Life With Boys: Minimalism-Life With Boys Style

I'm going to be taking the blog into a bit of unexplored territory.

Minimalism. I'll be writing a post every day in October all about our family's journey to minimalism.

Now, before you run away screaming from the mere thought of minimalist living, let me assure you that I am not going to be writing about how to raise your family with only 100 possessions or simplify dinner by only eating beans and rice or dumping all your furniture & sleeping on the floor. Those ideas are too radical for me and not exactly what I'm going for here.

I'm talking about minimizing (call it "reducing" if it helps) the stuff you have around the house to a level where you can live your life for people and not for stuff.

Did you catch that? Live your life for people and not for stuff.

The idea for this "31 Days to Minimalist Living" came from The Nester. She has done a "31 days to..." series for the past 3 years and I decided that I wanted to stretch myself a little as a blogger while also doing something GOOD for ~~my boys~~ my sanity. Getting rid of some of our clutter and fluff will hopefully translate into all of us feeling better about ourselves and how we live at home.

Each day, I'll tackle an area of our home that needs to be minimized. I'll be getting rid of stuff, opening up space in our home and creating more FREE TIME for myself. (yes, I really do believe that if we have less stuff, *I* will have more free time.)

I will show you pictures of our home and how much stuff we've accumulated. These photos will completely embarrass me and will (hopefully) shame me into streamlining our possessions. I'll give you suggestions on how to convince your loved ones that they, too, should pare down their stuff.

I will be doing this with little, tiny, baby steps. I have found that a lot of books & blogs about minimalist living suggest biting off a much bigger piece than I can chew and it gets frustrating. We're all busy, we don't have time to spend an entire day minimizing our kitchen---but ONE drawer? Or ONE cabinet? How do you eat an elephant? ONE bite at a time. Same for decluttering & minimizing our homes--ONE little piece at a time.

Minimalist living--here we come!

Day 1 email

Day 2 magazines

Day 3 kitchen tools