Day 12: When Decluttering Hurts (for all the wrong reasons)

I want to have less.  Less to care for, less to wash and sort and organize, less to steal my attention away from the things that matter.

And the more I give away and get rid of, the more I want to give things away.  I'm filling big rubber totes full of stuff for a local shelter that helps abused women get a fresh start.  I'm piling things in totes for a good friend's young cousin who is having her first baby. I've carted bags of gently used clothing to the Salvation Army Thrift Store.

In fact, we've gotten rid of so much stuff that I have a stack of empty totes and baskets in the basement.  When you radically declutter, all your organizational strategies and storage compartments start to become useless.  In fact, they turn into clutter!

And then I came across some cute teal polka dotted baking dishes. Collecting dust.

They make my heart swoon.

I've used them once.  Tiny little casserole dishes aren't of much use to a family of 7 (and growing).  They just aren't. The truth is, I bought these on a whim, and I shouldn't have.

There's nothing wrong with owning cute polka dot casserole dishes. But I don't need these, I don't even use them.

And I stand there in the kitchen, wrestling with my own heart.  A heart that wants cute little polka dotted dishes.  A heart that still confuses stylish and cute for what is truly beautiful.

The truth is, decluttering should be hard.  I should be standing in my kitchen with tears streaming down my face, beating my breast and calling out to God over all the times I wandered through stores full of fragile items, justifying myself as I put things I don't need into my cart.   I should be on my knees repenting for caring more about polka dot dishes than starving orphans.  I should be begging God to never let me forget again that we are here for something so much better than spending and consuming and storing up treasure here on this broken earth.  We are here to touch lives. We are here to spend our lives on HIM.

How many more children could we have sponsored through compassion international if we weren't so busy filling our home with trinkets? How many people in our community could we have reached out to if we weren't spending our time trying to find a parking spot at the mall?

But instead I stand in my kitchen wondering whether I want a more authentic walk with the maker of the universe, or some really cute polka dot dishes.

And this realization, this conviction, brings me to my knees.  Lord, break my heart with the things that break yours.

Today, 21 000 children will die because they are in poverty.  Today's task is to commit to take that knowledge with me every single time I stroll through an aisle of pretty shiny things I don't need. I'm choosing to live simply so that others may simply live.

This song has been on my heart all week:

"Give us clean hands,
and give us pure hearts.
Let us not lift our souls to another
Oh God let us be
a generation that seeks
Who seeks Your face, Oh God of Jacob..."

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 11: No Dryer Month

It's August 1st and our first month long challenge begins today.  For the month of August we will be choosing not to use our dryer at all.  Are you planning to join us?

I love using my laundry line, but as a mom of a large-ish family, I do regularly depend on my dryer.  On sunny days I often put the first load of laundry on the clothesline and the second in the dryer.  This month will definitely require some extra care and planning on my part.

From comments and emails I've received since announcing no dryer month I've discovered that dependence on a dryer is really a North American thing.  Many people around the world don't even own dryers, and if they do, they consider it ridiculous to use it in the middle of summer. Many of these people live in rainier climates than I do and don't have a backyard. This was convicting.  Here I am taking on this big challenge and it turns out that many people in developed countries all over the world have never even seen a dryer! 

I promised last week that I would share with you how to avoid crunchy towels when you're not using your dryer.  Line drying leaves clothing a little more crisp than the dryer does, but sometimes clothing can end up undesirably crunchy.

Excessive crunchy-ness is caused by laundry detergent left behind in the clothing.  The conventional advice is to add some vinegar to your rinse cycle, which is very useful.  It helps strip clothing of any extra soap residue, and your items don't come out smelling like vinegar, I promise.  But the truth is, I often forget to add vinegar.  My washing machine doesn't beep or anything when it gets to the rinse cycle, and it's not like I'm just standing there waiting for it, so I often miss the vinegar rinse.  But that's okay, because the ABSOLUTE BEST WAY to avoid too crunchy towels is this: use less detergent.

You really don't need as much detergent as the detergent company wants you to believe.  Experiment with less and find the amount that still gets your clothing clean but doesn't leave any residue.  For my detergent, that is a little more than half the recommended amount. Not only does it prevent too crunchy towels, it saves money too!

By the way, I've shared my green laundry routine before, on my other blog.

I know some of you have other questions about line drying, and I am definitely not an expert on the subject, so if you have a question please ask in the comments below, and if you are an avid line-dryer please take a second to answer some of those question if you can! 

Are you taking the challenge? You can get a banner to share on your blog or facebook here.

 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 10: Giving Away 100 Things in 100 Days

The Task: Give away one thing a day for 100 days.

The Why: Because a challenge is a fun way to encourage some accountability.  And because decluttering every single day changes the way we think about our stuff and causes us to take pause before bringing something new into the house.

And because it is way more fun to give that cute pair of shoes away to a good friend who will wear them than a thrift store!

The How:  I created a facebook photo album on my personal facebook and called it 100 Days of Decluttering.  Every day I find an item around my house that isn't getting as much use as it ought to and I take a picture and post it to the album.  My friends can comment on the pictures to call dibs on an item they want.  It has been a lot of fun, and in the 13 days I've been doing it I've freed our home of a pair of shoes, and extension closet rod thingy, a basket, some decorative items and throw pillows, a number of books, clothing accessories, various dishes, a lamp and a vase.

The Verdict:  I find I'm thinking about the items in my home through a whole new lens.  When I open my kitchen drawers, I actually see the items I don't use instead of ignoring them all together. I'm also a lot less inclined to buy something I don't truly need with the daily reminder that eventually stuff just gets in the way.

And it's fun.

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 9: Using Cloth Napkins

In our house, we call these serviettes.  Luke prefers to reserve the word napkin for, um, well....it's other meaning.  But Wikipedia tells me that the word serviette is mostly just a Canadian/UK thing, so for this post I'll say napkin.  Even though it makes Luke cringe a little.

The Task:  To stop using paper napkins entirely.

The Why: I read recently that forty percent of all household garbage is paper!  Forty percent!?  Since paper napkins in our house almost never make their way to the recycle bin or the compost, we've decided to do away with them all together.

It's not only about the wastefulness involved in disposing of napkins after every meal, but also the waste involved in production, packaging and distribution.  I've been reading The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard and have been finding my eyes opened to just how much of the earth's resources are used and wasted and damaged in the making of all our stuff.  Only in our crazy throw-away culture would we think it is easier to cut down trees, turn the trees into pulp,  turn the pulp into paper, make the napkins, package them, ship them around the world, and buy them at the dollar store than it is to wash a few extra cloths every day! 

Besides, cloth napkins are nicer.  Every meal is a little bit fancy with a cloth napkin!

The How: We've always used cloth napkins for nice sit down dinners with friends, but we've resorted to the paper ones often for bigger shindigs and too often for everyday use. So the good news is we already own a few mismatched sets of cloth napkins.

We have a party coming up in a couple weeks, for which we would normally buy colourful paper napkins. Instead,  we are going to take the money we would have spent on paper ones to our local thrift store and get a few more cloth napkins so that we have enough for parties.  The only problem with this is that I've discovered in the past that people are hesitant to use cloth napkins (not because they are concerned about the safety/cleanliness of them, but because they don't know if they are allowed to dirty them!) and oftentimes don't even see them when they are on a buffet.  If I had a dime for every time somebody with ketchup on their face was standing in front of a basket of cloth napkins and shouted "hey, Kelly, do you have any napkins?" I would have....several dimes.  Seriously!

The Verdict:  We actually much prefer the cloth napkins, and are really glad to be making the switch for good!

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 7: Shopping the Farmers' Market

 

The Task:  We've always enjoyed Saturday morning trips to the farmers' market as a sort of novelty, but this year we want to start treating it more like a grocery store and less like a field trip!

The Why:  A few nights ago, my husband was reading aloud to me and the children from Folks, This Ain't Normal by Joel Salatin and Mr Salatin stated that the average morsel of food in our culture has traveled farther than the farmer who grew it.  And that got us thinking and talking about how much is affected when the food system is dysfunctional.  

When we choose to shop at the farmers' market, we aren't just buying better food for our family, we are buying a better environment, a stronger local economy, and voting with our dollars for small-time farmers who are forced by nature and necessity to farm in a more sustainable manner.

My husband bought 5 different types of garlic!  Most of us have probably only ever eaten 2 varieties!  The woman who sold it to us told us about the different varieties and which were her favourites.  Shopping the farmers' market encourages farmland biodiversity too!

The Verdict:  I've heard people say that the cost of good food shouldn't matter because the earth and our health are important.  In theory, I would like to agree with that, but the fact is that cost is a very real issue in our lives.  I can only report on what I've experienced at my local farmers' market in my fertile corner of the Canadian landscape, but honestly, the farmers' market prices here are very similar to the grocery store.   Some things, like meat and cheese and berries are much more expensive (and even so, there are ways to afford it.  For example, I cannot afford a 17 dollar grass fed steak, but I can afford a couple pounds of grass-fed stew beef at 3.50 a pound!) But most of the veggies are reasonably priced. And oh so good.

We did stop off at the grocery store on the way home for some pecans and milk (can't buy milk at the farmers' market.  Or, if you can, I don't know the right people and the secret password...) and we were quickly reminded that the farmers' market is a far more enjoyable way to do the grocery shopping!  

This afternoon I'm headed to a party with some pretty pies I've made from fresh Ontario peaches and organic blueberries from a farm in town. Have I mentioned that I love summer? 

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!