Life Less Cluttered

Bluebirds

This morning I’m sitting in my happy place – a swinging chair, in a sparsely adorned room. The decor is intentional and minimal. It’s a clutter-free room, with two large windows and a door to close off the rest of the world. One of the windows is open and there is a soft breeze through the sound of a light and steady rain. I’m listening to the birds sing and I can only hope they are celebrating the two full feeders of seed that I prepped for them yesterday.

Quarantine

It’s so hard to think right now. Decisions are being made daily that’s changing the world around us faster than we can mentally prepare. Half of us panicked and the other half of us can’t find food because we didn’t panic. Vacations have been canceled that were planned for over a year, weddings are postponed, faith assemblies can’t gather, and people are depressed because they can’t watch sports.

I heard a story about a man at our local Walmart hoarding ramen and canned soup. Meanwhile, an elderly lady reached for a can and he told her to back off because he wasn’t done. He cleared the shelves and she didn’t get a can of soup. We shouldn’t live in a world where an old lady can’t get a can of soup. We should be sharers.

BOFO

Once upon a time I tried extreme couponing.

I took a class, got the binder, got the t-shirt, did the thing. OK, I didn’t really get a t-shirt, but by the way my buggy was stacked with 64 rolls of paper towels I didn’t need the t-shirt to see me coming.

After about 6 months I fizzled out because I learned a few things about myself.

1. I don’t like to be that organized.

2. I don’t like to have a bunch of extra stuff I won’t use.

3. I can have too many cartons of Progresso Broth and Nutrigrain Bars.

4. I hide stuff from myself, probably because of the not-liking-to-be-organized thing.

Couponing works, it just didn’t work for us but I still shop on BOFO.

Declutter Truths

I’ll hear someone say they decluttered their bathroom or bookshelf and that is fantastic, but decluttering (to me) is so much more than a deep purge cleaning session. Decluttering is a part of life, so much that perhaps it needs another word – like whatever the opposite of a clutter bug is. I’m not minimal, or tidy, or even always organized. I just intentionally strive to be….. wait for it….. declutter-y. Decluttery? What a terrible sounding word. Anyway, I’ve compiled a list of what I believe to be Declutter Truths beyond a weekend closet cleaning session… if you want to be decluttery too.

Practical DIY No. 7: Caring for A Cast Iron Skillet

Do you want to cook with a cast iron skillet but don’t know how to clean it? Have you heard that a cast iron skillet is easier and healthier than traditional cookware, but then somebody says you have to “season” it and you’re checked out?

Me! I was that girl and I’ve learned how to competently cook with a cast iron skillet, so I’ll share what I’ve learned. (I’m no expert, but the food is edible and the skillet is surviving.)

A few don’ts… Never soak it. Never put it in the dishwasher.

The Value of Time

The focus in our group this week is to think about the value of our time. We talked about donation versus selling and the recurring theme of Stuff = Time. I like to compare our jobs as Managers of Stuff to any other job. How much would you pay yourself to manage the process of getting rid of your stuff? When you think about your time’s worth in dollar amounts, it’s easy to reason that selling something is often not worth the loss of time it actually takes to sell the thing.

All The Things

I feel like conversations are missing. Conversations about stuff. Specifically Stuff. Like right now I’m sitting in a chair, wearing sneakers, socks, sweats, fingerless gloves, and three shirts, and a blanket – because I’m a cold girl. I also have on my glasses and a little jewelry. Next to me is my purse with my wallet, phone, journal, pouch, glasses case and I’m holding an iPad.

The Sequence

“Where are you in the sequence?” I say this to my adults-in-training frequently. “How was the situation before you played a part in it? And how can you leave it just as good, if not better than you found it?” For example, last week my daughter was painting. She cleaned up after herself pretty well. Nonetheless, she is a child and cleaning up is a life skill that improves with age I think. As we were getting ready to leave the house, I noticed that there was a jar half-filled with water holding a paint brush left on the art table. I asked her to finish cleaning it up and think about what her place was in the sequence.

Practical DIY No. 6: Hair Ties and Push Pins

I’ve struggled with losing hair ties at the bottom of my drawer. Even if I always place them in my bathroom cabinet drawer, they seems to slowly disappear over time until I’m hard-pressed to find one. I needed a better solution.

Throw Me A Line

It happened again. I wondered around aimlessly looking for something I knew I had but couldn’t find. It was somewhere and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to find it, but I kept looking for 10, 20 minutes of my life. Wasted.

It’s been almost 3 years since I’d danced this dance. Me and my stuff, in my house. The last item that set me on the journey to declutter for life was weed-eater string. Weed eater string for my husband, because I knew we’d bought it at least the last three times he’d needed it.