The Minimalist Lifestyle

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.

Shady pool: http://www.flickr.com/photos/leozaza/ / CC BY 2.0
Hearst’s Neptune: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mscaprikell/ / CC BY-SA 2.0
Infinity Pool: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cloudzilla/ / CC BY 2.0
Pool At Night: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stage88/ / CC BY 2.0
Largest Pool: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wehren/ / CC BY 2.0
Nemo 33: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stojadinovicp/ / CC BY 2.0

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?

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.

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!

Click here to visit Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.

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?

Photo credit: Olga Lyubkina – Fotolia.com

You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need. —Vernon Howard

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. —Albert Einstein

When there is too much, something is missing. —Hasidic Saying

Frugality is one of the most beautiful and joyful words in the English language, and yet one that we are culturally cut off from understanding and enjoying. The consumption society has made us feel that happiness lies in having things, and has failed to teach us the happiness of not having things. —Elise Boulding

Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. —William Morris

How many things are there which I do not want. —Socrates

Clutter always begins in your mind, and then it ends up on the floor. —Jessica Duquette

Who is rich? He who rejoices in his portion. —The Talmud

Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb-nail. —Henry David Thoreau

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. —Immanuel Kant

Joy is not in things; it is in us. —Wagner

Be content with what you have, rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you. —Lao Tzu

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. —Leonardo da Vinci

Our affluent society contains those of talent and insight who are driven to prefer poverty, to choose it, rather than submit to the desolation of an empty abundance. —Michael Harrington

As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. —Henry David Thoreau

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. —Confucius

People say “I want peace.” If you remove I (ego), and your want (desire), you are left with peace. —Satya Sai Baba

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires. —Lao-Tzu

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. —Havelock Ellis