minimal.

I've never thought of myself as a minimalist.

In fact, I would lean more towards the term "maximalist".

I've always been someone who has felt the need to keep most everything.  I'm the mom who has a tub for each of the girls from every single year of their schooling.  My mantras used to be "we might need that someday" and "just in case". 

I have ALWAYS kept excess in all areas -- clothing, kitchen gadgets, bath & body products...you name it.  Always.

Now, I have gone through periods in life where I've done large decluttering projects and have organized the various spaces in our home...only to quickly fill them back up over a period of months (sometimes weeks).

Things started to change for me when I left my teaching job in 2018 and moved into an administrative position, as the Director of Special Services.

This meant moving from a large classroom with a nice-sized storage closet to an office. 
An office with no storage closet. 
An office with no cabinets or cubbies or shelves.  

This was a mindset shift for me that took some work.

I wanted to have everything I would "need" at my fingertips.  

This meant that I first had to go through EVERYTHING I had in my classroom and make some decisions.

• What could stay for my replacement teacher?
• What would I need in my new position?
• What needed to go home?
• What could I discard or donate?

After thirteen years of teaching (10 of them in the same classroom), this was quite a task.

I started by moving everything away from the shelving units that would stay in the classroom.  I would stack everything there that would stay in the classroom for the next teacher.

Then I opened up some tubs to put my personal belongings in that would either need to go home with me, go to my new office, or be donated elsewhere.  I wanted to be able to be out of the classroom sooner than later, as there was already a new teacher wanting to begin preparing her classroom for the next year.

So I pushed through, sorting and tubbing, sorting and tubbing.  As I got a tub filled for my new office, I would carry it down there.  As I got a tub filled to go home, I would carry it to my car. 

I was out of my classroom in less than a week. 

THIRTEEN YEARS of teaching, emptied out within a week.

Full disclosure, when I got home with the tubs of personal items, I carried them straight to the basement, where they sat until December 2019.  

However, the items in my new office at school needed to be dealt with.

I arranged the office furniture in a way that would be inviting and functional and I opened the first tub.

I was brutal with my discarding process.  The full office reveal is HERE.

I kept only the things I knew I would need in this office or the few special items that I wanted to display on the bookshelf I had brought in from home.  By the end of the first day, I had four big tubs FULL of papers to be shredded or recycled. 

​It felt amazing.  Light, airy, FREE.

The office organization was easy-to-maintain.  I knew where to find things.  I had systems in place for filing and I had a newfound appreciation for the art of storing things digitally.

Fast-forward 18 months to Christmas break of 2019.

I had read a few books about minimalism that had given me a new definition of the word.

One of these was the Cozy Minimalist Home by Myquillyn Smith. 

She says, of cozy minimalism, "It's simply a mindset that helps you get whatever style YOU LOVE with the fewest possible items."

When I read this, I thought, "YES!  This is what I need!"

I followed up that book with one by Joshua Becker called The Minimalist Home.  Becker has a website about minimalism called Becoming Minimalist and his view is similar to Smith's.  He says that you're not discarding down to the bare bones, but you need to be ruthless when you decide what to keep.

So minimalism doesn't have to be an all-white room with one chair, one table, and one plant (okay, that's probably my own view that I made up in my head long ago.  

We can still keep the things we love and need.  I can still choose to decorate with signs on the wall, photographs of my babies, and various cozy pillows & throws.  We can have all colors & textures in our home and we can have a few extra paper goods stored away, too.

The difference in how we were living our life before we started on this "cozy minimalist" journey and how we are living it today is all found in the purpose of the possessions we have chosen to keep.  

The difference is found in where and how we store items.

It's found in the intentionality of what we choose to display on our walls and surfaces.

It's found in the ability to maintain an orderly environment with less possessions.

Last week, I wrote about my dream and commitment to write a book.

In an epiphany of sorts, the day after I wrote that blog, I started to journal about our journey from chaos to (mostly) clutter-free.  The words started pouring out and I realized that this was probably a good place to dive into my first book.

As I sit here writing, I look around and am so grateful for the peace that has made its way into our house over the last four months.

Thanking God for personal growth here at the farmhouse,
Hannah

❤️?❤️