iamnotaminimalist

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 52

I went ahead and bought myself some things that I wanted for a long time, a finer nib and a converter pump for my fountain pen. (I will buy the ink bottle/s and fully transition to refilling when I run out of cartridges.) It's not a huge purchase but it feels like it is, maybe because the upfront cost looks like a lot compared to a 20-pack of cheap ballpoint pens.

And I already have a lot of stray ballpoint pens at home, pens that I bought before my tastes changed and pens that I got as promotional swag and pens that I have no clue how they got here. I recently went over them and threw away the ones that were no longer working, and still I am left with too many.

The ones that still work I do my best to use up, even while I do most of my writing at home with the fountain pen, but the writing experience is so miserable in comparison... I know it's privileged of me to say, but if you can afford to buy one good quality, comfortable, refillable pen for your home? Do that, and get one simpler pen for the road if you don't want to risk losing the good pen, and that's really all you need (assuming you're not an ink artist).

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 51

It's just so me, to buy a hair product (frizz control spray) and then shave my head 3 weeks later. Oh well! My partner can spritz a bit of it on his beard every now and again until my hair grows back a bit in a month or two. It won't do much for facial hair but it does smell like fruity bubblegum, and he likes to smell nice.

I also got around to finishing that hand cream and the deodorant I've been struggling with, and some liquid soaps - which means I can finally get around to using the bar of soap that was sitting untouched in my cabinet. The conditioner bottle is also (finally) on the way out, as I've been using it as a shaving cream substitute just to get rid of it... and there was a lot of shaving to be done recently (see prev. paragraph).

Still struggling to use up my makeup, especially now that I barely leave the house (being unemployed and all). Can't give it away because it's unsanitary to do so. Don't want to throw it out because I do use it, on special occasions. So I guess I'll just trudge on with it. I'll stay focused and try to finish one thing at a time. I think I'll target the never-ending cream blush and the loose powder, because these are the two products I'm least satisfied with and would love to be rid of them ASAP.

In a fun bit of irony, my partner's sister decluttered some mugs and teacups... and foisted them on her brother (and by extension, me). The mugs are cute so I agreed to keep them, but now I'm trying to find who might want to take two cute sets of teacups, because we barely drink tea, and when we do, we just drink from a mug...

Handling the flow of objects into/out of the house can be pretty taxing!

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 50b

Found the lipstick. It was in the car.

Peace and Love.

Entry 50

I somehow managed to lose a lipstick. I'm going crazy trying to figure out where I could have put it, but it's more out of intellectual curiosity than anything. I do not plan to buy a replacement.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 50

I somehow managed to lose a lipstick. I'm going crazy trying to figure out where I could have put it, but it's more out of intellectual curiosity than anything. I do not plan to buy a replacement.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 49

As we prepare our home for the 3rd resident, I find myself battling the endless stream of "things you ABSOLUTELY NEED for your new baby" and the often contradictory rebuttal listicles of "what things are absolutely necessary and what is just a gimmick?".

Almost all articles of the first sort have a commercial element (affiliate links, or published by a corpo with an obvious agenda to sell equipment), and the ones of the second sort are anecdotal. I also ask family and friends, but naturally, their advice is anecdotal too.

My mother is a bit superstitious. She's a big believer in not actually buying/borrowing anything for a baby until it's born screaming. With our shared history of pregnancy loss, I definitely get where she's coming from, and so I'm taking my sweet time sifting through the info and trying to figure out what I want to get, even down to the specific model (where applicable). Just as importantly, I'm taking the time to figure out what I don't want to get.

It takes a lot of reading along the lines and between the lines to understand why a certain product is deemed "necessary" or "frivolous" by a blogger/writer/relative. Is it necessary for little one's safety (e.g a car seat)? Is it convenient? Does it claim to be convenient but actually create a new problem for itself to solve? Is it convenient, but the "the hard way" has benefits that are too significant to ignore? How different is my lifestyle from that of the person giving me advice, will I benefit from the same things? Was this advice given by someone with or without pets? (It makes a difference! My cats live in the house too and need to be accounted for.) It all sounds daunting when I write it out like this, but the truth is I think I have a grasp on what will be coming into the house and what won't. I'm always open to changing my mind as life kicks my plans in the teeth, but I'd rather go more minimal at first and then get more things as needed - it's easier than trying to get rid of things that turned out to be useless.

And in any case I forbade my family and friends from gifting me noisy, flashing electronic toys. I can handle crying and screaming, I can handle babbling, i can handle the sound of a child banging pots and pans together, I cannot handle the mindless repetition of a tinny pre-recorded sound sample.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 48

The laptop ended up in the nearest electronic waste recycling bin, because shop policy is usually "Buy a new equivalent product from us and then we'll take your old equipment", Which is counterproductive for me as someone who does not need a new laptop at the moment... (shrug).

I bought a case with a built-in stand for the tablet, and now I can take it (and the bluetooth mini-keyboard) with me if I think I might be inspired to sit outside somewhere and write. I'll be going to my mother next week, for example, and it would be neat to have something to do other than idly scroll on my phone.

I think I'll leave my Microsoft subscription untouched for now, because i'm having trouble paring down all my digital media to fit into the storage space of a free onedrive account. I should note that most of the stuff is pictures of the cats, and I suppose I'll soon have another folder full of just pictures of the little guy (assuming he will be born and everything will be okay).

Still trying to think what else we can clear out of the house to make sure we aren't crowding what should be little guy's space with our things. Right now my biggest issue is my partner's toolbox. Not the box itself, but the fact that it's currently placed on the top shelf of the shoe rack, which is precious space that should belong to little guy's shoes. I'll consult him about this today, see where we can make space.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 47

Excuse my change of format, if it ends up visible in the finished post. There's a technical reason for that. My laptop is showing signs of age, and I realized repairing/replacing it won't really serve my needs. I can downsize to the tablet my friend gave me (and on which I wrote this post) without issue.

So that's my project now, after we finished sorting through the physical papers. Decluttering the files on my OneDrive, backing them up someplace else and canceling my Microsoft 365 subscription - since we're only going to have the home computer and won't need access to several devices on the same account. If that means no Microsoft Office on the home computer, no biggie; my partner already has LibreOffice installed on it.

I just know my partner will be delighted to receive my wireless keyboard and mouse instead of his wired ones. We'll keep the wired set as backups in case the wireless set breaks; having a working keyboard and mouse at the ready has already proven itself useful to me, at home and in my previous job.

After all the backing up is done, we'll wipe everything from the laptop and pass it on to someone who would want to refurbish and resell it, or dismantle it for parts.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 46

Feels a bit funny that we need to throw our recycling bags in the recycling now... they're worn out and starting to fall apart. I think the fact that my partner threw them in the washing machine a few times has something to do with it. Oh well. We'll replace them with a bin set soon.

Our next task is to go over our old papers and see what we can throw away. Need to block out some time with my partner for this, because we have a lot of papers to sort through.

I got rid of a few ad magnets, at last. Not a huge thing but an act of decluttering none the less.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 45

I feel like I am in limbo. Everything I want to do in life is on hold, for external and internal reasons. I don't have it in me to clean. A potential employer is giving me a bit of grief and I might be dealing with gestational diabetes. It's really taking all my effort just to keep up a positive attitude, let alone keep house. So I'm scaling back my efforts a little bit. Just one or two items out at a time.

Peace and love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 44

How strange that the things I do not like and wish I could "just finish up already and get it over with" end up breaking halfway through and need to be thrown away. And you cannot say I'm being subconsciously clumsy to make them break, because this time it happened while my partner and I were asleep!

Envision: It's 01:30 and everyone in the house - human and cat - is sleeping soundly. Suddenly, a loud crash is heard from the shower. I bolt upright in bed, first thought being "is my home being raided? am I going to die?" but a moment passes and no more noises are heard besides my cats' confused meowing. My second thought is that they must have knocked something over in a fit of midnight zoomies. Then the nauseatingly discordant scent of two different perfumes hits my nose and I understand that the cats are innocent. The suction cup on the toiletries basket had simply come loose from the wall in the night, sending the basket and its contents tumbling to the floor. I am tired and do not wish to deal with this right that moment, but the glass shards are a safety concern and the perfumes are making my head hurt, so I drag myself out of bed to clean up at least the most acute parts of the mess.

-

In the morning I asked my partner if any of this woke him up, and he said no. While I tried to catch up on my sleep, he cleaned the floor of the remaining perfume. He also disconnected the faulty suction cup from the basket, and now it's a countertop basket rather than a suspended one. I won't replace it for now because it works fine like this.

-

Putting things back in the basket, I realized that I don't like it very much when products are stored in tubs or jars, because it takes up a lot of room on the rather small area surrounding the shower sink. I'm fully a bottles person now. Flip top, twist top, pump bottle, spray bottle - anything goes as long as the base is narrow! This will definitely inform my purchases going forward, when I do finish up certain items (e.g. hair gel, face cleanser) and need to replenish them.

Peace and love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 43

We have a bit of a plastic food box collection at home, from all the times we bought food from a catering business. They're a bit flimsy, as they were intended for single use and we milk them for multiple uses. I went over the boxes today and spotted deep cracks in some of them, so into the recycling the unusable boxes went. As I tossed them into the bin, I remembered we had a few glass food storage containers as well, somewhere on a high shelf, and decided it was time to bring them out into everyday use rather than let them sit around in the cupboard as clutter. We can't exactly take them to the catering business (they deduct the weight of their proprietary boxes from the final bill, which they can't do with other containers they don't have the stats for), but we can use them to store home-cooked food, which my partner prepares quite often :) We'll save the single-use plastic boxes for when we do go to the catering business, discarding them gradually as they succumb to wear and tear.

Peace and love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 42

It's good to go over your things and figure out what can be used up as-is, and what would serve you better after a bit of repurposing. My backlog of cosmetics is an endless struggle in this regard, but I am always finding ways to make my things work. Two new stories about my so-called project pan:

I have a years-old palette of oil-based face paints. They're intended for stage makeup, but I ended up not working in the field. I wasn't sure what to do with them and didn't have the heart to throw them out; the paints themselves are in good condition despite being technically expired, and if I have hygiene concerns they're easy enough to disinfect. So, in a moment of inspiration, I decided I would use them as cream eyeshadows instead of buying some new product for the purpose. One tiny problem... they're literally greasepaint! Which means they require setting with loose powder after application. Good thing I already own a loose powder; It was supposed to be a powder foundation, but it is not remotely the same color as my skin, especially once it oxidizes. So I might as well use it for setting my eye makeup. It mutes the colors because it's skin-toned and not translucent, but I'm fine with that. So the 'problem' ended up being a 'solution', letting me use up two products at once :)

I have bars of soap at home that I have no clue why I own. A recurring theme with the purchases I made in my 20s... I guess I was going through some experimentation and self-exploration at the time. In any case, I do not use soap bars to wash myself, and neither does my partner. But after I tried to create a makeup look with the aforementioned greasepaints, I found that my regular liquid soaps just did not dissolve the material from the brush, no matter how many times I applied it! I was desperate to clean my brush before the product crusts up the bristles, so I took one of the bars and gave it my best shot. To my immense relief, it worked :) so now I know what to use for cleaning my makeup brushes (they're all synthetic, so no need for a special brush shampoo either way).

After I'm done with my face paints and have physical room in my life for a new eye product, I'll buy a palette of powder eyeshadows from the same company, because I already spotted something in their product line that would fit my needs. But that is for later, much much later.

Peace and love. :)

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 41

This week, we started to clear out some things from the second bedroom, in tentative preparation for our future third resident. We had pictures lying around that we finally found time to hang on the walls. We also had some equipment of mine that needed to be stored somewhere else, so we decided to make room for it in the overhead storage. In order to do that, we removed two old pillows (that were not in the finest condition) from there, and a fan heater that we kept around even though it would short-circuit half the house whenever it was on... It's good to look through your long-term storage every once in a while. You might find that some things there did not need to be held onto in the first place, or that their time is up.

We still need to find room for the spare litter box, though. I'll figure it out soon enough. And now you will surely ask, why do you need a spare litter box? That's because our main one is an incredibly sophisticated thing that cleans itself after every use by the cats; if it breaks down, it cannot be used like an ordinary litter box because its litter functions differently from regular cat litter. So in the time it takes to fix the machine, the cats do still need a place to do their business, and that's where the spare box comes into play.

I don't usually keep things around because I "might" need them someday, but this specific scenario is of the sort you do need to be prepared for. It's a health concern for kitties and us. Same reason why we keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen :)

It's funny, isn't it. I've seen a few homes of "pack rats" in my life. The people that live/lived in them always keep things like ill-fitting clothes, cardboard boxes, near-expired food cans, scrap materials they don't know what to do with and items that have been obsolete for years because they "might be useful", but never important things like tools in an accessible place an up-to-date fire extinguisher. Goes to show how getting too attached to stuff can skew your priorities.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 40

Today I finally let go of an over-the-door hook that I had purchased years ago on an ill-advised whim. I kept it around hoping to find some use for it, but nothing I have is actually wide enough to hang it on. And if it is - it's a location where there's no need to hang anything. So I finally forgave myself for the purchase and let it go.

I also have two hats that I bought as a gag, 8 years apart. The first one is a Hooters souvenir hat. The other is a hat with a rooster on it that reads 'cock' in bold letters (Real mature, I know). I'd keep them, but they don't fit my head so well... I'll ask my married couple friends if they want them as like. A matching set. If not, off to the clothes donation they go.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 39

Decluttering is on hold until this gosh darn pregnancy stops making me feel so tired. I know it'll be harder once little guy joins us (because child-rearing comes with its own list of necessary equipment + baby will need constant attention) but right now I'm just so beat. In any case I think Partner and I did a good job so far, enough that we won't need to do any massive declutters for a while.

Still need to make one more pass at my closet, but that can wait.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 38

Yesterday began my invasion into my partner's domain (the kitchen). I decluttered the tea drawer and spice cabinet, throwing out expired things and rearranging what's left, with his supervision.

Today I did the same for the dry ingredients cabinet (but on my own), the first aid kit and the office supplies drawers.

I also went over my sweaters and my hats, and found a few items I was willing to let go... and one that got promoted from "folded away" to "hanger space" :) There's no bigger joy (in the context of housekeeping) than the feeling of giving something you truly love the spotlight!

I also finished up the bottle of pink hair dye. Next time I buy dye, it'll be my signature color (Directions, Alpine Green, for anyone curious).

Unemployment is really giving me the time to help get my home together. I'm truly blessed to have the space to do so, with a partner providing for me as well as unemployment benefits.

Peace and Love.

[iamnotaminimalist]

Entry 37

The folding desk I ordered a long time ago is finally here. I'm happy that my workspace now has built-in storage for my art supplies so I don't constantly need to shuffle things around to make room on the surface (Before that I had a bedside table that had no shelving).

i'm writing this post on the new folding desk, actually. I set the laptop on the fixed side, so I can go online even while the desk is closed, and only open it when it's time to get artsy and paint something :)

And the old bedside table went into the living room, and is now a convenient shelf for the air filter and the radio, nestled inconspicuously between the couch and the wall.

Peace and Love.