Plastic Bags - The Never Ending Pile

   I'm not sure how, and I'm not sure when, but somehow I ended up with this many plastic shopping bags which I corralled from around the apartment:

This made me feel a little sick to my stomach.  While having a few on hand for trash and such is useful, there is no way that I would use up THIS many bags...ever.  What is more frustrating is that, unlike in our prior country of residence, the local recycling program does not take plastic bags (Reduce Reuse Recycle - Green Minimalism!).  So what is a green-minimalist supposed to do?!

Well luckily I have noticed that a few big chain stores like Target and Meijer have plastic shopping bag recycling programs!  I stuck these babies in my trunk and the next time I was at one of these stores I did a big drop off.  While that felt amazing I still wanted to make sure I was not in this situation ever again (or at least try my best!).  So I obtained a number of cloth reusable bags to keep in my car for future shopping trips.  Other ways to avoid plastic build up is to simply say 'no thank you' to clerks in stores if you are just buying one or two items, and of course, we can cut down on the number of shopping trips we take in any given week or month altogether! 

Do you have a shelf/bag/drawer/or corner of your house overflowing with plastic bags that you can't bear to throw away and can't seem to keep from growing?  Just follow these easy steps:

1) Find a store that has a shopping bag recycling program and take a trip to drop them off!

2) Invest in some cloth reusable bags and keep them in your car or in a convenient place for when you do go shopping.

3) Cut down on the amount of times you shop and the items themselves and you will have less bags coming into the house.

Any other tips or tricks out there?! You know I love hearing from you! Please share in the comments!

International Minimalism & Other Changes

Old City of Jerusalem, 2012

So I am in a bit of a dilemma.  I originally started this blog when my husband and I moved overseas and I discovered the simple living concept/community and wanted to share with my friends and family.  Since then, we have moved back stateside so I feel I am not living up to my blogs' name anymore!  Well, I decided to make a few changes to stay true to my original concept for this blog and take it to the next level.  My plan is to write a post once a week and post on Saturday mornings for your weekend reading pleasure.  Each week I am going to focus on a different Simple Living topic:

1) International Minimalism:  These posts will focus on the minimalist style of traveling, both from my own experiences and others.  I will also do some research about minimalist styles of living around the world and hopefully connect with other minimalist bloggers to share their stories with us!

2) Green Living: These posts will focus on different lifestyle choices my husband and I are making to live a greener/simpler/ and more sustainable lifestyle.  I will share our attempts, our ideas and ask to hear about yours as well!

3) Clutter: These posts will chronicle our progress on simplifying our possessions and the systems we will try out to prevent clutter build up.  I will be sure to not only share our success but our struggles with this as well!

4) Thoughts on Simple Living:  I also want to share my thoughts and feelings on this lifestyle choice.  It is so much more than just trying to donate clothing or recycle paper and plastic.  This change has brought many challenges and also enhanced our life in so many ways.  I hope to focus on different aspects of Simple Living and hopefully inspire some of you to journey down your own minimalist path!

I may come up with some other topics along the way and am open to hearing from all of you!  The growth in readership over the past year has been amazing and I'm so happy that people across the blog-o-sphere have been tuning in, commenting and giving such supportive feedback!  Special thanks to minimalist bloggers from Minimalism Is Simple for featuring me in their Share Your Story series, as well as to Simple White Rabbit for sharing some posts on Twitter and offering comments and feedback!  Your support has been amazing and I encourage all my readers to check out their inspiring blogs as well!  Cheers to the next chapter!

Couch or No Couch: The Decision!

Two months and opinions from family, friends and readers alike helped us make a big decision.  We weighed the pros and the cons of purchasing another large piece of furniture.  We tested what life was like without it, and thought about how this piece would add to the value of our every day lives.  In the end, we did decide to go ahead and purchase a couch!

This was not a light decision, and we took everything into account.  After 2 months of trying the 'no couch' lifestyle, we decided that having a comfy area for ourselves to rest and to entertain guests was something we truly wanted.  Then..... we entered the furniture store....LOTS of options!  There were futons, sleeper sofas, sectionals, and sofa + love seat combos.  I was first drawn to a sofa that our friends had in their home that was initially what I had envisioned for our home, but with all the options and price ranges I felt the need to browse.  In the end, we made a decision based in what I like to think, are minimalist principles:

1) Make purchases that fit your lifestyle the way it actually is, NOT what you think it COULD be.

As we browsed the store and looked at huge sectionals and combos we realized we were starting to base a decision based on maximum seating potential for the 'just in case' we have a large amount of people over for a dinner or party.  When on a regular basis it's usually just the two of us, or just a few friends over at a time.

2) Spending less on more is NOT always the best thing.

We highly considered a sectional that was on clearance, but wasn't comfortable and we weren't thrilled with the fabric, but were considering it on price alone.  If we had gone with this item, we would have gotten a piece that was too large for our space or our lifestyle and we would not have been comfortable!

3) If you are going to spend money on an item, make sure you love it, it is useful and will bring you joy.

What we ended up taking was exactly that.  We went back to the item we initially came in for.  It has all the characteristics we were looking for, fits our current lifestyle and we are SO happy to have a new place to chill out at the end of a long day!

Couch Or Not To Couch?

We have been in our new space for 2 months now! My husband dove head first into his new job and is rocking it.  I am still on the job search myself and am attempting to stay patient and sane in the meantime. Putting together the apartment in a simple and meaningful way has been my project.  We chose to live in a two bedroom/two bathroom with a nice sized living room, small kitchen and dining nook.  Due to the fact that we have very little clothing and large closet space we did not have to buy dressers! We only have one bookcase that is barely filled, and 2 comfy chairs which we were gifted.  The one thing we have held off getting is a couch.

At first we held off for financial reasons, since moving is an expensive endeavor and we wanted to only spend money on more essential items.  After a month of no couch, we have been wondering if we should get one at all. We have had friends over for meals and afterwards brought out pillows and a few blankets and everyone got cozy on the carpet.  We don't have a TV and don't plan to get one, so we don't really need a viewing area.

That being said, we have had many situations where I found myself wishing we had a couch.  To me, a couch makes a living room feel more inviting and more like a home.  It would be more comfortable for guests and to host parties and such.  But is it something we actually need, or will it turn into another big item that will weigh us down?  I would love to know what you all think: Couch or Not To Couch? That is the question!!!

Up-cycling Project

Upon arriving in the US our wonderful family friends offered us to look through some old furniture and take whatever we wanted!  While it was tempting to take everything, we stayed focussed and took a set of 4 dining chairs, which were free but needed reupholstering.  With only a day left before leaving my parents house and heading to Central Illinois to our new apartment I recruited my dad to help with the project. I went to a fabric store (50% off coupon in hand of course!) and bought new foam and a pretty fabric I fell head over heals for!  The project was relatively easy and only resulted in one minor injury (a big splinter in my nail! ouch!).

The steps included:
1) Remove the cushions from the frame of the chair
2) Remove the staples, old foam and fabric
3) Place the wooden base on the foam and new fabric and cutting out the appropriate size
4) Work around the base stretching and stapling the foam and fabric to the wooden base
5) Re-attach the base to the frame

Voila!

A new set of dining chairs for our new place.  Not only was this a fun project, but I feel good about up-cycling existing furniture to meet our needs instead of buying new.  This was a cost effective and creative way to make our home more functional and our style without breaking the bank!  Please share your DIY projects with me and I will feature them in a future post!

A New Trick To STOP Impulse Buying

Upon arriving in Champaign, IL we had to do some shopping.  We needed some food to eat, some toiletries, cleaning supplies and such, so I took a trip to Meijer.  Back in Israel, there were zero mega/box stores with everything you could possible need or want in a lifetime under one roof.  I took a shopping cart and with list in hand started marching up and down the aisles.  I was determined NOT to stray from the list. But then out of the corner of my eye, a cute vase, a salt and pepper shaker set, dishes, side tables, a cute top, etc.  It got to the point that I actually muttered under my breath, "Sometimes I hate America".  Now, don't get me wrong, I love America.  I love my country dearly and it does feel good to be back after a year abroad.  What I meant by the comment was, "I hate American consumerism".  I hate that they know how to make me WANT everything, even though I don't actually need it.  With an empty apartment awaiting me, and all my belongings in boxes and in disarray, of course I wanted new, shiny, pretty things that I was under the impression would make me feel better, more at home and more stable.

So as I stood there in the middle of Meijer I remembered something.  I have a smartphone.  I pulled it out and started taking pictures of all the items that interested me.  I would go home, finish unpacking, organizing and settling in with the items I already own and take some time to see if I would have use for any of the items at the store.  It's been a week and a day and I have been back to Meijer to get a few more food items, but I have not felt the need to purchase any of those extras.  I was able to take the images home with me, show them to my husband and my friends and took the time to process and think about if those things would make my home a better place to live or not.

Some example shots of what I thought I wanted:

The next time you go shopping and find your eyes starting to wander go ahead and pull out your phone or a camera and snap a photo of the things that strike your fancy.  Take a few days to mull it over and only then go back to retrieve it if you still cannot stop thinking about it!  Shopping consciously and deliberately is key to achieving a more simplified and clutter free home.

I hope this tip is helpful!  If you have other ideas please share in the comments!

Moving Overseas - The Minimalist Attempt

What a whirlwind the past few weeks have been! I apologize for not writing, I started to write some posts about the moving process, but I became too overwhelmed to continue.  It is amazing how much stuff can induce stress.  Going through this second move made me thankful that we had been simplifying our possessions all year, but also made me determined to cut down even more.  My goal with this post is to give a recap of how we went about downsizing, packing and moving over to the U.S. and in future posts I will highlight some of my strategies to remain and work on becoming even more minimalist as we set up our new home!

Back in Israel we managed to sell/donate/give away all of our furniture and housewares.  In a matter of 1 week we donated 7 bags of clothes and linens to charity.  We had trouble finding charities that would take our housewares and we had very limited time, so I created a facebook page and posted pictures for friends and family to view and claim items.  We made deliveries and gave our things new homes.  We were encouraged to leave the remaining items outside the apartment building, and sure enough our things were scooped up incredibly fast by neighbors and passer-bys.  One woman who took many of our kitchen supplies had been through an apartment fire the week before and lost everything, we were thrilled to be able to give her our things.

Even after my past post: "Paper Clutter - It Happens To Us All", I still found we had way too much paper to attempt to take to the U.S.  I spent 2 hours sifting through our paper, we made one binder of things to leave at my inlaws, one binder to take with us, and a stack of papers to scan and keep digital copies.

After all the sorting, purging, organizing and packing, all our items fit into 4 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, 1 purse and 1 computer bag.  We shipped 1 large and 1 medium box of items to our new place.

The contents of our suitcases included clothes and shoes, but also a Queen sized down comforter, 2 pillows, duvet set and 8 place-settings of dishes.  Items we shipped included 2 robes, 4 sweatshirts, long sleeves shirts, 2 light coats and some smaller housewares we love and wanted in our new home.  Overall I feel good about the amount we traveled with.  We were able to condense and fit everything into a sedan once we reached stateside.  We do need furniture and other home supplies in our new place, and I will report on those decisions in a future post.

In conclusion: everything arrived safe and sound and we are setting up quite fast in our new space since we do not have a ton to put away, but more on that later!  The 2nd international move in 1 year is officially complete! Phew! We made it! Cheers to that!