As a non-extreme minimalist, just watching the film trailer for No Impact Man: The Documentary is rather stressful. What you see is a radical lifestyle change.
No Impact Man committed to living one year of his life creating the least amount of impact on the environment that he could. And documenting it on film. He has also written a book, No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process.
His wife seems to be rather reluctantly “going along” with the project. She loves TV, and they can’t have one. It wouldn’t work anyway — they use no electricity. She loves to shop, and that’s out too. Cosmetics are out. Washing machines are out. And yes, even toilet paper is out.
Just how far can extreme minimalist living go? We might get our answers in the documentary. It stars the Beavan family — Colin Beavan, Colin’s wife, Michelle Conlin, and their daughter.
See the official trailer for the film:
No matter how extreme or not your minimalist lifestyle happens to be, you still might learn something from NoImpactMan. Colin explains his blog as “…what each of us can do to end our environmental crisis, make a better place to live for ourselves and everyone else, and hopefully come up with a happier way of life along the way.”
In one of his posts, No Impact Man quotes Howard Thurman. “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
With the idea of extreme minimalism, Colin Beavan seems to have found what makes him come alive. That is fascinating and compelling to me. His passion is there for the taking. What do you come away with from what he shares?
Summer used to be my favorite season. Spring took its place some years ago. Now, fall is my favorite time of year. You can smell it in the air, even feel it coming, segueing into porches with mums and window boxes full of petunias. Feel the excitement of carnivals coming where the people gather, and see the colors of oranges and browns take center stage…
But, I digress. I love all seasons; however, you can bet the house, the other house, and all the vehicles you own that winter will never be my favorite time of year. Brrr! Being born twenty miles from the coast of South Carolina, water is in my blood. I love it! Water is life to me, not only in the basic way, but in a spiritual way. It’s the element of peace and serenity for me.
I’ve been hearing rumblings online about folks being fed up with the cold weather, and I join them in the complaint. So today, let’s warm ourselves up with some pix of swimming pools!
The Neptune pool at Hearst Castle is always a nice view.
This infinity pool would get me as close to swimming with the sharks as I ever want to be.
Ready to take a dive right about now?
Does this look like a pool? It is. The largest in the world. At San Alfonso del Mar resort in Algarrobo. Created by Crystal Lagoons.
And how about the deepest pool in the world? Belgium’s Nemo 33 for divers. Would you venture down to its 108-foot bottom?
Well y’all that’s a look at pools for today…
No, wait! Check out the world’s oldest swimming pool. The Great Bath was built in Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan around 2600 BCE. Didn’t run across any public photographs, but you can learn a lot here if you’re interested. I start you out there at photograph #23; click the right arrow through #30 for the Great Bath images. And stay longer if you want. It’s an interesting place.
Well, this “is” it for swimming pools. I hope you are feeling extra warm now.
The new year started with a lot of hope for making this the year to get my online life organized. This has proven to be a very hard thing to do.
I had my daily strategy ready to go for 2010, and even though I knew it looked impossible on paper, I was determined to make a go of it. But, the bloom is now officially off the rose. Reality has reared its “I told you so” head!
Facing the truth is hard when you have goals. But, reality, and a sane life, dictate that I get in gear and reassess what is really important — or spend the next 11 months floundering as before.
The acronym WIN fits in well here. What’s Important Now? So, I am going to re-group in the next few days. Really see what it is that I want to do and need to do. Yes, what one wants is just as important as what one needs in this case. We don’t want things to be all work and no play, do we?
And this topic fits in so well with a minimalist lifestyle. What things do you really need in your life? What do you really want to keep? How can you keep your stuff organized so that it doesn’t interfere with your inner peace? How can you balance your life? What’s Important Now?
Do you need a second-month reassessment of your goals and strategies? Are you going to let a month’s trying go down in history as another year of not meeting your needs and goals? Is 2010 going to end with just an empty renewal of your last-year’s goals? Or are you going to re-group, move forward, and keep striving?
Think “What’s Important Now?” Keep going. Never give up.
So tell me. How are you doing? Having some doubts? Feeling the overload? Or better yet, are you making progress?
I took an afternoon break to eat lunch. Afterwards, I sat on the couch with my dog buddy, Wilson.
Wilson is a minimalist, er, miniature dachshund. I didn’t meet him until he was about one or two years old. He had lived his earlier life being cooped up in a carry-all a lot of the time. And he has obviously had someone playing too roughly with his snout. Try to grab at it to get him to play, and he just lays down. He doesn’t like it at all.
I can’t leave him at home unless I want to come back to a new door chewed through a wall. Yep, he’s pretty desperate to get out of the house if left alone. He has worn his nails down to the quick trying to “escape.” We sometimes tie his chain to a tree when we need him secured. If we use the tractor, we don’t want him loose. While tied up, he will not sit down. In a matter of three hours or so, he will have a semi-circle rutted out in the grass.
Yes, Wilson does have his problems. I found out something new about him today, though. In all honesty, since he doesn’t like you to go toward his snout to start him playing, I haven’t tried to play with him that much. When I did try, I never figured out anything that would get him excited. Well, he does like to chase the ball outside. He’ll go after it with gusto. But, I sat there this rainy day and started to think about how I sure wish he would loosen up.
I wanted him to play with me while we sat on the couch. I knew he would enjoy playing if only I could get him interested. Then, I thought, “Ah, ha! What dog can resist a sock?” I didn’t want to teach him to play with socks, but I wanted him to feel good and have something to shoot for at that moment.
I pulled my pink sock off of my right foot. I flipped one end toward him. You should have heard his teeth clacking together! One swing by his face and it was teeth on teeth. Clack. And not just that one time, but every time he tried to get the sock, which was then flying in circles over his head. Clack. Clack. And sometimes “clack clack” as he would try again real quick while it was still within reach.
He had me laughing so hard that I couldn’t help but feel lighter in spirit. It was great fun, and I loved seeing the excitement and life in Wilson’s eyes. He had fun today!
All of this leads me to the reason for this post. Animals are such a blessing to us. And no matter how much I dislike dog hair in my house, I would rather have it there than to have no animals at all to love. So, my point is that we should not strive for the sterile perfection of a minimalist home but for the perfection of a minimalist home giving us what we want — love, family, security, a soft place to fall, and yes, the priceless blessing of sharing it with a beautiful creature that is not like us but that knows what love is.
As wives, mothers, and grandmothers, we are guilty of not taking enough time for ourselves. We are always on call for everyone else and making sure they’re comfortable, well-fed, and happy. Rarely do we sit back, relax, and say, “This is my time.”
It’s no wonder we run out of steam sometimes! And I believe it is because we rarely recharge our batteries.
In an earlier post, I mentioned making the home a sanctuary. That is the ultimate goal, but let’s talk about making one room, or area in a room, a sanctuary this time. Your sanctuary. A place to regroup and just be you for a few minutes each busy day.
It takes determination, including teaching your family to know that “this is mom’s time.”
How to start and use your personal sanctuary:
Be determined. Know that this is good for you and your family; it will replenish you — restore you.
Take the spare bedroom or even a corner of the living room or a corner of your own bedroom, and if it’s big enough, even your own bathroom.
Add your favorite chair, some flowers, some candles, plants, books, music — anything you want.
Decide your time. When will you “retreat?” Routine is good. Plan for around twenty minutes to start.
Use your time there to just be. Be you reading. Be you meditating. Be you doing what trips your switch, so to speak. Make it a rule that you won’t sit and fret about the children, the bills, or whatever might be nagging at you. Remember, this is your time to just be. Take it while you can!
When I was writing this, it occurred to me that a personal sanctuary could be called a “rejuvenation room” or a “restoration area.” But, whatever you call it, call it yours and yours alone. For you. To replenish the giving cup.
Your home came with a certain amount of storage space, and that is sometimes just not enough. The simplest way to get more storage is to add it in with furniture pieces or with built-ins.
Add storage with flea-market finds. Look for old dressers, chests, cabinets, and bookshelves. Look for anything that can store stuff.
An old chest, paint it to match the wall color in your closet, and put it in the closet. Store whatever you want to in it. An old trunk, clean it up, and store blankets in it and let it do double-duty as an end table. There are so many ideas that will come to you once you’re in that mindset.
When you go to the flea market, have something in mind. Measure the area in your home that you want to add storage to and have these measurements in mind while you shop. Have an image in your head of what the storage should be like. Maybe you want a chest-size piece. Be on the lookout. You’ll eventually find what you’re looking for. No, maybe not that day, but you will eventually run up on it.
That’s why it’s good to have all of your storage needs in mind when you go shopping. You’ll be more likely to find something that day to use somewhere.
You can take your flea-market items and use them as they are, once you’ve given them a cleaning, or you can paint them, add new hardware, and just generally get creative with them.
Built-in cabinets or wall units. Build them along walls in any room you want to. Even in the closet, the laundry room, the screened-in porch, the kitchen. Wherever there’s a need. How about that space over the commode?
You can also buy built-ins that you put together unit by unit and attach securely to your wall.
Aside from added storage and more organization, built-ins and flea-market finds give your home much more character. Keep these two methods in mind as you go about your minimalist lifestyle.
From the beginning, my hope has been that my small houses would inspire others to live more simply and, perhaps, design their own small dwellings. —Jay Shafer
The average size of an American home is over 2300 square feet. That’s a lot of house to keep up with. And it’s enough to make you fantasize about downsizing when you are tired and still have another bathroom and the kitchen to clean.
Well, let’s do fantasize. Let’s take a look at Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.
I like these homes so much that I have affiliated with them. One day, I hope to buy one myself. Not as a permanent home, though that would be super fantastic if hubby would agree (coming in sizes from 70 to 770 square feet, I am sure to find one just right for us), but as a way to travel more.
They can be built on flat-bed trailers ready for the road and complete with built-in utilities. I fantasize that I will have my home away from home as I go visit family and friends. I also fantasize that I’ll use it at home as an outdoor office or just a place to get away and think.
What I like most about these homes, though, is that they are a way for more folks to afford to actually have a home. No, it’s not a solution for the homeless problem, but it’s a solution that lets in people who can afford something, just not the cost of a regular-sized home. And the designs, according to Jay, are with “adherence to the laws of sacred geometry,” as well as, with other design and organizing principles.
This is a cool little company. Jay is the founder; Steve is the business and tech guy. I can really appreciate what they are doing. And there’s so much more to it than I’ve mentioned here. You’ll find their website easy to navigate and to learn from. And there’s lots to learn.
Who knows, maybe one day, you’ll write to tell me that you have a Tumbleweed home. I’ll certainly write to tell you when I do!
Besides the beauty in it, the minimalist lifestyle, for me, is about ease of care and minimal maintenance.
House plants add great ambiance to a home, and many of them can be grown with a minimum of care and maintenance. Yes, for the green thumbless, there are many house plants that you can’t kill — unless you just completely and absolutely neglect them. Watering and pruning is usually all it takes.
We do want our environments to be beautiful, and plants are one way to add to the beauty. Also, with plants, we get the added benefit of their helping to purify the air in the home.
A favorite “house plant you can’t kill” is the snake plant, and its cousin, the mother-in-law’s tongue. I love the way they grow upright and neat — for the most part. I have seen some messy looking ones, too. But, when they are growing straight up in a pretty pot, they do have an appeal.
In my All About House Plants book, I have an article I cut out from Good Housekeeping magazine ten years ago. It’s Houseplants Anyone Can Grow. Listed are Cast-Iron, Chinese Evergreen, Earth Star, Grape Ivy, India Rubber, Peace Lily, and Snake Plant. These plants can be tended with watering every one to two weeks and by taking away any dead leaves.
The pothos, or Golden Pothos, is another plant that is easy to care for. It trails from the pot, continually producing heart-shaped leaves. I have one in the kitchen that I do have to keep trimming to keep it from overtaking the room! (I actually had one that I let grow like this one time.)
So, for me, minimizing is not all about straight lines. It encompasses nature and what’s real. Nothing can be more real than house plants. Decorate with plants and make your home truly more inviting.
It’s a new year! Time to concentrate on what matters.
What does matter?
If what matters is letting go of the new car, the new TV, the new whatever, then you are on your way to a less stressful life, and consequently, a much happier life.
And while you are at it, why not let go of the need to be right all of the time? The need to have the last word? The need to show off? The need to be critical? The need to feel “better” than others? If that’s your mindset, then letting it go will make you feel so much lighter! Your spirit will soar, and your well-being will increase beyond measure.
And it’s easy to do — you just “let it go.”
Letting go is not hard. Letting go is a choice.
Choose to give others the opportunity to feel good when they are around you. Choose to grow. Choose to surround yourself and your family with beauty. Choose to be love.
My personal wish for you this year is that you grow as a person. That you take control of your life and get rid of the excess. The stuff that doesn’t matter. In doing so, it’s a sure bet that growth will happen, you’ll feel better, you’ll feel more productive, and you’ll want to become an even better you.
Taking control of your life, working to become the person that you were meant to be is a far worthier goal than getting new “stuff.” Here, at the Minimalist Lifestyle blog, let’s learn and grow and see just how far a minimalist attitude will take us. In a year’s time, you may be surprised to learn that you’ve grown beyond what you may imagine now.
You may even grow to love some of the more extreme minimalism in home design. Well, maybe not, but you will probably, at least, have learned to love many aspects of minimalist living.
This year, what can you let go? What will that make room for?
As some of you know, a much-loved member of my family passed away during Thanksgiving week. At a time like this, one has to reflect upon one’s current path. Is it where I want to go? Am I making the right choices? Am I using my time wisely? Are my goals solid or sketchy?
The new year is coming soon, too, which makes it another time for reflecting upon one’s path.
So, for myself, I have two very big reasons to ask myself these questions.
The Minimalist Lifestyle blog, though still in its first stages, is something I have grown very fond of, and I intend to write here more often. However, for the rest of the year, I’ll be planning and streamlining how I live online, so I hope you’ll stick by me and tune in once I go full steam ahead with minimalist living in 2010.
You are welcome to offer your suggestions for this blog. I want to help you thrive in your minimalist life, and can do that better if I know what your concerns are.
My thinking is that the blog will grow to be one of minimalist tips, minimalist designs, minimalist zen and spirituality…even minimalist products that help make life easier. Drop me a line when you can; it would be a real pleasure to be in tune with what your needs and concerns are…to have your say in how the blog evolves. . .
In the meantime, minimalist living is organized living. Are you planning to be more organized in 2010? What energy drains do plan to cut out? What time wasters are you going to eliminate? What items in your home do you plan to throw away or give away? Does your New Year’s resolution reflect that? Are you committed to being the best you can be? It starts with organizing your life.
I wish for you that your best year yet will be the year 2010!
The new year started with a lot of hope for making this the year to get my online life organized. This has proven to be a very hard thing to do.
As wives, mothers, and grandmothers, we are guilty of not taking enough time for ourselves. We are always on call for everyone else and making sure they’re comfortable, well-fed, and happy. Rarely do we sit back, relax, and say, “This is my time.”
Your home came with a certain amount of storage space, and that is sometimes just not enough. The simplest way to get more storage is to add it in with furniture pieces or with built-ins.
MiMi