Minimalism, is it for me?

       It was profound and hit me like a brick.  We as Christians have heard the verses before. As I watch the UPS truck roll in my driveway with one more order off amazon.com.  I am choosing to write about minimalism. Yes, this girl has finally done it; chosen to jump on the bandwagon.  No! I am not going to be one of those that do it the whole white walls only or each person in our house can only own 100things.  I am going to be the girl that realized today this is the next path that I need to take to get our family healthy.  We seem to be balancing out our food as medicine area most days.  Now it's time to get the physical space we live in decluttered and eliminate some of the stressors in it.   One of the ways to eliminate stress is having a clean environment and for me, that means less stuff.  Another way is to eliminate spending and knowing exactly what we have will eliminate me from buying repeat things; as many of you may also do. Why now?  I have been wanting to do it for a long time but the Konmari method was truly not for me. I was watching; Yes, Justin Rhodes (we watched his homesteading channel almost daily for a while.) when I came across The Minimal Mom last week she was at the Rhodes to help "The Beautiful One" organize her house.  She led me to some other videos or autoplay YouTube did as I was cleaning. One being Joshua Beckers talk "Minimalist, Spirituality, and Why it Matters" He referenced these verses.

Luke 3:10-11 English Standard Version (ESV)

10 And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?” 11 And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics[a] is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” 12 Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” 13 And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.” 14 Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”

Do I have extra that could go to those in need? YES!!  Do I collect more than I need(not money but stuff)? YES!!  Do I live just waiting for the next job or paycheck not content with our wages? Yes!!  

Oh Lord! Help me to see with your eyes my greed. Show me the things that I strive for that are just worldly longings of my heart and not your desire for me. Help me to teach my children to do the same. Romans 12:2 "Do not conform to the ways of the world but be transformed by the renewing of your own mind." I am now convicted of following the ways of the world in my lifestyle habits and want to change. Heelp me to have the strength and wisdom to do so. In Jesus name, I pray amen.

   It hit me as Joshua talked in the above video, that yes, I was worshiping stuff just as most Americans and other people that are not in a third world country do.  I immediately took action; nothing big, I opened a cupboard that I knew there was little attachment to the things inside. Well, it happened to be that there was my first ever recipe box I got as a wedding gift shoved in the back.  Deep sigh, but then I thought well we eat Paleo lets see what recipes even still apply to our family.  I pulled out the three that we could eat still and put them in the current cookbook bin. This was not so bad but then there were a few that my mom had always made, what do I do with those? What if we return to the S.A.D. way of eating?   At this point, those recipes are in two or maybe even three of the recipe books I have I don't need them on these cards. I picked up the box and tossed it in the trash. Oh, but you got that as a gift one might say. Yep, we did but from who I don't know. It would have been harder if it was my grandma's old recipe box as I am typing I can imagen my fingers running over the grooves of the fake wood looking outside of the box that I would have struggled to toss.  I know there are a few items that I am dreading getting to like my Grandpa's candy dish that I thought I would use but it has just sat and collected dust but that will be when I get to the dining room.

The two containers I started with that were
overflowing now down to one donation bin.

   Then I clicked back to Dawn's channel and watched Simplify your child's wardrobe in 10 min trick!  I grabbed my laptop and ran upstairs; literally.  This is something I usually do skipping one step at a time.  I dumped my clothes on my bed knowing 90% of my clothes were clean. they had filled two different containers that sat next to my bed for the past few days. I used the green tote as the donate bin.  Then I started picking up clothes and throwing the ones I knew I didn't wear often in the bin.  The skinny jeans that were in last year and I always hated wearing but I had to have them because that was the style GONE!  Next, I pulled out my must keeps comfy PJ bottoms.  For me, the only good reason to buy exercise pants was to sleep in them.  Then my favorite tee shirts went in their cubby and I tossed the ones that were way to beat up I don't even bring them with to my parents for PJ tops anymore.  Now you wonder why is she going through this detail by detail because these were the easy decisions then came the hard ones the sweatshirts you see the theme here not once have I mentioned dress clothes well that's because as a primarily stay at home mom with a photography business I wear casual jeans and a decent shirt to my sessions. Weddings I have 2 long dresses and 2 knee-length dresses I can choose from I don't think with just 4 dresses I need to get rid of any more at this point.  

The trash stained and broken zipper pile.

   Back to the sweatshirts, Humm, I love a good cozy sweatshirt! Really only had 3 old stained with holes in them sweatshirts in my pile and one zip down; which I hate zip downs. I do have one black one for the kids sporting events as they run and it can go from 80 to 60 degrees at any one given event in the spring or fall for track and cross country. By the way, one of my girls must have stolen that because it's not here.   Then I was left with the everyday shirts that are good enough to wear out or just have on around the house.  This was my hardest part as I have a stack of these tops but wanted to get down to 5.  I eliminated odd color long sleeve shirts to go under my sweaters I just never really wear colors under them anyway. Then  I would look at two that were similar and decide which one I liked better (this is how I edit photos).  Oh my, What was I thinking there were 6 exactly the same tank for under my everyday shirts. I tossed 4 of them in the bin leaving 2 as I may need a second one if I spill on my way out the door.
   Well overall you get the gist of how this went and yes the undergarments went strictly by comfort.  I am a no-nonsense kind of gal I guess if it was not comfortable I won't wear it so I got rid of it.  Today I made some simple or not so simple steps to declutter our life, I hope these two things I started with will help you take your first step as well.  If you have any tips or tricks or just words of encouragement or if you are encouraged to start please leave me a comment below. 

I hope you take the above prayer into your heart today as well, God Bless until next time.

All I have left.  Top bins undergarments and tanks,
top shelves my tops, the second row is jeans, pjs and dresses.