What Really Matters

Our lives are too valuable to waste chasing possessions. And so is yours. -Joshua Becker

A great portion of what we spend our time on, really doesn't matter. Living in a first world country, makes this even more true. We spend ridiculous amounts of time on TV shows, playing video games, shopping for the perfect home decor. None of that really matters. None of that is going to make a difference in the life of someone else.

There are two projects I have been watching. They matter. One is minimalist Joshua Becker's project in Honduras. He is researching better options for orphanages. You can read about it here:
http://www.becomingminimalist.com/best-view/

The other project is an adoption my friends are working on, to bring a little boy home from China. You can read and donate for it here:
http://christagermany.blogspot.com/2015/04/this-was-picture-that-started-it-all.html?spref=fb

Both of these projects are going to have a significant impact on someone else's life. My friends are having a garage sale to raise money at the end of June. I have been going through clothes to give them to sell. And we gave up our MegaBloks. We already have Duplos. We don't need both. But Garrick does need a home. So we gave our MegaBloks to our friends to sell in their upcoming garage sale. People are more important than things. We should live like we believe that.

I challenge all of us to look at how we are spending our time. Are we working on things that really matter? Or are we entertaining ourselves? I am not saying we can't ever have down time. Without some down time, we burn out and are no good to anyone. But I don't see that as the number one problem for most people. Most people could benefit from putting down the smartphone for a day. Let's make the most of the time we have been given.

Celebrating Another Year In School

How do you celebrate your child's year end accomplishment? Fourth grade was, by far, our hardest year yet. He did it! We never, ever have to do fourth grade again! This is serious reason to celebrate.

Little brother is also celebrating. Luke will be home all summer! They are such close buddies. Everyday Drew waits at the back window watching for Luke to get off the bus. Sometimes he watches for an hour. So Drew is celebrating as much as Luke. Brother is home everyday for 10 weeks!

So, how did we celebrate? Before my minimalist days, I would buy books to celebrate the last day of school. Which isn't an awful idea, but books are easily borrowed from the library for free. We don't need books sitting on shelves in our home. The library is 5 minutes away. Then for a couple years I bought lego sets. Again, not a horrible idea. We love "building toys" in our home. They are very versatile. We rarely build things the same way twice. They encourage creativity. They don't take up much space. But we have plenty, and there comes a point where adding more isn't necessarily useful.

This year we made an ice cream cake. Drew was excited to help. He wanted to surprise his buddy. Luke LOVES ice cream cake. And the best part, it is consumable. Consumable gifts are my favorite. So this year, on the last day of school, we ate ice cream cake and played a matching game. Everyone was happy, including the moderately minimalist mom.

Minimalist Perks

One of the best parts of being a child in a minimalist family. Easy to find great hiding spots.

Minimizing Schedules

Saturday I went to a garden party. A dear friend of mine spoke about finding and following our passion. She said, "Everyone close your eyes. When you open them look for everything brown. Open your eyes. Close your eyes. When you open them look for everything red. Open them." Her point was that we see what we are looking for. When we are looking for brown, we see lots of brown and not red. When we are looking for red we see red and not brown.
What are we seeing in life? What is our passion? Children? Faith? Music? Are we doing these things? Or are we so busy running around pleasing people that we aren't doing our passion? People ask much of us. Watch my kids, plan this event, teach this class. When we say yes to everything without the filter of what is our passion, we lose our identity.
Ironically, she mentioned some advice I had given her about minimizing your child's room. Do not ask them to evaluate each item and decide what to keep or get rid of. You will never progress. Instead pull everything out of the room, and only put back what you use and love. Likewise, with our schedules, we need to take times of clearing everything off and only putting back what we feel passionately about.
My schedule has gotten out of hand. Many who read this blog know that. Some of my friends have a joke. If they need someone to do something and can't find anyone, they say, "Just ask Karen." and they laugh. My last obligation for this year ends on the last day of VBS, June 5th. Sounds like the perfect time to clear off the schedule, and this time only put on what I feel truly passionate about.

Maintaining a Minimalist Wardrobe

Hello!

Goodbye!

The key element to maintaining the minimalist wardrobe is to choose something to take out of the wardrobe each time you bring something in to the wardrobe. Purging massive amounts of clothing, or anything else for that matter, is not fun. Since I have already done that once in my life, I want to maintain so as to not put myself through it again. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I purchased three new dresses for my wardrobe last weekend. Therefore, this weekend three dresses need to come out.

There are reasons I chose to get rid of the three dresses I chose. The blue dress was my husband's favorite. However, it now has a split in the seam. The type of material the dress is made from makes it unrealistic to expect that dress to be repaired and stay repaired. The black and gold dress was a Mother's Day gift from my husband one month after giving birth to my four year old. That dress was great for breast feeding. It also hid my "just had a baby" shape. My body isn't in that shape any longer. So not it just looks like a moo moo. The third dress, the tan dress, is the hardest for me to let go of. That dress made me look amazing! Looked, as in, past tense. I looked amazing in it 11 years ago before I had any children. Right now, I can barely zip it. Time to let it go, in order to make space for dresses that make me look amazing today.

I own four other dresses. One dress is for winter. It is long sleeved and made of warm material. The second dress is denim and very versatile. I can wear that dress in the winter with boots, or in the summer with flip flops. The third dress is my "little black dress" that mostly gets worn on dates. Then I have one last dress that I would like to have turned into a shirt. I will probably post more about this dress in the future when I find the right person to turn it into a shirt.

Six dresses sounds like a lot. But I wear at least one, sometimes two dresses each week. I have 33 pieces in my summer wardrobe and 33 pieces in my winter wardrobe. So these 6 dresses are less than 10%. I will be blogging more about my summer capsule wardrobe, as I iron out the details. I wanted to share about my dresses, as they are decided upon.

Why I Will Never Own a Uniform Wardrobe Again

The minimalist community is talking about wardrobes again. As warm weather arrives we are evaluating our "summer" clothing. One of my favorite bloggers, Joshua Becker from Becoming Minimalist, posted this piece today, in an attempt to convince his readers to adopt a uniform wardrobe: http://www.becomingminimalist.com/wear-one/. The other very popular minimalist wardrobe, the 333 capsule wardrobe, has an explanation here: http://theproject333.com/.

For those of you who don't feel like reading, here is the abbreviated version. Project 333 challenges you to reduce your wardrobe to 33 pieces of clothing for 3 months. At the end of those 3 months, you reevaluate your clothing, deciding what worked well, what will work with the upcoming season and adjusts accordingly. The uniform wardrobe takes this process one step further. The idea is, if you wear the same thing every day, it reduces the time and energy spent each morning deciding what to wear. Now people do not literally wear the same clothing everyday. The idea is to have 4 pairs of similar pants and 8 tops, maybe a few sweaters or scarves.

As I began my minimalist journey, I am embarrassed to admit I owned over 100 pieces of clothing. My first goal was to own under 100 pieces. Six months after paring down to 100 pieces, I couldn't remember what I had purged. Those clothes had no meaning to me. Seeing less in my closet every morning made me happier. My mornings were easier with fewer clothes to comb through. I took the next step, a capsule wardrobe. I started project 333, but instead of reevaluating every 3 months, I reevaluate every 6 months. I live in a climate which is warm 6 months, and cooler the other 6 months, and never really frigid. This next step in my minimalist journey was again a success. I felt freer, having even fewer clothes to comb through in the morning. As long as I do laundry once/ week, I never lack for anything to wear. I figured, if owning less than 100 was freeing and then owning 33 was freeing, time to take the next step: a uniform wardrobe. I pared my wardrobe down to 2 pairs of blue jeans and a pair of black jeans. I kept 8 short sleeved shirts and 4 tanks to layer underneath them. I kept 3 scarves and 2 short sleeved cardigans. I kept 3 dresses in case of a wedding, funeral or other special occasion, but I even began wearing jeans to church.

I hated the uniform wardrobe. Were my mornings easy? Sure. Put on a pair of jeans, tank and shirt. But really how is that any easier than it was when I owned a larger variety? How is it any easier to put on a pair of jeans and shirt than it is to put on a cute skirt and shirt? I had not gained anything between my capsule wardrobe and my uniform wardrobe. But I had lost something. I lost my spark. I lost the ability to express what I was feeling by what I was wearing. On a sunny spring day I love to throw on a skirt and there is a bounce in my step. On a rainy day I wear a hoody and my clothes reflect those feelings. With a uniform wardrobe, everyday is exactly the same. I also saw other people in their cute clothes and wished I were wearing them. Then I realized I could be again. I tried the uniform wardrobe for 6 months. I will never do it again. This weekend I went out and bought 3 super cute dresses. They look happy. I cannot look at that orange and denim dress at the top of this post and not smile. I am not making my wardrobe larger. I am just putting the feeling back in the way I dress. I will be getting rid of the three dresses I had to make room for my new dresses. I plan to give away some of my plain short sleeved shirts and buy some colorful blouses and tunics. Is this less minimalist? Personally, I don't think so. 33 pieces is 33 pieces. And 33 is not a magic number. Some minimalists may disagree. Another reason I choose to live the moderately minimalist life.

Weekend Happenings

Shopping makes me a wreck. I get rid of everything that I don't use or love. That puts a lot of pressure on a shopping trip. If I don't end up loving and using what I purchase, it is a complete waste of money. I would prefer not to have to shop at all. But that isn't reality. In reality things break down and need replaced. Specifically, a pair of cloth brown ballet shoes wore a hole in the toe. Since those were the only shoes that matched my brown tone skirts, I haven't been wearing them. At this point, I either need new shoes or the skirts have to go. Since it is almost summer, I bought an inexpensive pair of flip flops that will do the job.

Tomorrow my husband and I have a date planned. He suggested I buy a new dress for the date. One of my favorite dresses has developed an issue with the seam. The dress is really too old to make repairing it make sense. So tomorrow I am meeting a friend at the Dress Barn. I love my friend's style. Everything she wears looks great on her. She says she isn't great at fashion, she just knows what looks good on her. I am hopeful that having her with me will make the trip more enjoyable. I am also aware that it might make me feel like I need to buy something just to make her feel good about coming with me. I cannot do that. If I don't love it, it will just sit in the closet. And I don't allow things to just sit in the closet. So as you can see this shopping trip is already giving me anxiety.

I have some friends who are not minimalists. They accuse minimalists of being even more focused on things than them. And in some ways they are right. I am much more aware of what I own than my average friend. So why do it at all? I also have more extra time and a cleaner house than my average friend. The decisions we make in life come with positives and negatives. Most days minimalism brings me more positives. But some days, like tomorrow, I have to face a negative. So shopping I will go, in hopes of finding the perfect dress for me.