Dejunking and Rethinking

This month I have been working on preparing for our next adventure. One of the tasks I tackled was to go through my children's memory boxes with them and help them thin things down.

We discussed why we choose to keep things, and what purpose they serve if they are hidden away. We decided that things that we love and want to use or see should be out where we can display them or play with them, but we shouldn't have very many of those things.

Things that we love, but only want to keep to share with someone special someday (like future children) can be stored. But we need to be sure that the things we want to keep tell a special story that we want to share someday. If you've seen Inside Out, my daughter explained to me that she wanted to keep things that were related to her core memories.

Things we don't love should be let go.

Here are a few items that some of my kids let go of during this process. We took pictures so they could remember if they wanted to, but not have the big item.








We've been discussing how to make smaller spaces work for us without them feeling like smaller spaces. It has been important for us to analyze how we actually use the spaces we have now. People on HGTV or other home design shows are always looking for "entertaining spaces." They always seem to want a huge kitchen table to fit a large dinner party, a huge kitchen to hang out in while people are cooking, and a huge family room to relax in after eating.

We don't feel that we need or want all of these things for several reasons.

First, we are always a "large dinner party" even when it is just our family.

Second, when we do host gatherings, we nearly always feed the kids first and send them off to play so the adults can enjoy their meal. Or we send our kids to the outside picnic table for their meal for the same reason.

Third, we have noticed that, in our home, gatherings never seem to move to the family room seating area.

Just this summer we hosted an evening with 10 other people (so 20 people total in our house for several hours) and ZERO people sat down on our couches. We had people standing around our kitchen island, leaning on the banister to the basement stairs, sitting at the kitchen table, etc... nobody sat down on the couches.

In fact, at one point during the evening we wanted to gather everyone together so we could have a little program. Rather than move to the two large couches we gathered kitchen chairs and carried them to the basement!

After much discussion, it has been determined that we do not need a "family room" on the main floor. Instead, in our next home, we plan to use the family room space as a huge dining room, where we can have room for our everyday "large dinner parties." And we plan to create a small, cozy seating space in the traditional "dining nook" (which would never be big enough for our whole family anyway) so that those wishing to converse with the cooks can do so in comfort.

We then plan to have a couch/seating area in a basement family room (since those are SO common here in Utah, and I find it quite a waste to have a huge basement and not use it as part of your main living area). But a basement family room in a smaller house would also double as our play room, and possibly do triple duty as a guest bedroom.

Solution? Daybeds. Daybeds that look like sectionals. Daybeds with linen & toy storage.

I have big plans for my daybeds, but details of that will need to wait.

In the mean time, since we know we won't be using our current couches, and since we don't really like them anyway... we sold them.





They are gone.


The space they left is so open and freeing. We had so much space for Christmas morning. It was wonderful.

We really don't miss them at all.

We have also learned that our daybed couches need to be shorter, at least the backs of them, so they don't take up so much visual space.

It's so wonderful to be free to fill our home with things we LOVE and feel we actually NEED, and not what the design world tells us we should have. :)

The Only Constant Is Change

I know the past couple of years on this blog have been non-existent. I am sorry for that. I already mentioned in a previous post that we moved to a much larger home, but that we are thinking tiny again. 

I have decided to focus this next year on blogging better, mostly for journaling purposes, but while I blog about silly family adventures on my personal blog, I would like to continue to add to this blog with thoughts about our adventures as we experience them. 

I'm not promising anything, but I have made a goal to blog once a week. So, we'll see how that goes. 

Adventures

It's been quite a while since I posted anything on this blog. Part of that is because we had baby #7 and I got even busier. And then, just as I felt like I could dedicate more time to blogging, I got pregnant again, and we moved 1000 miles away, to a home twice the size of our tiny ranch.

In a lot of ways I don't feel I can continue to write about tiny spaces when I don't have many anymore. ;) But then again... we still have quite a few more children than the average family in a 2900 sq ft home, especially since we added baby #8 last December.

However, there are some super fun ideas in the mix right now that have me thinking super tiny again. I'm trying to figure out exactly where to blog our fun adventures...

In the interest of "simple" I'd like to keep everything on my personal blog. But in the interest of "private" it'd be nice to keep things separate. I'll let you know when I get it figured out. :)

Start Slow

Language Development
One of my favorite classes in college was Language Development. It was fascinating to me to learn how children (and adults) learn a language, and learn to speak and understand language. Generally, infants first pick up the sounds of the language most often spoken around them, and they begin to attempt to make these sounds from a very young age... even just a few months. As they get older, they begin to understand some words and commands, and by the end of their first year, most infants can say one or two "words", which may or may not sound like actual words to those outside of their normal circles (ie. to anyone other than parents or grandparents). Technically speaking, the term "infant" refers to those "without language," so a child officially becomes a "toddler" when they start walking, and start talking.

By the middle of the second year, most toddlers can understand the meanings of hundreds of nouns (cookie, cow, chair, garbage, etc), as well as many adjectives (slow, fast, tall, short, blue, etc) and verbs (run, walk, sit, stand, etc) and are beginning to understand more abstract concepts (wait, help, etc). These toddlers are also beginning to string together their own two-three (or more) word sentences.

My 19 month old with her baby brother. She recently started using a couple of phrases including "look-at-me" and "I-lub-it." For this picture she was telling me "look-at-me I hold Ben!" and "I-lub-it baby." 

So, after a year and a half of exposure to a language, toddlers can understand quite a bit, but are just beginning to express themselves using the language. And they mostly express themselves in areas that are most important to them, usually related to food, fun activities (my 18 month old loves to yell "Go!" when it's time to go anywhere), or interesting objects (ball, plane, cat, etc).

My 5 year old, who recently learned to say "zebra" instead of "zebwa"(finally).

By the time most children are 5-6 they speak in complete sentences, use mostly correct grammar, have an estimated 6000 word vocabulary, and are mostly considered "fluent." Even after this point, children, teens and adults continue to add to their vocabulary (though the rate slows), and most college graduates have a 20,000 word vocabulary, which continues to expand through adulthood.

What does any of this have to do with living simply?

We cannot expect to become experts in simple, organized living overnight... it takes a LONG time, and we need to start slow.

Step 1: Observing
Our first step in becoming fluent in simplified living, is to observe. We watch others who live the way we want to. We keep our eyes open for homes or displays or showrooms that have the feel we want. We need to become familiar and comfortable with the atmosphere we are trying to achieve, the same way a young infant observes, and becomes familiar with the basic sounds of the language they are learning.

Step 2: Practice the Basics
Try organizing & simplifying one cupboard, one drawer, or one shelf. Work on keeping it that way.

Step 3: Try Combining Basic Principles
Just as a toddler starts to form simple sentences, you can combine basic organization and minimizing principles to form simple systems and routines.

One of my 3 1/2 year old boys wearing his sister's pink ice princess pj pants, because we got behind and all of his pjs were dirty. 

Step 4: Build Fluency
This doesn't happen overnight, but as you continue to build your organizational "vocabulary" you become more familiar with how systems and routines work for you, and you can learn from your early "grammar" mistakes. Very slowly, you will feel more comfortable with your simpler lifestyle.

It takes a child 2-5 years to get a good grasp of their first language. You wouldn't be able to learn a foreign language overnight, or even in a couple of weeks. Start slow, and give yourself time to learn.

PS. As I wrote this post, and prepared to publish it, I realized that the same is true of our children... organizing and simplifying is a foreign language to them too... it will take them time to learn, so we need to be patient and encouraging, and set a good example whenever we can.

Priorities

You know what they say about the "best laid plans" right?

Yea... that's what has happened with this blog for the past couple weeks. :) I was discussing some of my posts on the phone with my sister, and mentioned some that I had planned. My wonderful husband overheard part of the conversation and explained loud enough for her to hear that I had more important things to work on first.

He was right, of course.

I had been getting caught up in writing and ignoring some of the more important things in my home. So, here is my repentance post, and my renewed effort to live by my priorities.

Identifying Priorities

Keeping priorities straight is a process that requires constant adjusting. It's so easy to get caught up in "fun" things or "urgent" things or just things that appear to be more important than they are. So, how do we keep things straight? The best way I have found is with a personal mission statement. I've mentioned mission statements before in Getting Things Done so today I thought I'd share mine.

Last October, I used the suggestions from Mission Statements for Moms and created this mission statement which addresses my top five priorities.

Emily's Mission Statement

I AM a Daughter of God. I WILL turn to my Savior daily and be a "good and faithful servant."

I AM David's Eternal Companion. I WILL be his physical, emotional, and spiritual helpmeet.

I AM a Mother. I WILL be a loving example as I lead and guide my children to Christ.

I AM a Homemaker. I WILL keep a clean, simple, well-run home, filled with love, where all who enter can feel the Spirit of The Lord.

I AM a Teacher. I WILL teach my children to communicate effectively in both written and spoken language and I WILL teach my children how to learn so they can continue their education and fulfill their personal mission in life.

Repenting
When my husband reminded me that I had more important things to do than this blog, I decided to ask him what I was forgetting. Though he hasn't studied my mission statement much, he explained that while I was focusing on the house, I was neglecting the kids. Going back over my mission statement... he was right. I purposely listed "Mother" before "Homemaker" but I wasn't doing a great job of keeping those things straight.

Even within the mission statement, there is some overlap. Getting basic schoolwork done is more important than having a perfectly organized house, and feeding my children is more important than going on lots of fun dates with my husband. My deep-cleaning & blogging fall somewhere in the category of Homemaker... but actually below some of the jobs within the role of Teacher.

Moving Forward
I may or may not be posting a ton on this blog in the very near future. As I put the finishing touches on this post, I am anxiously awaiting the onset of labor, and the birth of our seventh child. Obviously, my babymoon will not involve a ton of home organization, so I won't have as many "show & tell" type posts. We may have some other exciting adventures in the near future that I would definitely be blogging about if they happen. :) I'll try to keep posting!

(And sorry for the lack of pictures in this post... I hope you understand.)

Challenge #3 - Kitchen Cabinets Part 2

As promised, here's the upper cabinets in the kitchen!

Before 

After

This first cabinet is above the plates/bowls/cups, and to the left of the sink. This is where I keep my casserole type dishes, my measuring cups, and where I moved the salad spinner. In the before picture you can see the extra white baskets that I moved to the utensil drawer, and several measuring cups I dejunked. I was doing pretty well with measuring cups, but I started to notice that a 4-cup measuring cup would come in really handy since I was starting to make larger and larger batches of everything. My husband got me a great 4-cup measuring cup for Christmas, as well as a 2-cup. So... I didn't need the old 2-cup, and I realized I really didn't need the 1-cup either, or the smaller set of measuring cups. I already use smaller measuring cups as the scoops in my flour & sugars, so if I really desperately needed a 1/4 cup ONLY for something, I could pull it out of that.

These are also all of my casserole dishes. I have one 9x13, one smaller oval that I think is about 7x9, and inside the oval one are two shallow serving dishes that nest in each other. On the top shelf I also have another 9x7 pyrex, and two 6x7 pyrexes, nested together, and two round pyrex bowls, one smaller without a lid.

We also have the remaining baby food in this cabinet. For a while we had a lot of baby food here, which is why our salad spinner was stored below... but our toddler is eating more table-food now, and we're not buying the baby food anymore.

Before 

After

To the right of the sink is our "catch-all" cabinet. It was kind of being overrun by random things we didn't know what else to do with. But now it's a bit better. The top shelf holds extra dry-goods that don't fit in the cabinet I'll show next. The middle shelf has our supplements, as well as straws and plastic utensils. I wanted to fit the straws & utensils on the bottom shelf, but they were too tall. the bottom shelf has ziploc bags in three sizes, as well as napkins, paper lunch sacks and coffee filters, which we often use for holding goldfish or other finger foods for snack time. (We don't drink coffee... so we don't use them for their intended purpose anyway.)

Before 

After

On the other side of the kitchen, to the left of the microwave is our dry-goods cabinet. This was also starting to get stuffed with random extras, including some raw nuts that were starting to go rancid (oops!). We straightened this cabinet, and even changed what some of the bins were holding and made room in a large one for some homemade pancake mix, which my 7 year old helped me mix.

Before

After

Above the microwave is another cabinet, that is too high for me to reach without a step. I laughed when I opened the cabinet for the before picture, because almost everything was missing from it. This cabinet normally holds the only two vases I own (one large plastic, and one small glass bud vase), a round bowl meant for centerpieces, and three pitchers. Even in the after picture, one of the pitchers was being used, so it wasn't put away.

Before 

After

And to the right of the microwave is the spice cabinet. As I was cleaning out the "catch-all" cabinet, I found 12 small empty spice jars that I had purchased a while ago from the bulk foods section of our grocery store... planning to transfer spices from much larger containers to save space... but then I never got around to actually doing it... until this project! I was able to downsize several spices that didn't even fill the new smaller jars, and a couple huge spice containers were able to be moved to the garage pantry shelves after filling a smaller jar. There is so much more room in this cabinet now, and the spice carousel actually spins freely without things falling off the back. :) I also had so much room that I was able to put the spices only on the outside of each level, and put other things in the middle. The top level only has extra toothpicks in the middle (we ended up with several extra small boxes of toothpicks after my husband helped with a cub scout activity), and the bottom shelf has cupcake wrappers and sprinkles in the middle.

I did keep a couple of the larger containers on the lower shelf for a couple reasons: We use things like the taco seasoning WAY too frequently to be refilling the tiny containers, and I ran out of smaller jars. :)

My recipe book is on the top shelf, along with one cookbook. I have a few more cookbooks in the garage, but I rarely reference them, and with limited space, they just didn't make the cut to the kitchen cabinets. :) The black recipe binder has most of the recipes that I use frequently, and we do a lot of normal dinner cooking without recipes at all... just winging it. If we do need a recipe for something, it is more likely that I will find something online, and won't even think to check the books I already have.

Before 

After

Finally, the cabinet above the fridge. I ended up donating the magnetic letters which I haven't been willing to use for the past 3+ years, as well as a Christmas tin that I'm not sure why I held onto in the first place. The round pyrex bowl with lid was moved to the first cabinet I showed above. The rest includes a box with a set of designer stem glasses that were a wedding present from my parents (his & hers Mickey & Minnie glasses that we use for very special occasions), and a set of 5 glasses (used to be 6) that were also a wedding present and have a frog icon stamped into the glass, and three mugs that I use for hot chocolate. I rearranged these so that I could also fit a bag of corn chips in the cabinet. We usually just toss the bag on top of the fridge, but the kids like to climb up there and make a mess with the chips when they know they're there... out of sight, out of mind, right?

Also, on top of the fridge you can see the broken panel from the utensil drawer, that I still need to fix.

And that concludes the kitchen! I still need to organize & straighten the pantry shelves in the garage a bit more, and that is an ever evolving process as we continue to add more to our food storage, and try to move things out of the kitchen.

For those that were wondering, my crockpot doesn't fit in any of the kitchen cabinets, and I don't use it nearly as often as I should... so it is usually stored on a shelf in the garage.

Challenge #3 - Kitchen Cabinets Part 1

Okay, so this challenge took me a bit longer than I intended, and a bit longer to write up than I anticipated... so I'm a bit late... but you forgive me, right?

Thanks. :)

To start... I have a small kitchen. I've had smaller, but usually with more cupboard space... at least this time I have a garage.

I've shown pictures of the kitchen before, but here's a refresher:

The sink side of the kitchen and the dining area.

The stove & fridge side of the kitchen. There is a cabinet above the microwave, and above the fridge.

In the spirit of full disclosure... my kitchen does not look this good right now. I haven't finished moving some of the decluttered items to the garage yet, and the counters are currently more cluttered than the cabinets... it happens. But this is approximately what it will look like again when I finish. Except that the crock-pot does not belong on the counter at all... but it is still there for now.

I think we'll start with the lower cabinets on this post. That includes most of the cookware and dishes. This first cabinet is the lower one closest to the kitchen table. This is where we store all our plates, bowls, cups and leftover containers, and most of our mixing bowls. Basically... it's the plastic cupboard. Everything is plastic because we have 6 very small children, and we store these low so the kids can help set the table and unload the dishwasher easier.

Before 

After

This cabinet didn't need too much work. I decided to donate the wooden lazy susan. We haven't used it in over two years, because it doesn't fit on our table, and now our kids have learned to help each other pass things around the table, so we don't need it as much. The salad spinner moved to a different cabinet. We still have the leftover containers on the top shelf (and several of them were being used when I took this pic), and the back corner still has four mixing bowls that nest pretty well, as well as our red plastic colander that we use for pasta & such.

Above the plates & cups is the utensil drawer. We've had problems with this drawer breaking ever since we moved in... so I need to fix it. When I took the before picture, we had just pulled everything out of the drawer and set it on the counter.

Before 

After

We decided to get rid of our old silverware and only keep one set. We had talked about doing this for a while, and just never got around to it. I just discovered last week that our local women's shelter was asking for silverware donations, so now seemed like the perfect time. The newly dejunked drawer now holds a basket of corn on the cob skewers, a basket of chip clips, the utensil caddy which holds 8 large spoons, 16 small spoons (that's what came with the set!), 8 large forks, 8 small forks, and 8 serrated knifes that don't belong with the set, but that we use for steaks & things. The other baskets hold my measuring spoons, the 8 dinner knives that came with the silverware set, two serving spoons (one slotted) and the ice cream scoop, my cheese knife and the vegetable peeler.

The next cabinet over is the large one under the sink. I totally forgot to take an after picture of this one, but here's the before. I didn't do much in here, and didn't get rid of anything... just straightened it. Here's where we keep extra garbage bags, dish soap, dishwasher detergent, foil, saran wrap, wax paper, freezer paper, and my cooktop cleaner.

Next to the under-sink cabinet is the dishwasher, then one more narrow cabinet between the dishwasher and the wall.

Before

After

This cabinet actually made me laugh. I took the before picture, then I pulled everything out to figure out what to dejunk, and realized I really had already cut back to my minimums... so the after picture looks nearly identical. I decided to pull everything out again and lay it out so you could more easily see what I have kept.

I have: one light baking sheet, two dark baking sheets (identical and stacked together), one mini-muffin pan, one ancient cupcake pan, one wire cooling rack, three cutting boards, and across the top, two pie tins and three loaf pans. You can probably tell from this how much I actually bake. :) The only other thing in the cabinet is the wire rack for my round baking stone, which for some reason doesn't fit in this cabinet.

Above this cabinet is a small drawer.

For some reason, I forgot to take an after picture of this drawer too. Here's where we keep all the baby bibs, and the extra sponges & kitchen rags.

That concludes the sink side of the lower cabinets.

On the stove/fridge side the first cabinet between the wall and the stove has a drawer above it too.

Here's the before picture... pretty sad. This drawer is supposed to hold the hot pads and the kitchen towels. Unfortunately, the kitchen towels are in the clean laundry pile that I am procrastinating getting to... so the drawer is currently empty. There was no point in taking an after picture. :)

Before 

Midway through.

This cabinet below the towel drawer took a bit longer, because it also ended up including extra things from elsewhere in the kitchen. Midway through you can see the round baking stone on the far left, the air-popper and popping corn at the back, and the blender in front.

This is a pile of stuff that I dejunked just from this one cabinet. The food chopper we just didn't use. The popcorn buckets we didn't end up liking (they held too much popcorn, spilled too easy, and were not easy for little hands to get popcorn out of). The KitchenAid attachment didn't come in as handy as I'd hoped. The tiny waffle iron has been replaced with a bigger, and more functional one, and the black plastic cover thing is for a cheese grater that we already got rid of because it broke.

Before 

After

Up next is the drawer to the right of the stove. This is our spatula drawer. I mentioned this drawer in a previous post, showing that it doesn't have to be perfectly organized. Unfortunately, the drawer was starting to break the 80% rule, and it was time to be purged. Most of the gadgets in this drawer are still used, but not on a regular basis. Anything that wouldn't be used at least once a month I moved to a plastic bin.

Then the plastic bin was put on the shelf of the previous cabinet.

After

The other things I put back into this cabinet are my rolling pin, and my KitchenAid mixer (the bowl for it was in the dishwasher at the time).

Before

After

Two more drawers to go! Under the spatula drawer we have two deeper drawers that I use to store my pots & sauce-pans. I decided to move the aprons out of this drawer, because they were just making things difficult. I had two spoon-rests on the bottom of the drawer and I asked my husband if we really needed them, since we hadn't used them in a while. He told me he had been looking for one because he wanted to use one, but hadn't known where it was... HA. My bad. So, we chose one spoon-rest, and donated the other. Now the drawer is uncluttered enough that he can find the spoon-rest. I also have a wok and a large pot, each with a lid, and a strainer.

This last drawer didn't need any decluttering or reorganizing. It has looked pretty much the same since we moved in a year and a half ago. I have two sauce pans, one deep, the other shallow. The shallow one also has the steamer in it, and a lid, the deep one has a lid along with a tinier sauce pan, with it's own lid. These pans only fit in this drawer in one way, and it's the only place in the kitchen I have to store them, so we just make sure they get put away where they belong every time.

I almost forgot the last space in the lower half of the kitchen. This is the drawer under the stove. It also didn't really have a before & after because I didn't have anything to get rid of from here. I have three frying pans, a red silicon vented pan cover (because my medium sized frying pan doesn't have a lid that fits it), and my waffle iron/griddle/sandwich maker.

Tomorrow I'll cover the upper cabinets!