Rest

“Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time.” -John Lubbock

Even God took a day of rest. So it is a little absurd that our society has decided we don't need rest. Living everyday like the next, hurrying through trying to get as much done as we can. Hurrying through the week to get to the weekend. Hurrying on the weekend to get everything done before going back to work. My husband and I call this do do. We are tempted to do do do do because we think it proves how important we are. Clutter in life is not only physical. Mental clutter needs cleared out as well. Even kids have baseball practices or games 7 days/ week now. An activity that was meant to bring us joy has become burdensome, tiring.

When we first decided we were going to practice a day of rest, I was fearful. I was anxious. I felt "stress". How would I get everything done in 6 days and not 7? Ridiculous thoughts entered my head like what if we need toilet paper? Where do those thoughts come from? I have no intention of going to the store on Christmas either, and I don't worry that I won't have toilet paper. We learned to be intentional. On Saturday I ask myself, do I have everything I need so that I can rest tomorrow? We learned to find out ahead of time how many practices being on that team entailed. We told our children they could choose only one activity and it could not take place on our day of rest. Luke chose art classes, they take place on Wednesdays.

When we began taking our day of rest, we discovered that this day of rest is the exact opposite of stressful. I don't have to sit in traffic. I don't have to stand in line. I don't have to pay for anything. Don't have to mow the lawn. No arguing with kids about homework. I can sit and read. I can go for a walk. I can take a nap. I can talk with family and friends. At the end of the day I feel refreshed, like a new woman. You might wonder how we get everything done in 6 days? We are more productive the other 6 days, thanks to that one day off. And who can't shave some time each day off of social media? One look at facebook or twitter or Pinterest tells me that the average person in our society does have some extra time.

The moderately minimalist family not only cleaned off our counters and our bookcases, we also cleaned off our schedules. We got rid of the do do. One day each week, we have just one task on our schedule... REST.

30 Day Habit Promoting Minimalism

VBS ended at my church yesterday. VBS was my last commitment for the year. Now that I have kids my year follows the school schedule, not the calendar year. Today officially feels like the first day of summer. I am taking a break from all commitments this summer. I am officially in charge of nothing. A glorious feeling that I need to enjoy because in August, I will pick many responsibilities up again.

This seems like the perfect time to start my friend, Meredith's, challenge. Here it is if you want to join: http://www.meredithmhoward.com/news/2015/5/11/30-day-challenge She is challenging people to do something for 30 days. I am choosing blogging. I want to have a minimalist blog because this is a topic that I feel passionately about that there isn't a lot of information out there for people. My biggest passion in life is my faith in God, but there are books and blogs about that everywhere. Minimalism is my second passion in life, and actually ties in to my faith. Minimalism information is much more challenging to find. If I have a question about minimalist music collections or how to keep my kid's toys minimal, there are very few resources. We have The Minimalists, Joshua Becker, Miss Minimalist and the Everyday Minimalist blogging. For books we can read Simplicity Parenting and the Joy of Less.... And then what? I really hope the minimalist community continues to grow. In the meantime, anyone who practices this lifestyle needs to speak up and share.

I have a passion for minimalism. I see a need for more minimalist resources. So why is blogging so difficult? I think Meredith is right, it is work. Minimalism is not difficult to practice. Just don't buy stuff. The promotion of minimalism is work. I am involved as group owner on a message board on Babycenter called Becoming A Minimalist. Most days it is my favorite place in the world. But initially, it did require a self-discipline to go there everyday and check on it and make sure everything was running smoothly. Eventually it became an enjoyable habit. That is my hope for this project. I want blogging about our moderately minimalist life to be a habit that I look forward to. So, here is day 1.

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.