Embracing Minimalism!

Oh yeah, I am loving my life now!!  Actually, I love life so who am I fooling, but I am loving my life even more since I have embraced minimalism!  Now one might ask, why minimalism?  My response, why not minimalism. 

It wasn't something I went out searching for.  It wasn't even something I had ever considered before.  It wasn't until I joined a group of ladies at work to go through a book review on the "Happiness Project" that I stumbled head long into minimalism.  Each month for one year we had been discussing "happiness" and what was our happiness project.  A lot of individuals were finding out how to keep and maintain happiness in there lives, but I wasn't finding much.

Oh, losing weight was a great endeavor and still is.  And cleaning certain parts of my house was making me somewhat happy until other members of the household would clutter things back up again.  And downsizing my office was excellent, but still frustrating because someone, other than myself, loves to eat at my desk in the evening after I am gone.  I had even purchased several books - Miss Minimalist by Francine Joy and Simplify by Joshua Becker - but I had purchased so many books lately that reading wasn't at the top of my list.  Well, not that reading - besides I had about 4 or 5 other books I was reading all at the same time.

I don't know when I cracked open Miss Minimalist and Simplify, but boy am I ever glad I did!  And, I don't think there is any turning back now! :-)  As I am loving ever aspect of it. 

Recently, my husband had suggested that we buy a pool table.  I was all for it, but one question kept coming up was where were we going to put it.  My husband jokingly said lets put it in the living room and in the family room.  It was somewhere from that moment to the time that the pool table was purchased that started my brain working on what was I going to give up.  After much consideration I suggested that we put the pool table in the living room.  I don't know if he was initially for that idea because the living room was supposed to be my room and everything that was put in it was furnished by my husband for me.  And as for myself, I didn't want to hurt his feelings if I said let's get rid of everything in there.  But, after deliberating for almost a week I decided that that was exactly what I wanted to do.

Well, one thing led to another, and I had started reading those two books and at some point I was getting all excited about minimalism.  Well, the furniture got moved out and the pool table got moved in and minimalism was well on its way to getting established.  Once I got the "pool" area squared away I started working on our kitchen.

Soon all my kitchen counters got cleaned up, and a lot of "stuff" got moved out and I am pleased to announce that for 2 weeks now my kitchen and "pool" area both look immaculate.  No clutter on the counter tops, dishes taken care of immediately so there is nothing stacking up in the sink or on the counters.  I can say that if guests were to arrive right now at my house I wouldn't have a problem with it.  There would be no embarrassing moment, no 15 minute frenzy cleaning to straighten up.  Why, because minimalism works for me.

Next, I moved on to my walk-in closet.  Did a first pass, then a 2nd pass, on the 3rd pass I also got my husband to finally go through his stuff as well.  NOW that was exciting because it really didn't take much to get him to take care of it.  And the closet is looking great!

The point is, minimalism works for me.  It's helped me to re-evaluate everything that I own, my life, and the things that matter most to me.  Those "things" that matter most, were not things at all, but my family.  Now, life is about creating moments and worrying less about "things".   Thanks minimalism!!

PS - since then, I was on a work trip to NYC and had a great opportunity to see to see Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus!  What an inspiration they both are - who knew!!