Minimalism

Minimalism is a topic that's been on my heart for a while. I think that's probably what inspired my 31 days of organization. I look at all the clutter scattered around my house and wonder what it would be like if we could just get rid of all the junk. I read pages online and look at pictures of tiny houses. I imagine what it would be like to have a much smaller house, and a much smaller mortgage. How many more things could we do, and people could we help? Could we go a month without wondering if we'll have enough money to last the whole month? With a much smaller house, there would be many other expenses that would be much lower too. Insurance and electricity are the two big ones I can think of.

The real question is could I do it? Could I really live like that? As I think about my house, and how we use the space, it's a definite possibility. We have a whole room that we rarely go into. It's just there to hold junk. It's set up as an office. We have two huge desks, a gigantic file cabinet, a book shelf, and a 16-cube cubby system for all our homeschool books. We have a desktop computer that's so old that we can't really use it, but it's always on so that we can print from the laptop wirelessly. The boys each have their own room. The only thing they do in there is change their clothes and sleep. Otherwise, they are oversized Lego storage areas.

The other question I have is, how do I get my family on board with the idea? I guess for now, I will continue with my purging as much as I can.

Another topic that's been on my mind lately is homesteading. While I want a tiny house, I'd like it on a big open space to be able to provide as much of my own food as possible. That dream is a little more difficult. I am not very good at growing things. They tend to die, or just not produce anything edible. I guess practice makes perfect, right? I'll just keep working on it.

Another reason we need a lot of land space is for my husband's dream of building an American Ninja Warrior style obstacle course in the backyard complete with warped wall. I'm not sure that really fits with a minimalist lifestyle, but it certainly sounds fun.

The only thing that makes me pause about a tiny house is the kitchen. Cooking everything from scratch with whole foods and making bread requires kitchen space and lots of it. I guess a tiny house that is 75% kitchen and a place to sleep is really all we need. Oh, and a place to store all the books of course. I mean, really, we are homeschoolers. Plans. That's what I need. I need to draw up some plans.