The boy and I went through his clothes a week ago to simplify his life and he ended up with three outfits plus his Sunday suit that is old and disgusting and that he refuses to grow out of so I can buy him a new one.

The girls were so jealous that they made me go through their clothes with them today.  They weren’t quite as efficient as the boy (mainly because I wouldn’t let them) but we narrowed things down quite a bit.  We got rid of about three laundry baskets full of clothes from their closet and from storage.  I don’t know how clothing multiplies so quickly but we are going to put a stop to it from here on out.  My ten year old pleaded with me, “Please do not buy me any more clothes.  Please.”  Fine.  I won’t. She said she wanted one dress for Church and one skirt/shirt which was exactly my idea.  She also tried to convince me that she and her younger sister could share skirts.  Being five years apart it doesn’t really work but it was a nice idea.  And just so you know my girls beg for new clothes all the time and I’m constantly saying no so don’t think this whole thing was all my fault.  I thought I was being responsible and conservative with our clothes until we all figured out we were minimalists.

I’m dying to organize my own closet but that will have to wait till I have this baby.  I’m surviving with only three maternity shirts by the way.  It’s a good thing all my old t-shirts are very stretchy and they get me through the days we stay at home.

Shoes

Some of us have been discussing shoes on Facebook.  How many does one child really need?  I narrowed it down to…

1. one pair of church shoes
2. one pair of washable play shoes
3. one pair of cowboy boots for the “farm”
4. one pair of snow boots
5. one pair of mud boots (I didn’t want to include this one but my children said it was necessary and they are probably right.)

Five pairs of footwear for one person??  That’s soon going to be 35 pairs of shoes in one house! What card carrying minimalist would stand for it?  One friend suggested that they possibly could have just one pair of shoes.

Cowboy boots.

The pioneers did it.  They wore them rain or shine and polished them up for Church on Sunday.  I tried it with my girls and had them polish their boots for church last week.  This week when I suggested it again they whined and complained that they were tired of wearing their boots to church because they had wore them, you know, ONE whole time in a row.  My son doesn’t own a pair of cowboy boots but he has grown out of his Sunday shoes so I will be buying him a black pair of cowboy boots to replace them.

In the mean time I have narrowed their shoes down to the above five.  I’m embarrassed to say I had to get rid of a lot of shoes.

Back to Clothes

I have had a revelation about how to simplify our clothes.  You know how children will put shorts on when it’s below zero outside and they will wear long jeans and long sleeve shirts when it’s 100 degrees and never complain that they’re hot or cold? Why not work with that?

My ten year old wears her jeans and cowboy boots every day to ride her horse.  When we’re on our way to park day with friends and I tell her it’s hot outside and she should change into shorts she says, “I’ve been wearing these clothes all day outside.  Why should I change now?”  She’s obviously a lot smarter than me so I have stopped arguing with her.

Here’s my idea.  Buy fall clothes and let them wear them year round.  If they don’t care then why should I?  They’re better protected from the sun and scrapes, I don’t have to worry about finding modest/long shorts for the girls, we saved half our clothing budget, they wore their clothes out before they grew out of them, and we didn’t have boxes of out of season clothes sitting in storage.  Can you think of any reason not to go this route?  I can’t.

Long Sleeve Shirts, Long Pants and Cowboy Boots

So what’s the obvious answer to a minimalist wardrobe?

Dress like hillbillies.

Or homeschoolers.

Whatever.

P.S.  My children are all wearing black socks now since they only wear socks with their boots so you can’t see them anyway.  I had to buy the girls’ socks in the boy’s section but they work.  No more dirty white socks at our house.  Just dirty black socks.

P.S.S.

My husband sent me this video that was too funny not to share.

My goal was to build our home as small as possible while still having everything I thought we needed, to spend money on important things and not spend money on unimportant things.  The only problem is that I have changed a lot in the last 6 years since I designed it and our family has also changed.

When we built this house…

• We had three children and we weren’t having any more.  In just a few more months we will have five.
• I wanted room for all my stuff.  Now I don’t have any stuff.
• I wanted room for hobbies.  Now I don’t care about hobbies.
• I compared my “small” with everyone else’s “big”.  Now the old “small” is the new “way too big”.
• I used to try to get organized.  Now I’m trying to minimize.

But see?  Even the minimizing has changed in only the last few months so you really can’t plan for all the changes you will make when you are designing a house.  You can only do the best you can.

The Tiny House

Even uncluttered my house is a burden.  It’s a lot for the children and I to keep clean and it’s a lot of repairs for Sailor to worry about because there is ALWAYS something to repair.  Always.

Most people said they felt claustrophobic just watching the video of the Tiny House.  I did too of course but if it were just me, I could definitely live in a house that small.  The point of the tiny house is that you aren’t going to spend all your time there though.  There is a whole world out there to explore and I don’t have to clean it!  It’s kind of the like not grass.  Why does everyone think their yards need to look like a city park with huge expanses of grass that takes so much time, effort and money to take care of?  Do you know how often I see people outside enjoying their lawns?  NEVER!  If you want to run around on some grass a few times a year, go to a city park where at least you didn’t have to do any of the work and you can pretend it was free.  (Of course that doesn’t mean I want to live with weeds forever but when I get a yard I will be planting useful things like trees and flowers and vegetables.)

Same thing with space.  Why do people think they need so much indoor space when they’re hardly ever home anyway?  Even stay at home moms seem to be out of the house more than they are in these days.  Why not save yourself the expense and the upkeep and just live in a smaller house?

Charlotte Mason says not to make your house so comfortable that you never want to leave it to go outside.  I think that has been my problem all these years and why I’m such a homebody.  Houses are too dang comfortable!

What I did Right

This won’t be relevant to most of my readers unless you are building or remodeling a house but I had someone ask me what I liked about my house and what I would have done differently.  For the record, here is my list.

• I thought I was being conservative by only putting in 2 1/2 baths.  Now I find that very extravagant and wish we had 1 1/2.  I know.  Big difference. But it is when you’re cleaning toilets.
• Big bathrooms and smaller bedrooms which I like because our bedrooms don’t have anything in them except beds and I like having bathrooms that are big enough to move around in.  Especially in my current condition (pregnant).
• Wall mounted toilets so it’s easy to clean the floor under them. Love that.  Didn’t love the price and the ineptitude of the installers.
• Wood floors.  They are easy to clean, potty train a two year old, I don’t have to worry about the toxic fire retardant in the carpets.  I’m getting rid of the beds and upholstered furniture next by the way.  Sailor doesn’t believe me.
• Our shower is all enclosed so it’s always toasty warm in it. Love that too except that now we stay in the shower MUCH too long.
• I put an industrial sink in my kitchen which I LOVE and it’s going to be hard to ever live without.
• Windows in my kitchen instead of upper cabinets with a hutch on one wall for dishes.
• Lower cabinets are almost all drawers.  Not the dumb kind that you have to open a cupboard to get to either.  Just nice big drawers.
• I have a big pantry for all my food and dish storage and I have a deep freeze in there but I want to replace it with another fridge instead because we eat so much produce.  Except that would be buying more stuff.
• The only thing I thought about doing but didn’t and now I regret is building a laundry/dressing room/bathroom so we don’t have to have any clothes in the bedrooms and there would be an outside door so I could hang laundry in the sunshine.
• I do have a door in my laundry room/bathroom now but alas no patio for a drying rack or clothes line to hang my clothes on so I have to hang them to dry them indoors.  No, I don’t use a dryer.  Just another one of my quirks.
• I designed it so we come in from the garage into the same entry as the front door so there is only one pile of shoes and one mess. Love.
• I have a tiny studio/office/sewing room right off the kitchen so I can use the kitchen island to cut out on and I can work while I’m cooking or what not.  And when I say tiny, I mean tiny.  It’s smaller than my bathroom but I can still turn around in it in my present condition.
• There is another door on the front porch that goes directly to the library so if I have visitors I can take them right in there without them seeing my house or family that might be getting ready for bed, etc. That is where my study group meets. It’s very nice.
• I love my sun room/playroom that is just off the dining room, kitchen.  If I had to choose just one room to live in, that would be it.  Some day when the brick floor is sealed I will use it and love it even more.
• Wood floors throughout the house.
• Ceiling fans in almost every room including bathrooms.  We can go almost all year without using the air conditioner and it keeps me cool in the bathroom when I’m doing all the girl’s hair.
• Lots of glass and French doors.  They give us lots of natural light but they have a down side that I never considered.  You have to clean them!

I pictures of almost every corner of my house so you are welcome to explore the room categories if you want but I’m not going to take time to find and link to them.

What Would I Do Differently?

“After reading your post on Stuff Costs Money, I am wondering what you would do different about buying land and building a house?”

• Live in a tent or someone’s basement while we saved enough money to pay cash for land.
• Buy a partially wooded lot next to a little river or brook.  I didn’t get trees or a brook this time.
• After we bought the land, live in an RV on it.
• We don’t need a lot of space because we can mostly live outside.
• Build a tree house for the children to play in when it’s wet and cold.
• We’d put a cot in it and use it for a guest house.  Wouldn’t you love to stay over?
• Build a little, tiny house with my husband doing all the work himself.
• No matter how many years it took.
• And knowing my husband it would take a lot because he’s a perfectionist.
• So it would be a tiny, perfect house.
• My children would help every step of the way.
• We would pay for everything with cash.
• If we didn’t have the cash then we would wait till we did.
• We would never be in debt for anything.
• We would have everything we needed.
• The perfect life.
• Sigh.

P.S.

I wrote this post months ago and since I promised it for a reader I thought I’d better get it published.  No, I’m not blogging again.  In fact my husband and I have decided to disconnect our internet and see how we like it.  That doesn’t mean I will never blog again.  (We’re getting cell phones with internet so we won’t be completely off line.)  We’ll just say I’m taking a break for a while.

I happen to be 30 weeks pregnant today.  Yay!  It’s going to be a long 10-12 weeks before I give birth but I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I am very big for 30 weeks so maybe we’ll have another 10 pound baby but I’m not getting my hopes up after our last disappointing 8.8 pounder.  It’s a good thing she’s so sweet and we like her in spite of her deficiencies.  Speaking of “she”.  No, we don’t know if this baby is a girl or a boy.  We always wait to find out.  We have one boy and three girls so we’re pretty much planning on another girl but you can make your own guesses.

Thank you for all your kind emails of support!  You can keep up with me a bit on Twitter or Facebook if you are so inclined.  I hope you had a good summer.  I love having our cool evenings back again so we can sleep with the windows open.  Take care.

The bad news is that I’m not blogging.

I do want to post some kind of an update for those of you who may be worried about us.  I just have to find time to do that.  Until then you may know that we are all more than fine and well.  Life is good.

Talk to you soon(ish).

I think I mentioned briefly back in March that a friend of mine came to visit for a week.  I was six weeks pregnant and just starting my brief bout of morning sickness plus I had some kind of virus so I was not feeling good.  We both had a couple children that were sick as well so we had a wild week taking care of sick people, snowmobiling, and organizing.

I tried to tell her I was too sick to organize but she was thoroughly disgusted with the sate of things in what I thought was my clean house.  Apparently the standard of clean is much higher in other parts of the US than they are here in Utah.  I guess what Utahns think is minimalism is simple clean to everyone else.  Who knew?

We started in the pantry and by we I mean me, while she sat on a stool holding three sick babies and demanding that I get rid of things.  I got rid of everything I could possibly part with and then we moved down to the freezing cold basement.  As long as I kept moving and wore my sub zero winter clothes and didn’t think about how sick I was I was fine.

We went through all the boxes of plastic junk that I have been dragging down to my basement for the last year (trying to collect all the pieces before I gave things away) along with other boxes of pure garbage that I didn’t want upstairs.  When I couldn’t decide what to do with things I just put them in the basement so I didn’t have to think about them.  At some point though the basement was piled so high that I had to start thinking about it and I was happy to have someone to hold my hand through it.  Friends are nice for times like that and if you ever need someone to organize your house you should definitely hire my friend.  She is the best of the best of the best at organizing.

We hardly made a dent in the mess but it was a start and as you know I’ve made a lot more progress since then.  So much that my children now think the basement is their own personal skate park.

But these are not pictures of my pantry after my friend and I were finished with it.  Oh no.  These are pictures of what my pantry looks like today after getting rid of another half of all the dishes and junk in there.

If my friend had told me that I was a minimalist back then we could have cleaned the whole thing out in March, but no.  Everyone kept it a secret from me till I discovered it for myself.  Live and learn.

See the pot rack?  Empty.

See the top of the shelves and the freezer?  Clean.

See the floor?  No you can’t but I had buckets of grains piled next to both walls.  I cleared out so much stuff that I have room for them on the shelves now.

The bins on the floor are for fruit and vegetables.  They’re looking empty right now because we’re going shopping today.

The big garbage can in the corner is for recycling.

My grain grinder is on the counter next to where we pile mail.  It’s a very complicated system that keeps the mess out of the kitchen.  We pile it and it stays there till Sailor has time to go through it or he needs to pay bills.  Inspiring, isn’t it?

I’m sure I’ll end up taking the pot rack down but I will have to haul it down to the basement if I do it now so it can stay there for a minute till I decide what to do with it.  Maybe I can hang herbs on it to dry.  You know.  When I get a garden some day.

I could have gotten rid of even more pans and cookware if I didn’t think Sailor would have a heart attack.  He likes his cooking gadgets.  Not that he ever has time to cook.

It’s good for now.

What’s Next?

Muscles has been minimalizing his room  so I will help him finish that.  I have some work to do in my bathroom/closet.  Then I guess I’ll go back to the basement.

Can I be finished with this already??  I guess it takes time to organize an entire house but I’m getting tired of the whole thing.  I can’t wait till I can say I’m finished.

I think I will throw a party.

Very minimalist of course.

BYOV

We are experiencing the dawning, sometimes painful realization that stuff, even really cute stuff, in the end is kind of a drag.

As I was tossing papers in my studio the other day I came across an article that I had read in Oprah magazine a few months ago Called Back to Basics.  I don’t normally read magazines (anymore) but this one jumped out at me at the library one day so I made a copy of it and brought it home.  I think it was the first time I was really exposed to this idea of a minimalistic lifestyle.  Interesting but obviously for weirdies.

It’s funny that I’ve come across the article again now that I’m getting rid of so much stuff in my life.  And funny that it only took me four months to get from where these people were weird to where I want to be just like them.

“True, I am one of those Americans whose house is too big for their income. One of those poor schmucks who have to work long hours at jobs they wish they didn’t have just to pay to heat rooms they don’t need. Meanwhile, Kristen, who earns a small salary as an elder caretaker, has cash to spare.”

You can see a photo here of a couple living in a small cabin in Florida with everything they own in a pile in the yard.  It’s a beautiful sight.

“…the very things society teaches us to crave—wealth, status, prestige—can actually lead to persistent feelings of depression and dissatisfaction.  People who pursue intrinsic values—self-acceptance, making the world a better place, helping polar bears—are much happier than people who chase popularity, money, and image.  If you orient your life around personal growth and family and community, you’ll feel better.”

It’s embarrassing how much time I have spent getting rid of all the useless junk I have accumulated in my life.  I was determined to get my basement finished but after reading this article and the 200 Thing Challenge I have to start over upstairs and then I’ll work my way back downstairs again.

“Listen, if there was something I really wanted, I’d do it.  No guilt. Ed Begley Jr. jokes about how this movement isn’t about living under a rock in Topanga. It’s about feeling satisfied, not deprived. About filling up, not emptying out. Our approach is to empower the individual. There isn’t any finger-wagging. This isn’t a high bar. It can vary greatly, depending on your needs. Maybe you stop watching television. Maybe you join a gardening club.”

I have a lot of work to do.  Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with all my free time when I am finished tossing the contents of my house but I haven’t decided yet because I don’t really know what I want to do.  I will have to wait and see when I get there.

The girls and I drove to Park City with a friend on Saturday to watch her family cross the finish line for the 180 mile Ragnar relay that they do every year.

When we got home I was exhausted and hot.  The house looked cluttered from everyone’s comings and goings all day and I didn’t have the energy to deal with it.  It was time to get dinner started but I just wanted to drive somewhere and buy something really bad to eat instead and then sit on the couch for the rest of the evening.  When I pictured how grumpy everyone would be if I actually went through with this plan I was able to force myself to get up and start cleaning, unpacking our lunch, clearing off the island, directing children to fold laundry and put dishes away.  I made dinner and while it was cooking I took a few minutes to clear some more clutter.  I hauled an entire shelf full of magazines, out to the burn pile.

I have no idea why I had a shelf full of magazines but I probably thought they were going to inspire me to some sort of crafting, decorating bliss.  Now that I don’t want that kind of bliss in my life they were easy to toss.  The stupid thing is that I haven’t read a magazine for years but I had a cheap subscription to BHG and had never gotten around to canceling it because I didn’t know how.  I sat down while the veggies were steaming and it took me three minutes to do it online.

I’m an idiot. I just wanted you to know that.

I went to bed early with a headache but the house was clean, the family fed a healthy dinner, and I had one less thing to worry about in my life.  What am I going to do when all the shelves in my house are empty?  I guess I will have to start tossing furniture.

And storage containers.

I’m going to get rid of them.  I know I will.  Just give me a minute.

I love all your comments about how you are getting your homes cleaned out too.  I have a good friend that I have been brainwashing into this minimalist idea so she has been doing it with me.  We text each other every day, “Help me get rid of these jeans I’m never going to wear!  How many pairs of scissors do I really need?”  It’s fun to see our progress and cheer each other on.

We can do this!!

Pregnancy Diet

I guess I didn’t make myself clear in my post about morning sickness.  The reason I wasn’t as sick with this pregnancy was because I have been drinking green smoothies and eating healthy for the last two years, not because I’m drinking smoothies during my pregnancy.  You have to get healthy BEFORE you get pregnant.  That’s the trick.  I haven’t eaten any different during this pregnancy than I was eating before.  Except that maybe I have been eating a little worse than usual because I’m having horrible cravings!!

Meal Planning

I’ve always been completely frustrated and overwhelmed by meal preparation.  I like to cook but I don’t like to figure out what to cook.  I’ve tried making meal plans because they seem to work for other people but they never worked for me.  It seems like as soon as I make something more than twice my family is tired of it.  I would need 365 different recipes to make them happy.

I have always known that it’s my fault that they’re all spoiled brats.  We ate out too often, where they could choose from a variety of gourmet foods.  My children have never been the type to order a hot dog or macaroni cheese from the kid’s menu.  Oh no.  They wanted the BBQ ribs or the Cajun chicken pasta.

Laying Down the Law

What I didn’t know was that I was contributing to their snobbery at home by making my own gourmet meals far too often.  Plus when they were really little I was still feeding my children cold cereal so if they didn’t want dinner then I would just give them a bowl of cereal.  It didn’t take long for them to start refusing everything I made because they would always rather have the cold cereal.

Now the rule is that they can eat what I make or they can wait till the next meal.  It used to be really hard for me to do that but after reading about how good it is for the body to fast regularly I figured out that it wasn’t going to kill them and might actually do them good.  It’s my job to make the food and it’s their job to eat it.  I don’t coerce or beg or punish.  They eat or they don’t.

Hungry Family

I have really been pondering this lately.  Why do meals have to be so difficult?  There has to be an easy way to feed my family healthy food and I was determined to figure it out.

A couple months ago we checked out Hungry Planet: What the World Eats from the library which my older children poured over.  The both read the entire thing from cover to cover and were fascinated by the way people around the world ate.  You can watch a short video about it to get the idea.  Hungry Planet

It is really disgusting to see how much processed food and drink people consume but I was most struck by a family of 12 from Bhutan that spends $5 a week on food.  They grow their own rice and hot peppers that they eat with every meal.  They eat 70 pounds of rice a week!  They buy a few other vegetables to eat with it and a few times a year someone in the village will kill an animal and share it with all the families.

I’m not saying they have the healthiest diet in the world but it is simple and they are grateful for it.  If most people throughout history have lived on very simple diets then why do we need gourmet?  It’s like toys.  The more you have and the fancier they are the less children will play with them.  Even though we have been eating a lot healthier these last two years I still had a lot of changing to do.  Millions of people in the world eat rice for every meal, or some other such staple.  I don’t want to eat rice for every meal but I came up with my own plan.

The Plan

Every Sunday we would eat the same thing, every Monday we would eat the same thing and so forth.  I was sure this would work.  One day we had baked potatoes with steamed and raw veggies on them.  Another day we had veggie stir fry.  Another day we had Mexican salad.  Another day we had veggie soup.  It was simple.  It had to work.

Things went great for two weeks.  My children ate the food without complaining.  It was wonderful knowing what I would make every night for dinner.  But then things went terribly wrong.  I got tired of the stir fry.  We all did.  One night we had to choke it down and I knew my plan wasn’t going to work.  We were going to get tired of this food and then what?  But here is the funny thing.  We never got tired of the baked potatoes.  We never got tired of the soup.  Why?

The New Plan

It was because the soup and the potatoes were plain and the stir fry was so flavorful.  I had to try something new.  I cut out all the fancy, flavorful meals and started serving my children vegetables, fruits and grains.  That’s it.

Guess what?

They love it.  They don’t complain.  They sit at the table and eat and eat and eat.  I think my five year old daughter ate six steamed potatoes at dinner last night.  We use some salt and pepper, hot sauce and various homemade salad dressing but other than that everything is simple.  The plainer the better.

For those of you who don’t already know.  We are flexi-vegans meaning we are vegans most of the time and when we feel like it.  We also try not to eat wheat for my daughter’s sake.  She has been tested negative for wheat allergies and gluten intolerance but she feels better when she doesn’t eat wheat.

Tip - We always eat our green salad before anything else goes on the table.  My children have learned to love salad so much that they will eat three or four servings of it with each meal.  More tips on teaching children to eat vegetables.

Dinner = cooked vegetables, a grain and a salad.  I steam, or roast in the oven, a couple different vegetables like potatoes, squash, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, etc.  I serve it with a lettuce or cabbage salad and a grain like rice or homemade sour dough pitas.  Sometimes I will shred some root vegetables, mix in some buckwheat flour, salt and pepper and fry them in coconut oil.  Sometimes I will make a veggie soup.

Lunch = We try to make extra dinner the night before so we can eat it left over for lunch along with some raw vegetables.  When there is soup left over we leave it in the post and put it in the fridge so we just have to pull it out and heat it up.  The steamed veggies I serve cold and then I chop up various vegetables that we eat raw.  Try jicama, yams, cabbage, corn on the cob (yes, raw) and bell peppers for something new.  If there is salad left over we eat that or chop up some more lettuce.

Lunches to go = same as lunch at the house.  I fill my cooler bag full of cooked and washed raw veggies, fruit and salad.  I also take paper plates, forks, a vegetable peeler, a sharp knife, and a small cutting board to cut up the raw vegetables.  I don’t cut them up before we leave because then I would have to put them in containers or bags.  This way I cut them, we eat them, we’re done.  If I was really cool I would stop using paper plates but I’m not there yet.

Dessert and Snacks = fruit.  Watermelon, grapes, pineapple, apples, etc.

Breakfast = cooked millet (my children’s favorite), oatmeal or quinoa (my favorite) with sliced bananas, dried fruit or fruit puree with rice, almond or sesame milk on top.  Buckwheat pancakes once a week for a treat.

Salad Dressing Recipes

My basic honey vinaigrette is 1 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup any vinegar, 1/2 cup honey.

Italian – vinaigrette 1 cup olive oil, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, 2 tbl honey, dash salt, pepper, oregano, basil.  If I want a creamy Italian I add 1/4 cup of cashews and blend on high in the blender until smooth.

“Ranch” – 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds, 1 cup water plus or minus depending how thick you want it, juice of one lemon, 1-2 cloves of garlic, dash salt, pepper, any seasonings you want.  If I’m serving it on veggie taco salad I mix some salsa with it and you seriously can’t tell it is a vegan dressing.  This also makes a great veggie or cracker dip and we like to dip pizza in it too or serve it on veggie fajitas instead of sour cream.

Breakfast Recipes

Millet – 4 cups water to 1 cup millet, boil, cover and simmer on low for 30 minutes

Quinoa – 2 cups water to 1 cup quinoa, boil, cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes

Fruit puree – soaked prunes (to sweeten) blended with apples, pears or other fruit.  My children love this.

Almond Milk – blend one cup almonds (best if soaked in water over night or for at least one hour and drained) with 4-8 cups of water depending on how strong you like it. I like it more diluted and I do not strain it.  Blend with dates to sweeten naturally.  Do the same thing for sesame milk.  Sesame milk can be bitter so look for hulled seeds.

Photo

This is currently our favorite dish.  Steamed spaghetti squash, add pasta sauce and a little cheese and broil in the oven to melt.  I bought cheese for a party but normally we don’t have cheese in the house so we eat the squash without and still love it.  The steamed asparagus was also a special treat that we picked fresh from the farm.  Normally we would have steamed or roasted potatoes and other root veggies with something like this.  Don’t forget the green salad.

A reader said, “I ran across this quote the other day and it reminded me of you.”

“You create simplicity by chipping away at the unreal, the useless, and the meaninglessness until, like Michaelangelo’s David, you are left with a life that is breathtakingly beautiful.”

– Vicki Robin

It’s perfect!  The more I get rid of in my life the more real and beautiful my life gets.  I can’t tell you how much fun I’m having.  Getting rid of more and more stuff makes me happy.  The stress of not living with it piled around me makes me happy.  The unlimited possibilities of life makes me happy.

This face makes me happy.

See the joy?  You don’t get that from hours in front of the television watching Disney movies.  I can’t believe we used to have them in our home.  I was at someone’s home last week where the children were watching movies all day long and it made me sick to my stomach.  As I passed by and watched for a few seconds I thought you literally have to be brain damaged to think that is entertaining or that it brings any meaning to life.  We used to be brain damaged.

Not anymore.

Now we are spending the day at the lake with friends.  We had so much fun on Monday that I didn’t get a single picture.  Just imagine big kids jumping off the dock and little kids happily digging in the mud for hours and hours.

Now we are picking ripe strawberries.  Some of them actually found their way into our baskets.

And we picked asparagus.  I ate nothing but strawberries and asparagus for an entire day, made possible by my sweet and generous friend that took us to her family’s farm yesterday.  (This is another friend I met from my blog.  I have the best readers!)  Then she took me home to rest on her couch and serve me cold drinks because apparently bending up and down over and over makes pregnant women motion sick.  I was pathetic.

Work First

We are having fun playing but we are also having fun working.  I haven’t been down to my basement since I posted about the 100 Thing Challenge  a few days ago because I want a new level of clean in my life.  I thought my house was pretty organized but it’s really not.  I still have too much stuff!!

On Monday I moved one of my four sewing machines (a big industrial machine) out of my studio and I started going through every shelf and scrap of paper I could find.  I want it out!!  I’m going to see if I can get my studio down to 100 things.  I know I’m going to have to group some things together like thread and pins and fabric, etc.  But how many pairs of scissors do I really need?

When I’m finished maybe I will finally show you what my studio looks like.

Wish me luck.

A question from a reader…

“How did you get so many followers on your blog? Was it a slow process over time or did you do something or things that you think really helped it grow?”

I feel honored that anyone reads my blog considering my own mother doesn’t even read it unless my Dad tells her to.  Thanks Dad!  Now that I think about it no one in my family reads my blog except my Dad and my husband who didn’t start reading it till just a few years ago and he only reads it for the comments.  Lovely.  I don’t have a huge following but here is how I think I got the one I do have.

• Have an odd title like, “The Lazy Organizer”, that makes people want to click on it.  But not too odd.  You know what I mean.
• Leave somewhat interesting, or obnoxious in my case, comments on other people’s blogs.  If your mother reads my comments on your blog she won’t like me.
• Lots of pictures, the better the better.  We are a very visual society.  We like pictures.
• Write short concise posts.
• Just kidding.  I don’t really know how to do that.
• People do seem to like bullet points though.
• Act like a know it all that doesn’t really know anything.
• I think that’s what everyone loves best about me.

Half way through my blogging career I figured out that I could try to make my blog interesting so I found blogs I liked to read and I copied some of the things they did, while keeping my own personality of course.  I started commenting on other blogs.  People started linking to me and that was that.  I think if I had any writing skills or were to stick to just one topic I might have a bigger following but I’m all over the place.  I’m guessing my readers are as ADHD as I am.  Or they like watching train wrecks as my good friend described me.  In the nicest way possible of course.

My Computer Addiction

There is one big problem with my plan for overcoming my computer addiction.  I said I was only going to get on the computer in the morning until 7:30 but since I’m not sleeping at night these days I am rarely out of bed before 8:00.  Except for this morning when I woke up at 4:30 and just stayed up and tried to get caught up on emails and then I was back in bed for a nap at 8:00.  Luckily Church doesn’t start till 11:00.  Then there was the other night when I went to bed at 7:00 p.m. and slept like a rock until 7:00 a.m.  No matter what, my schedule is messed up, so I just have to deal with it the best I can until I have the baby and it gets even worse.

See?  I should have rewritten that last paragraph to make it more concise.

My point is that I either don’t get any computer time or I have to use the computer during the n@ughty hours like right now when I should be getting ready for bed to try to get some sleep.

100 Blogs

Another thing I accomplished early this morning was to organize my feed reader.  I don’t know how many blogs I had in it when I started but when I thought to look I was down to 200.  I got rid of as many blogs as I possibly could at 150 and then I started thinking about the 100 Thing Challenge and decided that I could only have 100 blogs in my reader.  That’s when I had to get ruthless.  At 115 it got really painful but I pushed through.  100!!

Of course some day when I have all the answers to life, the universe, and everything in it, I will give up blog reading all together but for now if I add a new minimalist or sailing blog I have to delete another blog so it stays at 100.

You probably already know this but I never read all those blogs I was subscribed to.  There are really only a few blogs I check regularly and the rest just piled up.  Kind of like the junk in my basement which I can’t wait to get back to tomorrow.

Photos

Sneaking in some extra free time before bed.

Sewing Supplies

I lied about my sewing supplies.  Again.  I found some more boxes and bags of fabric.  I seriously don’t know where this stuff comes from but I think I have it all now.  I really didn’t think I had that bit of a problem but apparently I did.  I really wanted to get down to only the sewing supplies that will fit in my tiny studio and maybe two boxes of fabric in the basement but I don’t know if I can do it.  I stood and looked at a pile of polar fleece yesterday for a good ten minutes before I finally walked away.  I couldn’t get rid of it.

I will try again tomorrow.

Storage Containers

I have all my empty containers stacked in the basement because the thought of getting rid of them gives me a panic attack.  Why is it that I don’t want the stuff but I want the containers to put it in?  I am going to keep them until I am finished with this latest organizing spree, see what I actually end up using, and then decide what to do with the rest of it.

Cards

Once I decided that I do not make cards anymore then I was able to get rid of all my card making supplies.  That was easy.  But I kept a box of cards that I’d already made so I can use them.  You know.  Because I haven’t used them in six years so I’m definitely going to use them now. Not.

I think my Mother will really like my box of homemade cards and who knows but she may actually use them.  With the cards are also going my stash of gift bags.  I don’t buy gift bags but I save them when people give them to me so I can re-use them.  I don’t need them.  I will talk more about gift giving later if I get around to it.

The Pit

My basement is looking pretty good these days.  There is so much empty space now that my children all go down there every morning and roller blade till I drag myself out of bed.  They think their lives just got a lot more exciting and I think the house is so dang quiet that I’m sleeping in WAY too late.  When I’m pregnant I do this annoying thing where I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t sleep.

Kind of like now which is why I’m blogging at 3:00 a.m.

Good night.

P.S.

I’m considering all of your thoughtful comments about my up and coming blog change.  Sailor said not to rush into anything so I’ll keep thinking about it for a little while and let you know.  Thank you for your help!

I’m done with this blog.

I don’t want to stop blogging but I need a new identity. I was trying to think of a new name the other night.  Does anyone have any ideas for me?

Being a flexi-minimalist I really don’t want to have ads on my blog but when I upgraded to the new wordpress version a couple months ago it messed up my widgets and now I can’t take the ads off or change anything. I tried using a new template as you can see but I still can’t change my widgets.  So now I have really messed things up.

Help!