A Writing Habit

February 2020

I open my eyes to darkness. It's Sunday morning, 6:47. The house is asleep. In silence I put on my blue cotton robe and tie the string around my stomach. I walk down the long hallway, stopping at the thermostat to instruct it from 60 to 68 degrees fahrenheit. Our floor needs swept, and little pieces stick to the bottom of my feet as I walk. Our cat brushes against my leg to say hello. Not now kitty, I woke up later than I meant to. In the dining room I pick up a box of matches to light a beeswax candle. I use the match box with the woman on the front. Her expression is plump with desire and the match is thick and strong; it lights immediately. I boil water to have ginger tea with honey. It's not boiled in a kettle, but in a silver pot that's awkwardly large for just 8 oz of water. I think to myself that I should not have given away my kettle. The honey is thick and it mocks my rush as it slowly creeps out of the container and into the hot water. I sit down with a composition book and prepare to write. I've placed books, like friends, on the table all around me, quietly cheering me on to create something worthy. I start making a list of something else. I gently nudge myself back to the page for writing. I write a sentence. I hear footsteps rushing down the hall and a call for "mama?" It's 7:30 and a six year old melts himself into my lap, limbs like butter on my own body. With my hand on his chest I can feel his heart racing, as it does each morning from running to me. The sun is coming through five windows now, starting to fill up the house. The others will be up soon.

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Connection

If it was suggested 200 years ago that, one day in the not so distant future, many people would need the help of a decluttering business, you might have seen blank stares of confusion. Even in 2017 it is a strange concept: ordinary folks hire someone to help them clear their home of possessions that they themselves purchased, or at the very least, accepted from someone else. Begging the question, why? Why do we buy so much stuff?

Lots of reasons: sometimes we actually need the stuff, or we are fearful that we might need the stuff, the stuff might bring us happiness and help us fit in. Often we buy stuff because our brains grow weary of resisting the messages that scream "buy this stuff!"

There is another reason we shop: loneliness. Earlier this year I went through a period of painful loneliness. I have a loving husband, supportive parents, and some pretty neat friends. Plus two cute kids! On a day to day basis I still felt lonely. Who was there to bear witness to my life, my thoughts, my struggles, my joys? I  saw most friends only once a month, if that. It didn't help that at the time I had not found a way to fit enjoyable hobbies into my routine.  I felt desperate to fill the void and started making routine trips to the giant 2nd hand store a few miles away. The shopping helped a bit. It gave me a needed boost of happy feelings. 

I learned some things from my experience. 

1. Having a victim mentality does not help

2. Loneliness is part of the human condition, instead of always running from it I am slowly coming around to acknowledging it, and simply sitting with the feelings. Emphasis on slowly.

3. I feel filled up when I have connection with others. Finding hobbies (especially ones that are playful and involve lots of movement) is one way to connect. Branching out to make new friends helps me. Being vulnerable and open with others helps. Beautiful music, dancing, time in nature, and writing helps.

Consumption was not the thing that ultimately nourished me. From the past couple years of running a decluttering business, I don't believe consumption helps others feel deeply nourished either. Some clients even give me the feeling that they have hired me in part, to have a friendly face around for a few hours. I understand that.

What if, just today, or just this week, or this month we all payed attention to our desire to consume new stuff? Notice the feeling when it comes upon you, don't run from it. For, if we can make it through the noticing and the not running then we can begin to untangle ourselves from our relationship with consumption. On the other side of consumption awaits connection, and it is life giving.

Love,

Brooke

 

How Simple Living Makes the World a Better Place

There are large scale reasons decluttering helps society. We could talk about mass consumerism and the resulting waste and air pollution (think: Annie Leonard's "The Story of Stuff" video). While the subject of materialism and environmental degradation has immense merit, I wonder if you will take a short walk with me in a different, more personal direction?

Have you noticed the way your mind attempts to take inventory of the items that surround you? Can you picture a cluttered space? Maybe you are sitting in one right now. The excess might have any number of effects on you. Clutter might create in you feelings of: distraction, overwhelm, a desire to escape, or an urge to shut down. One feeling that might not come: peacefulness.

A beloved monk and 90 year old author says this about peace: "If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace".  - Thich Nhat Hanh

Wherever you are at this moment, reading these words, I suspect you want peace in yourself, peace in your nation, and peace in the world. Decluttering certainly cannot fix the deep divides in the US. No, America's problems will be fixed by community organizers spreading messages of love and acceptance, and law makers heeding those messages. Taking steps, however, to remove things from your life that no longer serve you can help you find at least some degree of internal peace. As Thich Nhat Hanh gently reminds us: when we have peace, we can spread peace out into the world.

Go forth, my peacemaking friends!

Love,

Brooke

How Decluttering Minimizes Decisions and Ultimately Improves your Life

Some decisions are important and demand a lot of options. Picture these scenarios:

-a young couple with a new baby deciding where to live

-a college bound teen choosing a school to spend the next 4 years

-a retired couple figuring out what's next

No matter what stage we are in life, we all face lots of important decisions everyday:

-what should I drive, or could I bike or walk more?

-should I buy organic? could I eat less meat and more vegetables?

-I'm not happy in my job, should I look for a new one?

-could i make time for artistic creativity in my life, or a workout routine?

These are things that deserve our time, but often they don't get our full attention, or even a small part of it. I believe one reason is that our brains our too tired to make the hard decisions because we spend so much time sifting through options and making other decisions. Decisions about:

-what to buy next, from the endless list of options as seen on advertisements

-what to wear everyday (from an overflowing closet)

-where to put things in the house that don't seem to have a place

-what to cook for dinner

When we declutter our lives of the things we don't regularly use or love, one of the amazing effects is that we find ourselves needing to make fewer decisions everyday. Everything in your home will have a place, thus cleaning up requires little thought, only action. As you declutter your pantry, you will be left with the food that you actually like to cook (and you will waste far less food in the process, as well as save money from buying more food that you didn't actually need). A minimalist wardrobe will leave you with only the clothes that you really enjoy wearing. My favorite part of working with my clients on decluttering: they quickly realize that buying more stuff is rarely the answer to anything. So they stop. Opting out of a consumer culture that does it's best to get us to buy more is one of the most freeing things I have ever experienced. It literally removes hundreds of decisions from your life each week, because you are simply tuning out marketing messages.

As your brain starts to enjoy freedom from tedious decisions, you'll notice space up there to spend time on issues you want to explore, but previously lacked the capacity for. Perhaps a fulfilling hobby is just around the corner. Maybe you want to explore healthier eating, or become an advocate on an important issue. Is there a new friendship waiting for you, just over the horizon?  That part is not for me to say; only you know the desires of your heart. My role is to help others declutter. And of course, decluttering is about removing the things that don't serve us, in order to make room for a life that DOES fill us with joy :)

If you like what you've read, pass this on, or write me back.

Warmly,

Brooke

 

Humankindness

"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way it treats its animals" - Gandhi

Last week my neighbor spotted a turtle on a busy road. She pulled the car over and brought him safely to her home. Her children doted on the little guy, feeding him lettuce and hovering as he wandered around their yard. The next day they took the turtle to the nearby Sligo Creek to let him live out his days in freedom. Later I asked how the drop off went. My neighbor was slightly anxious because the turtle swam away into the creek but a passerby said "no you should not have put him there, that's not a swimming turtle". She wondered aloud if she had done the right thing, and you could see in her eyes that, amidst her busy life as a mom, she hoped that little turtle was OK.

This past spring I saw a baby bird on the sidewalk. My 3 year old son asked me what I was looking at and I told him a baby bird must have fallen from the nest. A woman walking by heard our conversation and came over to see the lifeless pink body. She seemed particularly sad about the tiny creature, quietly wishing she could have protected him from that abrupt end to life.

A couple of years ago my dear friend had to put down his ill dog. They were best friends for over a decade. The relationship was sweet. My friend was devastated for a very long time. He LOVED that dog.

I see this behavior all around me, all the time. Humans are not only capable of incredible tenderness toward other species, we WANT to live our lives with compassion, and actually try to do so when we encounter animals in our daily lives.

There is a great disconnect though. Humans have successfully convinced themselves that compassion only needs to happen for certain animals. If people knew what was happening behind the locked doors of factory farms to pigs, cows, chickens, and all types of laboratory animals, I believe they would not stand for the cruelty. If people could see that pigs are capable of the same love as dogs, or that cows are actually very social creatures, their eyes might be opened and food choices might change.

Have you ever killed with your own hands, an overfed, 6 month old pig, squealing for it's life? Or separated a new baby calf from her milk-filled mother (as the mother cow pleads in her own way, to have her baby back)? If you can't bear the thought of doing those things to animals, then you must face the difficult question: why do you continue to participate in an institution that causes suffering and death to 9 billion animals each year?

We have the capacity for great kindness. But we have to make the choice. When we turn away (as I did for my first 34 years on this planet), the cruelty persists. I am not here to make you feel dumb for thinking "what would I eat if I don't eat meat"? I know, I was there. I am inviting you to take a step and choose compassion. Because here's the thing: the baby bird is not so different from the baby cow. The pig and the turtle and the dog are the same. They are all creatures who have a desire to live. Though a lion might occasionally hunt and devour a gazelle, humans need not consume (copious amounts of) meat. Or any. When we choose to eat with compassion, it's like saving a turtle from being hit by a car everyday. Three times a day.

Gratitude for my Clients

Dear Clients, past and present,

 

We touched every single thing you owned

We decluttered and simplified your belongings

We pared down each category

We sold, donated, and threw away

 

You said I helped you. Many times you said it 

You always said thank you when I'd leave. Many times you said it

You looked at me with a gratefulness in your eyes

 

But

 

Did you know that you helped me?

 

You let me deep into your world. A world of emotion, memories, joy, pain, death and loss. You trusted me.

 

You gave me purpose for all of those hours we worked together. Is there a greater gift we can give someone than helping them live out their purpose on this earth?

 

As we released those things which no longer served you, a new energy filled you. I got to witness that.

 

For all of those things, I am grateful to you.

Love,

Brooke

3 Reasons Decluttering is Great for Baby Boomers

Yesterday I had a conversation with my neighbor, and this is his theory on why his baby boomer friends have not downsized yet, even though they want to: because of stuff.

 

I tend to agree with him, so in an effort to inspire I've come up with three reasons why living with less is particularly helpful for folks in their 60's.

 

1. When you declutter your space, you release things out of your home and thus, you gain freedom. Maybe your children and grandchildren moved away and you miss them dearly. Perhaps you have always wanted to try something wild like moving to Ireland for a year. When you live lighter, your decisions about where to live become more about considering the things that make you happy, and less about the questions like "but how could we ever move, because what about the house and all our stuff?"

 

2. You will make extra spending cash from selling unwanted items. Unbeknownst to you, right now you are probably sitting on several hundred dollars or more worth of things that you don't use. When I decluttered I sold a djembe drum, a dining room hutch, an old dresser, and a kitchen appliance for a total of $500. If you have a big home and it's full of stuff, it's completely up to you how much time you want to put into selling, vs. donating.

 

3. When you discard things that no longer serve you, you have a unique opportunity to connect with your loved ones after you yourself have been released from the world. I am not just speaking here about saving your children the work of clearing your home after you have passed away. Though, going through a lifetime worth of someone else's stuff is a daunting task and it's incredibly considerate to go through your own things so that someone else doesn't have to. But I am actually referring to something slightly different: imagine that you declutter your life of all things that you don't regularly use or love. When you are gone and your children are sorting through the belongings you left behind, it will be clear to them what items you truly treasured, because you will have already discarded the trash. That is special.

A Picnic Everyday

*Please note: a week after writing this blog we realized floor sitting was not working for our 3 year old. I guess bloggers are people too, and have bad ideas sometimes! :)

Do you remember that time you moved into your first apartment and ate take out on the ground, because you had no furniture? Over the months and years you looked back at that evening fondly. You attributed the positive memory to the excitement you'd felt about moving. Have you ever considered though, that perhaps part of why you felt good was because you just enjoyed having a picnic inside, on the ground?

Sukhasana is the term for sitting cross legged. Sukhasana is how my family eats our meals these days. In other words: we sold our (only) table and chairs, and we eat on little rugs with our food in front of us, in bowls, on the floor.

There is nothing wrong with a well made table. If you are a carpenter, keep up the good work, my friend. When I decluttered I never planned on getting rid of a house staple like a table and chairs. But now that I have, it feels nice. There is something mindful about sitting on the floor to eat food. For me, it is calming, grounding, and it feels easy. Here's why:

1. When the ground is both your chair and your table, you always have a place to sit and eat. This means that even if your 12 closest friends come for dinner, you are never short a spot. You make as big a circle as the room can hold, and you all sit and enjoy the hot food and warm company.

2. It's easier to touch your loved ones when you share meals together on the ground. Your husbands knee is a mere inches away. His gaze feels even closer because there is (literally) nothing between you. And children have a way of settling their plump bums down on your lap between the cross of your legs-  it feels comfortable and fluid, and they seem happy.

3. It's good for your body. Sitting in Sukhasana is a calming position, so when taking in food in this position your body easily focuses on digesting. It's also good for your joints to use them, and you use them a lot to get up and down off the floor multiple times per day.

4. Clean up is simple. When we ate at a table, the clean up after meals often involved wiping down the table, wiping the chairs (two small children like to regularly put peanut butter fingers all over chair backs!), and sweeping the floor, sometimes mopping. These days clean up means wiping up any food bits with a wet rag and vinegar spray bottle, then stacking our small rugs in the corner. I'll get back to you on how often we end up washing the rugs, but I'm not losing sleep over it.

5. Going without a big table means that our space is opened up and can be used in a multi purpose way. This is perhaps my favorite thing of all :)

Have you ever done something similar? I'd love to hear from you.

Brooke

In the Land of Milk and Suffering

This post is not directly about simplifying. It’s about a paradigm shift I experienced, probably as a result of simplifying. Please note, it has difficult content.

A few weeks ago I sat on the couch and breastfed one of my children. I did so as I have been doing for several years, ever since my body started producing secretions minutes after I gave birth.

 As I sat, I thought about milk.

For most of my 35 years of life I consumed milk, cow’s milk. I drank it because isn’t that what we do as Americans?  Drive cars, live in houses, and drink cow’s milk? It tastes good. It’s what most cheeses, yogurt, and ice cream are made of.

 I have always been an animal lover, and I suppose I'd thought that cows naturally produced milk all year round, in the same way that a bird might build a nest, or a snake sheds its skin. That it was the natural order of things. That perhaps we are doing cows a favor by emptying their overflowing udders.

Then like a ton of bricks, it hit me. I had very painful realization: Cow’s don’t just produce milk. Their bodies make it after they carry a calf in their womb for nine months and give birth. Just as I gave birth to a wet, helpless newborn who wanted nothing more than to nurse and nuzzle me, so too does a calf come out of his mother wet, and helpless, and wanting to nurse and nuzzle his mama.

Every time I had consumed a dairy product made from cow’s milk, I had taken milk that was meant for a calf. A calf whose life was probably ended at just one day old (standard industry practice). What a heavy cost my life’s worth of dairy consumption had! Among a myriad of troubling things, it involved breaking the bond between a mother and her newborn.

 I wept as I realized that for decades I had been contributing to a very violent institution. How could this have happened?

After days of thinking it over, this is what I’ve come up with;

98% of America’s dairy comes from factory farms. These are places so disturbing that almost none of us have actually seen the inside, lest we shun them.

We are told by a multitude of media and other messages that our bodies, and our children’s bodies NEED cow’s milk.

Milk that:

-requires a female cow to be forcibly impregnated, have her new born calf taken and shot in the head after birth if it’s a male, or given the horrible fate to become veal (ie: kept in a pen without the ability to move around, fed a milk substitute, lame and sick with diarrhea, and scared and desperate for his mama’s affection). If it’s a female, she is most likely taken away to be given a similar life as her mother.

Milk that:

-causes incredible environmental damage to obtain

Milk that:

-looks similar to the milk a female bodied human usually produces, which is suited quite perfectly for human babies and young children

 

Is it possible that we DON'T ACTUALLY NEED DAIRY? Is it possible that the dairy institution is a rich and powerful lobby, that cares first and foremost about making money, and has been deceiving the American public all these years?

Is it possible that we can all lead happy, healthy lives by drinking soy milk instead? Or coconut milk? Or rice milk? Or cashew milk? Or flax seed milk? Or Hemp milk? Or Oat milk? Or Almond milk? Or Quinoa milk?

Is it possible that there is a better way to treat a living, breathing being than raping her, murdering her newborn, and then attaching her to machines for 10 months to steal her milk, through chapped, bleeding, overused nipples?

She may not be as smart as a dog, or cuddly as a cat, but does she not deserve better? Does she not have feelings of love for her newborn, and feelings of incredible pain and sadness when we rip them apart soon after birth, so that WE can drink her milk? Milk that is suited in every way for a calf, not a human. Just as a dogs milk is suited for puppies, or a cats milk is suited for kittens.

Just because the secretions of an animal taste good to us, does that mean we MUST consume it?

Surely we can all do better than this. Surely we can explore similar but alternative foods to dairy. Surely ice cream and pizza is not worth the cost of such incredible suffering of sentient creatures of the earth.

 

 

The Simple Nature of Children's Books

Take a moment to think about your favorite children's book. Most likely it is a sweet, simple story.  A few of my favorites:

'Where the Wild Things Are' takes its readers on a journey into the rich imagination of a young child. We are whisked away to an island full of monsters and wild dancing. By the end of the book the main character misses his mama and sails his boat "in and out of weeks and through a day" back to his home, where his supper is waiting for him in his spartan room of only a bed, and nightstand.

'Goodnight Moon' shows us how to see the world, at bedtime, through a child's eyes. "Goodnight clocks, and goodnight socks. Goodnight stars, goodnight air. Goodnight noises everywhere."

'The Giving Tree' by Shel Silverstein tells everyone how a tree loves a boy from childhood through to the end of the boys (and the trees) life.

By their simple nature, these popular stories gently remind us of the beauty of the slow life. Andthe fact that we read them over and over again, and love them, its as if we inherently know that that's exactly what children need: a slow and simple life that is rich with opportunities to discover, full of loving people, and minimal in belongings and clutter.

After all, would we still revere 'Goodnight Moon' if it went on for 60 pages, saying goodnight to 150 different blinking, beeping toys? (150 is the average number of toys the typical American child owns). Would 'Where the Wild Things Are' captivate our souls if, instead of using his imagination, the main character spent the evening playing in his room with a big plastic contraption made of 15 buttons, all providing various forms of noise and entertainment as he pressed each one? Would the Giving Tree melt our hearts if the tree were not a tree, but a television set trying its best to meet a child's needs?

Let us all slow our lives and simplify our possessions. We, the adults will benefit greatly. Our children will benefit tenfold.

Starting, Midway, or Finished?

Happy New Year everyone. If you want to simplify your life in 2016, I'll offer a few personally hard earned tips. If you are already part way through your journey to de clutter, I have some thoughts for you too! If you have finished the process to get organized, have you considered going all the way to a Zero Waste Home? (or as I like to think of ourselves, a Low Waste Home).

1. Just Getting Started:

Congrats if you are jumping in for the first time. I salute you. Start with clothes, as Marie Kondo suggests. Though to be honest I started by going room to room in our home and doing a few trips to the thrift store with stuff I wanted to part with. It was a few days later that I learned about and read her book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Clothes are usually emotionally easiest and by piling them all up on your bed, you will see a stack much larger than you would have thought. Most of us own way more than we think we do. Among many benefits, paring down our possessions forces us to consider if we really need to continue buying things in the future. When we opt out of the consumer life, we save money, free our time for making memories with loved ones, and help the environment.

2. Midway Through

It's very liberating to pare down clothes but it doesn't always give us the momentum we need to work through ALL of the other things we own. It's hard work to put your hands on everything you own and then make decisions about what to do with those items. Pick another category and work at it. I promise you will stumble and fall, but if you keep getting back up your life will forever be changed. There are few things more freeing than releasing out of your home all of the things that you don't truly love or use. I remember saying to my husband years ago that "I know I have creativity in me somewhere, I just don't know how to access it". Freeing the clutter from my life set free my mind and spirit. I have never been happier. Put in the hard work my friend, you will be deeply rewarded.


3. Nearly done?

If you have finished getting yourself organized, consider living a Zero or Low Waste Life. A low waste Life does not require many purchases (glass parfait jars and a few other small things, but only if you want). A low waste life DOES, however, ask you to question and change your purchasing decisions. See the salmon and cheese in the jars pictured above? Those are from the counter at Whole Foods a few weeks ago. It was my first time filling jars at this particular store. Yes, it was nerve wracking asking the man behind the counter to fill my jar with salmon filets when I could have grabbed the fish already packaged in plastic and styrofoam. It's easier though, at home to NOT have to deal with trash. Its also incredibly beneficial for our health and the health of our earth. It takes resources after all, to make plastic and styrofoam, and after a brief shelf life those things spend many, many years in a landfill. Beyond changes in the kitchen, a zero or low waste life asks you to buy second hand, or to find satisfaction in the things you already own. Try the low waste lifestyle and let me know what you think-  you have so much to gain. In fact, we all have much to gain by just one person transitioning to a low waste life.

Warmly,

Brooke

simplifywithbrooke.com

7 signs you have more things than you're meant to have

The following are seven signs that you have too much. No judgement here folks. Where do you think I got this list, anyway? (answer: my own past)

1.  Your sink of dirty dishes is filled with maggots. Yes, this happened to me. We lived in an apartment with no dishwasher and I let dishes pile up. I think I was 8 weeks pregnant and feeling sick a lot of the time, but that's still pretty gross! haha. We now live in a home with a dishwasher but we actually stopped using it recently (except to use it as a drying rack, thanks for the idea Colleen). We have stored the majority of our dishes on the top shelf in the kitchen where we can't easily reach. Those are to be pulled down when we have friends or family over for big dinners. For the rest (and majority) of the time: my husband has a large plate, small plate, large bowl, small bowl, a fork, spoon, and knife. I have the same, and so does our older son. This paring down of dishes forces us to wash our plates after each meal which means that dirty dishes don't have a chance to pile up. I know this idea sounds way too radical for most people, but I love it so much, it now seems strange that we ever did things any other way.

2. You are having friends over on Saturday evening which means you need to spend most of Saturday afternoon 'tidying up' OR you skipped a fun outing with friends because your house was too messy and you needed to spend  hours putting things back where they belong.  Preparing for friends should not have to demand more of us than wiping the bathroom sink, doing a quick sweep or vacuum, cooking some food or appetizers and buying some beer, etc. Here is a tip I read once: Before you buy anything, ask yourself three questions: is it worth the money I'm about to spend, is it worth the space in my home that it will take up, and is it worth the time that I'll spend cleaning, caring for, or repairing it? I bet that will seriously alter your purchasing habits!

3. You have not mopped your wood floor in 6 months because there is too much stuff on it. ie: doing a deep clean of your house requires a primary cleaning of all of your stuff.  Or put another way for some folks: you need to 'clean' before the cleaning lady comes. Main point here is that we all have a certain amount of things that we can handle taking care of. Yes, even the walls, floor, and furniture are 'things', because walls sometimes need a fresh coat of paint, floors need mopped, and furniture needs dusted. You'll start to realize that you have the right amount of stuff when you are able to take care of what you have. This will look differently for everyone. (I personally don't love cleaning, so I prefer not to have a lot of stuff).

4. You look in your closet and think 'i have nothing to wear'. This is a classic sign that you have too many clothes. When you look in your drawers and see all the shirts you DON'T love, it gives you a frustrated feeling that you have NO good cloths. Tip: clear out clothes that you don't absolutely love. When you think you have finished, go in and clear some more out. Drive those clothes to a donation drop off, stop buying more clothes for a few months, sit back and see how you feel!

5. You have food that's gone moldy in the fridge, or stale in the cupboard. Nothing bugs me more in the kitchen than throwing out food that we spent good money on. Open the fridge and the big beautiful bag of asparagus from costco is slimy because you only ate 1/3rd of it last week and then started working on your broccolli crown. Look in pantry and realize that of the 3 boxes of cereal, your least favorite has gone stale. These things are destined to happen in most people's kitchens. I will do a whole post on storing food the Zero Waste Home style, but for now I have a challenge for you: don't buy any more food until you've eaten a good chunk of the food you already have. It will take you a surprisingly long time to do this. (you may have to supplement the fresh food, but that's fine). You will save money, help the environment, and then you'll be able to start over on making the purchases you really want, now that you've eaten up all your second or third favorite food types before they go bad. This challenge will make it hard to make recipes that call for lots of ingredients, but try it anyway, I promise you will feel utterly liberated. 

6. It takes you more than 5 minutes to help your toddler clean up their toys. Most parents will quickly tell you that their children have way too many toys. The average American child has 150 of them! For lots of reasons (that I will expand on in another post), homes are inundated with toys. They don't have the capacity to understand the nuances of this, but too many toys is overwhelming for children. Its also incredibly frustrating for parents. Take a stand people, pare down the toy collection and say 'No' more. Your kids will thank you one day, and so will lots of landfills.

7. You think a good storage solution is the answer to your lack of organization.  Now, I'm not talking about seasonal decorations or art or sewing supplies. I am referring to the stuff that you don't use in your daily life, but you're too chicken to release. There is a lot that can be said here, but possibly the best point I can make is this: I released 75% of the things from our home and I cant even remember what I let go of. That's how important it was.

Write me and tell me how you feel about your own minimalist journey!

Warmly,

Brooke

info@simplifywithbrooke.com 

simplifywithbrooke.com

Christmas

I have very fond memories from the Christmas times of my childhood. Some of the moments were about gifts, but I would love to share with you a slightly different story. I am 35 years old and I can't remember most of the tangible gifts I was given. I do, however, have deeply seared in my heart, the following memories:

I had a little brown cassette player I carried around and I jammed to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's 'Kentucky Homemade Christmas'. It was about a poor family who loved their children so,  but could not afford even a single toy. It melted my heart every time. I would read the special Christmas book that came out of the attic at this time every year: The Polar Express. Writing those words  still gives me chills, that's how good the story is. Please stop reading this blog right now and go read it for heavens sake!

On Christmas Eve My dad would gently show me how to set up the wood in the fireplace. Our golden retriever would park her fuzzy blonde body  right next to the blazing blue and orange flames, and my younger brother and I lovingly laid next to her. Worlds Best Dog. My mom cooked up a feast of prosciutto wrapped asparagus, stuffed mushrooms, refreshingly cold veggies with dill dip, pulled pork, homemade mac n cheese, the list goes on. It was out of this world! The best part was that she did this all ahead of time so that she had time to sit and enjoy our company all evening. Our closest friends the Folks family came over after we all went to mass and brought the most delicious creamy crab dip you've ever had. We'd partake in the feast then indulge in my mom's homemade snickerdoodles, homemade Johnstown chocolate, and the most delicious chocolate chip cookies made with ground oats as the flour. The evening glowed with candles around the room and a magnificent tree. All senses were effected as we even had live entertainment when Annie felt like singing a special Christmas carol for us. Little girls dressed in red velvet dresses. Homemade sangria flowed sweetly for the adults. The children played together (or sometimes argued) and vied for the attention of our merrily chatting parents. 

Fast forward 25 years. This year my husband and I have asked our family and friends to give our children gifts of experience instead of tangible gifts. Please don't misunderstand, we DO give the boys toys. This past August Ronin started talking a lot about trains. Throughout September he would create pretend train tracks out of blocks and other little things around the house. In October we decided, why wait! We loved his creativity and wanted him to take it even further in building tracks with tunnels, bridges, etc. We bought him a wooden track set with 4 little trains. and he's played with it every day since then. Baby Everett has a few baby toys but he mostly likes to play godzilla and destroy Ronin's tracks. Its truly fun for the whole family :) They don't have many toys and we like to keep it that way for our sanity as parents who have lives of our own outside of picking up toys, and for the sake of raising them to be creative in designing their own fun. We get out of the house daily and explore the natural world with them, so when we are home they often spend time reading, or "helping" with cooking or cleaning (especially sweeping, lol). We also spend an enormous amount of time wrestling.

This is what works for us. We are far from perfect but we are a happy little family. Though our Christmas times will also never be the same after losing my older brother Justin in November 2014. We do still gather on Christmas eve at my parents and give one another lots of laughter.

These are my Christmas time memories and I hope to give our children the same sweet memories. Some years they may receive a few gifts, but it will be minimal. They will come to expect the minimal and I truly believe it wont matter to them, because they will be focused on all of the other magical Christmas things: playing with their 2 favorite cousins and Uncle Brett and Aubrey, and getting smothered with love and good food from everyone, and learning about Jesus. Also, taking the ornaments off the tree ;)

If something about this resonates with you, I invite you to take even a small step toward minimizing and see how it feels. I'd love to hear from you.

Merry Christmas,

Brooke