happy living Design

welcome february (and my 3rd love)

I love the snow.  I really do.  But I am done with winter.  So. Done. 

Thanks Bethany for the cute wallpaper!

And my 3rd love, that would be my Kindle.  I somehow can never read one book at a time and having a Kindle just exacerbates that 'problem', but I love it.  I especially enjoy that I can read samples of books before buying.  At first I was against them.  I just couldn't imagine not holding an actual book in my hand.  But I've been won over.  There are of course some books that I would still want physical copies of but the Kindle is really going to keep the number of books that we need to store at home to a minimum I think.

What I'm reading (an incomlete list):

Rescue by Anita Shreve

Steady Days by Jamie Martin

Organized Simplicity by Tsh Oxenreider

 

 

thirsty : Pokal tumblers

We have a these glasses and as they have broken I haven't been replacing them.  They have these giant 'dimples' on the bottom that collect a ridiculous amount of water in the dishwasher and I have been on the hunt for new tumblers (w/o dimples).  I love these from Ikea and how much more affordable can you get than $1.99?  I sense an Ikea outing in my future so that I can inspect the dimples.

ps.  I guess when we registered for our wedding we requested a set of each size glass: juice glass, cooler glass and double old-fashioned.  We rarely use the juice glasses and could live without the DOF's since we have a set of crystal DOF's.  I think the Pokal tumblers would serve all of our needs and we'd only need to store ONE SET of everyday glasses instead of THREE.

The Green Garmento

We used to frequent the drycleaners quite a bit especially for the boy's work shirts.  Now that I am not working full-time outside of the home and the boy has since switched to wash-and-wear suit shirts we make less trips to the cleaners and environmentally I think it's proabably best.  I still have my work and wool pants dry cleaned occasionaly and I use Dryel in between to freshen them up.  And there are just some things the drycleaners do much better than I do such as pressing (boy do they get those pant creases sharp!) and hemming.  And we always like to say hello to our friendly drycleaning lady.

I had the opportunity to try out The Green Garmento 4-in-1 reuseable garment bag for our last trip to the drycleaners.

We hung it on the back of our bedroom door and filled it up as items needed to be cleaned.  It has a pretty heavy duty hook on the back. 

Once we were ready to drop the clothes off the carrying strap came in handy as I had the bag across my shoulder and carried Kheri at the same time to and from the car.  It has a drawstring on the open end to keep all the clothes inside.

And when I picked up my clothes, the drycleaner returned them to me in the bag.  No plastic!

There's even a little pouch in the front for the slip or receipt.

The Green Garmento retails for $9.99 and if you make multiple trips to the drycleaners each year it would really cut down on the amount of plastic going into a landfill (like those reuseable shopping bags do for your grocery store visits!).  And I liked having an out of the way place to put the drycleaning as it was piling up.  Check with your local cleaners to see if they'd be willing to use them.

Full Disclosure (so I don't get sued):  This item was given to me for free to try out.  I may from time to time review items that I think I or my readers would like.  I won't give a good review to something I don't think deserves it.  That's not helpful to anyone, especially to you guys (the readers).  In general I don't make money from this blog and I don't make money whether or not you buy this item.  Reviews are just a way to show you something new.  Any questions, email me.

a nice vessel

or plant pot as Ikea calls them. BLADET plant pot with saucer by Ikea ($8.99)

Useful for containing all sorts of things.  I could use these all over the house.

As seen on Bethenny Getting Married? in the kitchen.  Did I just publicly admit to watching that show??

spending hiatus #2

Starting today I am on Spending Hiatus #2.  This time around I am not following anyone like I did last time. I am trying it out on my own.  We will see how that works.  If any of you did not participate last time and want to  this time feel free to do so and let me know so I can follow you.  Either way I will do the same as last time and post each Monday (or Tuesday!) and re-cap.

So far I have a few exclusions such as two toilets, one refrigerator, paint and some other building supplies for our bedroom make-over.

I am committed to three months of this: June, July and August.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the spending hiatus exercise, I am committing to not buy anything that would be deemed non-essential for three months.  For me non-essentials means clothing and accessories, home and decorating items, specialty personal care items (it is amazing how much money I can spend in one trip to Walgreens), magazines that I don't already have a subscription to, books (thank goodness for the library), electronics and itunes music.  This list is not exhaustive and I think it would be different for everyone.

Like last time I am going to use the next three months to do some more de-cluttering and organizing my two favorite activities.

Wish me luck.

spring cleaning

Does anyone really do spring cleaning anymore?  It was more of a necessity back in the day when fireplaces were the main source of heat during the winter and the rugs and drapes needed to have the soot shaken out.  But spring is still the most popular time to do a deep-clean around the house, purge and organize (my favorite things!).  And after the 3-month spending hiatus, I feel some major purging coming on.  I did a bit during the last 12 weeks, but not nearly enough.

Martha has a nice Spring-Clean Your Life gallery which is based on the book Throw Out Fifty Things: Clear Your Clutter, Find Your Life by Gail Blanke.

photo from Martha Stewart

decluttering magazines

For a long time I have been a magazine junkie.  It all started with Seventeen and it was down hill from there.  Until recently I had baskets of partially or unread mags strewn about the house.  Over the holidays I went through most of them and they went out with the recycling last week.  I have also started canceling a few of them as they come up for renewal.

I consider this a decluttering of the mind as much as it is of the house.  I truly believe there is only so much information and inspiration that one person can absorb in any given amount of time.  I spend so much of my time on the internet these days where I feel as though I get most of what I need there.  As I write this, the rumors of Domino's closing have come true today.  I wonder if it is just a sign of the times.  Something is happening with print media.  But I digress.

Having a few subscriptions to the magazines that I really delve into when they arrive means less baskets around the house to trip over.  They can be displayed in fun ways too, really showing off the gorgeous covers each month.

I like this display and photo taken by Mika.

 

Mika has a lovely blog!

the spending hiatus : 2 week update

I'm a little tardy due to being a little under the weather but here goes.

Things I (we) bought: contact lenses, groceries, chinese takeout on Friday (limited to eating dinner out once per week), I had lunch with a friend on Sunday so that was a non-essential, although spending quality time with friends is essential, and we (the boy and I) ate lunch together yesterday here and the new rule for that is once per week for eating lunch out.  Today I brought my lunch.  Cosi has been calling my name.

It has been neither easy nor difficult.  Somewhere in between I guess.  On one hand, it is freeing as Joslyn said, but on the other I do notice my small internal battles that go on when I am feeling the 'need' to shop either brick and mortar or online.  I found myself thinking about going into stores as I was passing by them on the street but then reminding myself that not only am I on a hiatus but I also DO NOT NEED ANYTHING.

I would say, online shopping is probably where I have the potential to struggle more.  It is soo easy.  I have an email account where I get all the shop emails, coupons, flyers, etc.  Anthropologie has some nice stuff on sale, did ya know?  And I got a coupon from Hable Construction.  I have actually started unsubscribing to most of the emails I get just so I don't have to look at them (which is a lot harder than one would imagine!).

I have been surprised at the snippets of time that I have seemed to gain by not shopping, even online.  But my mind is also clearer and that might be why I feel like I have more time.  The other benefit of doing this is my rate of bringing new stuff into the house is going down so that when I start bringing things to Goodwill (you should see the pile of crap in my basement) I will be able to see the difference at home.  Before I think my rate on 'in' and 'out' were pretty close.  I am looking forward to some winter/spring decluttering!

Big Picture:  For the last couple of years I have been longing more and more to live a simpler life, not because it is enviromentally friendly or politically correct or trendy to talk about right now, but because I believe it will be beneficial in countless ways for my little family.  I haven't defined for myself exactly what 'simple' means yet, but I think this exercise will help me in many aspects, mainly in identifying what is really important to me and that being happy comes from inside.

I'll leave it at that for now. ;)

decluttering furniture

I finally bought a couch for our living room.  I have had this couch on my list for awhile and just needed time to think about it and also wait for our budget and the department store sale to converge.  We haven't received it yet as it is on backorder.  Waiting doesn't bother me that much.  It just gives us more time to figure out what to do with the frat-house-futon that the new couch is taking the place of.

Yea, it's musical furniture in our house.  The boy doesn't like to throw things or give things away too much.  It is a constant struggle between us.  I have been accused of taking some items to Goodwill that I was not given permission to.  I admit, it is a possibility.  When I get to bagging things up, some things just get swept up in the frenzy.  In all fairness though, I have brought some random pieces of furniture into our home over the years.  Sometimes they stay and sometimes they don't.

We have a mish-mash of furniture: a dining room table and chairs that was my great grandmother's, a living room set from Strawbridges (now Macy's), bertoia chairs from ebay, heywood wakefield and lane tables also from ebay, a little roll-top desk that belonged to someone in my dad's family, a $10 chair from a strip-mall antique store in Rehoboth, DE and of course some Ikea pieces.

Some things we will always have and others served a purpose at some point but I am looking forward to upgrading, getting something more useful or just making a better choice this time around and getting something that I love that will be a classic to me.  I am slowly becoming more thoughtful about what I spend my money on, although I do have my moments of what I call Target-induced unconscious spending. Fortunately they are becoming rarer (and I also live further away from big box stores than I used to).  Two other things have happened to me (us) over this past year.  First, we moved into what we consider our long-term house.  Second, I think it has just been over the past couple of years that I have really developed a sense of what my own style is and more importantly come to an understanding of my lifestyle as a wife, an architect, a house-keeper and all the other roles that I play in making a home.

All of the things above are just now coming together and it is causing me to pause everytime I think "Oh, I want that piece of furniture".  And if I buy said piece of furniture does something else need to leave?  We are lucky to have ebay and craigslist which enable us to in essence recycle our unwanted things.  At least they are not going into a landfill.  But do I necessarily want my house to become a revolving door of tables and chairs?  There is always a bit of rotation and editing in decorating.  But with the major pieces I want some permanence.

I think I have rambled on long enough and will end there.  All this came about because I wanted to buy this today, but did not.  I still haven't decided on whether or not to get it.  I'll let you know. ;)

food for thought :: decluttering

I am a huge fan of everything Sarah Susanka does from her architecture to her books to her blog and newsletters.  I hope that as I think about developing my own architecture practice someday that my work can reflect a lot of the ideas about home and living more simply that she has brought to us.  I clicked through to her blog after receving her latest newsletter and was so moved by her blog post about her process of decluttering her office.

She says, "I see now that the real lesson of my decluttering task was not that I needed to throw everything out, but that through the process of sorting, reviewing, and culling I was able to render down the important ingredients of my life into its particular and unique flavor, just as one would do in the kitchen with a fine sauce. It’s all there already. We just have to take the time to let it simmer, and then after decades have past, to taste the results. I highly recommend it. I’ve learned a lot."

There are a lot of ways to look at what she said.  What I took from it is that in the process of decluttering whether it be our spaces, minds or lives in general we can let go of old ways, old habits, old things, and make way for new ideas and refreshed thinking.

I have not read her latest book The Not So Big Life yet, but if her previous books are any indication, I am sure that it is excellent.  I am putting it on my library list!