Onward!

I think I am finally recovering from opening the shop with my mother. By recovering, I still have clothes, shoes, bags, bins and boxes cluttering up all the living space in my living room. Not minimalist. But lately, more than ever, I have been appreciating how my efforts to approach minimalism have made this endeavor possible.

In the past year I altered habits to streamline processes around the house. I put away things that would become clutter -- before they became clutter. I sold or donated a lot of clutter, which made space for me to store boxes, bags and bins. I developed a shopping list and shopping day, began menu planning and generally made the home run more smoothly. If I had known I would start spending my time rescuing children's clothes from charity shops, washing and leaving them around my house, I couldn't have had a better preparation than what I did over the last ten months or so.

However, since August, minimalism has escaped from me, and I think my entire family has suffered. I would post a photo of my living room, but I am ashamed of the mounds of clutter. I am unwilling to let this continue, and I will have to work on two fronts if I am to make the changes I wish to see.

To that end, I will resume writing. I felt a sense of motivation and obligation to create change, so I could report change every day. Some days the change was minute, but I regularly made changes -- and that added up to a lot. I will not be able to report as often, as I will frequently need to buy for the shop and work on the shop in other ways. I hope to be able to report on an expedition to "the bins," where I am able to buy so much for the shop. (So. Much. Clothes.)

So, thanks for reading along, and bearing with me on this new expedition!