Minimalist Journey Days 13 and 14

Minimalism is quite hard.  The not buying part has been a breeze, but the decluttering stage, has been quite rocky.  It is hard to undo 28 years of accumulation of unnecessary stuff, Yesterday was for selling, and today is for digitizing documents, photos, kids art work, or anything else that we may need or want to keep, but doesn't have to occupy physical space.  I have two actions to share.  First, I did set up an E-Bay account.  I have no clue how to use it, but at least it is created so as I do find things that might have enough value monetarily, but not enough to warrant space in my home, I could try and sell it.  

Second, I bought a couple (yes I know these were new to my home but pretty tiny) flash drives. After we complete purging old paper work that we really do not need to be holding onto, the next step will be to slowly scan the documents we do want to reference, but do not need originals.  At last count, we had 16 bankers boxes of old papers.  I think most is beyond the years of needing to keep records at all, and another 4 boxes worth could be scanned. 


At present we are in the it has to get worse before it can get better stage of attacking minimalism. I say we, because if this is going to work in the short run, and continue to be a lifestyle, I need my partners who helped do the crime in the first place to be on board and stay there. I don't live alone as did Ryan in the Minimalist blog, and I was holding onto a whole families worth of stuff.  Still, any progress is  progress and I need to tell myself that. 

Some success and flops this week, not strictly n the 21 Day plan, but important to my goals include:

Food and meals flop:

• Yuck, with working late a couple nights, dinner one night was takeout tacos and another was a bucket of chicken.  Then there was the infamous chicken sandwich.
• Joined the work group and went in on ordering Jimmy Johns one day.  I did make it vegetarian, and loaded with veggies for some consolation.
• Let 4 avocados go bad.  They were fine one day and when  went to use the next, they were moldy and inedible, that quick.

Food and meal success:

• Used all the leftovers from the weekend for lunches
• Turned  a handful of grape tomatoes about to go bad, and 1/3 of a can of diced tomatoes left from making guacamole ( I had planned on making more before the avocado fiasco), olive oil, and lots of seasoning into a tomato sauce for some leftover noodles. It essentially was a free lunch for DD#2 and I as all were such small quantities individually that many people would have just chucked aside. 
• Had a lovely steak dinner and wine of our own at home last night, with the meal prepared faster than we could have walked to the bar and grill. We capped dinner with a stroll as the full moon was coming out-quite storybook.

Household Success

• Saved a soccer bag, basketball bag, and back pack, all heavily used, soiled, and stinky by washing in a mix of laundry soap and baking soda, on delicate, and then letting them air dry.  all look practically brand new.  Each of these items new were over $50 each.  The sports bags have been used by DD# 2 since she was 8, and have years of life. While we bought new, it is a good reminder that buying good quality second hand things is smart as opposed to buying new cheaper made things that will need replacing. 

That is all I have this week, and am not all that pleased on the kitchen front, but the week ahead should be less chaotic. How do you manage the kitchen in weeks of chaos? As for paperwork, what are your methods for staying on top of it?  Besides legally required documents such as tax filings, and titles, how long do you keep things like utility bills?  For those of you with children, how long or how much do you save of your kids school days?