Day 12 - When less is more

We buy so much stuff – and for what? Does it make our lives better? Or as Pedram says ”Is it still serving you, or is it weighing you down?”

Most of us have bought items we just had to have, having problems as to were to place it when we got home, ended up putting it somewhere for later..... never to give it another thought.

My husband and I have the house up for sale, so we have alredy tossed away or given to secondhand stores, so much of our stuff and we far from finished.
A good way to prepare yourself, is to make 3 piles (or boxes). So you have ”Keeping” ”Not sure” ”Tossing”. You can add another for ”Garagesale” or something like that. The hardest pile is ”Not sure” because most of the time it will contain stuff that you are attached to emotionally. I still have a wooden chest with my dads stuff and he's been gone 10 years now. One of these days ….. It's a bit late to go over that one tonight, so I will do my underware /socks drawer instead....lol

Be right back ;-)

Done!!! That was long overdue, but needed. And still plenty left of everything, so no need to go and buy new stuff. And it feels so good to have it done too :) I've even made a note in the calender to clear out in my dads stuff. That one is not going to be as quickly done as my drawer. But just having the time set for it is an actual relief because I have been thinking about it very often and just kept putting it aside.

And that is really one of the things that is very noticable – the feeling of lightness, when you finally clean out.

I don't buy any decorations for our home anymore, I'm happy with what we have. But it's a bit easier I think after we have become much more aware of our enviornment. We have a sortingorder for our garbage and that has been an eyeopener. Especially about how much plastic we use. That has been one of the biggest clean ups I have done around the house the last couple of years. Exchanging a lot of the plastic with glass. I have reusable grocerybags for all shopping, so I never buy a plasticbag anymore. And many other substitute things around the house. There is still plenty to sort out in, but I made such a drastic change at once that we needed to have a breather before the next round.

When I found out how much chemicals and not so healthy stuff there is in our toiletries, I simply tossed it all and started over. Now, I didn't use much makeup to begin with and hardly any perfumes, so it wasn't too hard....lol Now I buy only soap, deodorant etc. that's organic. I do however, miss some fresh sent like lemons, to spray on or something like that, but nothing I can't live without :)
That's another area where the feeling gets lighter, because you know that you are doing something good for both yourself and the environment.

Come to think of a funny thing that I encountered after I stopped using any hair products like mousse etc. Not that I styled my hair each day or anything. But, I went to a haidresser to get a haircut and this woman got more and more anxious the more no I said to all the weird stuff she wanted to put in my hair. I had to aske her: Can you wash, cut and just blowdry my hair, please? She did it, but it was like I had offended her. It was actually more tragic than funny really.

And we don't really need all these things either. I'm not for all this minimalistic living, don't get me wrong. That's a bit too cold and sterile for my taste.....lol But getting more aware of if what you buy is actually what you need ;-)