Content at Minimum Week 3: Calling in Reinforcements

The Kitchen Part 2:

Week three was not particularly productive for me, but I knew that not every week would be. I had a couple of apparently random bad mental health days and the bugs in our kitchen seem to be making their final stand. Luckily, my mom had time on Labor Day weekend to make the hour and a half drive to visit me and help out. We conquered the most difficult parts of the kitchen: the cabinet under the sink and the stuff on top of the fridge. This means I’ve sorted through everything in our kitchen. I wish I could call it done, but I’ve left a lot of random things on the kitchen table and need to do a final sorting and get all of that put away.

I mentioned in my first post about CAM that my mother took on 365 Less Things when I was a kid. I know that she has far surpassed 365 items in her decluttering career. In fact, there was a period where decluttering really was her job and other people hired her to help declutter their houses. Although we live in different cities, she visits relatively often, and we usually mix socializing and working around the house. 

I grew up with a close group of family friends and one of the things they did when I was young was exchange work on each other’s houses. Periodically, most of the adults would get together at someone’s house and paint or lay tile or, on one memorable occasion, tear down a wall. There would be music and snacks, and one adult would wrangle the children into an activity. I went on many hikes with a friend’s father, who made the same joke each time about the blister-inducing, mosquito-bitten, sunburn and disaster laden trip we would be taking (it was always fine).

All this is to tell you that I have few qualms about asking family or friends over to deep clean, put together furniture, paint the walls, or some other task. My husband and I give this kind of help out freely as well. I absolutely recommend bringing a kind of can-do spirit into your own community. If you’re a bit shy of asking for this kind of help, provide something in return. Just like people pay their friends to help them move with pizza and cold beer, you can offer music, food, and drinks. I’ve even invited family over for a “deep cleaning party” and we turned cleaning out kitchen cabinets and scrubbing the shower into a celebration.

I hope that this can encourage you in any projects that you’re doing. Some weeks will be slow, or you might even go in the wrong direction. You might need to phone a friend for help. That’s just how a major project goes!

The Wish Lists:

I did an unexpected clearing this week. In my quest to live more simply and more lightly on the earth, I also want to buy fewer things. Without really meaning to, I’ve tapered off buying stuff from Amazon. I just felt bad every time I did, so I naturally ordered less. There are, however, a few things I have trouble getting other places. So, I was on Amazon to make one of those haven’t-found-it-somewhere-else purchases and decided to look over the wish lists I have. 

I do enjoy making lists (of all sorts) and I like making lists a lot more than I like actually spending money on things. Once I make a list, I have trouble letting it go. I also have trouble taking an item off a wish list if I spent a lot of time browsing and searching for just the right thing, even if I no longer want it and am not realistically going to buy it. I think it’s easy to dismiss a wish list item because you haven’t actually bought it, but they can be a temptation to spend money (and energy, time, resources, and carbon emissions) we might be better off using in other ways or just not spending at all. Browsing, wishlisting, and “adding to cart” with little intention of buying is practically a hobby for some folks I know!

I went through my Amazon lists with the same kind of practicality I declutter with. I removed enough items to get rid of some lists altogether. I felt a bit anxious doing it, but I was also on such a roll that I audited my Etsy wish lists as well. Now, I feel like I’ve let go of temptation and decluttered some of my mental and digital space. It wasn’t the kind of decluttering I expected to do this week, but I’m glad I did!

If you’d like to leave a comment, let me know the silliest thing you’ve put on an online wish list. (For me, I’d say it’s the baby wrap I wanted for carrying around my very cuddly – and rather heavy – cat and left on my list long after he decided he would rather sit on my lap than be held.)