Returning to My Post

It's back to blogging! I have moved yet again, this time to our treehouse in the west side of Portland. So I am embarking on creating yet another minimalist home. We are painting, remodeling, and landscaping. So, I will have a lot to write about.

I will also be writing about ways to save time and money.

Upon returning to the land of blogging, I went through all of my favorite blogs that I had listed and was shocked to see how many were no more. Some stated that their space was for sale, some were just not found and some were just replaced by ads.

So I have updated my blog favorites and added some more I think you'll like. So I hope you'll follow me on my latest journey. Cheers!

Moving in the Future? Start packing now!

Knowing that moving again is in my near future, either because we get this house sold or rent it out, I find myself thinking about what to do to make the move easier. I know the worst thing to do is to jumble things together in hopes of sorting it all out on the other end. I also know that anything that isn't in a container is difficult to move. So, I've decided to tackle packing way in advance by getting things into containers as much as possible and planning which containers to use where. 

1. Clothes: I already got rid of our dressers in exchange for plastic drawers that are stored in our closets. These are so great when moving because they're already packed. I'll need some tall moving boxes for hanging clothes and shoes.  (This is probably a good time to pare down my shoe collection.)

2. Cosmetics and toiletries: I haven't gone through this stuff in at least six months. I'll need to do that, and then locate some large zip lock bags to pack it all in. Then it can all go in my suitcase.

3. Office supplies: I think I'll use the zip lock method here as well.

4. Filing: I am unusually behind in this department. This will be my largest task. I need more folders. I hate too keep buying file boxes. I think I'll rubber band and pack up old files in a plastic storage box and set up new ones. It's the loose papers that need to dealt with.

5. Kitchen: This is the worst stuff to pack because it is so breakable. I think this time since I'm moving such a short distance, I'll just take it in my car. Wine boxes with inserts in them are helpful too. I'll ask my local pub owner.

6. Garage: This is by far the worst area to pack. Ours is filled with our construction company's tools. I've decided to leave this to the guys!

Wow! I feel better already. Now that I have a plan, I can tackle one area at a time and then when it''s time to move, I'll be ready to go.

Save Money on Christmas This Year

I have challenged myself to spend as little on Christmas as possible and here are a few of my tricks. Here's How I saved a huge amount of money on mailing:

1. reusing padded envelopes that I saved from when I bought various mail order items during the year. I just put blank name tag stickers over the old addresses and stuff and wrote over them. So they look funky? My family all know that I am an Oregon dwelling, recycling, composting, unapologetic, tree hugger!

2. I didn't send anything heavy like hard back books or anything glass.

3. The biggest savings on mailing was to mail early so I could use the good old US Postal service regular mail. I sent my last envelope yesterday, so no worries about it getting there on time and it cost way less than rushed delivery or UPS or Fed  Ex.

Getting my mailed gifts out of the way first saved me money and has really lowered my stress level already. It make sense to get this out of the way first because I can shop for the immediate family anytime watching for sales as I go. If you haven't mailed your gifts yet, put it on the top of your to do list and you will feel the stress lift!

Tomorrow: Saving money buying gifts.

Minimalistic Stress Reduction

Most of us are pretty organized at work. We walk in, check over our emails, create a list of things we need to get accomplished, enter deadlines into our planners, etc. As we all know, if we fail to do these things, we will certainly hear about it. (Oh, sorry I forgot about that meeting doesn't cut it at work.) Yet, it is all too easy to feel like we've had enough of this ultra organization by the time we get home and just want to relax, as if our personal lives would just flow along without any organization at all.

But we can use the same tools we use at work at home without over organizing our lives. Take email for example; we can set up many bills to come to us as emails and then pay them with on line banking which gives us a record of when they were paid. This is a huge time saver and cuts down on paper mail which helps me to be a better tree hugger!

Sadly, we spend less waking hours at home than at work,  so our to do lists for home should be much shorter, say two items. This may not sound like a lot, but after a week, you will have crossed off 14 items that you may have been putting off for months! It may be sending a thank you note, making an appointment, or making a phone call, etc. You may have to make a call during business hours and thus accomplish this on your lunch break. You still get credit for this though, because if you assign yourself too many of these things to do you will get even more stressed out. As you clear these types of items off of your list you may want to add items that help organize your home such as go through one drawer, organize your wallet or purse, or list an item on eBay, Craigslist or Freesell.

Just as you use a planner at work to make sure you are where you should be when, you can use a home calendar in the same way. Just like at work, when you make an appointment you write it down. You can go one step further and write a detail that gives you a record of what that appointment was about. You can note phone calls as well, giving you a record which may come in handy in the future.

I challenge you all to try my two item personal life "to do" list for one week and see if you can declutter 14 items from your stress list. Good Luck!

Save Energy: Sleep Naked

In my efforts to be creative about saving energy, I have tried to cut down on laundry and especially using the drier. I was noting that I don't have to wash any PJs for my husband because he sleeps au natural. It actually cuts down on a lot of laundry, assuming one would wear sleep wear once and throw it into the wash. That's 365 items! That's got to be a lot of laundry! So, I decided to join him in this conservation effort. After all, less laundry means, less energy used, less water used, and less work for me! Here's a pastel drawing of someone contributing to this cause. If you'd like to see more of my art work you can visit my art blog: Banba's Artful Realm.

Minimal Daily Routine

I just found a great site by a Texan called The Fly Lady. She is really encouraging. She starts from the idea that if you're reading her site, you're probably feeling overwhelmed by all of your obligations, and your house my have become cluttered and dirty. That is not where I am, but I am always looking for new ways to give myself more time. She suggests baby steps that build into a routine over a month. If followed, by the end of the month one's house should have improved dramatically. I 'm not going to go into complete detail because you should really check this lady out, but here's my routine. (Bear in mind I keep house for a 79 lb boxer and fluffy cat as well as for my husband and myself.)
Morning Routine:
Make Bed, Wipe down upstairs sink and toilet
Shower, Get dressed
Take down glasses and one garbage pail
Put in a laundry load and empty either garbage, recycling, or compost bucket
water backyard and scoop poop
Clean Kitchen & Sweep floor

Afternoon Routine:
Wipe down guest bathroom, dust living room, wash hardwood floors
Fold and put away one laundry load
Hit a hot spot for 15 minutes

Possible hot spots: ( Anywhere clutter accumulates or places you rarely get to)
Shower
Downstairs
My closet and chair
Brian’s closet
Bathroom drawers
Bedroom end tables
Hall closets
Bookshelves
Spider webs, vacuuming
washing walls and windows

Minimalist Living: Fifteen Ways I Have Saved Energy

1. By turning off the lights! Sounds simple, but when I really became conscious of it, I realized we left lights on all over the place. Outdoor lights left on during the day were a big offender.

2. I connected surge protectors to both our TVs and now turn them off there. This cuts down on standby energy drain. I do keep my DVR cable box plugged into the wall though because I record only what I want to watch and then watch it when I'm in the mood. This has cut down on my TV watching as well.

3. I plugged in my make up mirror, flat iron and blow dryer into a surge protector. This helped me because I turn them all off at once on the surge protector and I never leave one of them on by mistake any more.

4. Every time a light bulb goes, I replace it with a compact fluorescent bulb. I like to get the longest lasting bulbs possible because that means I won't have to deal with it for a long time. Our house has some tall ceilings and stairwells!

5. I installed floor to ceiling thermal curtains in the hottest parts of our home. They keep it cool in summer and warm in winter.

6. In the winter time when it's cold, instead of cranking up the heat, I fire up the stove and do some batch cooking. It warms up the whole house!

7. I placed umbrella tables on my front and back decks in front of large windows to block some of the sun as a tree would. They also provide shade for my cat and dog.

8. I set my Energy Star washer to the quickest setting - 35 minutes. Everything seems to come out just as clean as they do on a longer cycle.

9. I hang up a lot of the wash. I try to have a hang up load and then a dryer load. I don''t have a clothes line,  just a tension shower rod in my laundry room where I hang things on hangers. (It's mostly shirts and my fluffy skirts.)  Socks, towels and jeans always come out better tumbled I think. I also set throw rugs and comforters outside to dry.

10. The refrigerator is supposed to be the most energy thirsty appliance in a home. They run better when full, so I fill the freezer with bags of home made ice, bread and frozen homemade food. My husband does a pretty good job keeping the fridge filled up with beer! I also vacuum the coils regularly and try to have an awareness about not leaving it ajar!

11. We installed a programable thermostat and turn the air or heat off when we leave the house.

12. I alternate between sweeping and vacuuming the hardwood floors.

13. I bought a Voltair Solar Backpack and keep it on our super hot deck and charge our cell phones, iPods, and rechargable battery charger with solar energy.

14. I set our Energy Star dishwasher to the lowest setting - 35 minutes. The dishes still get clean and I don't have to wait around so long to put them away.

15. We moved into the city. This saves us gas because we walk a lot, and a lot of stove time because we hit every happy hour in our neighborhood!

Minimalist House Cleaning: Company's Coming Triage

When company's coming, it's an emergency clean up you'll need. You may not have time to do the greatest job on the whole house but here are some tricks. First, contain your guests to the main floor of your house. This may not work if they've never been to your house because they may want a tour. If that is the case, they at least won't be looking into your closets. This is triage....ready?
Start at the top of the house with a laundry basket - no you're not going to do laundry because you don't have time. Shove the laundry into the closet and close the door along with any other clutter you find. Then dust, vacuum, put the garbage and snack dishes into the laundry basket and move to the next room. When you reach the kitchen load the dishwasher, wash the floor and take out the trash. Go to the store and get some flowers and easy food. You can get some ideas on my earlier post Minimalist Entertaining: Horsdeorves.

Of course, this sort of clean won't last long so hopefully your guests' visit won't either! My next post will be about painless ways to keep your house together on a daily basis.

Minimalistic 4th of July

As I write this it is not yet 8:00 Am and I'm thinking there are lots of folks stressing about entertaining today. It's easy. It's all in the set up. Here are my tips:

1. Keep food simple. Grab some potato salad and fruit salad from the deli, put them in a bowl with some sprigs of mint, set the bowls atop  baking dishes filled with ice.

2. BBQ - not you! Some one whose job is to only do that. Do not allow this person in your kitchen. They may make a mess. Marinade what they'll be cooking ahead of time, then figure out in advance what they'll need, and put it on a tray ready to go.

3. Put all beverages into a bucket with ice with an opener near by. Open up some chips, dips,  and nuts and put them in  bowls spread around your entertaining area.

4. Use your regular plates and silverware. Have a large basket or plastic container for people to stow them in when they're done. Make sure you have a bag for garbage and one for recycling. Label all of these containers to let guests know where to put things.

5. Serve everything on a buffet table in the shade.

6. After dinner bring out individual ice cream bars for dessert. Usually, only the kids will want them anyway.

Speaking of kids:

1. Buy bubbles and water pistols. That should keep them busy. I won't address the fireworks issue, except to say avoid them if you can. An activity like Bocci ball is a fun game for kids and adults as well. When we lived in the country, I once had a neighbor bring her horse over and gave rides to the kids. That was really great!

2. Keep the kids outdoors and your dog indoors. Never trust other people's kids with your dog! Dogs hate fireworks anyway and can run off.

3. To make sure small kids don't wander off, lock your backyard gate up high and ask your guests to re-lock it if they go out. 

4. Try to pay a teenager to entertain your guests' kids.

If you set everything up this way, your only job at your party is to see that people are having a good time. Make sure people have a beverage, introduce people to each other, etc.

Have a safe and happy 4th!

Next Entry: Third installment of my interview with The Self Taught Artist.

Why do we keep stuff?

I am amazed when I see what some other people feel are their "treasures:" Little League baseball trophies, childhood games and toys, tools they never use, broken things they'll never fix, a breadbox? Anyone using a breadbox hasn't read my blog about how valuable counter space is!
I helped a friend move recently and he put as much stuff into the garage as he did the house!

I do have a few good ideas why people keep such things. I think they tie them to someone who gave them to them or someone they were with when they bought them somewhere in their past. Of course, many people hoard out of fear they'll have nothing one day, or they might need that useless thing one day. But the truth is: we need to get over this stuff! There's always more stuff in our future - the Good Will is full of other people's stuff they wasted their time, money, and our planet's resources on. You won't be young again, and your kids don't want your old toys. Oh, and your old girlfriend's not coming back, so make some room for a new one!

Minimalist Travel: Vacation in Your Own Town

Here in Portland, Oregon the weather just isn't giving us a break. Grey Grey Grey! I got onto the internet and started trying to find out how far we'd have to travel to get out from under these clouds and endless drizzle and to my horror it seemed to go on forever! We could drive eight hours to Redding or fly somewhere. Then I checked out the price of flying and it was crazy! $500 to fly to LA? There had to be an alternative. So my sweetie and I spent the weekend playing around in our own town. We ate every meal out, heard live music, went to art museums, Saturday Market, shopped on NW 23rd, (the tourist section of town), took cabs, stayed out late and slept in late and did pretty much what we would have done in any city on vacation. No dishes, no work and you know what happened? On Sunday the sun actually came out! Today alas, it's gone again, but we had loads of fun anyway and didn't have to spend $1000 for two round trip tickets to the sun, and kept our carbon footprint small...."Oh you can pour my next glass of wine into this glass. It saves energy."

Minimalist's Angst: Not Clutter Again!

I don't know how or why it happens but clutter just seems to happen. Somehow yesterday I looked at my kitchen and thought, wow, we're slipping. The thing is I have zero tolerance for clutter. I have never understood how some people can sit happily with a neighbor sipping tea in their kitchens with piles of paperwork that needs to be dealt with, dirty dishes in the sink, random items that should be put away in other rooms and perhaps even a basket of laundry that needs folding. It makes me feel like Monica from Friends! I just want to start cleaning!

So to my horror, I looked at my own kitchen realized it had lost it's sparkle and needed to be decluttered. So what was wrong with it? All of my systems were in place and functioning, no appliances on the counters, no dirty dishes in the sink but some odd items were creeping in where they don't belong. First of all, my table has six chairs which seems like a great place to drop my purse, jackets, and dog leash. No, this is not where the go and I have an easy place to hang these things in the entryway closet but alas they were there. A pile of checks and misc. papers had accumulated on the table as well as some keys. Under the sink my recycling system had exploded, there were two cutting boards on my counter, a fruit bowl with one apple and two tomatoes in it, and a watering can that belongs outside. This may not sound like a lot, but in my tiny row house kitchen it is.

So I took action. First I got my iRobot vacuum going and took out all of the recycling to the garage. ( Green note: I recycle and compost 90% of my garbage so we only have garbage pick up once a month.) Next I put all of the items away that didn't belong there. Then it was time to pare down. I put the watering can on the back deck, put the random fruit in the fridge, washed out the fruit bowl and put it away, and put one of the cutting boards away. I decided to lose the table runner and put a new candle in the center of the table and wash the throw rug by the door. I had a huge bamboo bowl filled with pine cones that spilled over in what can only be described as "Northwest Chique" that seemed to be screaming winter, so they had to go. I bagged them up, put them into storage in the garage, washed the bowl and put it away. Next all of the surfaces were sprayed with bleach and water which then sat for one minute and then I wiped them all down. That kills most of the germs and bad bacteria in your kitchen. I of course washed the floor then picked some flowers in the back yard and put them where the pine cones had been. This may not seem like a lot but the room now feels bigger and more comfortable and inviting.

I hope this post will inspire you to hit your own kitchen and if you want to check out how my kitchen systems work, read some of my past posts on reducing kitchen appliances, reducing the amount of junk mail you get, and composting.

The Minimalist's Desk

Even though I am a minimalist, I have a lot to keep track of. I keep books for my family's construction company and our real estate investment company. I also paint and play the guitar. All of these activities can cause a cluttered mess to occur really quickly. I have a real office but it has been taken over by my new art print hobby. So, I decided to make use of a rather cleaver space. Here it is:
Don't see it? No it's not the wicker box. That holds the all the remotes.
Here's my office! Yep it's all in here. Back left: Construction file box, Back right: sketch pads and watercolors, front left: office supplies and folders of bills to pay and items to file, front right: journal and guitar music. This has kept me really organized and keeps my living space uncluttered. I was lucky this came with my couch but, I don't see why someone couldn't convert an ottoman or coffee table or just use a trunk.

The Minimalist's Approach to Laundry

Chances are, ever since you left home to live on your own, laundry has been an issue. I remember an old punk rock song about two people breaking up and the girl was saying " I feel much better when my laundry's done." That's because if you're partying all the time and never home, your laundry's probably piling up all over the floor as a constant reminder that you don't have it together!

So now you're grown up and perhaps have not only your own laundry to do, but other's as well. Here are some ways to keep it from becoming an extra part time job. First take a look at it. Get all the dirty laundry out of everyone's room and look at what it consists of. You are likely to see towels that could have been reused, jeans that could be worn again, pants with belts still on them and change in the pockets, and sadly, sometimes even clothes that are still folded from when you washed them before because they were never put away and got mixed up with the dirty ones!

Here are some ways to avoid this mess:
1. Give each person a set of different colored towels and insist they use one until it doesn't feel fresh any more. That should be at least three days. If you see that anyone has left a towel on the floor, hang it up. People get used to an orderly bathroom and will start hanging towels up themselves. Yes, even kids.

2. Jeans and other clothes that are still wearable get thrown into the laundry because they're on the floor. To combat this waste, designate a place in each bedroom for clothes that could be worn again like a chair or a hook behind a door.

3. Have everyone go through their clothes and get rid of excess. It is said that the average person wears 20% of their clothes 80% of the time! You do this because people are more likely to put their clothes away if there is room in the closet.

4. I bought fabric lined laundry baskets for our closets and thought great, now there's somewhere to put all the dirty laundry. Unfortunately, by the time they were full there were loads of laundry to do! So here's the best solution that I have found : one open laundry basket that holds one load. When it's full I wash it, fold it put it away into our drawers and closets and laundry is no longer an issue. Why does this make a difference? Because it is visible! All of the afore mentioned laundry sins can been seen, and it's obvious who is doing it! So they stop.

Give it a try and you'll be amazed. The laundry doesn't pile up and cause you stress or make you feel like you don't have it together because after all I thinks we all ," feel much better when our laundry's done."

One more thought.....
Laundry is not only harming our self esteem but is actually harming our planet. It wastes energy and water and releases harmful detergents into our water supply. When you do launder, use biodegradable detergents like Shaklee or 7th Generation, wash in cold water on the quickest setting possible, hang up whatever items you can, and use Energy Star appliances. As far as "going green" goes, you can make a huge difference here. Good luck and good laundry!

Minimalist Finances: Getting Rid of More Junk Mail

When looking at simplifying finances, it makes sense to eliminate as much junk mail as we can. Not only are we helping the environment, but it makes it less likely that we will miss something important. In addition to arranging for paperless billing one can opt out of many catalogs and credit card offers.

To stop unwanted catalogs go to the Catalog Choice site. It’s a free service. Simply sign up and choose the catalogs you don’t want to receive. What's great is that you can update it whenever you want. I update it whenever I receive a new catalog. I feel that I am actually doing the retailer a favor by saving them their advertising money, because after all, I’m not going to order anything anyway! If I do want to order something that would be in their catalogs, I just go on line.

Here is a great time saver! Opt out of credit card offers. These are a huge time waster because they have to be shredded. What’s worse if they are stolen from your mailbox it could result in identity theft. Opting out is free and easy and you can opt back in at any time. Just go to the Opt Out Prescreen web site. And if you’re worried about missing some great credit card offer that would be mailed only to you, don’t. You can always shop for the best credit card deals on the Lower My Bills site or check with your mortgage carrier or bank.