So, a little over a month ago, I let my phone expire, and I didn't bother to do anything about it. Partially motivated by the fact that I moved to a dead zone for the particular cell phone company I was using (though they tried to convince me that I had service), and partially motivated by the desire to eliminate a hefty monthly bill. At first, I admit I was a little nervous. After all my smart phone did everything, calendar, contacts, it even connected me to my email, facebook and the various blogs I follow.
A lot of you are probably wondering where the silver lining is. Well, I feel a lot more free, and I have been able to focus better. I get sucked into constant updates at my fingertips as easily as the next person, but overall, I had to be honest with myself and admit that responding to a friend's status could wait until the next time I was at the computer. So I took the plunge, I got rid of the cell phone and you know, within a week I rediscovered quiet. It's amazing how much easier it is to focus on a project when you don't have alerts and updates interrupting your train of thought every few minutes. I know, some of you are saying "why not just turn your phone off?" Well, it's not that simple when you have a 5 year old, a few times when my phone was off people needed to reach me and couldn't and that experience has made me terrified to repeat that. Luckily it was nothing major, but just the thought of "what if it was an emergency" haunts me.
So aside from missing my alarm function, and my calendar tracking my daily life for me, syncing up my google calendar to my phone, I am enjoying this newfound freedom. The other day I talked to a friend on the phone for 2 hours, not once did I think to myself "I wonder how many minutes I've used for this month." So while, it is taking some getting used to, I realized that I let something that started out as a luxury masquerade in my life as a neccessity. Now I am beginning to wonder what other things have hidden themselves in my day-to-day life pretending they need to be there.
Showing posts with label downsizing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label downsizing. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Downsizing: Your Wardrobe
The Tumbleweed Tiny House Blog: How to Completely Simplify Your Wardrobe, Right NOW!
I think a lot of you can relate to the following scenario: you have an entire dresser/closet full of clothing, but, you find yourself wearing the same 5-6 outfits. Well my friend, this lack of variety happens subconciously and for good reason, you tend to gravitate toward the clothes that make you comfortable, and make you look good. So it really is no conspiratorial plot of your closet that you seem to always wear the same few t-shirts. I admit every time I move I can't help but to look at the things I own, and wonder why the hell I cart them from place to place. I began to seriously look at the clothing I was hording, and really critically evaluating what I needed to keep.
The article that I linked to is a great way to quickly accomplish this. However, I think it fails to address one major pitfall, that I myself fall into pretty heavily sometimes. The pitfall being "but this would be fine if I just hemmed/patched/altered it a little." Well my dear crafty friends, I know all to well this snowball effect. I don't know about you, but it almost seems like one WIP (work-in-progress) laying around the house almost always begets at least 10 cohorts without you even noticing what's happening. I will admit I am shamefully guilty of buying items in thrift stores solely with the intention of altering it, for example, I have a small stack of very large button-up men's shirts, that were going to be altered into cute summery dresses. However, it is now August (I acquired them in March, you know, PLENTY of time to complete those projects before summer), and I have made pretty close to zero progress on those projects. I have the best of intentions when acquiring these items at thrift stores, but lets face it, hording supplies for crafting quickly becomes an obsession. Not only because supplies tend to be expensive (the price of yarn, WOW), but when you envision something you want to make with it, it's really hard to just, let it go.
So let's apply this to a stack of clothes. In the case of my collection of button-ups, I set myself a deadline, if they aren't made into dresses or useable shirts within 3 months, I HAVE to give them to the Salvation Army. So, with this new deadline, that I have decided to commit to, I need to either make time, or admit that I am just merely keeping these items around for really no reason. I did turn a lot of old t-shirts with sentimental value into a quilt, and will be making another shortly. I also made t-shirt yarn out of the remnants of the t-shirts that were cut up to make the quilt, and the yarn is currently being knitted into a little rug (which my 5 year old has already told me will be going into his room when it's done). So while it is admirable to re-purpose items (and I admit I love doing it!), I really caution you against using that as a perfect excuse to keep around stacks of clothes that could be put to better use if donated, or given to a friend.
I think a lot of you can relate to the following scenario: you have an entire dresser/closet full of clothing, but, you find yourself wearing the same 5-6 outfits. Well my friend, this lack of variety happens subconciously and for good reason, you tend to gravitate toward the clothes that make you comfortable, and make you look good. So it really is no conspiratorial plot of your closet that you seem to always wear the same few t-shirts. I admit every time I move I can't help but to look at the things I own, and wonder why the hell I cart them from place to place. I began to seriously look at the clothing I was hording, and really critically evaluating what I needed to keep.
The article that I linked to is a great way to quickly accomplish this. However, I think it fails to address one major pitfall, that I myself fall into pretty heavily sometimes. The pitfall being "but this would be fine if I just hemmed/patched/altered it a little." Well my dear crafty friends, I know all to well this snowball effect. I don't know about you, but it almost seems like one WIP (work-in-progress) laying around the house almost always begets at least 10 cohorts without you even noticing what's happening. I will admit I am shamefully guilty of buying items in thrift stores solely with the intention of altering it, for example, I have a small stack of very large button-up men's shirts, that were going to be altered into cute summery dresses. However, it is now August (I acquired them in March, you know, PLENTY of time to complete those projects before summer), and I have made pretty close to zero progress on those projects. I have the best of intentions when acquiring these items at thrift stores, but lets face it, hording supplies for crafting quickly becomes an obsession. Not only because supplies tend to be expensive (the price of yarn, WOW), but when you envision something you want to make with it, it's really hard to just, let it go.
So let's apply this to a stack of clothes. In the case of my collection of button-ups, I set myself a deadline, if they aren't made into dresses or useable shirts within 3 months, I HAVE to give them to the Salvation Army. So, with this new deadline, that I have decided to commit to, I need to either make time, or admit that I am just merely keeping these items around for really no reason. I did turn a lot of old t-shirts with sentimental value into a quilt, and will be making another shortly. I also made t-shirt yarn out of the remnants of the t-shirts that were cut up to make the quilt, and the yarn is currently being knitted into a little rug (which my 5 year old has already told me will be going into his room when it's done). So while it is admirable to re-purpose items (and I admit I love doing it!), I really caution you against using that as a perfect excuse to keep around stacks of clothes that could be put to better use if donated, or given to a friend.
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