Christmas Decor Confessions - The Attic

Happy holidays, Minimalist friends! Like many of you, I have spent the post-Thanksgiving days getting the house ready for Christmas.  In my never-ending effort not to conflate my December-birthday child's day with the red and green month (never do this - having a December birthday is hard enough without someone saying "oh, this will be for birthday AND Christmas!"), I often don't go full-Santa until after mid-December.  

Despite my minimalist tendencies, I do enjoy decorating.  I like the change of decor for a short while, and of course, reminiscing over the ornaments the kids made or things we brought back from vacations to recollect.  And where does all that decor live?  

In the garage attic - a place that requires at least two of us (preferably three) from which to retrieve the festive boxes.  One to limbo in the cramped rafters, one to stand on the ladder, and one to receive the box and stack on the floor.  My family is less and less interested in helping every year, and I am less and less capable of the yoga-inspired bending necessary to reach all the stuff.  This year I vowed: no more.  This stuff is NOT going back up there.  It is going to find another home.  

My immediate solution was to build a storage building, influenced by my Canadian families' basements with accessible storage.  Does NOT sound very minimalist, does it?  Acquire MORE storage space for crap?  In my defense, I promise to cull the herd and organize it by season, etc.  The primary goal is to NOT use the attic as a black hole for things I don't want to look at.   

I have several friends who boast there is NOTHING in their attics but HVAC.  Well, ok, but your closets and garages are overflowing.  I prefer to hide my shame up near the disappearing stairs, thankuverymuch.  After my parents died and I was cleaning out their home, I kept the things of theirs that I wasn't ready to make decisions about shoved BEHIND the Christmas stuff.  It's been a few years now, so the distance will permit me to get rid of the things that don't add value to my life.  Since I can actually SEE it now that Christmas stuff is on the garage floor, the parent boxes will be sorted, organized, and assessed for keeping as well.   

I've been perusing Pinterest for ideas on storage and organizing a garage/storage space, and I have ascertained that I need to purge more for sure.  Here on the ranch, we have a lot of stuff we don't use on the regular, but when you need it, you need it - e.g., bailing wire, surveyor's wheel, t-post clips, donkey treats.  You don't want to run to the hardware/feed store every time a need pops up, so you keep a lot.  

We don't have a barn/outdoor storage - YET.  In my effort to clean the attic, I'll find storage elsewhere.  Garage for now, store room for later.  Any attic/garage tips?  Hit me up.  Pinterest just wants me to buy everything in red and green.  And happy storing in a few weeks, friends!

Thankful for Less

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA, which typically means stuffing ourselves while we try to avoid politics or Covid laden conversations, football, and shopping for the Christmas season as soon as we put down our forks.  

My stubborn family refuses to acknowledge Christmas until after the Dallas Cowboys take a knee at the terminus of their annual Turkey Day match up.  I am totally okay with that, because fall doesn't even start in Texas til around then.  We have celebrated many Thanksgivings in shorts.   I also like to enjoy the long weekend with the family thinking about what I am thankful for; not rushing out for MORE.   I feel like it's hard to sit with thanks if we're thinking about MORE all the time.  

Gratitude is a double-edged sword.  This means that we can be drowning in toxic positivity and feel as if we should be grateful for ALL we have, because others aren't so fortunate.  We MUST feel grateful lest we appear UNgrateful for whatever intangible and tangible gifts we have received.  I think that's horse manure. 

Gratitude does not have to come in large doses on the 4th Thursday in November.  There is nothing wrong with just being thankful for your hot coffee.  Your car starting without a hiccup.  Your bank account being able to cover all your utilities.  

One of my students said (after I prompted them to disclose in 5 words or fewer what they were thankful for) that she was thankful for her family, and for being able to attend college, because not everyone gets to do that.  

Record scratch stop.  

She is right.  Sounds simple, but it's not a given. It's a privilege.  Thank you, K, for that reminder.  

Maybe sit with being thankful for the minimizing you have done in your life.  The people you have culled off your social media who have ceased to add value to your life.  The possessions/clothes/extras that you've repurposed or excised from your life.  The volunteering you love as you share your gifts with the world.  

No pressure to be thankful today, or any day.  You may not feel especially grateful for whatever is going on in your life right now.  But you can be grateful for what remains while still acknowledging what you have lost, or don't have. 

Be thankful for less.  It's a good place to sit.  

The Photograph Conundrum

The latest organization project out here on the ranch has been the family photo stash.  What a project that turned out to be...

Like many of you, my parents took pictures of the family and vacations, mostly on a polaroid, or a 110 instamatic, or occasionally a fancy 35mm that took slide film.  Slides!  Has there ever been a more cumbersome way to look at photos?  And now?  I have boxes in my garage attic of slides and photo albums and no efficient way to manage it all. 

Of course, the easy solution would be sweep my hand dramatically over it all and say "scan yourselves and categorize by date and subject on a google drive!"  If only there were some elves on loan from the cobbler's workshop to make all this happen.  Because it's hella ton of albums and photos.  

Many are placed in albums which, after my mother died, my dad actually went through and put sticky notes or labels on each with some general dates and subjects of the album.  The big hurdle is that these albums number in the teens, and they are bulky with decades-old sticky pages.  If I were to scan them all, it would be hours of peeling off pages just to attempt to extract a digital image from the polaroid celluloid.  

The slides?  Perhaps I will find that place that will digitally scan them and turn them into a neat cloud file?  Will my children even care to view all of Papa's slides of the Grand Canyon in 1967?

After I am finished with my parents' photo collection, there's my own generation's collection of images to deal with.  Here's how WE have done it.

Back in the 90's, I had a respectable 35 mm camera with a handful of dummy-proof settings that allowed me to take shots of my single party friends with ease.  It took rolls of film you had to BUY then wait for developing, usually ordering double prints to share with friends or family.  Obviously, if you DIDN'T give away that second image, you were unlikely to toss it because, well, you just might need it someday? 

We were more selective about what we took pictures of, because each shot had a cost attached, from the film to the developing to the space it took to house the photo later.  Which brings me to my next issue - what to DO with those prints?   This was at the dawn of one of the 90's favorite MLM companies - Creative Memories.  Born to encourage us theme-sweater wearing housewives to scrapbook our way to producing family heirlooms.   I loved the stickers, the cut out card stock shapes, and the "acid-free" paper, designed to preserve those images for a life time!  Whose lifetime?  

So we scrapbooked our way into more albums and more stuff to store.  Both of my children actually have a super cute baby book that I creative memory'd for their first year (the second kid got a few things tossed in on sticky notes, because I lost steam with a 5-year-old and a job).  What happened next? The digital generation is upon us!

When kid #2 was born two decades ago, we got our 1st digital camera.  You could shoot as many images as would fit in the Sony 8 gig memory stick (as Travis will tell you - it's not MEMORY, it's actually STORAGE - he hates when those terms are confused by us non-tech aficionados).  The images were grainy-er than my 35 mm but they were instant!  As long as you didn't inadvertently delete them from your camera, or computer, or lose the stick.  I can now take 100 pictures of my kid's first day of preschool and send them electronically to the world!

After another decade rolls by, we are gifted with cameras on our cell phones!  What?  One device for BOTH things I want to do?  This must be witchcraft.  

So what do we do with THOSE images?  Here, they are living in my laptop, the cloud, and my phone.  Forever, I guess, until we run out of storage in the ether.  Not to be undermined by digital photography, the clutter fairies over at Shutterfly decided it would be amazing if you made a tangible ALBUM out of your digital photos!!  Because everyone wants to see your Disney trip album that's on your coffee table, so you painstakingly created a digital masterpiece then they turned it in to a book.  That now you must find a place for.  Oh yay, it's 1970 again.  

Do I have a solution to this conundrum?  I do not.  Because, although I have no first day of school pics anymore,  someday I will have more weddings, babies, and vacations to photograph and store.   I adore the memories, like we all do.  Facebook, iPhone, and my Amazon portal thingy all remind me of "this day in history" photos that I love to reminisce about.  I groan/chuckle when I read facebook comments from the generation above me when they admire someone's picture in a post and say "that's one to frame for sure!!!" as if we all go around swapping out photos in frames around the house.  We don't HAVE to spend money on wood and glass to admire our photos anymore.  Even grandma has the rotating digital picture frame in the kitchen loaded with all the grandchildren on school picture day.  

Best wishes as your tackle your parents'/family's photos as well as your own.  Preservation of the memories is a task, and may yours be unburdened with stuff, and stored neatly in some cloud.  

Minimalist Hobbies - Can that be a thing?

Recently a Gen Z-er told me she was not loving her post-college job and had no hobbies.  She had tried reading, dabbled at cooking, and was considering firing up the old Singer and attempting sewing.  

This lack of meaningful personal activity gave me pause - and I was reminded of a statement my younger son admonishes whoever’ll listen: consuming media is NOT a hobby.  I’ll modify that by adding “consuming media and shopping are not hobbies”.  

Yet our young adults seem to do a lot of both of those things.  After my conversation with the young zoomer, I realized it is us, the parents, the latch key Gen Xers, who are to blame for their notable lack of hobbies.   We planned their playdates, signed them up for every season of everything, and bought all the accountrements to accompany every new activity/hobby/class they took.

And now? They are adults, and no one is signing them up for anything.  They come home from work, perhaps get UberEats or Hello Fresh for dinner, and Netflix their way through another evening.  Maybe they have jumped on a fantasy football league, but that probably took place while sitting on the couch with their just cat and their significant other. 

They don’t have anything to putter at, to practice, or to build.  They don’t know what to do after work or if their parents changed the password to their streaming service.   Sorry, Zoomers, we’ll take that L.   We didn’t teach you well. 

As kids, the Gen X crew had to come home after school, fix a snack with whatever was in the pantry, maybe kick back with some ABC Afterschool Specials about teen angst or divorce, and get out homework done before the parents came home from work.  Maybe we played a sport, but that was probably one day a week and on Saturdays for a few months.   We made potholders out of looms,  built forts out of sheets and the box fan, and played Monopoly until the inevitable board flip happened after we decided the banker was embezzling funds.   

I’m not saying we walked to school uphill both ways; I just realized that we have scheduled the spirit out of all our children and now they can’t amuse themselves other than shopping or media consumption.  

One of the reasons our houses are brimming with stuff is that so many people see shopping as a hobby.  Acquiring more crap for your abode should not be how you spend your leisure time for entertainment.  

I asked a friend once about her latest love interest and what his hobbies were.  Her answer? “He likes spending time with his family!”  I would HOPE that is something he enjoys, lest he appear a sociopath.  But what does HE do in his leisure time for fun, as enrichment?  Nothing?  Sounds like a dull guy.  

You don’t have to order an Amazon truck full of knitting needles or gardening tools to have a hobby.  But look inward and let yourself have some leisure time activity that enriches your life.  Take two-step lessons, learn to paint, rebuild that carburetor.   Don’t wait for someone to tell you it’s time for soccer practice.  Leave the shopping as a hobby in your rear view.  

The Church of the Curated Mind

This week, I went to church.  Not the kind where there are hymns or ancient stories heard from a pew.  It was at a small Improv club in Dallas' northern suburb of Addison, and the guys on the pulpit were The Minimalists.  If you're reading this, you've probably heard of them or seen their docs on Netflix.  They have a new book, "Love People Use Things", and this was their book tour stop. 

For those of us who subscribe to many of their tenets, it was a refresher course in statistics of how much crap we house in our homes, garages, and storage units.  For those new to the flock, it was an informative evening of how to live intentionally with less.  

The Minimalists are two guys (Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus) who have been sharing their recipe of what adds value to your life for over a decade.  They are friends and business partners.  They have podcast and write blogs and books.  I like and agree with mostly all of their life hacks.  My husband periodically wondered, "why doesn't the long-haired guy get to speak more? The Christopher Walken-looking one seems to do all the talking".  Indeed.  

I enjoyed the two hour live podcast and Q&A about how to live a meaningful life, because, really, isn't that what we all want?  I have definitely made my own inroads into that intention.  My paths have changed throughout my aging process, but I would profess to live intentionally.  

An example:  when I arrived at the venue, I noticed the authors' book was available for sale.  I already have read the (above linked) book, and I had my copy at home.  I was thinking, "darn, if I had brought it, I could have gotten them to autograph my copy".  Then I said to the forced-to-attend-this-event spouse, "Shoot! I wish I had brought mine.  But wait, then it would be autographed, so I would be weirdly reluctant to share it, because somehow its inherent value increased.  But when I die, neither you or the kids will care two sh*ts about my autographed copy of the Minimalists' tome, so why would I care right now?"  

This quick rationalizing of my lack of need for either a) another copy of the book right now that was autographed, or b) lament for not thinking to bring my own copy, made my remorse for not having an autographed copy evaporate!  Just a few moments to work through the fact I did not need nor want someone's scrawl on the front page of a book I already read because who cares? (Sorry guys, it's just not intentional for me)

The husband was supremely glad to hear me walk myself through this reasoning, because then he didn't have to do it and try to make it sound like it was all my idea in the first place.  And as an added bonus, I will now enthusiastically share the book with you, my reader friends.  

I love books. And shoes.  And notebooks and pens.  I have many of all the aforementioned items, and most add value to my life (which is my eternal litmus test).    I don't apologize for them, and neither should you.  Minimalism isn't about shaming or guilt about your stuff.  It's about an effort to life a meaningful life with less.  

Check out the Minimalists at their podcast, Netflix documentary, or borrow one of their books from me!  Joshua is a bit pontificate-y, and he seems to pride himself on his use of SAT words and paused. speech. for. effect.  But you'll enjoy the themes and likely find a way to incorporate some living with less into your world.  Those guys definitely don't need MY endorsement here, but if you ever want to join me at THEIR church, I am usually in the front pew.  Organizing, tidying, and recycling all the papers and tossing that which doesn't add value.  

It's a nice place over here in minimalist-land.  We welcome all-comers!

Money and Minimalism

I typically revamp my personal goals at midyear - sort of like evaluating my New Year's resolutions (although I don't make those - I just call them goals).  It helps me decide what to focus on for the second half, and what I can jettison for the rest of the year.  This year, I was WAY off on my 2021 goals (even though there is a waning pandemic compared to 2020), so I am modifying the plan for 2021 Part II.  

At mid-year, I take the re-evaluate time to analyze the financial situation of the household and myself, to ensure we meet Q3 and Q4 goals as a (family) corporation.  I wondered if my readers and friends did the same, so I thought it timely to discuss my minimalist money tenets.  

It seems everyone is a money expert online, from The Budget Mom to the exalted personal finance king himself, Dave Ramsey.  There is a money plan for every personality and budget.  Aligning with my minimalist principles, I subscribe to the Tony Robbins quote, "Complexity is the enemy of execution".  This means, I cannot spend an inordinate amount of time mentally ruminating over my finance situation and goals.  I have to keep it simple, or it won't happen. 

Here at the ranch, the Mayor is the one with the MBA and the money sense/cents.  I am the Chief Operations Officer, and I handle the trees while he oversees the forest.  It works for us and our yin/yang personality pair.  If you're looking to simplify your finances and investment portfolio, here are some things that work for us.  

1.  I don't have a budget.  

    What?? That is the FIRST thing that financial experts propose to get on track!  I know, I know, but it's part of my non-complex plan.  I do track spending (Chase makes it super easy on their banking app), and I know roughly what the monthly non-flexible expenses are, like cell phone, utilities, insurance, etc.  I pay those out of the paychecks first, because they aren't negotiable.   A girl's gotta have her Hulu.  

2.  I pay myself first. 

    We contribute a respectable amount into the company-matched 401K every paycheck, no matter what.  I can't emphasize enough how important this is, regardless of your current age.  If you don't use the company match (if you have that option) to its max, you're turning away free money.  The stock market has, despite the kick in the face 2008 and 2020 gave us, historically yielded between 9-12% in the last 100 years.   Trust Vanguard and keep it simple.   We have even taught the kids to get an IRA and to start now if their company doesn't offer retirement benefits.  Compound interest ain't no joke.  

3.  I (almost) never incur consumer debt.

    Why?  Because I sinned SO much in my 30's I vowed to never do that again.  If you don't have the money, you can't afford it.  Pretty minimalist ideal, right?  I have bought a car with a loan and made payments, but I paid for half up front and had a barely-more-than-zero interest rate. I did NOT sign a 60-72-84 month note.  Don't ever do that.  Your car is not worth that. 

    Same with furniture/jewelry/Old Navy credit card.  The 15% off is almost never worth it.  You can even remove "almost" from that sentence and just stick with never.  It's not. If you can't pay today, you can't have it.  

4.  I keep emergency savings.

    I have to hide this from myself on my banking app, so I don't look at it when I check balances and budget.  Because I am essentially a toddler and have little control.  BUT, I do an auto-deposit each paycheck and don't touch the balance.  Banks get crabby if you make savings withdrawals anyway, so just leave it for car/house/health disasters.   We HAD one this year with snowmageddon and had to come up with cash for repairs beyond what insurance covered, so I was grateful I had been socking it away.  $1,000 is the recommended amount per finance gurus, and that will cover most car and up front medical costs in the short term.  

5.  We have two checking accounts, but only one credit card.  

    Again, this may seem counterintuitive to minimalism by both of us having checking (and savings) accounts, but it works for us.  It's not MY money and HIS money; it's my account and his account.  And we are both signers on each, so any emergency won't prohibit us from access.  For us, it makes things simple.  I handle the day-to-day expenses, which as a part-time nurse practitioner/professor is more appropriate for my income.  The Mayor handles the larger chunks like the mortgage and the investment accounts.  If you're single, or you and your partner have chosen not to commingle funds (a STRONG recommendation from me if you're not in a legal partnership like marriage), then you may find that two accounts is helpful for you, too.  You can split your paycheck into two accounts and pay the big things on one and the smaller, daily things with the other. 

    ONE credit card means that a) all the points benefits go to one account and we reap the free hotel rooms quicker and b) we are never trying to pay off multiple cards every month because we each used one (or more).  Check out The Points Guy  for great ideas on how to benefit from credit card points.  You can also use Bankrate for comparing cards and their costs/benefits.  

I can't reinforce enough how important it is to limit your credit cards and eliminate your debt.  Debt is the antithesis of all things minimal.  It makes decision making complicated, and it impairs your ability to keep things simple when you're buried under a mountain of debt.  Debt is never minimal and is always cumbersome.  

I hope my simple non-MBA background minimal money tips have been helpful.  I have mostly learned these things from the incredibly stupid way I handled money in my 20-40 year old life.  If your priorities are kept simple, as in kill the debt, save for retirement, and don't spend more that you make, you'll probably come out looking like a minimalist master!  

    

Recovery and Precedented Times

Here in Texas we've eschewed masks for the most part, unless you're in my pediatric office since we're in healthcare.  We seem to be keeping a lid on the Covid numbers, and things are looking less miserable than this time last year when we were stuck at home. My kid's lack of prom and the virtual college orientation were my whiny complaints, and the days ahead looked bleak.  

Summer 2021 seems far better than 2020.  So far, it's been a year, right? Here at the ranch, 2021 has brought record low temperatures, a full house flood, and unplanned renovations post-said flood.  It's also brought a new look at minimalism.  We realized we put our hands on nearly everything we owned when it had to either be relocated for clean-up, or re-evaluated for insurance purposes.  Dang, did we have a LOT of stuff for self-proclaimed minimalists.  

Boy #1 doesn't live here anymore, as he is a grown up now who pays for his own car repairs, etc.  As is typical when they fly the nest, they tend to leave some stragglers behind.  They don't want their junk where THEY live, but don't really want to toss it either.  As the Mayor and I had to relocate to the guest room/my office/Boy#1's former  room, he had to come get his stuff.  There was no room for his hat collection and Star Wars paraphernalia AND my shoes.  My children have neither adopted the tenets nor claimed to be minimalists...

After spending volumes of time at the house because of pandemic-life, we had time to go through much of our stuff and make some hard cuts.  We had to tell a lot of our books, "I'm sorry, we've just chosen to go in a different direction."  The t-shirts all heard, "you've been an asset to the organization, and we wish you well." The games and toys were informed that "this just isn't working out, so you'll be played with one last time, then security will escort you to the dumpster."

Seriously, we had a dumpster for about 8 weeks planted here on the ranch.  Its purpose was for construction materials, as we had tons of drywall, carpet, and other wet stuff removed and tossed.   I had mixed emotions tossing belongings into the dumpster, because although the tidying and purging part was great, the environmental impact did not go unnoticed.  The crap you discard has to go SOMEwhere.   I felt shame for even permitting some of our things initial entrance into our house.  

Boy #2 was at college during the flood and subsequent clean up.  I had to make some executive decisions on some of his things whether to stay and rehab or throw away.  There wasn't time or space for deferred decisions; I had to say keep or toss.  My rationale was that he probably wouldn't notice anyway (I was right) because nearly all his worldly goods were with him in his apartment.  As previously mentioned, the rest they leave behind for the parents to mull over years after their departure.  

So what has this renovation and clean up taught me, the alleged minimalist?  Four months later with renovations complete, the house is back to normal, but I still have a lot of shoes.  In fact, I added a shoe closet with my renovation plans, so they would all have a tidy place to live. (In my defense, I have this disclaimer about shoes on my Instagram profile, so all is forgiven).   The sheer volume of one-and-a-half Dumpsters-full brought me some shame, but it did force me to cull the herd of books, clothes, the just-in-case stuff in the garage and the attic.  

I don't recommend a natural disaster to cure you of any hoarding tendencies, but a move to a different abode might do it?  Of course, this housing market is so crazy, no one wants to move unless it's critical to survival.  In that case, just pick a room, and be brutal with your decisions.  Especially if you have children at home.  Their stuff multiplies at night when you're sleeping,  and the playroom becomes a wonderland of crap.  

Our house is not exactly a shadow of its former self, but it's better.  Each room has a purpose.  We removed the TV from the master bedroom and returned it to a haven of mid-century modern relaxation.  The office/guest room is organized and free of extraneous furniture and clutter.  The seasonal decor has been trimmed to just the things we enjoy and no more.  Half Price Books is now the home to many of our media and books.  Go have a look!

We hope this summer brings you time outside and less clutter in your life.  It's hot out, so when you retreat to your home and its refrigerated air, I hope it's comfortable and minimal!

Drywall disaster 

A fraction of the book stash

Shoes have a new home!

Tidy Up those Halls You Decked!

 We made it.  I know that our world won't change that dramatically just because we flipped the calendar and watched the ball drop in our pajamas.   But I would imagine I speak for the majority that we are glad to see the back side of 2020, and if the door hits it on the way out, we don't care.  

January brings about new enthusiasm for minimizing.  We have to put away the gifts, wrapping, and decor that we gleefully brought into our homes, perhaps despite our November pledges to NOT overbuy this year and be grateful for what we already have.  Oops.  

One of my girlfriends proudly decorates for Christmas with six things.  SIX?!  That even includes the tree and stockings for her, kid, and dog.  If she is reading this, she is doing so with all the extra time she has NOT putting all her crap back in boxes in the attic.  

Consider what you DO have when you're putting things away after fall and Christmas holidays.  As your kids/families change, consider donating or recycling things that no longer serve you.  I try to cull the herd every year, and now that Boy Wonder is decorating his own place, I unloaded a bunch of his stuff to his stash.  I don't need the Millennium Falcon ornament that was his in the first place!  So long R2D2 - these are not the droids I am looking for anymore!

It may be too late to save yourself, but tell your friends.  DON'T buy everything at Target/AtHome/Hobby Lobby during after Christmas sales!  The retailers are SUPER happy to get rid of all their stuff so they can stock for Valentines/Easter/Halloween, but you don't have to help them.  Yes, prices are 75% off, but I stored some 90% off pumpkin votive holders for years without using them, until I finally pawned off on ANOTHER girlfriend during a garage sale (sorry, Teresa). Be brutal in your choices of sale purchases.  Your Biden Bucks from the stimulus checks should not go to holiday decor on sale. 

What about storage containers?  Target sees you, and you feel seen.  They have color-coordinated storage for ALL your putting-away needs post-holiday.  Container Store?  Even more connected to your inner storage desires.  This is counterintuitive to the whole minimalist credo.  Cute storage is fun - nay, ADORABLE.  But, it just permits our dirty little secret of that 500 snowman collection to thrive amid red and green plastic tubs and bubble wrap.  

This year, go hard and cull that herd.  Keep the things that add value to your holiday, that you actually display prominently, and consider repurposing the ones you don't.  I don't mean toss the stocking Granny made for you as a child because now you use the matching family ones you ordered from LLBean.  The Mr. and Mrs. Snowman you won as a centerpiece raffle at the office Christmas party (not this year because Covid)?  You hate it, but someone else may like it.   And they may only have SIX things and they need at least seven... (sorry, Bex).  

Happy January Tidying, minimalist friends.  Onward to a vaccine filled 2021!