Tag Archives: minimalism

Am I a minimalist??

Posted in books, California, Death, decluttering, home stuff, simple foods, simplicity, Uncategorized by

After reading the latest book,

I’m pretty sure that’s a spoof on her ‘author’ moniker.??

I wondered what I still had that was not really worth keeping. Or was it now something no longer needed? I’ve gone through a lot of shelves, drawers, closet ( we only have one closet) and took a hard look at things. Some things are left to deal with later, but a great deal was eliminated.

The author asks, “How do you want your home to ‘feel?’ “and then this is your why. I really want things to be simplified. It’s that simple. I want things to be uncomplicated and simple. Simple meals, simple house chores, simple maintaining the house, etc.

One of her tidbits was to go around your house and identify what irritates you or bugs you, and toss or throw them in the goodwill box. I like that idea.

This is part of the latest pile. 😦

Of course, having my husband just die is a motivator. Some of the things to let go of are those that I have no use for. Half-used notepads, a zillion pens, old T-shirts. ( I have saved some of his T-shirts like Grateful Dead, for now. I don’t know how I’ll feel in 6 months. Here I thought we had really prepared for his passing by getting rid of things, but honestly, it’s a shock what’s there. We have been on our minimalism journey for over 15 years, and here I am scratching my head going”why”?

As I’ve always contended, life is about change and trying to be in the season of your life as it is. I’ve never been here before, so I have to make the changes.

I’m not planning on canning in the near future, for example. So I don’t need a bizillion canning jars. I’ve given away on our Pay it forward group over 3 dozen jars. Now, of course, I’m holding back getting rid of my water canner and my All-American. Why? I don’t know, except I like canning, and I still might in the future. That is too early to tell, because this year, with Barclay dying, we didn’t have any garden. So time will tell on this one.

Even the yard stuff has been a lot. My son has done 3 trips to the dump already. And we still have at least 2 more that are mostly old wood. All this should have been done long before now. We’ve lived here 30 years, and well, stuff does accumulate, especially old wood from projects, scrap metal, old coolers, etc. I’m seriously thinking of hiring someone who does junk to get rid of it.

I suppose all things change as our attitude, circumstances, and perspective change. I’m glad mine is continuing to evolve and change with my current circumstances. I just wish Barclay were here to do this with me. 😦

How Flylady and decluttering changed my life.

Posted in decluttering, Flylady, home stuff, minimalism, simplicity, Uncategorized, White space by

First a comment about Flylady. When I started with FL, there was none of the bat-shit crazy stuff she spouts today. She never mentioned religion per se or anything remotely conspiracy-related. Of course, this was back in 2010 or so and things weren’t quite as crazy as they are now. So if you happen to go to her channel be ready to see a wall of weird crosses behind her etc. I only go to the website which is now handled by someone else. I do that only to check in to what the zone is.

So without further ado, FL did change my life when I was overwhelmed with everything. Personally, when I see Youtubers like Minimal Mom, Shannon Torres, etc, I can see their need for some control in their lives, and decluttering and minimalism work for them. I felt the same.

By the time I was diagnosed with myeloma in 2005, I was heavy into collecting everything mid-century. I was doing craft fairs to sell stuff and always on the hunt for Life magazines, collectibles, etc. So after my diagnosis and subsequent year of treatment, everything came to a halt. Our small house was packed to the gills and messy. It was always clean but there was just too. much. stuff.

I think it was around 2010 that I stumbled upon FL. I wasn’t so much into minimalism at that time but FL’s plan included decluttering and getting rid of excess. I think the most valuable thing for me was her zone concept and cleaning your house by zones. I still do that today although it is modified to fit what I need. I would highly recommend the zone method as every 5 weeks you then deep clean the one zone. If your house is bigger with more bedrooms you would need to add some zones. So the zone concept really changed how I kept up with the house and cleaned.

In addition, her daily tasks really kept me focused. Daily tasks included clean/clear counters and surfaces, swish and swipe the bathroom, one load of laundry a day, sweep the kitchen floor and keep the sink clear of dishes. I implemented with the whole family, NO dishes in the sink at bedtime.

She is one of the original influencers who coined the 15-minute decluttering time. Basically, do what you can in 15 minutes, use a timer, and then when it’s up you’re done. That is how I started the great decluttering. So much stuff left our house and barn. I gave lots of the more valuable things to a friend who had a big house so it fit in well.

I haven’t missed a thing. I didn’t take pictures of all the stuff and I would recommend you do. It’s a great way to look back and go, oh yeah I remember that.

So, the biggest change was how I began to see our very small house. Since it is just 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, we were always challenged with not enough space. My office area used to be my daughter’s room and my son had the small bedroom. In hindsight I would have done things differently but as said hindsight is always 20/20.

Now I see we have enough room since I got rid of anything that wasn’t serving a purpose or that I/we loved. Honestly, I’d love to get rid of more stuff, mainly furniture but each piece we own is functional. We have to sit somewhere:0

So I went from overwhelmed to organized. Maximalist to minimalist. Compared to die-hard minimalists, I still probably have too much stuff( Catherine Holm , anyone), but hey, it’s my definition of being minimal. Pretty much what you see is what I have. I have very little storage space, so… I mean I do have Christmas stuff, my vintage Halloween, a tiny bit of Easter/Spring but not things unknown in drawers.

All the areas of our small house work for us and I’m very glad that even after 14 years, we’re still trying to ”Pare down to the essence, but don’t remove the poetry” Leonard Koren.

Organizing is not decluttering

Posted in budgeting, California, decluttering, Flylady, home improvement, home stuff, simplicity by

I’ve been on another round of decluttering. I don’t have lots of stuffed areas in my small home but I do have things that I no longer need or find useful. I didn’t make the connection for myself about visual clutter till way into my decluttering journey. Now I realize, that because I’ve always been a visual person, I need to see space around me in my home. That’s also the reason all the rooms of my house, the bathroom excluded, are painted Simple White by Benjamin Moore. I need that continuity.

If you’re just organizing your stuff, you’re really just rearranging stuff that probably needs to go. Moving stuff around doesn’t get rid of it. reI like organizing things using the container method. This method by Dana K White is about keeping only what fits in any container. The rest is decluttered. It’s a good method and very efficient at getting to visually see what you have in any given space. 

This month we took a bunch of things to the Placer Food Bank. Some of this was the ‘pandemic’ food I just knew I would never use but someone else might. Especially all the Mountain House dehydrated food meals that I thought someone homeless could use as they are complete meals. I still have a few random things to give them but I’ll wait till at least it’s a bag full.

We also took a load of ‘nice’ things to the Assistance League thrift. This included 2 pairs of dress-type shoes( Merrells, and Naots), and some other misc. I’ve already got a few more things ready to go including the Food Saver vacuum sealer that I haven’t used since summer and then it was only for frozen corn. I also have the beautiful quilt frame ready to go. I have it on Pay it Forward but so far no takers.

It’s important to reevaluate where you are in life and what things are helping in your space and what things are just in the way or cluttering up your home. I have decluttered pretty extensively since 2011( I checked an old file I had from when I started Flylady). So much has left my home and storage areas but it doesn’t really stop as there’s always something to get rid of. I’m a firm believer that the things I don’t need may benefit someone else. Plus, now being in my 70’s, there’s a whole other level to what I need/want. I need things in my home to be simple and easy to maintain. Plus, there’s the safety factor of how things are. We know we’ll need to change out the tub for just a shower unit and I’m planning on working that into a project for this summer. Since we only have one bathroom, summer will be best because we can use Rubi’s bathroom while we do this. The floor will need to be redone and sink, toilet while we’re at it. Of course, this is going to have to be budgeted for. But what we do know is the tub needs to go for safety.

We still have some boxes of photos to go through. B has been putting some on the cloud to preserve them. I also have gone through these boxes previously and gotten rid of tons of photos that were duplicates, of random nature pictures, and just blurry or strange.

Once the weather changes, I’ll go back out to the barn and clean the restaurant shelves, and decide what to do with the empty bins. There are maybe 8 bins or so. I might take some of the older bins we have and switch to these as they are smaller in size and fit those shelves perfectly. But, we are in a rainy period here in Northern California so it might be a while. The next week is forecast to be raining off and on.

Friday things

Posted in Blood test, budgeting, budgets, California, cancer, Myeloma, Uncategorized by

Overall, it was a low-spend week. Yesterday, I went into Target( the first time in quite a while) as I was looking for extra lights. They had zip. All sold out. I did pick up a few ugly ornaments to add to the ugly ornament tree. I picked up a few kitchen items to give as a Christmas gift for my son’s friend. They like to cook so I thought a few kitchen items would be nice.

Then, before I met my friends for coffee, I went into Safeway as I needed a couple more russets for the latkes. Also, I wanted to get our garbage guy a bottle of wine to add to his gift bag. We don’t do many gifts but I feel he works all year in rain, snow, etc, and deserves a little appreciation. Other than that, Christmas is done.

Today, I’m making a big batch of pizza dough to freeze and then use one for dinner tonight. The recipe I have makes 4 balls of dough and it’s been working out well this way.

I’ll be continuing the low spend into next week too and just do the one Winco shop for the Christmas lasagna ingredients. I’ve stayed off Amazon and that’s saying something!!!

I certainly am feeling better each day but next week starts Cycle 3. The great news is though, my numbers just hit normal. 19.0 . High normal is 19.4. My ratio between kappa and lambda is still a little high but that will eventually drop. In spite of some aspects being harder than I thought it would be( or maybe I just forgot from last time), it’s worth it if Velcade/Dex is doing the work.

Today, we’re going to go out for a while and maybe get lunch out. We’ll see:)

Influencers on YouTube

Posted in California, Uncategorized by

Frugal girl, Kristen, wrote an interesting post about people on YouTube and TikTok ( which I’ve never seen) filming grocery hauls and organizing pantries with lots of clear plastic containers and decanting everything. She got a huge response. It certainly got me thinking about how tired I am of bloggers saying the same thing over and over about minimalism. Who is trying to be an influencer??

There are a number of Youtubers I used to really like for their unique approach and freshness. One of them is Shannon Torres. She lives in So Cal and I liked her vlog to begin with and followed her for quite a while. She used to start each video with” I hope you’re having an amazing day”. I really liked her enthusiasm. But finally, when she started getting to 20K, and 30K followers, it changed ( she no longer says that; it’s much more curated). Now it’s all about 10 things to declutter today or 20 ways to simplify. Now it’s just rehashing over and over. I still go over and check once in a while but not too often.

The same with Scandish Home. When she started out in Portland in a small house, it was really charming and she’s a wonderful cook and homemaker. Then they moved outside of Portland to quite a lovely place but it’s now how to simplify 50 ways or clean 25 ways. Some of it is fun to watch but I’m not sure it’s really all that simple anymore. Granted, this is how she is earning money but ?? I still like watching her, It’s just now with 300 K+ + followers, it seems a bit forced at times. Her editing though is very professional.

I’m not putting these people down in any way. They’re trying to earn a living and like Scandish Home’s vlog is creative and beautifully presented. It does seem though as if in every video she’s buying some new organizing thing from Ikea or rearranging a closet.

It just seems to me everyone is on the bandwagon of minimalism, decluttering, and slow living. I get it but when it’s pounded into the ground maybe it’s time to step back and really simplify by living one’s life and not living it( or fake living it) while making videos.

Maybe I’ve just reached a place where I kind of have incorporated most of that into my life. I do get value from new organizing ideas or new cooking ideas so I like to watch YouTubers do that. Bayley made It is in NZ and she is authentic and does great vlogs. She actually changed her blog from ‘minimom’ which was about being a minimalist with 2 young kids in a very small condominium to her sewing and knitting projects. I really respect her for self-reflecting on the whole minimalism thing and changing her blog.

There’s Benita in Stockholm. She is a true minimalist and lives it too. She has gotten a little more curated in the past year but her apartment and life in Stockholm is so interesting I still like watching. Plus she loves her cat Bonus. Mimi died last year( her tortie cat).

I guess I think many of these YouTube influencers are really in it for the money. At some point, they seem to lose that initial freshness and sharing ideas that do work to repeating the same things over and over.

For instance, ‘The Non-consumer Advocate’ blog has thousands of followers and she still keeps it real and on target with what she advocates. I think that’s a rare thing. We are all so inundated with ideas from all over social media that it can become addictive. It’s easy to start comparing how your own life is to what you see and I certainly do that too. I live in a very small house, it’s not magazine quality. The kitchen certainly isn’t a showcase nor are there any closets except one. Most of the influencers I watch on occasion have VERY fancy houses and the kitchens are spacious with granite or marble counters and everything is perfect. I could easily fall into the trap of comparison.

Fortunately, I’m older and most of that doesn’t affect me ( well, maybe I’d like my kitchen counters redone). Well, I’ll get off the soapbox now and go watch some Youtube. (just kidding)….

10 things that simplified my life and/or what I wish I knew then that I know now!!!

Posted in California, cooking, home stuff, minimalism, Uncategorized, White space by

I’m on this ongoing journey to simplify my life so it’s uncomplicated and streamlined. I truly only want what is useful to me or beautiful.

Hindsight is always 20/20 but still, I think my younger self would have benefited from minimalism, especially with young children. We never bought into keeping up with Jones and for that I’m grateful.

So here are 10 things I think would have helped me then that I do now:

#1. Have a specific routine for morning and evening house resets. I started this with Flylady and the 15-minute rule which is to do what you can in 15 minutes. I use to house clean sporadically usually on Saturdays. Now I swish and swipe the bathroom daily, clean after each meal, do sheets on Monday, and generally do a house tidy every morning. I always clean as I cook so nothing piles up and that’s a game changer.

#2. Whenever I leave a room I look around to see if something needs to go somewhere else. I almost never leave a room without taking something. It could be some paper, or a pen, or a canning jar, but whatever it is I try and move it to where it is supposed to live.

#3. Declutter, ongoing…. never seems to stop. Really though, I’ve decluttered probably 75% of what we had including at one point a baby grand piano!! ( in our tiny house). Decluttering is like an onion, there are layers and layers. I got rid of so many ‘collections of things’ from vintage buttons to vintage fans. I think as we age we see things differently and value things differently so letting go of things that may have been significant a few years ago is easy.

#4. Less is more. I try and only have the minimum necessary. For instance, we only have one set of linen sheets, one towel each plus I have my swim towel. We have one set of utensils but I do have a very large set of sterling silver from Tiffany’s that was my husband’s mother’s wedding silver.

Previously, I would have had multitudes and back-ups.

#5. I have only monochrome colors such as white, gray, and black for the most part. I I have lots of wood accents and lots of green plants. The only color I generally have around is my Catherine Holm collection and the Easton Press books( in the living room). I learned thru this whole process too many colors or patterns are stressful for me.

I think it’s never too late to change how we do things and even why we do things. Now, at my age, I value white space, less clutter, and the ease of keeping my home tidy and clean.

#6. I meal plan and have a rotation of meals weekly. this structure helps me stay on track with food budgeting and grocery shopping. I like that it’s Friday pizza, Tuesday tacos. pasta Wednesday etc. It seems gimmicky but it saves me from mental fatigue.

#7. I have a very specific wardrobe. I know what I like to wear and don’t sweat the rest. I don’t own a dress or a skirt or any dress shoes. I wear Bombas T shirts in white, black or grey or striped. I wear black leggings or Levis. I wear demin button down shirts.I don’t have any dressy things except one or two shirts that could be used as dressy in a pinch. I have one pair of Merrells for the gym, one for walking , and a pair of Birkenstocks. That’s it. Again, I do this because I hate spending time thinking about things like what to wear. 🙂

#8. I try and keep visual clutter to a minimum. I don’t have lots of Tchotchkes around. I have some things like my Arhoj Ghosts, but I do love them.

#9. I don’t have much in the way of seasonal decor. I’ve whittled down Christmas stuff to a few small boxes, Easter a few vintage postcards and a few bunnies. Halloween is just my few vintage items which I do love too. Anything else I try and use things from nature to make up seasonal stuff like pumpkins, flowers, river rocks, driftwood ,etc. This is probably a carry over from my Waldorf days with the nature table.

#10. Only buy it if you can afford it. Only use a credit card if it can be paid in a short period of time. I don’t say if I can pay it in one month because sometimes like with our taxes, it took a couple of months to get it paid. In the past ( mostly in our 40’s and 50’s,) we had lots credit card debt. Now, I just can’t do that. We still live ( at our age) with a mortgage because we did stupid refinancing right before the mortgage crisis in 2008. We’ve come a long way with it but unfortunately, we still have a mortgage although I am extremely grateful that it’s affordable on our fixed income. We couldn’t rent a place for what our mortgage is.

Living Small

Posted in decluttering, minimalism, simplicity, Uncategorized by

It’s interesting how with intention comes purpose. Our intention was always just to make this house work for us because, well, honestly, it was all we could afford. Now with California prices for houses, rentals, and condos, thru the roof, we are grateful for this place we call home. Our mortgage is less than any rental would be in this area. Most rentals for 2 bedroom 1 bath run around $2200. That’s a lot of money and with only living on SS, it wouldn’t be possible. We have had the very occasional thought to sell and we could get a decent amount for this place, but we couldn’t buy again with the proceeds and then the rental cost would be very high. This August we will have lived here 27 years so I think that this is it for us.

So with intention, we plan to live here until we die and make this work. That gives us the purpose to make this place ‘aging in place’ friendly. We have a step at the front door which could be changed to a ramp if necessary/ and or a rail for support. The house is just one level except for the stairs in my office /catio area. That couldn’t be changed but I suppose some creative solution could be found or I/ we wouldn’t go down to the office area. We plan to change to a propane “wood stove” in the next few years so there would be no wood burning or for B processing wood. All of these things would simplify things and I think as we age we either can’t do what we once did or we don’t want to. I certainly don’t want Barclay using a chain saw when he’s 80!!!

Living in a small house has forced us to be creative and look at things differently. We’ve had to find creative storage solutions and declutter to make this house function. There are still ideas I have about rearranging things but for now, the way things are arranged works.

Probably the biggest asset for me is the outside space. Living in a small house is fine but if there was no outside space, personally, I would find it hard. I need to have outside space and some expansion around me. The main draw to this property was NOT the house which as I’ve said was in terrible condition but the land was amazing even though it was overgrown and had huge piles of crap EVERYWHERE. Being on top of the hill we have sky 360 degrees around( not views but sky thru the trees.)There were multiple buildings that the ‘old man’ had built for his assayer business and we had to tear these down. There was also the barn. This is not really a ‘cool’ barn but a barn he must have put up in the early 50s for his mining equipment. Barclay and my son have worked hard to make the barn more stable and usable. My son has lots of his tools for art and video production out there and it does give us the storage we don’t have in the house for camping equipment, seasonal stuff,etc. Since we’ve decluttered out there so much we don’t have a lot( us meaning B and I) out there. My son is a bit of a hoarder and does have a lot. I’m okay with that since it’s his stuff and he’s an adult and can make those decisions for himself. Plus he sleeps/works in the Tuff Shed Studio that was our original home school. So that’s cool. He likes to build things and has all kinds of tools to do that.

Living small has:

  • made life simpler
  • helped us focus on what’s important
  • made us be creative with our space
  • allowed(forced) us to accept that the house has limits(no, a baby grand piano DOES NOT FIT!!!!!
  • showed us decluttering non- essentials is ESSENTIAL
  • helped us become minimalists( to some degree)

Is minimalism gone as a trend??

Posted in decluttering, Flylady, home stuff, minimalism, Uncategorized by

There are quite a few Youtubers doing vlogs about this right now. Has the trend of minimalism died down or is it over? Most agree that it’s not but with a few caveats. During the pandemic with lots of people working from home the decluttering bug really hit many people. Everyone was trying to make their homes more comfortable and enjoyable. Just look at what happened to Ikea’s stock. There are items that I’ve been trying to get for almost 2 years. ( the shoe cabinet).

Trends do come and go and minimalism has definitely been over done by youtubers and bloggers. Yet, having been on this journey almost 10 years now, I think it is an evolving concept. Certainly, I started out needing to create space in my very small house. I shudder to think about the stuff I had jammed into an under 900 sq ft house. Actually our official house square footage with the county is under 700 sq feet. But since we’ve closed in two porches we have added space. Both had concrete patios so we built on that. Still it’s a small house and it was packed. When I started Flylady in 2012 (approx), it was to get a schedule down with homemaking and declutter. But what has emerged is a deeper understanding of what works for me and what I need around me.

Some of this was triggered by relapsing in 2010, 4 years after my transplant. I think I felt out of control and needed to control something so I started with the Flylady zones. Honestly, it was a life saver for me. There’s quite a bit with FL I don’t use or particularly like but the zone cleaning has been a lifesaver and to this day I still do it weekly. Especially, at first, the 15 minute timed sessions. I did this with all the zones until I had cleared out most things.

As all the bloggers and youtubers agreed that minimalism is not just a one way thing. There’s no ‘right ‘way to be a minimalist. My house does not look empty of things but I have only what I use, love or need. And that is always changing. I know there’s more to release, because it is no longer needed/wanted, but, it’s not huge amounts. For instance, I found in the bin under the bed the Beatrix Potter dishes that were both my daughters and sons. They don’t want them( I asked) so off to Cancer Thrift they will go. I checked Ebay and they sell for maybe $20 so not worth selling and when someone finds them in the Cancer Thrift, be excited.

Further minimizing…

Posted in decluttering, home stuff, minimalism, simplicity, Uncategorized, White space by

So, as you know I’ve been going thru more things and getting rid of more things. Sometimes hidden or just in a box or vintage suitcase in my case. I’ve also sold some Waldorf toys.

First off, a few miscellaneous.

So random things in the Heywood, nobody has used. The two candle holders are Hearth and Home and they were cute but they take a small candle and I generally never have them. The glass is probably my son’s but it hasn’t been used so it’s going. ( update, B said it was his from some trip to LOng beach and he didnt care).The hurricane top was because I bought 2 for when power went out and then I bought a spare top. Who knows when I’ll need that so it’s going. The pyrex is going because I have too many.

The Waldorf things include:

Goose girl, oak tree and pond with bridge.

That kangaroo and baby retail for $40.

Both of these sets I sold for $100. Ostheimer toys are all out of stock everywhere and very desirable. But they only took up room in my Heywood drawer so I’m glad that they are going to a good home with young children.

So what have I discovered? Getting rid of things and clearing any space feels great and opens up that space. Even if it’s only one or two things. I love space more than things.

Minimalism is certainly a journey as is decluttering. I think there is a point where it feels just right but I still have things to get rid of. It’s really layers of things and when I get to the next layer, things I didn’t see before, are more visible and I don’t care about them anymore.

Case in point. I bought an Instant Pot airfryer about 2 years ago, maybe 18 months. We had lots of fun with it the first 6 months and then slowly nobody wanted to get it out and use it. If we had a choice we used our toaster oven, which we love. ( Breville). So I decided to donate it and now it’s in the pile to get dropped off at Goodwill. That opens up that whole area under the Heywood. I don’t have anything in there at the moment and plan to only put something there if it fits and the space works.

The thing about decluttering is just start and then just keep going. Little by little, inch by inch, row by row….

Velcade, Round 6, shot #3.

Posted in cancer, cooking, decluttering, instant pot recipes, minimalism, Multiple myeloma, Myeloma by

Done!! 6 months of Velcade. 3 weeks on one week off.

I get labs Friday and then see Dr. L next week. Where it goes, who knows.

Tonight I have leftover vegetarian chili and IP polenta.

Tomorrow is Dex Thursday and I don’t walk. I’ll tidy the house and continue to do this next layer of decluttering. This round is sponsored by Ann Patchett whose New Yorker article really hit home. I’m getting rid of all my Fiesta Ware except the red. I like the red and we use it at Christmas and Valentines day. I plan on giving it all to Cancer Thrift Store not Goodwill. I just feel better giving it to them as the money stays local. Anyway, it’s a lot. The other thing is all my kids Waldorf toys( ok, not all of them:), but quite a bit. If they don’t sell on our local facebook they will go too. We have the Live oak Waldorf school here in Applegate( about 3 miles away). So far no one is interested. It’s interesting to go to another level when I’ve decluttered so much and so much was valuable. navajo rugs, vintage fans, dishes, books etc, antique silver( yes, silver).

But this is what I want:

I want our small home to be a true reflection of minimalism and where we are at this point in our life. Even though what I’m getting rid of was only on 3 different shelves,that’s 3 too many. I’m not interested in making a buck off Fiesta Ware. So what?? It’s nice but that’s it.

What about you??? Are you deciding who you are in your life right now?? And what you have reflects that.!!!