When sorting out the how's I have been thinking a lot about the why's and I see that I actually have two dreams competing with each other here: I do not want this mess to maintain any more (If I don't own it I don't have to clean it, fix it, organize it, replace it) and I desire to live a simple, organic type life. Well, living a simple, organic life requires some stuff, I am here to tell you... chickens need a place to sleep and be safe from predators and the coop is going to need maintanence. KIDS need a place to sleep and dishes to eat from and a roof over their heads, and that is going to require maintenance. I don't want to give up my pool or my computer, both things needing maintanence... The greenhouse, a main source of our organic food items... needs maintanence. Roofs need repairing, fences need fixing, land needs looking after. When you live in the country, you don't just get rid of EVERYthing because in order to avoid buying stuff every time you turn around, you often will say, "What do we have that we can make work for this particular need?"
So I think it comes down to this: I like living in the country and the mega gardens for food. And I like canning and freezing, drying food (and by the way you are going to need some "stuff" to do those things). I DO want to live on WAY less money than we do right now. I want to be debt free.
What I do NOT like is constantly being sidetracked from living that life by the ever present and growing disaster in this HOUSE. And there is my prime reason for getting back at the LARGE FAMILY/MINIMAL HOUSE dream. I am going to pare down this living space to only what we need. My reasoning here is simple: If there are 12 pans in the cupboard, people will dirty up all 12 pans before they will wash one. Yes, I could stand over people, screaming again and again, "WASH THIS STUFF BEFORE YOU LEAVE!!" but sometimes I have OTHER THINGS I WOULD RATHER DO! If a kid has 4 pairs of pajamas, that is how many he/she will get dirty and how many pairs I will have to wash. Yes, I could stand over them harping, "DO YOUR LAUNDRY!" But I don't want to do that!! What I want to do today is go out to the greenhouse, listen to the rain on the roof while inhaling the beautiful smell of dirt and tomato plants and read a book, or write a letter, or plant some heirloom seeds, or just sit there and be quiet. And when I come back in the house I do NOT want to be discouraged and disgusted by the amount of things that need to be picked up, put away, washed, dried, vacuumed, sorted, blah blah blah.
3 comments:
I'm with you!! I have gotten rid of tons of stuff in the past few years - and yet I don't think I've really made much of a dent overall. I keep thinking about moving farther out into the country (we WERE in the country on almost 2 acres and then a couple subdivisions popped up around us in the wide open fields surrounding our house - eek!) and asking myself, "Am I going to want to MOVE that?"
That said, it is very hard to be a minimalist in the face of many kids in your home. I have days where I feel like all I do all day is move things around and am utterly disgusted when I walk into a room that has just exploded into a chaotic mess of "stuff" that I end up having to clean and organize AGAIN. Keep at it and you'll eventually find what works for you. I do think we are providing quite well materially for all of our many kids though - it amazes me how things just materialize when we need it!
So your greenhouse walls are made of plastic sheeting? How do you keep the kids from ripping it or poking holes in the walls? I have a shed I want to convert to a greenhouse and plastic seems like a quick and easy way to do it, but I think my little angels would destroy it in a heartbeat.
I have the same problem with wanting to be a minimalist, but my grandma in the back of my head keeps whispering about the Depression so I hang on to stuff "just a little" longer.
Lisa E in CO
Well, at least you burned that piano; that's a start.
When I was the low man on the totem pole at work and it was my job to pick up after everybody, I had a simple strategy: if I found a tool that someone left lying around, I'd pick it up and put it in my tool bad. They never bothered to look for their tools, so there was less and less for them to leave lying around, and I have tons of tools I never paid for. Maybe if you just pick up and throw away everything that's within an arm's length of your path and ignore the rest, after a while they'll start making sure their stuff isn't within your path?
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