Simplifying

Living Intentionally with Single-Use Plastics

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Significant Emotional Events We all have experiences that forever imprint on our minds and cause a shift in how we think about things.  My dad has always called them significant emotional events.  One of my significant emotional events occurred a few years back while whale watching on a 36-foot SuperRib in Southern California. Looking back, I vividly recall the awe as we found our small craft surrounded by a school of hundreds of dolphins.  And, I’ll likely not forget how … Read More

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Three Habits My Clothing Shopping Ban is Teaching Me About

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As of May 1 I’ve completed one-third of my year-long clothing shopping ban.  Through this experiment I’m learning quite a bit about my shopping, wearing and purchasing habits.  Any of you out there who might be trying to curb shopping, reduce spending or just be more mindful about your purchasing might find what I’m learning helpful.   1) Shopping Habits: As expected, I continued to notice during the first few months of not shopping how strong my celebratory … Read More

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Creating a Simplicity Statement

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Note:  I drafted this piece on creating a simplicity statement back in January 2016 as we were preparing to renovate the smaller home we had recently purchased and expected to move into in April 2016.   Having spent a week in a 1000sq ft condo in Kauai this past week, I was reminded I can live with a lot less than I thought was possible.  Home for less than 24 hours, my initial urge was to begin … Read More

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Time to Share Our Previously Untold Story

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It’s not often a blog posting is 18 months in the making, but the time has finally come to tell a story I alluded to in an August 2016 posting. In that post I shared my husband and I had “been undergoing extensive unanticipated renovations at the new house” and I noted that would be “another story for another day.”  When I wrote those words I’d been treading water for a couple of months, having recently surfaced … Read More

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Are You a Minimalist at Heart?

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I think deep down I’ve always tended towards the idea of less being more.  I was the kid who actually wanted the smallest bedroom and who loved to declutter and rearrange my mom’s cupboards.  I was the college student who thrived within the confines of a dorm room, where life was all about living tiny and having only what you needed and loved.  The first home my husband and I purchased, a 600 square foot condo in … Read More

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Why Do You Shop and How Might You Stop? Thoughts on Minimizing and Shopping

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Why Do You Shop? Have you ever thought about why you shop? If not, I urge you to give it some thought. We all shop for different reasons.  We shop because we need things like food or shelter.  We shop because we want things, like tools to make our lives easier or trendy clothes so we can feel stylish.  We may even shop as a means of coping, what some term “retail therapy.” There was a time … Read More

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Ideas for Creating a Holiday Meal You Look Forward to

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Silence We were out recently with some friends we don’t see very often when it hit me just how out of the ordinary our family must seem, especially during the holidays. As we drove to dinner the conversation turned to how much holiday shopping they’d done yet how much they still had to do.  My response that we haven’t really shopped for Christmas in a couple of years, opting instead to make donations or gift experiences or … Read More

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What Does Daylight Savings Time Mean to You?

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This has always been among my favorite days of the year.  The day we turn the clocks back an hour is the day that gives me more of what I value most ~ TIME. At the risk of sounding weird, the old time-starved me always looked forward to this day with the same anticipation as a kid looks forward to Christmas morning. While other people accepted this gifted hour as an opportunity to get some extra sleep, … Read More

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Asking More Powerful Questions to Ease Decluttering

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We recently started what we hope will be our last round of home renovations.  As you know, the first stage of any renovation project is clearing everything out of the spaces being renovated.  I’m noticing that clearing out the master bath, guest room and my office is giving me a great opportunity to continue Phase Three of our minimizing process. You may recall that during Phases One and Two my husband and I whittled down our belongings by … Read More

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De-cluttering and the Stories We Tell Ourselves

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I need to buy a new computer this year. I have a six-year-old Mac with a 512K hard drive and it’s not long for this world.  I was planning to upgrade to a terabyte of memory, but was shocked to learn that doubling the memory would cost me $400! This quickly made me wonder how much storage space I really needed.  If you’ve been reading for a while you know that I’m minimizing the rest of my … Read More

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