained firmly settled in place, and indeed have dug in deeper into our little community here, I think that living with fewer possessions and thinking about what we bring into the home has had long-term benefits.

To get specific: It is easier to find things.  It's a heck of a lot easier to clean when there is less to move around. There is less to pick up and put away. In the past, one of my p'tit minous had shelves full of clothes that were deemed unacceptable for school or what-have-you, but still managed to make it through the wash cycle at least once a week (I know you didn't wear that, since you rejected it four mornings this week! Why am I washing it?!) The way our little home is structured, I share a closet space with one p'tit minou and have a single dresser in a shared space--how nice that all my clothes fit into one-third the closet and that dresser.

My goal is just enough--what we need and use, or love and that brings beauty into our lives. Over quite a few years now, I have gone through intensive "decluttering" or "minimizing" efforts in different parts of the house, the attic, the garage we share with my mom. My inspiration tends to come and go in waves--followed by a long dry spell and a slow, steady silting up of new possessions again. I have found that lately with work, classwork, family life, running, commuting, there is not much time for this downsizing process (though I will never forget my favorite anatomy & physiology instructor saying that she discovered an urgent need to clean her closets just before every neuroscience exam--seems to hold true for nursing coursework as well).

Around the New Year on January 1st, I thought seriously about starting a "One a Day Declutter" through the year, inspired by Colleen at the blog 365 Less Things (her motto is "It matters not how fast I go, I hurry faster when I'm slow").  But I abandoned this idea because...well, it was too slow. However, around mid-April it struck me that if I had been doing this all along, that I would already be at least 105 items further along in my quest to find new homes for things that we (I) no longer need, use, or love.

So, Winnowing Wednesday was born. Once a week I will collect the items that I have winnowed or culled from my home once a day throughout the week, photograph them to share with you with a little bit of explanation, and then pack them away into appropriate donate/sell/White Elephant/to friends bags. When the bags are full enough, out they go (except the White Elephant items which will wait for our neighbors' much anticipated Winter Solstice party).

Here we go with this week's 7 for 7:

1) Actually have needed to be returned to their rightful owner for many a month--regret delayed act
2) how many of these can one really use?
3) too holy to wear, even too holy to repair
4) almost gone, but dispenser also broken...
5) its mate is missing
6) not very sharp duplicate
7) in excess

Total count: 21 items.

winnowing wednesday

to winnow: [transitive]  a) to remove, to get rid of b) to sift or separate c) to blow on to remove the wheat from the chaff

Sifting and separating for the week: 7 items for 7 days.

1) recently passed down to me--pretty, but consensus is "Are you expecting?"
2) great film--watched twice--to the White Elephant stash it goes
3) old prescription--off to the Lion's Club--thanks Colleen for the reminder!
4) works well, but Minou upgraded to an industrial one for his business--why keep two?
5) interesting wrap that Da left-- pretty, but I probably won't wear it, so someone else can enjoy
6) passed down, don't fit...(love those recycled clothing bags from friends though)
7) classic, but can borrow from library

Because I love open space. And less to clean & tidy.

winnowing wednesday

to winnow: [transitive] a) to remove, to get rid of  b) to sift or separate c) to blow on to remove the wheat from the chaff

Sifting and separating for the week: 7 items for 7 days.

1) passed down to me--still haven't read--will borrow from library
2) decorative, but in 3 months we have not drawn still-lifes, and missing the lid
3) useful but have other, more solid bags
4) 1993 was the year I studied in Beijing and used this
5) not sure where this came from...I did used to make quilts
6) passed down to me--watched once--will go to next year's White Elephant gift exchange
7) doesn't fit!

100 Today

sunflower tower

Today marks my 100th blog post!
Rather exciting.

ripening alley plums

To celebrate the occasion properly, I thought I would give you all a little glimpse into a topic that has been occupying my thoughts for many waking leisure hours: minimalist-ish living.

(Also, full disclosure: I am feeling a little sad today, really missing my family far away. I'm so happy for all the adventures they are having, yet feel very distant, and truth be told, a little left out from their overseas experiences. However, I promised myself before they left that I would not mope. So, in the interest of keeping the blues at bay, I'm trying to focus on thoughts and activities that are positive and somehow enhance my life & theirs...)

neon calendula--it really is!

I have been lately loving the feeling of space in our little home. I love to think of space as a positive, full of possibility. It feels like there is ample room to dream, write, stretch, dance, draw, spread out a puzzle, cook, wrestle, read, drink coffee, watch a movie, snuggle up...whatever it is you want to do. When I walk into our home and see the airy space, it feels light and free. This sensation has kept me going on my quest to see what else I can live without, or put more positively, to find out how much is just enough for me and my family.

For inspiration, I have been reading a wonderful book (I checked it out from my public library--request it from yours if they don't have it!) by Francine Jay, aka Miss Minimalist, titled "The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Living Guide". The first part is full of the philosophy of minimalist living, the second a guide to the STREAMLINE method of clearing your space, and the third, which I'm just starting,  is a practical room-by-room plan.

This process has already led me to pare down a lot, over the last few years, and I must confess that as someone who does not love to clean, it has made the process of housekeeping a lot easier. But more that that, it feels better...more spacious, more organized, less chaotic. Although I still have a long way to go, I can find things more easily, because they have designated homes. It's easier to clean up for the same reason, as well as not having as much to pick up before sweeping and mopping. Having just the amount of linens and towels needed makes a lot less laundry (hooray!). And having only clothes that actually fit and look good on each family member makes it so much easier to find something to wear in the morning.

We have made a lot of progress. Although I think this process has made my family nervous at times, they have seen that I respect their individual possessions and I think they have benefitted from the increased feeling of calm and organization. (I invite them to weigh in with comments!)

For me, among the items that have been most difficult to let go of are things from my kids' baby days. Considering the age of my boys, we still have a surprising amount of baby and toddler paraphernalia (clothing, blankets, books, toys...) lingering around our home. Minou and I are equally sentimental on this point, which doesn't help (I'm usually much less sentimental about objects). I rationalize it by the times that we have young friends over and pull out the books and toys (which happens at least several times a year), or by thinking that if/when the boys have kids of their own, they might want those adorable little shoes and coats....and certainly the Playmobils...Maybe, maybe not, but for the moment they stay.

What I am looking forward to clearing right now, however, are several large items of furniture that will create significantly more empty floor space. At one point, we had two couches in our little living room. It was very cozy, and avoided overcrowding and brotherly elbowing while watching movies, but it grew a little claustrophobic over time. Since the futon couch can double as a bed, I want to keep it for out of town guests. The red couch, on it's way out the door, made a brief stop in the kitchen during the process of furniture rearranging. And somehow it made a good impression there, and was granted temporary permission to stay, with the excuse that it gave our kitchen an artsy coffee-house feel. It was a little awkward for eating, however; the chin of whoever was seated there just barely cleared the table. So eventually the table moved into the living room, and the couch stayed in the kitchen.

And there it's been for the last two or three months. I'm tired of it. Mostly the cats use it. The couch is so very comfortable, great for naps and sinking down into, but also incredibly dusty and cat-hairish and tends to consume many objects in its ravenous cushions. Once it moves along, the table can return to the kitchen....



...and then, just imagine all the glorious space that will be ours for whatever!

(Ignore that ugly exercise bike--it's on temporary loan for virtuous solo movie-watching). I think I have finally come around to loving the white tiles Minou wanted and I protested adamantly against. We ended up getting them because of a great sale. While they are rarely very clean, they do make the room look light and so much bigger.

At any rate, I will save the next piece of furniture earmarked for passing along for another day's post. I'm going to go and see if I can rustle up a little help and a truck to take Dusty Red to my local Goodwill donation center. I want the house to be beautiful and feel full of possibility for when my boys return.

How about you? Do you have anything that you don't use much, but find hard to part with, or something that mysteriously stopped and stayed on its way out the door?