Can you believe it?? 2021 is already over! Happy happy new year everyone!!! I hope you’re doing well and looking forward to the year ahead with excitement.
I am still in shock at how fast time has been flying! I guess that’s what happens when you’re having fun! 2021 has been a year to remember.
The kids and I have been so busy with our lifestyle changes that I’ve just about put everything else on hold. But like Dave Ramsey says “live like no one else, so that later you can then live like no one else” in this case it’s not exactly pertaining to money but to STUFF. So let me share with you about our past year.
The year started off as usual for me, full of goals, dreams and things to accomplish but little did I know that God had other things in mind for us. I should know that by now right?? It happens every year, I have my own plans and ideas and God has something much different and greater in store for us. So for the year 2022 I’m just going to leave it blank and let him lead the way! Ahh I’m slightly nervous but definitely excited!
Anyway, for New Years last year 2020 we had a family reunion with everyone on my dads side of the family. I don’t think we quite had one hundred people in the immediate family but we got close (and we’re still growing!) It was awesome to see the family all together, since we all live in different corners of the country. Alaska, Hawaii and South Carolina primarily.
After that we came home and started our routine. School, cleaning, organizing etc.. My biggest goal for every year was to get more organized. Ahhhh. Over time we have accumulated so, much, stuff, that I began to feel like I was drowning in it. I always began to feel like I needed more space, more time and more storage containers. To do the endless work of organizing.
In the mean time my grandmothers (on my dads side) health began to weaken and we knew the time of her passing was near. We visited her and savored the time we had left. Then on March 18 we got word that she had passed. Although we were grieving her loss I think most of us would say, that we were really happy for her to be in a better place now. Little did I know at the time, how much her passing would affect the rest of the year, my life and generations to come. She was born on July 6, 1932 and passed away on March 18, 2021. She had 7 children (two boys and five girls), lots of grandchildren and a number of great great children as well. (I’ll have to get the exact numbers sometime)
The days following the funeral (read about that here) I began to really think about all that grandma taught me and the impact she had on my life. Spiritually and also how she lived. At first I just wanted to honor her and do the best I could with my family to live by her example but the more we did that, the more I realized how right my grandmother was. She had her reasons for living the way she did and I don’t think she knew anything about being environmentally responsible or minimally content. She grew up poor in a big family, many times without anything to eat for days and the few items they did own, that they all shared, were well beyond “loved” so naturally she took care of everything she had. She owned only what she used and needed and not a single item more. In essence she was a minimalist and an environmentalist without even knowing it.
I remember if we ever got her a new dress or new shoes she would always tell us to return it and give the money to someone in more need then her. She had a few outfits, one for cooking, one for wearing at home and then a few for going out and never wanted anything else. She didn’t care if her pair of shoes weren’t color coordinated to every outfit or if her one sweater didn’t match everything and was patched up more then once. She was thankful for what she had and took great care of it, the extra money that she ever did come across, she always sent over to Russia to help her brother or son out with their families. Whenever she gave, she had one hand behind her back and would say “hurry take this, before my other hand finds out what I’m doing” haha. I’m sure she was joking but it sure did leave an impact.
The week of her funeral my kids came across a show called “One small step” on discovery plus. They started watching it without me but then stopped and pretty much forced me to find time to sit down with them and watch it together. WOW that show opened my eyes to so much and was so timely. We immediately put what we learned into practice. A few things that we started doing are, composting, recycling, and not “supporting” (for us that means not buying anything as much as possible that cannot be recycled or up cycled). It was a big change even though we were already up cycling most of what we could and I thought we were doing pretty good before that. But oh my I did not realize how much we still had(have) to learn.
It’s been about ten months now of living a “cleaner” life. (I’m not referring to food in this post just items and every day living). To be honest though things still didn’t feel good. I still felt like we aren’t doing enough. For the most part I kept a positive attitude and told myself that I am making a difference even though from the outside everyone was telling me “you’re just one person it’s not going to do anything, they don’t even recycle seventy percent of what you put in the recycling bin” etc… you would think that those things would bring me down because it felt like they were on repeat, from anyone and everyone that I would share our journey with.
But no, what they made me realize is how much I do want this for me, my family and our home planet, earth. It also made me realize how small and insignificant people feel. Like they are just one person out of billions and they feel like what they do doesn’t really make a difference. It is definitely easy to feel that way, that’s why I have a few people in my life who speak truth over me when I feel myself beginning to believe that “lie”.
Because the truth is, yes, I am just one person, nothing compared to the multitudes of people and companies that “don’t care” but I can make a difference. I’m not even sure how yet but I am sure that I will and that’s a good place to start :) wouldn’t you agree??
My kids are the ones who introduced me to this journey that we are now on. They are the ones who ask me to buy them used toys for Christmas or birthdays and even instead of toys to use that money and do experiences instead. (Go out as a family and do fun things that you will remember instead of buying material items) They convince me that re gifting is ok and that we should make a trend of it. Better yet “mom ask them not to give us any presents because it’s all so much plastic pollution. Legos and cash are fine though. Haha” We’re still a work in progress for sure. But the thing that gets me most is that they GET IT. I didn’t have to force them to give up the, so called normal way of life, didn’t have to bribe or lecture. For them, it’s natural to want what’s best for the environment. It only becomes an inconvenience to us when we get spoiled with our paper plates and plastic forks, take out foods and Amazon packages every day, with no desire to even know what the repercussions for that way of living are.
Honestly some people make you feel embarrassed for wanting to buy used items over new. Or for washing ziplock bags and keeping gift bags. For re using tissue paper and ribbons. For not wanting a new devise or a new phone but being happy with the “old school” items that I have. But now I realize that it’s always been in my blood and that there is absolutely nothing wrong me. I accept the responsibility of being an example to my children and anyone else who wishes to follow us along on this journey.
After my grandmother died my oldest and I visited a thrift shop. I just thought I’d show her how I used to go with my mom as a kid. It turns out we had so much fun! We found such old things that I had in my house growing up. She loved calling me “old'“ and making fun of my time. It was a great experience.
Every time it was my turn to go out with her on a date that was the place she’d choose to go. After a few trips I began to actually look at some items and picked up a thing here and there. If felt great to pay a fraction of the price for something that’s been on my list for a while and even better then that, I wasn’t supporting commercialism and more pollution into the earth.
At first we stayed away from clothes cause I felt like it was too much for me to dig through things. To be honest it slightly grossed me out but then my daughter (again kids lead the way) Found a few items that she really liked. Turns out they became her favorites out of her wardrobe. That happened one time and then another and now we find joy in finding the perfect pieces that we each need. But we honestly don’t shop much and this brings me to the next life style change that we have made.
August of last year 2021 my husband found me listening to something on YouTube through safari. He took my phone and checked to see if I had YouTube on it, I didn’t lol so he downloaded the app and told me it would make my life easier. I didn’t give it much thought but a few days later I opened it, so that I could listen to something while I cleaned. I slightly got distracted because something called minimalism caught my eye. I came across “The Minimal Mom” and that day, my life again made a turning point.
I watched an episode and then two and then three and realized that every year, my goal of getting more organized was never going to be accomplished. I knew in that moment that it wasn’t my lack of organizational skills or the lack of space or time, that was the problem but the problem was that we had WAY too much stuff. My kids saw me watching and they all gathered around and watched along with me. That started us off on the journey of minimalism. Every day we would bring out a large box and the goal was to fill it with things that no longer served us or brought us joy. It was hard to part with things at first but over time, feeling the freedom that comes with it, we hardly give anything a second thought anymore.
Honestly I imagined it would take us about a month or maybe two at the most to fully declutter our home. But oh boy! Were we in for a surprise! It’s been about five months now and I finally realized that this is not a quick journey. We are no where near where I would like to be yet. Now I’m hoping that by next August we might be in a place where I can say that I’m happy with our progress. I guess we’ll keep working hard and see where we are a year from when we started.
It’s been overwhelming to say the least but the rewarding part is that, I’m not just “organizing” anymore I’m actually making steps towards a more freeing future. Stuff has so much mental weight, you would not believe. It literally sucks our time to have to constantly be managing it. It also brings discontentment with it because instead of being happy with that one item, we are now collecting all the different ones or whatever the case may be. It’s different per family for sure. I grew up fairly minimal, we moved every two years and constantly had to give everything away. My husband on the other hand grew up the opposite. So with him buying and me feeling guilty about throwing things out we just accumulated more and more. I was always having breakdowns because I couldn’t keep up with managing everything. I started wanting to move into a bigger home so we can have more space and have a bigger garage etc.. I always had the feeling of wanting to “run away”, like be out somewhere and do anything but face the overwhelm I felt at home. I LOVE camping and the main reason was that I didn’t have to be home surrounded by STUFF I was out in nature, free in my mind, with my time and just being present with my family. That feeling is my goal now in my home. The other day someone mentioned me keeping a second coffee brewer for just in case I need it when we have people over and my heart started beating faster haha I immediately said NO I’m only keeping what we need and no longer living for “maybe one day”. It was nice to see how far I’ve come and that the hard work was paying off.
When I realized that it wasn’t about the size of our home but about being intentional with every item that we owned, life began to change. I found myself hopeful again and so much happier. We started selling everything that didn’t spark us joy (Marie Condo. Trust me I’ve watched every organization show there is to help me but nothing worked in terms of bringing us peace, simplicity and contentment. My organized spaces looked nice on the outside but no one knew the cost that it was to keeping things that way). Come December we still had so much stuff we wanted to get rid of so I tried to do yet another yard sale, I found myself stressing again. So I stopped and went to the Lord, I prayed and I told him you’re the one leading me on this journey but it is so hard. Things aren’t moving fast enough and I’m feeling overwhelmed. I paused for a few minutes and it came to me, I had to give everything away. I was to do a FREE yard sale accepting only donations if people felt lead to give anything. We were going to use the donations to buy toys for the drive at church or fast food gift cards to pass out to the homeless people in town.
Anyway having the free yard sale was a success, not necessarily the amount of money we made but the people we were able to bless. So many people needed help that could not leave a donation. They shared stories of losing multiple family members to covid this year, losing their jobs etc. It was heart breaking to hear of how hard Christmas time was for so many people. We did make some money and the kids donated some of their own, so we bought toys to give and then when the Kentucky disaster hit I felt that the best thing was to give the rest of the funds we made to that. Anyway it was so refreshing to do good to others but not just that, it was also so good to own less things. I don’t feel like we’re even close to my goals but we’ve been doing the “onion” method (look up onion method- minimalism) And things are feeling hopeful for sure! Another reason we have a lot of items is that people around us are very giving. We have family, friends and my husbands co workers who just give us things because we have a big family. I’m always up for hand me downs for sure but being minimalists and having to do all the work or managing it myself I just got overwhelmed. Most of the items that wouldn’t work for us would go straight into boxes for the yard sale but before I came up with that system it all just found a place is some closet or under the bed in our home and that drove me crazy. Anyway I’m learning as we go. One other up side to getting rid of and selling your unwanted items is you can make money. It’s not much if it’s just small miscellaneous items but it adds up! The kids and I have saved enough to book a cabin in the mountains for a few days. They are so excited to see snow! We’ll be going in about a month, I love the lessons it’s teaching them, to be mindful of what they purchase, to pay attention to the feeling that stuff gives them and also that one dollar at a time you can save up and do the fun things you’ve always wanted to. Hard work pays off! Also my oldest is the one who runs the yard sales and she loves having “customers” and talking with people. It has taught her a lot about communicating with strangers and reading behind peoples motives etc.. So all the works isn’t wasted for sure.
My best supporter in this journey has been my sister (aside from my husband and my children), she’s been there listening to my overwhelm and speaking truth over me when I begin to doubt myself. Not only that but she’s been helping me with researching the best ethnically, eco friendly, and clean products for our homes, bodies and our planet. The other day she wrote me and I sensed discouragement, as we talked she shared with me a show she just watched called “Broken” on netflix and how it made her feel so hopeless in this journey of going eco friendly. I encouraged her to not give up but in that moment I knew that the goal I had been pondering about the last few months had to become a final decision.
The goal was that, we as a family will no longer support anything plastic, new or un recyclable. We will only shop used and limit our intake of anything and everything. Basically try to live zero waste as much as we possibly can. I decided to watch the Broken show with my family the following day. We watched the plastic episode “recycling sham” and we all mutually agreed to stop supporting all plastics and non recyclable items.
Not only that but we are all praying about what to do next as a family because with how bad things are it’s going to take a lot more then just us doing our part. That’s why I would love for you all to join us as well. Start by watching the documentary and then take small steps with the help of the “one small step” show and also pray about an idea to make a bigger impact. Keep researching about the topic and doing your part. Share with your family and friends and above all, please do not discourage those that care about our planet and take the responsibility seriously, to leave this earth better than we found it. It’s been our homeschooling motto everywhere we go, be it walks, parking lots, state parks, lakes or stores, we pick up trash and try to be an example. Be that too for those around you and again please support the people who are making a difference. The Bible talks a lot about us taking care of the earth and the animals and this is just one way that we can do that.
Gifts are are a huge deal in our culture but let’s be honest most of us don’t wait to get something, we just order it when we need it. We all have more than enough including our kids but people love to give, so there are other options beside new things. Gently used items, experiences or money are to name a few options for eco friendly gift. I wrote about simplifying gift giving years ago here but I should probably up date it even more now. We’re still learning so we’ll see how that goes. I’ll have to share about that with you later.
I guess that concludes most of our year 2021. We have began the journey of being environmentally friendly and have also begun the hard work of decluttering. I don’t want to overwhelm myself so I’m starting there but my next steps will be in the food area and changing all our products over to more eco friendly options. If you’ve already started that and have some tried and true items you love, please share them with me, would love to hear!
I’ve always been a minimalist at heart, when one pair of shoes and a jacket feels like more them enough for me. But my sweet husband likes me to have “options” so I’m still working on him. (pst don’t tell him ;) over the years I have found some tried and true brands or there’s things that I will still buy new and have my reasons for it. If you’re interested let me know and I can write about it in the future, as well as some of the changes that I’ve already made.
I hope you found this interesting. I honestly feel like the reason things are as bad as they are is because people just don’t know that they are bad because in America we don’t have the repercussions of it all just yet. So please educate yourself and your family/friends and lets make a difference.
P.S. Aside from all the work of decluttering and going minimal that we’ve been doing, the kids took classes last semester. Acro Jazz, ballet, clogging and archery. They had fun and made lots of new friends. So we are still trying to keep the fun in the hard work so that we can all keep going. It’s all about balance and doing what’s best for your family.
Blessings! Thank you for your endless support and for sticking by me through the years. Hope you had a wonderful Christmas and have a happy healthy and blessed New Year!
Natty