Where Minimalism Begin for Me

It finally happened, I changed. My entire mindset and view of THINGS and STUFF and CLUTTER, which I would lovingly clean, organize and maintain is now turned upside down. And this is my story.
 
I started nannying for a family in August 2011 and thought that they were so crazy to have a perfectly spotless house at all times with 1 and 3 year old boys! They didn't seem to have much stuff although I wouldn't call them minimalist. I thought maybe they had just moved in and not unpacked all their stuff, so was very surprised to learn they had lived there for a few years already! Where was all their stuff?? Me being so competetive tried very hard to organize and clean my way to this level but it seemed like I wasn't making much progress. Unless you count dusting all your clutter every week progress! But the seeds had been planted.
 
January 2012, I began to research Simplifying as I knew our house was just too chaotic and wanted to focus on the things that really mattered to me. I created my goals to simplify.
 
In April we planned on moving, so I started with packing/purging everything that was of no use to us for the next 3 months so we could show our 1, 050 sq ft, 1 floor house and it would look more “open” as said all the websites I researched. So everything was packed and in our unfinished basement, the upstairs was perfect, clean and ready for an open house. We kept it that way for just over a month and then realized we couldn't get financing for the house we wanted! (Very Frustrating!) But the upstairs was in a pretty good situation and I could at least keep the house clean. :)

Now July, my cousin in law was going through her stuff. They had moved almost a year before (only 2 weeks after having a baby) so friends had packed up her house for her. Needless to say she had tons of boxes they hadn't gone through so I suggested a yardsale thinking I would have maybe 2 garbage bags of things to put in as I had already done that big clean.
 
In my researching of simplifying I stumbled upon minimalism. Zen Habits to be more specific. I read through the archives and kept researching and searching. There are some really fantastic blogs out there! MinimalistMommi has house tour videos on her blog which really inspired me. I had never seen a house so empty! It's like candy! It was also very intriguing to see how much (or little) other people actually lived with.

July 1^st I actually started my purge. The date was accidental, I just bought a journal and started making point form notes in it daily starting July 1^st. Some days I did write in more detail which I will share with you in later posts about how it felt to declutter and free myself from the burden of stuff. We scheduled the yard sale for July 21^st and I spent most of those nights up late going through boxes of baby clothes, bedding etc. I got rid of over half of our items. Nearly filling a concrete trailer! 1 month was not nearly enough time to go through and sort everything though so I still have a ways to go in my journey! 

I hope you will join me as I share my process and how I go about choosing to live my life intentionally. Being aware of my purchases in a minimal, frugal and environmentally-conscious way. I want to live with less.