Sunday, September 30, 2012

Simplify your kitchen with Tenugui!

A while ago, I posted about how you can declutter your bag wardrobe with Furoshiki. Well, in the same vein, you can declutter your kitchen cloths and such with Tenugui.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Milestones 2

Just a few days ago, I wrote a post about a number of milestones in my life, as this blog got 500 page views.

Today, I just got to a new one: this blog passed the 1000 page view mark. This is very nice because I used to hate blogging, thinking I had nothing interesting to say, but since I have kept at it since August, I have had the opportunity to see the blog grow.
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Sunday, September 16, 2012

Minimalist grooming part 2

The other day I posted about minimalist grooming. Well, I am reporting that I just cut my hair and my husband's tonight, and it was fun, an interesting activity to kill boredom, and FREE! (Well, free once you own a pair of scissors and/or clippers!)
It's always a good idea when trying to declutter your life, to also declutter your schedule. If you learn to be independent and do a lot of things yourself, you don't have to worry about making an appointment at the salon for instance, and taking time off or making it during lunch.
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Thursday, September 13, 2012

minimalist fun

The other day I posted about simple pleasures. Today I would like to share with you a very simple pleasure that will most likely cheer you up if you're sad, or just make you smile.

This is something that I am sure most of you are familiar with, but every so often it is nice to be reminded of such great things. It is called "checking out pics of cute baby animals online!!!" Oh, and trust me, if you do get through this page without squealing, you have a problem!

Enjoy!


Monday, September 10, 2012

Only you can make you happy

As I was reading an article about location on Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus's blog I stumbled across a very interesting sentence: Only you can make you happy.
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milestones

I am happy to report that today, I passed the 500 page-view mark! I am so happy! It means that my blog is finally taking off and I can (maybe) make a difference and inspire people to lean more towards minimalism.
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Saturday, September 8, 2012

minimalist outing: going purse-free

I was reading a blog post about this girl that goes purse-free, but I am still not sure it is doable for us girls, especially with pocket-less skirts and dresses. Yet, I am interested in going bag-free for a while because at the end of the day I get really tired carrying a purse: after a few hours it just feels really heavy.
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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

simple pleasures













Nothing feels greater than enjoying simple pleasures!
Today, at 10:30pm, with my husband we
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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Be content with what you have

One thing that my mom repeated to me quite often when my little unsatisfied self was growing up is: "you need to learn to appreciate what you have".
Many years on, I think she was right: no matter how hard you try, how many dresses you buy, you are always you, there is no running away from yourself. So instead of
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minimalist student lifestyle

As I was revisiting this blog, I reminisced how nice it was as a student to sit and daydream about the future. I was thinking about how I would have a great job and would go on a lot of adventures with my then wonderful boyfriend (he is now my husband!!)

And then...life happened. I became an adult, grew out of dreaming because
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How much clutter is too much clutter?

When sizing down, people only think of one thing: getting rid of things! The less things, the better: we have too much clutter, and we need to size down, sell, donate, or throw out stuff, and finally -phew!- take a break because we've earned it!

But in all this frenzy of simplifying and downsizing to a
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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Decluttering: baby steps

Today I started feeling stressed out because I knew I had so much to sort through in order to declutter the house. I said, when I started this blog that I wanted to give minimalism a try and I am pretty serious about it, even though I still have a lot of sentimental items. I was at a loss where to start, because although I have a lot of clutter or unnecessary items here, I am sure it's not as much as the average American home. Or is it...?

Anyway, I decided to sort through my underwear drawer first, because I had a lot of old socks, and torn pantyhose that I kept, thinking "I can wear that with boots, nobody will see the pilling on the side of this pantyhose" and so on. But every time I opened the drawer, it was hell getting everything back down to close it again.

I ended up throwing away
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Decluttering: a few tips

Here are some links that I think are really inspiring. When trying to declutter a room or a home, it can become overwhelming very quickly. So I suggest that you read those links and start decluttering a little bit at a time. That's what I do too!!

The unclutterer

Zen Habits

I find that the hardest part when parting with belongings is
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Saturday, September 1, 2012

minimalism: spontaneity is the new black

Most people get caught up in weekly chores. Let's face it, we've all spent countless hours on Saturday afternoons shopping for food, clothes, you name it.
Although shopping for clothes is nice when there are people around, I find it terribly tiring to wait in line for over a half hour to try on that skirt that I don't even know if it'll fit. So if I want to shop for something special, I try to go off-peak.
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minimalist grooming

One day I was walking in a DC mall with a friend when a girl stopped me to ask me how long it took me to style my hair in the morning. That was the first step towards selling me hair styling products or equipment, I forget which. I told her point blank: "I don't style my hair in the morning, too much of a hassle, I just can't be bothered, I just brush it and leave". She stared at me in disbelief: "I'm sorry, what???"
To which I replied:
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Simplify your life: handkerchiefs

Have you noticed how these days, people are reverting back to habits from another time? A lot of people will go buy food in bulk, make their own clothes, and so on, in an attempt either to simplify their lives or to pay less for the same items.

One of the things that our parents and grandparents used to have, that I think is genius, is handkerchiefs. I know some of you might think
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Declutter your disposable items

One thing that we have been doing since moving to Belgium with my husband is decluttering disposable items. Except for toilet paper, we don't own any disposable cleaning supplies in the house anymore. Actually I lied, we have one old half empty roll of paper towels that made it here with the move, but it has been tucked away in some cupboard for so long that I had forgotten all about it until I cleaned out the kitchen the other day.

Instead of paper towels, we use
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The lazy minimalist

Last time I told you guys how the lazy factor helped a lot with cutting back, and not wasting money on disposable items.
Well, today, I would like to share with you yet another lazy idea to not waste money or time on something that, let's face it, we all use at some point or another: batteries.

When I was a student, I needed to record some of the lectures I went to (don't we all?), and decided to buy a really nice usb-enabled sound recorder. It was great because
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