Announcing The August Challenge: No Dryer Month

Every month we will be encouraging you to join us in our pursuit of radical simplicity by doing one small thing with us for a whole month.

August's challenge is No Dryer Month.   We will be committing not to use our dryer at all for an entire month. Will you join us?

Did you know that...

• Dryers are among the top 3 energy consumers in most homes, along with the fridge and the water heater?
• Line-dried clothing puts less stress on clothing, causing it to last longer?
• Line-dried bedsheets smell heavenly?
• The suns rays actually kill germs and whiten whites?

On August first I will share some tips to help avoid using the dryer (like, how to keep your line-dried towels from being crunchy!) and encouraging all of you to share your tips as well so that we can all go into this project confident and prepared!

If you're planning to take the plunge with us, I've made a banner (it's 300 x 300px) for you to display on your own blog.  Just cut and paste the code below.

<a href="http://theyearofless.blogspot.ca/2012/07/announcing-august-challenge-no-dryer.html"target="”_blank”"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9IEmXTOEHHg/UBA4n6hDNWI/AAAAAAAADTI/XlorA4zA128/s300/no%2520dryer%2520month%2520300px.jpg" /></a>

Or you can let all of your friends on facebook know that you are taking the challenge by visiting this photo that I've uploaded to our facebook page and clicking the "share" button!

Thanks so much for taking this challenge together with us! We can't wait!

We are doing one small thing every day for a year to create a simpler, quieter, more intentional life. Take a moment to read all About Us, check out The Rules of our year long project and sign up for our RSS feed or "like" us on facebook so that you can follow our journey to radical simplicity!

Day 4: Cancelling our Catalogues

The Task: Recycle all of our current catalogues (FYI: I'm not spelling it wrong, I'm Canadian and that's how we spell it...) and ask the companies to no longer send them to us. 

The Why: Nearly every company has an online catalogue you can browse, making the concept of sending paper catalogues around the world every year really wasteful and kind of silly.  (Catalogues in the US alone are reported as using 53 million trees a year!) Plus, when I need an item I should be shopping only for the item I need, not leisurely browsing through every item the company sells.

The fact is that catalogues are designed to sell us things we wouldn't otherwise buy. If they weren't, companies wouldn't send them to us every single year for free, right?

And finally, catalogues take up space.  If we don't have them, we don't have to store them anywhere!

The How:  I gathered up all of my magazines, and one by one visited the websites of each company to send an email requesting that they no longer send me catalogues.  I assured each company that we will browse their online catalogue when we are in need of something! Then I disposed of all of the catalogues in the recycle bin.

There may have been some I've forgotten about, so I'm committing to immediately cancel any catalogues that arrive in my mail in the future.

Total Time Spent: About 20 minutes.

The Verdict:  Honestly, as a geeky homeschool mom, I'm kinda mourning the loss of my Curriculum catalogues.  But I know that it's better for me to search the website for the things we really need than to go through their entire inventory with a highlighter and a cup of tea. 

The habit of always shopping and constantly browsing for things to buy does not help us to cultivate a life of radical simplicity!

We are doing one small thing every day for a year to create a simpler, quieter, more intentional life. Take a moment to read all About Us, check out The Rules of our year long project and sign up for our RSS feed or "like" us on facebook so that you can follow our journey to radical simplicity!

Day 3: Minimizing our Wardrobes

The Task: Reduce our clothing to the bare (haha, pun intended) necessities.

The Why: By not putting reasonable limits on the clothing we own we find we are always kind of in shopping mode.  We walk past a store, or see a good deal, and think "why not?"  By reducing our clothing to what we really need and wear we can set a cap on our clothing possessions to save money and avoid stress when getting dressed.

Plus, all of the things we don't need will stop being wasted in our closets and can go to a thrift store where somebody who needs them can buy them for next to nothing.  My extra maternity clothes will be sent to a pregnancy crisis center.

The How:  It's easiest to trim down your wardrobe, I think, if you have a sort of uniform that you wear most of the time.  A go-to combination of clothing types that you can mix and match to wear on an ordinary day.  For example, a typical uniform for a stay at home mom could be a pair of jeans and a nice fitted t-shirt.  For me, it's a skirt (normally a long flowing hippy skirt!) a solid color t-shirt, and a pretty accessory like a scarf or colourful headband.   This means that if I have 4 skirts, 4 t-shirts, and a few scarves I can keep myself dressed in an array of fun combinations while only needing to launder my clothing twice a week.

What We Kept:  Keep in mind that we live in a climate where weather ranges from frigid cold to heat-wave hot.  Plus, I'm pregnant, so I need to keep maternity and non maternity clothing.  I think all that considered, we've achieved our goal  of keeping the clothes we need and ditching the ones we don't.

Kelly has:
4 skirts
4 sleeveless shirts
4 regular short sleeved t-shirts
4 maternity short sleeved t-shirts
3 regular long sleeved shirts
1 maternity long sleeved shirt
3 sweaters or cardigans of varying warmth
2 cute summer dresses
1 sweater dress
1 formal dress
2 sets of pajamas
2 pairs of running shorts
bras, underwear and socks
5 scarves and a funky headscarf
1 swimsuit

Luke has:
1 vest
3 pairs of work jeans
3 pairs of nice jeans
3 pairs of black pants (2 casual, one formal)
8 t-shirts! Some for work (he works in construction), and some nicer ones for leisure
3 polo shirts
3 casual short sleeved button up shirts
2 casual long sleeved button up shirts
2 white dress shirts (one short sleeved, one long sleeved)
4 sweaters
2 pairs of casual shorts
4 pairs of work shorts
ties, belts and 2 fedoras
2 pairs of pajama pants
underwear,socks  and undershirts


The Verdict:  For the first time in my life as a mommy I feel like getting dressed is a simple (and fun!) task. I grab a skirt, a seasonally appropriate solid coloured shirt and pretty scarf!  Easy Peasy.

And my absolute favourite part of getting dressed is picking out a pretty scarf to wear.  If you're worried about trimming down your wardrobe, consider a few nice accessories.  Five scarves can turn a small-ish wardrobe into seemingly endless possibilities!

We are doing one small thing every day for a year to create a simpler, quieter, more intentional life. Take a moment to read all About Us, check out The Rules of our year long project and sign up for our RSS feed or "like" us on facebook so that you can follow our journey to radical simplicity!

Day 2: Giving Up Paper Towels

The Task: Stop buying paper towels. Completely.

The Why: Using reusable cloths and towels saves money and time (the time spent running to the store for paper towels!) and reduces waste. Plus, it saves space in my linen closet because I don't have to find a place to store the big bulky extra rolls of paper towel.  Sounds good to me!

The How:  We actually stopped using paper towels to clean up most of our messes ages ago.  We keep a stack of absorbent bar-mop towels in a kitchen drawer with our dish cloths and dish towels and my kids know to reach for them when they spill something or make a mess. I have to buy a new package about once a year because they endure a lot of wear and tear, but the 7 bucks I spend each year is far less than I would spend if we were reaching for paper towel every time one of the kids spills their milk.

I did, however, still buy paper towel for cleaning glass.  I tried using newspaper for the job but found that to be frustrating and unsuccessful.  So now I've purchased a pack of 2 microfiber cloths. The pack cost me 3 dollars and now I don't need to buy paper towels all year.  One small purchase to save a dozen more.

By the way, I use a half and half solution of vinegar and water as my window cleaner.  I've tried plain water and plain vinegar, but the half and half combination works better than either of those things on it's own.

But what about....umm...you know.....icky messes?  Like, what if a child vomits on the floor?   Well, if one of the children vomits on the floor I guess I will just have to whisk away the worst of the (I really hope you're not eating right now) chunks with a piece of newspaper and use an old grungy rag to clean up the rest of the mess.  I can handle that...I think.

The Verdict: Reusable towels don't create any extra work for me because they just get thrown in with the daily laundry, and they save us money, are better for the environment, and take up less space.  Fingers crossed that we avoid the stomach flu!

We are doing one small thing every day for a year to create a simpler, quieter, more intentional life. Take a moment to read all About Us, check out The Rules of our year long project and sign up for our RSS feed or "like" us on facebook so that you can follow our journey to radical simplicity!

Day 1: Tossing the Throw Pillows (Ack!)

The Task: Give away (most of) my throw pillows.

The Why: I had a hard time deciding what to do for day one.  The whole point of this project is that 365 little changes adds up to a radically different lifestyle.  What one little thing could I do to kick off a series of little things?

So I chose the thing that I was most illogically apprehensive about. Some of the things we are going to do in this coming year are understandably frightening and ultimately life changing.  But throw pillows shouldn't be. Right?

But the fact that I am so attached to decorative pillows that I cringe at the thought of getting rid of them is a pretty good indicator that I should in fact get rid of them.

The bottom line is that my throw pillows just don't pass the William Morris test.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” -William Morris

Sure, they are nice.  But beautiful? No.  And they certainly aren't useful since I've practically forbidden my family from putting their heads on them ever. Most of them aren't even comfy anyways.

Plus, throw pillows need to be washed occasionally and picked up off the floor a million times a day and replaced when they get worn and old or (more likely, since they never actually get used) out of style.

 I do not need throw pillows.

Full Disclosure:  We have two comfy throw pillows that we actually do put our heads on when lounging on the sofas watching movies, and my daughter has a somewhat sentimental throw pillow I made with her silhouette on it (I've blogged about that on my other blog), so we are keeping those ones. All the pillows in the picture above are being donated pronto!

The Verdict:  The part of me that loves to shop and own and swipe my VISA at stores that sell pretty shiny things is objecting big time.  (But who doesn't have throw pillows? Why would I get rid of perfectly good throw pillows. My sofas will be NAKED!)   But I'm excited about what this year will bring.  I'm excited to foster an atmosphere of cozy minimalism in my home and I think that in time I can get used to the look of my naked sofas...maybe.

We are doing one small thing every day for a year to create a simpler, quieter, more intentional life. Take a moment to read all About Us, check out The Rules of our year long project and sign up for our RSS feed or "like" us on facebook so that you can follow our journey to radical simplicity!