Daily Declutter

Tyranny works. Instead of gently reminding the children, we are imposing stern measures to make them fulfill daily obligations, like cleaning up after themselves when they make something to eat. It's not as pleasant as if they remembered on their own to put away the mayonnaise, but on the other hand, the mayonnaise isn't left out. The house is tidier and I'm not growling around because things aren't being done.

I'm really enjoying summer, but I'm off schedule (which I guess is part of the definition of summer). The past two days I have gone shopping -- once for a bicycle inner tube and once for hot dogs for the kids' youth group bonfire. My menu plan will need to have more freezer meals, in case we decide to eat out or picnic instead of following the plan. I am not going to turn down an activity in order to stay home and follow my menu plan -- the plan is to serve me and not the other way around.

Despite my lack of organization and decluttering I feel like we are living in the heart of what minimalism should be. I was able to sit in on interviews for a new teacher because I wasn't stressed about other obligations. We spent the evening at a park by the beach, with a picnic dinner, playing croquet and flying kites.It felt like vacation; it felt like the way I want to live all the time.

I will be decluttering the rest of the house as things go on, but this week has been slow. I posted a toy to Craigslist, and I have someone who wants to meet with me when I go into town tomorrow morning. I shipped a book I sold on ebay. I'm using my library to watch The Hollow Crown from BBC, so I don't have to buy my own copy. And I'm taking it easy.

Daily Declutter

I'm back on the straight and narrow. Well, sort of. I cleared the peaches that needed to be frozen, and I cut up loquats to be dried. I put blankets and clothes out in the shed. I hung the string lights my husband received for Father's Day. My home looks much tidier.

I did not move anything out, but I dealt with a lot of the clutter that had begun building up. Unfortunately, due to the nature of summer, I have more peaches sitting on the counter, waiting to be processed. (I will make jam out of them Wednesday morning, so I can escape the house for the remainder of the day.) Fresh fruit will need to be picked and processed (or given away) often in the coming month. Hopefully zucchini will begin to come in, and zukes will sit, green and glowering, on the counter next to the peaches and grapes.

As I often do when I see so much bounty sitting around, I remind myself that I am fortunate to have so much. I'm also grateful for my earlier efforts to clean away clutter so I have room for the bounty that is coming in. Truly, a lot can be said for clearing clutter so I can receive new blessings.

I also am reminded that I need to just buckle down and complete projects, even if I don't feel the spirit move me. I did not finish the trivet I've been working on (for a couple months). For a while I was waiting for my son to be interested in finishing the project with me (he expressed interest. Once.). Now, I will finish this project the first opportunity I get, and just be glad it's done.

There's a lot to be said for done, and having space (physical and mental) to move on to the next thing.

Daily Declutter

I have been so busy having fun! I'm sorry I didn't post Friday, but I spent much of the day going shopping (shopped with my husband, so I bought more than usual!), picked the car up from the mechanic (regular service, nothing bad), and came home and collapsed for a while. The we played a game as a family, and watched a John Wayne movie outside, in the cool of the evening. We went back to the fair Saturday so my son could show his chicken, then we spent the rest of the day enjoying the fair again. We got to bed a couple hours after bedtime two days in a row, and I'm feeling it!

I will take this moment to pitch John Wayne movies. I love John Wayne, as a person and a character, and I am always surprised how far from stereotype his films exist. We watched El Dorado Friday, and we all enjoyed it. Robert Mitchum was much funnier than I expected, and the whole film didn't progress how I expected it. The kids enjoyed it, too. If you haven't gone back and seen these in a while (or ever!) it's worth a viewing. Plus, it's on Netflix right now, which makes it easy.

Ok, advert over. My darling husband has been patiently and pleasantly pointing out that a lot of the clutter around the house is mine. Unfortunately, when I look at it I don't think of it as clutter, I think of it as "Projects I'm in the middle of." Which, yes, technically looks like clutter. My brain certainly perceives these projects as clutter! So today I will work on cleaning up these in-process projects. Once the "project" clutter is under control again I will be able to attack the stationary clutter with a good conscience. My list for today is: slice and freeze peaches, slice and dry loquats, hang lights (porch lights my husband received for Father's Day), school clothes go out to the shed, last winter blankets go out to barn, locate totes for both, finish the trivet I was working on a month ago (with or without my son). Plus regular household tasks like laundry and making yogurt, and a trip to the orthodontist, the  bicycle store, Costco for a return, and someplace that sells vegetarian hot dogs because I found out yesterday that the kids will need some for a church event this week.

In essence, this weekend has been about fun. Today we will work hard enough to get to have fun later this week.

County Fair

I love the county fair. I love it! Frankly, I love any event where people can share whatever they are passionate about, and we attend a lot of events just to see people demonstrate their blacksmithing skills, or quilting, or caber tossing, or whatever. The county fair is an opportunity to see kids (and adults) show off the goat, or cow, or chickens they have spent the year raising. Yesterday I saw someone shaving the back end of a cow to make her look a little more perfect. You have to really have an animal trained for her to allow you to groom her so personally.

Children were there, looking at animals they do not see the rest of the year, and there were people comparing the competition chickens with the chickens they keep at home. (I remember when keeping chickens at home was unusual, and it wasn't that many years ago that chickens at the fair were as unfamiliar as the goats and cows.) Burros and piglets stood around looking adorable and photogenic (or slept, in the case of the piglets).

I love the display of arts, paintings and furniture and welded metal. Someone yesterday created a model plastic digester, which is designed to break long carbon chains in plastic down to methane and propane in the presence of argon (to prevent combustion and the creation of toxic by-products). This would be an amazing alternative to simply burying plastics in the landfill (if it is viable). Someone invented this, though, and brought it to the fair for display. I love all of it!

Another part of the fair is all the selling. The fair is an unparalleled opportunity to buy thing, things you can't buy the rest of the year, or things that are fair specials -- such amazing deals that you cannot afford to miss! We were repeatedly offered free trips to Hawaii, free gifts (aren't all gifts free?) and improved TV service. I was offered skin treatments to make me look younger, and a better straightening iron to eliminate the curls in my hair. There were exercise machines that you could stand on and the machine would jiggle the fat off you. There were several different installers and manufacturers of saunas. (I don't know where you live, but the last thing I need going in to summer is an indoor sauna. I usually work to minimize the amount of outdoor sauna that I am exposed to!)

I don't spend a lot of time watching TV, reading magazines or shopping the mall, and maybe that made me unusually aware of the degree of inadequacy the merchants were selling. Your shoes are too dirty (after a day of walking in the dirt, everyone's are!). Your home needs a better shower, kitchen, barbecue. You need to be younger, and your hair is all wrong.

As always, we enjoyed the fair. I didn't bring much home with me, except the new tags for the dog (the tags there worked better for us than the ones we get at the petshop) and new sunglasses for me (they even had bifocal sunglasses, for reading at the beach!). I did not buy the reusable instant hand warmers (even though they were really cool, we live in southern California -- it doesn't get that cold!). I didn't buy the drill attachment that allows my husband to cut sheet metal (I have no idea what he, personally, would do with that. He works in wood, almost all the time.) And I didn't buy the concept that something we could buy at the fair would make us better.

(Disclosure: we have bought some really amazing things from the fair in the past. The extendable ladders have repeatedly been useful to us, and my husband is grateful every year that we purchased one. But we are no longer new homeowners, and there's not much that we really need to acquire at this point in our lives.)

Daily Declutter

The fair opens late, so I was able to tidy away a few things left from yesterday. I put my daughter's winter clothes out in the shed. I decided to get rid of one of her ski jackets (we live in southern California and we don't ski!). I made up a picnic lunch.

And I contemplated the stuff my daughter wants to save forever. I can't even complain, because these are things that I handed down to her, and now she wants to hand them down to her daughter, because she loved having things that were handed down from me.

Because I held on to two giant stuffed animals I will now be storing them until she moves out. I will also be saving the dollhouse my grandfather made for me, which I saved for my daughter. Not knowing if I would ever have a daughter (I might have had a troop of basketball-playing sons who would never look at a doll. I didn't know.)

At this point in my life, I don't want to save stuff. But I also have to recognize that it is unfair to force my daughter to get rid of things that are special to her because of their history.

I am glad that she didn't want to keep the Nancy Drew and Cherry Ames books I saved for her from my childhood. But I do wish I hadn't passed down quite so much stuff.

Daily Declutter

When I don't write things down, I forget things. Yesterday I thought I spent most of the day driving my son to the fair, but that was only because the trip to the fair took so long and I wrote late. Upon further reflection, I realized that I spent most of the morning encouraging him to clean his room. By encouraging, I mean I sat on his bed and told him to "pick up any group of things you see on the floor. Ok, pick up all the pens. Pick up all the post-it notes. Pick up all the school papers you no longer need." He thought the best way to clean would be to dump everything from his school bag and desk (including drawers) into a pile on the floor, so it was quite an undertaking. However, his room no longer makes me hyperventilate, so that's a good thing. He got rid of a lot of papers; he also got rid of a few toys, to give to his cousins, and I got rid of a plastic tote to carry the toys.

I will try to remember better today, and not write quite as late. (I typically check in a couple times a day, as I accomplish things, and that prevents as much forgetfulness.)

I didn't get much of my stuff decluttered, but I worked with my daughter today, cleaning out her room. She had a lot more ...stuff... sitting around. We got rid of clothes that no longer fit, clothes that are too warm (a ski jacket still in her closet in June?), and a few toys she hasn't played with in over a year. She like working together, so it was good time together, and she will be happier if she is better able to find her stuff when she wants something.

On a related note, I pulled my husband's teaching shirts out of the closet. They will sit quietly in the shed until school starts up, and in the meantime he will have better access to the clothes he will wear this summer (that is not you, dark blue high school t-shirt!). Maybe he will enjoy having fewer items in his closet, and groom his wardrobe a little closer next year? One can only hope. (I am the person who puts clean clothes away in his closet, so I do have a vested interest.)

Additionally, a pair of too-small work gloves got donated out of the garage, and some scrap wood is now cute spools for gifting ribbon at Christmas. The scrap wood bin is being reduced slowly, but as I have said so many times before, slow decluttering is better than acquisition.

Daily Declutter

Today I spent four hours dropping my son's chickens at the fair. The actual process was smooth, but the traffic was outside what I would imagine. I know some people deal with traffic like this every day, and I am so grateful not to have to deal with that sort of thing. Reducing my wants, so I can avoid driving an hour through traffic, is worth it to me, especially when I am reminded like this! We made it home safely, and I am grateful. We were force to resort to our "emergency bubbles;" I keep a bottle of bubbles in the car, and my son blew bubbles out the window as we sat in traffic. The bubbles definitely elevated my mood, and I am hoping it helped some of the other drivers as well.

At home I did not make a lot of progress decluttering, but I did get most of the laundry washed. It is necessary, and it is almost done. Tomorrow morning I will was a couple more loads and make sure everything is put away. I found a couple more items of winter wear and I will make sure all our winter clothes are collected together and put out to storage.

The only thing I can really say I got decluttered is a wooden chair we have been storing in the garage. If it's only being stored it is not something we need to keep. I know it won't make a big difference, but every little bit helps. I hope to get a wooden window seat posted to Craigslist (my husband built it as a stand-alone, and my daughter no longer wants it. Hopefully someone else will have a little girl who wants to live in the olden days.).

I am wondering if my version of a minimalist life is the same as life on vacation. Both are (ideally) simple and focused on family. When I think about what I like about vacation I think of a minimalist life, either in a campsite or in a rented suite I appreciate how everything I need is present, but I don't have too much to deal with. Can I make everyday more like summer vacation?