Every summer my kids and I travel 500 miles to visit my mom for two weeks. It is one of the best parts of the summer. My mom and I share the cooking. We share the dinner clean up. She helps me with my children. My sister, a children's librarian, reads them their bedtime story. It is the kind of vacation that I come back feeling refreshed instead of feeling like I need a vacation from the vacation.
The one dilemma that I face every year is how to store the clothes while we are there. Since we don't take very many clothes, they all fit in one suitcase. However, I don't like living out of a suitcase while I am there. And I don't like stacking them in piles because they all fall over. One of my kids goes looking for a certain shirt and we end up with clothes everywhere. Then I started thinking, why am I taking a suitcase? Because that is what people use when they travel, right? Very little of my life conforms to the rest of the world. Why would my luggage? I started thinking, we just need a little dresser for while we are there. Something with 3 little drawers... I have something with three little drawers! Our art storage has three drawers. Instead of packing our clothes in a suitcase this year, I am packing our clothes into this little cart and taking it with us. I purchased a pop up hamper to use as a hamper, and it should all function just like at home.
This solution works because we are minimalists. I cannot imagine this working for some women. We only take 4 outfits for the 10 year old and I. We take 5 outfits for the 4 year old because 4 year olds get messy faster. I will be doing laundry every 4 days, on vacation. I am sure that idea of doing laundry on vacation disgusts some people. Personally, I feel like vacation is doing life in a different location. Laundry does not bother me. My mom is already helping with the cooking, cleaning and children. So this is a win. At least that is what I think now. I will update after we try it, to see if it works as well as I think it will.
The real lesson learned here is bigger than a luggage solution. The real lesson here has been reinforced with every step of my minimalist journey. Stop doing things the way everyone around me does. It may or may not work for them. That does not mean it will work for me. It may not even work all that well for them, they may be behaving like everyone around them. It is ok to be different. It is ok to search out new solutions. That is the best way to find what works for ourselves and our family.
No comments:
Post a Comment