How many mason jars do I need? A lot, apparently. I am not planning on pickling, and there are only so many glass jars one needs for storing beans and nuts in the pantry. I have a tiny worry that I will buy a massive bag of rice, run out of storage jars and then kick myself, but I think I’d get over it.
I am getting rid of two little cat toys. My grumpy cat has been gone for two years now. I used to love his little frog toy because it would make a ribbit noise when I least expected it, but the time has come to let it go. It will not diminish my memories of that hairy little fellow who scratched me for seventeen years. So long little toys.
I have a feeling The Minimalists are going to be my new gurus. They have an inspiring website with everything you need to know about minimalism that I need to devour. It is inspiring and frightening at the same time. I am far from hardcore minimalism, but I am willing to dip my toes in the sparse waters and take some baby steps.
Since it is the first of the month I am beginning with a thirty day challenge to get rid of one item a day. The Minimalists have a thirty day challenge they call the Minimalist Game where you increase the items per day. The idea is sending me into a panic. Instead I will start with an item per day for the month of August and regroup after that. Perhaps by then I will have minimalism fever and desperate to unload piles of things every day. For now I will tread carefully and not frighten myself.
First item I am unloading?
My Joni Mitchell CD cover of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. Just the empty case. I don’t know what happened to the CD. I keep holding on to it, hoping that the CD will magically reappear and I can lovingly slip it back in it’s case, but I don’t think it is ever coming back. Good bye empty CD case. Joni, I will love you forever.
I’m still tormented by my white bathing suit impulse buy. Perhaps this burden of guilt is a good thing. It may make me think twice before a future impulse buy. If guilt brings me closer to minimalism, so be it. Whatever works.
In the meantime, I worry that my white bathing suit will be extremely attractive to sharks. Not that I will be in shark territory any time soon. If I am lucky I will be swimming in an Ontario lake where my biggest worry would be a pike, but I may as well get neurotic about a future ocean adventure. I remember reading on a shark attack website ( best to be prepared) that anything sparkly or high contrast in water can be mistaken for shiny gills or tasty underbellies. I may look like a giant porpoise floating in the water and be irresistible to a passing hungry shark. Now that would be the ultimate lesson to not impulse buy.
I’m a sham of a minimalist. I just tried to write a story about the joy of less for an upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book. I waxed poetic about uncovering the real self when material objects are stripped away, my epiphany about how I actually need very little and wouldn’t be too fussed if everything disappeared, and how I am happier living a less cluttered life.
Meanwhile, I bought a bathing suit today. A white bathing suit. Doesn’t everyone warn you against white bathing suits? The combination of ghostly skin against stark white and the fact that white is not slimming should be enough to make everyone run in the opposite direction. And don’t white bathing suits become completely see-through when they get wet? That is probably why it was on sale. (final sale of course, so now I can’t even return it and appease my buyer’s remorse). If it’s true confession time I also bought a pair of sandals I don’t need. Damn these summer sales.
To think I then scurried home with my useless bathing suit and unnecessary sandals and wrote an essay about the joy of less. I’m a hypocrite with a white bathing suit just waiting to mortify me the first time I jump in a lake.
We have postponed our weekend getaway to New Orleans. Apparently it is beyond humid in the summer months and since The Sweetie and I are adverse to melting, we will wait until the weather is a little less intense.
That will not, however, stop me from my quest to eat my way through the cluttered freezer and pantry. Originally I planned to declutter the pantry to save grocery money for our trip, but there is nothing to say I should give up the quest just because New Orleans is on hold.
First item getting cleared out is the Tofurkey that’s been in the freezer since April. I bought it when it appeared in the grocery store around Easter. I decided a fake turkey shaped like a small football was perfect while everyone is slicing into their Easter ham.
There will be a few festive Tofurkey meals this week and one less thing in the freezer. Who says you can’t celebrate summer with a fake turkey?
Well, many things are my Achilles heel. Pretty things, dusty vintage finds, shiny objects because I’m a magpie, lipsticks promising to be that perfect shade of red. I’m a sucker and very far away from the minimalist mentality. Yet I carry on, hoping that somehow I will magically transform myself into a minimalist, breathing open uncluttered air and swinging my arms through my barren apartment without tripping over anything.
I bought a straw sunhat and maxi dress yesterday because they were cute and I was convinced that they would be perfect on a beach vacation and they were on sale. Did I need them? Of course not. I tried to convince myself that the dress looks minimal, so that kinda counts, doesn’t it? I know, I know, it doesn’t.
Minimalism 101 is just don’t go shopping. If you are getting rid of stuff, don’t go out and get more. Avoid sales because they will only tempt you to buy more things you don’t need.
I am a very bad minimalist student. I will rap my own knuckles and put away my purchases and feel guilty.
The kitchen is a disaster zone.
I have managed to pare down a few kitchen items. I bid a painful adieu to the apple corer I never used and had a long, drawn out debate over whether I needed two soup ladles. I am proud to report that we are finally a proud single soup ladle household, but it wasn’t easy.
More alarming than kitchen gadgets one will never use are the items in the pantry and freezer.
What does this have to do with New Orleans you may ask? Plenty. You see, I am determined to go to New Orleans for a weekend in July. I want to feel sweaty and languid and hear great music while sipping on bourbon sours. I think it would be a sultry, wonderful weekend getaway for The Sweetie and I. The thing is, we probably shouldn’t indulge in any sultry getaways. There are taxes to be paid, I want to sign up for a course, the dog needs a few sessions with a trainer. Basically the funds are earmarks for things other than eating po’boy sandwiches and looking at voodoo candles. I should behave like a responsible adult, but screw it, I’m going anyway.
What if I slashed the grocery bill down to almost nothing over the next three weeks and ate my way through the pantry and freezer? I could still buy fresh produce, but there is more than enough in the kitchen to see us through almost a month. Win win right? I could maybe actually see the back of the cupboard and the freezer by the end of the month. The frozen bananas hurling themselves at my toes almost every day would finally stop tormenting me. Your days are numbered evil frozen bananas. Soon you will be smoothies and I will be saving my toes and money at the same time. I could feel smug about my decluttering prowess and have a guilt free trip to New Orleans at the same time.
Hello brown rice and lentil recipes! Hello bourbon sours and beignets! I’m coming for you.
I am reading The Joy of Less- a minimalist living guide by Francine Jay. Now here is a true minimalist. She’s living the life and doing it with joy. She blogs about the minimalist life under the moniker Miss Minimalist. A Minimalist Wannabe has a lot to learn from her. I plan on devouring her book, sleep with it under my pillow if need be, and hopefully absorb her wise words.
For now I shall share a quote from her book by Tao Te Ching:
“He who knows he has enough is rich.”
Nicely said Tao Te Ching. Nicely said.
I know the right thing would have been to avoid the Anthropologie sale today. I’m striving to be a minimalist dammit! How can someone call herself a minimalist wannabe when she dashes off to Anthropologie at the first whiff of a sale? I’m weak, that’s what I am.
They know my weakness for anything with an animal on it, the devils. I was after this:
I may be a middle aged woman who shouldn’t be wearing animal prints at my age, but I didn’t care. I wanted it. I had to have it. I scurried to the nearest Anthropologie and it wasn’t there. Not a single one. Serves me right. I never should have succumbed to temptation in the first place. I left empty handed and more than a little ashamed at what a mark I am. Show me a shirt with an animal or bird on it and my minimalist dreams fly out the window.
With that in mind, I have composed a list of the things I could have done instead of dashing to the store like a crazed lemming. I hope to refer back to this when the next tempting sale strikes.
Things I could Have Done in the Hour I Wasted Going To Anthro:
