Minimizing

As many of you know (especially if you read our last update post), we are now living temporarily with some wonderful friends. They have allowed us to take over their basement, and given us free reign of the most of the furnishings that were already here. They also have a separate fully stocked kitchen in the basement (as in pots/pans & dishes, not food).

Thanks to their amazing generosity, while we were preparing for the move here, we knew we wouldn't need most of our possesions, including our awesome new couch we just bought in October. We didn't even need to bring beds. So, we decided to see what else we could live without. We decided we did not want to pay to put a hitch on our mini-van and haul a trailer with us to Utah. Instead, we bought a small roofbag and limited ourselves to everything that would fit in or on the van. Now, minivans have quite a bit of space in them... but remember, we also had to fit 5 carseats & 7 people. Thankfully, several of those people require zero legroom, which we exploited to cram everything in.

It was pretty interesting packing for this move. We decided that I obviously wouldn't have room for my sewing machine, or any of my sewing/crafting supplies. (I didn't even bring a glue stick.) At one point I tried to make a flow chart that would help me decide if something needed to be stored, brought to Utah, or just discarded altogether. I had random questions like: Do I actually use this? Will I need it in Utah? Can I buy another one in Utah? Will it spoil or expire if I store it for the next 4 months?

But eventually, I found a simpler method for selecting the few things to fit in our "covered wagon." I wrote a list of five areas we wanted to focus on while we were in Utah. Obviously, Dave would be focusing on his thesis, and that's pretty much it... so that made his list of things to bring extremely short (basically just clothes, his toothbrush and his laptop). But while Dave is off at school everyday, my plan was/is to focus on these five things:

1. Eating healthy within budget

2. Chore routines

3. Homeschool

4. Digital scrapbooking

5. Family & personal scripture study

I have to say, I think I did a pretty good job of limiting our stuff to things which would help us in our focus, and if you think about it... most of those areas of focus don't require much "stuff" anyway... but I'm not so sure I'm doing so well accomplishing those things yet.

I recently finished reading Simplicity Parenting which Dave gave me for Christmas. It really opened my eyes to how damaging and stressful having STUFF can be, especially for little kids. Today I was sitting on the couch here, wasting time on the computer thinking about how nice it has been to live with a bit less than we were used to. I started googling things like simplify, minimize, downsize, etc. After reading various blogs like this one for an hour or so, I want to drive back to Oregon and go through my parents' dining room (where all our stuff is currently stored) and get rid of so much more.

So, for now, I'm a bit excited for May to come. Mostly because Dave will finally be done with his thesis (yay!!!), but also partly so I can go dejunk our stuff a bit more. :) For now, I'll have to be content with going through the few things we brought with us, and spending more time on our areas of focus.