Thank you so much for all your kind and thoughtful comments on the money post.  My dear friend Kyce has a terrific post currently about living with less, so be sure to hop over and read that as well.  And please do share your own inspirations with us below.

Like Kyce, I must admit that living simply comes naturally to me in some ways.  I love many traditional crafts and skills and handwork, and I get a big kick out of decluttering our house (or a friends house!).  Even so, when my husband and I bought a home five years ago, it was quickly filled with junk.  Some wonderful, meaningful things, but mostly junk.  Many family members gave us furniture and home goods, which was a blessing, and we also lost three grandmothers in a row, and inherited some of their possessions.   At first, it was really exciting to have so much, but it quickly became oppressive.  Our house was impossible to clean, there were rooms I couldn’t even go into, and I began to dream of living in a tiny, 900 sq foot home.  I realized that in order to fit us into a tiny home, I would have to get rid of a lot of stuff, and so I got started, even though we weren’t even actively looking for a different house.

Over the past five years, I’ve given away over half of our belongings.  I’ve sold a few big things, but mostly I’ve taken loads to the thrift stores.  I started with the most obvious things – broken items, things we had never used, clothes that didn’t fit.  For me, there was definitely a feeling of moving  through layers – I would clear away one layer of stuff, and reveal another layer beneath (sometimes treasures that we had forgotten about, or just couldn’t appreciate because there was so much other junk).  It was harder to give away gifts, or items from family, but as our home became less cluttered and more beautiful, it became easier to see what belonged.  Did we find it beautiful?  Was it useful?  Did it hold too much symbolism, like Ben’s father’s flute, to part with?

This simple practice transformed our house, which sometimes felt like a not-very-clean hotel, into somewhere we wanted to be.  Rather than feeling deprived of all that stuff, we feel enlivened by having a home we can truly enjoy.

Along with giving away so much, we became extremely picky about what we allowed to come into our home.  I’m no saint, and I’ve certainly continued to make purchases I regret – but when I do, I don’t hold on to them just because it’s painful to admit that I made a mistake!  (This is a big one, by the way, it’s amazing how many things we keep that we don’t really want, just because getting rid of them means admitting to ourselves that they don’t work.)  We try to be very conscious about our buying – do we actually need it?  (Usually the answer is no.)  Where will it go in our house?  Could we borrow one instead?  Was it made by a real person, paid fairly for their work?  What resources were used to create it?

When I think I want something, I often try waiting for a few weeks or months, and then see if I still want it.  This simple tool is very powerful – what seems so urgent to us at one time may feel very different when we give it some space.  When we do need to buy something, we try very, very hard to buy it from real people – small, independent companies using ecological, fair practices.  Where we buy our goods is a habit, and it takes time to change our habits. When we first wanted to stop buying from chain stores, it was hard.  We had to really think, where else could I get this?  For clothes, it’s usually the thrift store, or trying to sew it myself.  Some items, like wool long johns and underwear, we do buy new, so we buy them from good companies.  For books, we went from frequent book buyers to avid users of inter-library loan and sparse book purchasers.  For our daughter, we buy 95% of her clothes from the used kids stores, and many of her toys have come from there as well.  We have bought some new toy/play items because we don’t want plastic toys, and wooden toys are really hard to find secondhand.

It may seem strange to talk about simplifying the clutter in our homes as a means to combat climate change, but I believe that we are bombarded by junk in our homes, it can be hard to make other changes.  Clutter is sticky – it invites more clutter, and it is a time suck because we spend a lot of time looking for lost items (or buying things we already have but can’t find).  When we don’t find our homes beautiful, peaceful, it can be hard to engage in the work of a more beautiful, more peaceful world.  I believe we make a huge impact with our buying choices (and Mamas, you make most of the buying choices in your household – remember that!)  Monetarily speaking, even though we choose to spend more on some items, like shoes made by real people, or organic cotton clothing, overall we spend far far less than the average American.

I want to talk next about some of the “big” things we’ve chosen to live without.  Please share with us in the comments about your own experiences with clutter and giving things away!

Decluttering resources:

Flylady (I actually find her website totally overwhelming, I read her book instead: Sink Reflections)

Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider

Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne (a fantastic book all around, with a great section on decluttering)

No Impact Man, by Colin Beaven (his blog and book both have some interesting reads on consuming less and getting rid of junk)

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (a really good book, with a  section on decluttering and buying less)

On Tuesday, we celebrated Ben’s birthday.  As you may remember, we’re a big fan of birthday pies around here, and so at Ben’s request I made Pascal Rigo’s Caramel-Pecan Chocolate Tart, from our favorite American Boulangerie.  With the help of my, um, assistant pastry chef Ella (just don’t tell her she’s not the main chef), it wasn’t quite as beautiful as I’d hoped, but I was somewhat amazed I pulled it off at all, and once we cut into it, I didn’t hear any complaints.

Since Ben’s birthday was on Candlemas, we waited and did our Candlemas celebration on Wednesday.  Neither of us had ever done one before, but I was tickled when I first read about it in Mrs. Sharp’s Traditions, and then when I read this post on The Parenting Passageway, I knew it was meant to be.  First, I love breakfast for dinner, and pancakes are traditional for Candlemas/St. Brigid’s Day.  Secondly, in addition to celebrating the half-way mark from Winter Solstice to Spring Equinox with candles, it is also a traditional time to bless your seeds for the coming year.  I brought that big beautiful jar of Tiger Eye Beans to the table, we lit some new red beeswax candles, and we said blessings and good wishes for the season to come.

My other favorite Candlemas tradition?  The beginning of spring cleaning.  Ben and I have definitely being going on a bit of a spring purge around here, and I am very excited about it.  On Sunday, Ben took Ella to the bakery for a few hours since she and I were driving each other nuts, and I suddenly had to move my sewing room from its tiny, dark room upstairs to a big, bright room downstairs.  This room has been rented to housemates in the past, and housed WOOFers, but it was standing empty.  No longer!  I got my sewing table set up, some of my fabric in, and took 10-year old inspirations off my inspiration board and made room for the new. It feels great to be moving into a fresh space, with great light.  Soon – shelves going up, fabric organizing, yarn organizing, space for projects, a bigger table for cutting out patterns.  I am just a little bit excited.

That night, I stumbled across this:

Yes, yes, and yes.  That totally sums up how I feel – we started really trying to de-clutter our home (and therefore life) last summer, and we’re now entering round 2.  Bring it on.