Slow Food At The Table is an event to help us slow down, find some friends and family, and have a slow food meal together. Often, we have high aspirations in life that we do not actually meet, because we are so busy. (This is why, as a society, we all need to slow down a bit.)

The table set and people and food beginning to arrive.

So, throughout February and March, the Slow Food At The Table event encourages slow food enthusiasts to host slow food potlucks with friends and family, “forcing” us to actually commit to a community slow food meal, and to follow through on those good intentions we are all saving for when we “have more time” – ha!

All of us

Ten neighbors attended our outdoor meal. We borrowed and extra table, chairs, and a space heater from our next-door neighbors, so even the coziness of the event was a neighborhood effort. Homemade slow food items included hand-mixed and patted hambugers with local organic lettuce, vegetarian and gluten-free zucchini lasagna with local vegetables, barbecue macaroni salad, and collard kale and white bean salad. We also had a roasted turkey, ham and cheese rolls, two types of quesadilla, and home-brewed green iced tea.

Barbecue macaroni casserole.

Collard, kale, and white bean salad.

There’s only 1/3 of the spread in this shot, but you can peep the roasted turkey!

This type of neighborhood event is often cited when passing a neighbor on the street or running into them at the grocery store. “Oh! We should have another get-together very soon!” Everyone genuinely wants to, but it’s also the type of event that no one will ever feel like they quite have the time to actually put together, and then six months or a year will slip by.

In fact, we got so busy after signing up for this event that I surely would have postponed or canceled had the plans been less definite. (Or had there been no deadline!) But I am very glad I did it and forced my schedule around the event rather than the reverse, because we had a great time. We really live on a great block as are so fortunate to be surrounded with wonderful people!

Margaret’s marvelous pavlova.

If encouraging local, organic food cooked at home and meals shared with family and friends, check out Slow Food and Slow Food Atlanta and keep an eye out for future Slow Food At The Table Events!

The post Slow Food At The Table appeared first on spatialdrift.

Do you follow basketball? I don’t, but I am still vaguely aware of this whole March Madness thing. Well, Arabia Mountain sponsors and participates in an event called Monadnock Madness. You see, Arabia Mountain is a monadnock – that word does not roll easily off the tongue, does it? I’ll let the website explain:

“A monadnock is a special type of mountain that is formed when a massive blob of lava hardens and creates a very hard clump under the earth. Over millions of years the softer rock around the clump is eroded away leaving a huge mountain that juts out of the flat landscape around it. This process is how Arabia, Panola, and Stone Mountains were all formed.”

Every year in March, Monadnock Madness encourages folks to get up and out to move their bodies, see our three monadnocks, and learn about the rare and endangered plants that live in this highly unique landscapes.

Adam and I, along with my fellow Scotties Shannon and Cara, and a sweet little pup named Ollie didn’t attempt a triple hike of the three monadnocks, but we did have a very pleasant trip out to Arabia Mountain in early March.

After a short walk in pinewoods, we found ourselves on granite. This strange landscape was fun to explore, though we were always mindful not to tread on these special plants. The most noticeable species is Diamorpha smallii, a bright red succulent that lives in solution pools, shallow basins on these rocky outcrops.

Diamorpha smallii – an endangered succulent.

The deeper basins also have grasses, mosses, and in some cases vines or cedar. The very large basins may have stunted pines. Lichen is everywhere, and is the only living thing more prevalent than the diamorpha.

On this day, we saw a few fallen trees, presumably from later winter storms, and a bunch of sad, squishy opuntia native cacti that really did not appreciate the unusually cold winter we had.

Lush moss.

Diamorpha smallii scattered about in a sandy shallow.

Lichen, moss, and grases.

Because the trail is mostly rocky with little dirt and trees, stacked stone cairns mark the way to go.

After walking on the granite a bit and inspecting an area that seemed to briefly be a quarry, the surrounding trees fall away and a short hike up bare granite will brought us to the top of Arabia Mountain and 360º views. Beautiful!

Panorama from Arabia Mountain.

Diamorpha-red pools.

After exploring all around the top of the mountain, and having a little picnic for the pooch’s lunch, Shannon guided us in some poolside meditation. What a lovely spot for such a calming activity… I recommend it. After that, it was just a quick walk back to the car, followed by a quick drive into the city – Arabia mountain is so close for what it is. I can’t believe it took me so long to get there!

More of the endangered succulent Diamorpha smallii.

I would like to hike at Arabia’s sister monadnock, Panola Mountain, in the next week or two and see if the diamorpha are blooming yet. I’d like to get a few pictures of that. Or better yet, maybe I’ll schedule the Monadnock Madness triple hike for late March of next year and see all sorts of blooming things then – who is in?!

Shannon, Cara, and Ollie at Arabia Mountain.

Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area
3787 Klondike Rd
Lithonia, GA 30038

The post Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area appeared first on spatialdrift.

Making seed starters out of newspaper.

Mike Cunningham did a great job going through over all of the elements involved in starting successful seedlings. We covered seed, soil, amendments, temperature, light, humidity, and watering and I feel more prepared for this spring season than I ever had before! I have done a decent job at germination in the past, but my seedlings have never been happy.

Part of the talk included showing us a few different options for ensuring the seedlings receive enough light, including an overview of how to build an indoor light stand that is adjustable to your seedlings’ needs.

The indoor light rig for seedlings.

My flat of bok choy.

That weekend, Adam helped me make a light rig of our own so that we can raise the healthiest seedlings we can! We used PVC pipe, chain, a shop light, and daylight bulbs to make it, and my little bok choy seedlings have loved it. My indoor and overwintering plants have perked up as well!

Our light rig, with my light-starved plants getting some light therapy.

Baby bok choys.

In the next couple weeks I hope to continue to apply my learnings as I get things ready for The 2014 Allred Family Garden. I’ve bought all the supplies to make my own special seedling soil blend from Amazon and local sources, and I’ve dusted off the seed catalogues I’ve been getting in the mail, and the Garden Planner I use – I’m getting ready!

My first class with The Homestead Atlanta was everything I’d hoped for, and I can’t wait to attend some more. Plus, with my Georgia Organics membership, I get a discount. I’ve got my eye on Fermentation Fundamentals, and the Edible and Medicinal Plant Ramble.

The post Learning About Seed Starting From The Homestead Atlanta appeared first on spatialdrift.

Wine Festival Goodies

For several years now I’ve attended the Decatur Wine Festival with my friends Emily (of Spatialdrift fame) and her husband, Adam.  We were back again today for more wine drinking festivities, and I thought I’d share what I’ve learned to expect from this sort of a wine festival.

To give you a little background on my wine experience, let me be clear – I’m wine illiterate.  I like going to a wine festival every once and awhile because it gives me a vast array of wines to taste, as well as a lot of knowledgeable people happy to talk about what makes their wine special and what their favorites are.  As pretentious as a wine festival sounds, I’ve always enjoyed the Decatur Wine Festival; I’ve never felt looked-down upon for lack of knowledge, and I’ve never felt out of place for lack of a monocle.

I can’t speak to all festivals, but I’ve enjoyed Decatur’s every time I’ve been.

What comes with my ticket?

When you purchase a wine festival ticket you’re buying several hours of as much wine as you can stomach.  To help you out with that, you will get a booklet with a list of all the wines and hopefully a tiny golf pencil to make notes by your favorites.  At Decatur’s festival they also give you a small wine glass in which to taste all the wine.  Others might simply have small disposable cups to drink from.

How is it set up?

Wine distributors and crafters will have tables setup in open areas with selected bottles of their products.  They do they pouring for you and are usually more than happy to answer any questions you have and give you suggestions.  Many tables will also have some sort of printed material you can pick up if you like a specific type of wine.  This year there were 69 tables and almost 500 different wines being served.

Wine tables right at the festival’s opening.

Besides bottles of wine and printed information, the tables will have water kegs and buckets for you to clean out your glass between wines.  To stave off drunkenness a little longer, once you’ve sipped your selected wine you can dump the remnants into a bucket rather than being forced to finish the entire sample, then wash your glass out with a little water and put the water into the bucket as well.

Most tables used cardboard buckets the size of a popcorn bucket as their wine-disposals, but this one below had their own fancy metal bucket.  Oh ho!

Water keg and disposal bucket

Will there be food?

Because downtown Decatur is a pretty hip-and-with-it place, all the local restaurants come out for the wine festival and have tables of their own.  While it can be tricky to juggle a plate, a wine glass, and a booklet, it’s always worth it; the food has always been delicious.  I’d assume most other wine festivals would have food as well, if for no other reason than to provide cushion for all the alcohol you’re ingesting.

Delicious curry, pad thai, and cheesy roll from Siam Thai

Gentlemen from Chai Pani serving out tastes of Indian street food.

This year we ate thai food from Siam Thai, Indian street food from Chai Pani, and pizza from Sapori di Napoli.  In the past we’ve also had samples from The Iberian Pig and Raging Burrito, but we didn’t move fast enough this year.  Blast!

Any final tips?

Keep your hands free!

The biggest suggestion I have for wine festival attendance is to think carefully about what you’re bringing with you.  We only heard a single wine glass break during the festival this year, but that served as a good reminder to keep your hands free.  I’d suggest that you leave your purses at home, for instance, and if you don’t need a jacket, don’t bring one so you don’t end up carrying it around.  Any additional items that might clutter up your hands mean it’s likelier you’re going to drop your wine glass or spill wine on you or someone else.  If you want to take pictures, consider it carefully – do you need your camera, or will your phone do?

Some people come prepared with a lanyard specially made to hold a wine glass; it has a little basket on the end that the cup rests in and leaves a hole for the stem.  Every year I think about how handy it would be to have one, but then I realize buying one for something I do once a year makes no sense.  But if you want to go to a lot of wine-related events, this would totally be worth your time.

Budget your time!

With 69 tables to visit in only 3 hours, we came to the realization that we needed to run through our booklet and look for anything we really wanted to try before our time ran out.  The booklet came with a handy map, so after finding the tables we wanted to see we plotted a quick course through the streets to efficiently get through the most interesting-looking bottles.

I’M THE MAP I’M THE MAP I’M THE MAP

You’re drinking – be safe!

This should be pretty obvious, but you’re drinking – either designate someone DD, take a cab, or plan on walking to a restaurant for dinner while everyone sobers up.

Anything else I might see?

Well…there are a few other things you might see:

Throngs of people

Rex Wine Roosters

Giant inflatable wine bottles

Discounts at local businesses

What have your wine festival experiences been like?  Hopefully as positive as mine.

The post What to Expect at a Wine Festival appeared first on spatialdrift.

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Day Twenty-Four: Focus On Yourself. While you’re making your way through your journey, don’t forget to take some time to work on yourself. Get out and exercise, eat a healthy meal, and don’t forget to smile! This is a complete transformation – home, body, mind, and soul.

This has been much needed. This challenge, along with a self-imposed increased blog post publishing schedule, freelance work, my regular job, and some additional life challenges have left me a bit tapped out. I’ve been trying to scale back the truly optional things; more on that later.

Day Twenty-Five: Declutter the unusual spots. Today we’re going to tackle the “unusual” places where junk accumulates. This includes under your sink, and even behind the couch.

The usual spots for us are the second bedroom (the bed briefly went under again while attempting to get through some of the other challenges done), our coffee table in the living room, and our dining room table.

I went through the second bedroom and boxes up the various things still lying around – stuff for a homeless shelter, stuff to be filed, and a few truly sentimental items that need to be properly stored for posterity. I cleared off the coffee table and dining room table, finding a place for everything (see Day Twenty-Seven). We need to be in the habit of closing up the collapsable dining room table when we’re not using it – that’s why we wanted a collapsible table in the first place after all! I’ll be making an effort to do that going forward.

Day Twenty-Six: Tackle your electronics. We’re decluttering not only the physical items (DVD players, CD players… Walkmans too), we’re also going to declutter the items we store on our electronics. Remove songs, pictures, videos, etc. from your hard drives that you are no longer using.

Walkmans, seriously? Are those around?! Haha. So we kind of tackled this recently because we renovated our den, and made half of it into a gaming room. We went through our consoles and games, got rid of ones we no longer want, and organized and stored those we’ll be keeping. As part of tackling the second bedroom, we got a handle on our DVDs and CDs.

To keep things moving and replace this activity, I’ve been taking one piece of trash out of the car every time I leave… or one thing that belongs elsewhere, and putting it in its place.

Day Twenty-Seven: Every item has its place. Every item needs a “place” in your home. When not in use, return the item to its place. Organizing your remaining items is a great way to create a system, while keeping the items off your floor.

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I’ve been trying to go this to some extent throughout the entire process, but have been kicking it into high gear lately. I am pretty distractable, though, and that’s why most things wind up out of place. Not sure how much a 30-day challenge can impact a lifestyle, or the way one’s brain is wired, but I will keep trying.

Day Twenty-Eight: Don’t beat yourself up. We are our own worst critic. Today, try tackling something you’ve been putting off or avoiding. If you find yourself reaching a challenge or having difficulty with a certain task, step away for a minute. When you feel prepared to tackle the task again, dive in.

I weeded the asparagus bed! I had been putting this off ever since the bed got away from me, in early summer. Glad to finally have it done, and to take are of the surrounding areas that had also been overrun.

Day Twenty-Nine: Try something new. You’ve almost completed a 30 Day Challenge on Simplifying and Minimizing! Have you completed one before? If you’ve answered “No” then you’ve already tried something new! Today, try something else.

So the scheduling didn’t work out for this to be done in time for this post, but I have committed to going to meditation with my friend Richard. He is a Buddhist and a goes to meditate with this group on Sundays. He is such a nice guy that I know my usual anxieties about doing it properly, or not asking dumb questions will not be an issue.

I look forward to giving it a try; I have a very noisy, busy mind and I have long suspected that learning how to meditate could be very beneficial for me (and those who have to deal with me). I’ll let you know how it goes in a follow-up post.

Day Thirty: Wrap-Up. We’ve hit the end of our challenge. On Day One we asked you to place one item a day into a Donate Box. Today, donate the box. If you’re hesitant to donate the box, you can instead place it in a closet or spare space temporarily. Take items from the box only if you need them, but replace any item taken with a new item to be donated. After a month, items still in the box should be donated.

This has been a very interesting challenge. I thought I did a lot of the things on the list already, but accomplishing everything was definitely still work – at a time in my life where everything is work! The donation boxes are gone to Goodwill, as I mentioned last week. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what simplicity and minimalism mean to me, what parts of my life I want to apply them to (most of them, really), and what I have learned.

As a result, I have come up with a few stretch goals and a few resolutions and a few stretch goals to accomplish before Mary and I meet to do a final wrap-up (our schedules haven’t been playing well together).

via Becoming Minimalist

Resolutions

Ease off the gas on spatialdrift. I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself to make this website bigger and better than I really have time for while working a full-time job and living a balanced and happy life. I think there will be natural times of increased and decreased productivity on the blog, and that by letting go of events and things I am too busy to write up, I should feel a lot less stress.

Stop looking at the spatialdrift’s ranking on Urbanspoon so often. I’ll make the top 30 blogs in Atlanta or I won’t. This blog will turn into something truly special (popular and profitable) or it won’t. None of that is actually important at all. What’s important is keeping it what it is intended to be – a fun practice of photographing, thinking, and writing things that matter to me, and that I want to try.

Ease off the gas on freelance work. I started back in the freelancing biz after a lengthy retirement because I had something to prove. I think it’s been proven, and my lesson learned. I need to wrap up the one project I am involved in and extricate myself from one I’ve been flirting with. Should I take on any more projects in the future, I need to be far more strict about what types of projects I take on.

Take an art class. My job takes and takes from the well of creativity but doesn’t do much to fill it back up. The well is feeling a bit dry and I need to connect with some artists and be involved in some creative pursuits.

Get a bike. Ride the bike. I’ve been wanting one forever, especially because of fine folks like Mr. Money Mustache explaining how they are cheaper and good for you to boot, and Mark Sisson explaining how we all get to get out in nature more (walking or running is best, but I think a bike is fine too), and my awesome neighbor Zoe being a huge advocate of the biking life. I’m terrified of it, but I know I want to do it and I need to make it happen!

Keep up the momentum of the 30-Day Challenge. Keep an eye on reducing the physical clutter in the house. Work the concept of continuous optimization. Like eating healthy is a lifestyle – and if you think of a push for the better as being “on a diet,” you’re setting yourself up for failure – so is keeping life simple in our complicated and consumerism-oriented western lifestyle. Practicing some level of minimalism needs to be a series of small decisions made nearly constantly, based on a changed mindset.

Stretch Goals

Clean out my car and have it detailed. I’ve not had my car detailed since I bought it yearly three years ago, and our most recent roadtrip finally tipped the cleanliness of the inside from passable to somewhat nasty. Additionally, I’ve been carrying around some emotional and physical baggage in the trunk, and that simply needs to go. I miss getting decent MPG. Over the next two or three weeks, I’d like to rectify this.

Organize the linen closet. This was initially going to be one of my replacement goals for the three-day virtual disconnect, but it became clear that our deep shelves were always going to allow for clutter without smaller containers to organize out things in. Having just reorganized the pantry, it seemed obvious that using the empty air between the door and the shelves with the back-of-the-door shelf was the way to go. It just arrived in the mail and it’s time to get crackin’!

Finish Day Twenty-Nine. I am committed to making the time to go meditate with Richard. I will make it happen, hopefully before the next stretch goal rolls around…

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Conclusion

As I said, this has been a very interesting challenge. It’s also been a hectic and stressful time in my life. As a result, I can’t say that doing the Minimalism Challenge to simplify my life during these time wasn’t a bit ironic. What with having to keep up with, photograph, and write about everything, it created a lot of artificial work and unnecessary stress. It also kept me honest, though. If I had been doing this on my own I probably would have tabled it for a less hectic time in the future. When that happens, the chances of going back to an abandoned project and completing it successfully are slim.

Probably due to my stress at this moment, I don’t feel like the 30-Day Minimalism Challenge was overwhelmingly a success. I still see problem areas in my house, and wonder if I’ll have enough momentum to keep going. That’s part of the reasoning behind the stretch goals, and following up with Mary in a couple of weeks, to let the dust settle (proverbially and literally, haha).

Okay, I think that’s it! Check out Mary’s progress and don’t forget the Pinterest board. Things will slow down there after the challenge, but I’ll continue to pin relevant items as I run across them!

The post Simplicity In September – 30 Day Minimalism Challenge Complete! appeared first on spatialdrift.

Day Fifteen: Sleep on it. If you’ve found an item you think you want, weigh the pros and cons of spending the money. You may find you don’t want or need the item.

I do this a ton. I actually do it so much that I eventually snap and then go on a purchasing binge which will inevitably include some impulsive purchases that haven’t been as carefully thought-out as the stuff I was sleeping on. I need to learn a happy balance.

I did this with some jewelry purchases. A couple of days later, I decided the purchases had been thoughtfully researched, fit into the month’s budget, and supported my moves toward a more minimal wardrobe. I also pledged to ditch one pair of earrings for every pair I bought (three pairs). I am still sleeping on some additional earrings, and some new belts I’d really like to get. The goal is to put it off ’til next month and make the decision then.

Day Sixteen: Tackling sentimental items.There’s a few things you can do with sentimental items, such as creating a T-Shirt quilt!

To complete this challenge, I need to identify what sentimental items are in my way. I feel like we keep it pretty light, but we did have a bunch of DVDs lying around, so we’ve been digitizing to get those bulky cases out of the way.

When something does become personal to me, though, I do have a hard time getting rid of it, even if the object itself is completely ridiculous. More on this in the kitchen challenge below.

Day Seventeen: Declutter your shoe collection. Donate or recycle one pair of shoes you no longer wear. Extra Credit: Donate or recycle three or more pairs.

Okay, so in apparent flagrant disregard for this challenge, I picked up four pairs of shoes at a clothing swap last weekend. Oops. But seriously, they are flats in white, silver, gold, and red and they fit in perfectly with my minimalist wardrobe direction, being neutrals and one of my primary colors, red. But I still scrapped two pairs of shoes I no longer wear, so I did the challenge, right? Right?!

Day Eighteen, Nineteen, and Twenty: Virtual Disconnect. It’s important to disconnect from the computer and internet from time to time. Let’s use this 3 day virtual disconnect to work on ourselves – stretch, rest our eyes, and spend time with friends and family.

So, this challenge doesn’t work for me for a variety of reasons. I earn my primary income online, my secondary income online, and run this blog online. So yeah… no. I do make an effort to disconnect completely when I vacation, so I get my virtual disconnect on a few times a year.

So for this challenge, I opted to ensure that we made time this weekend to see my grandmother and some dear friends that we haven’t seen in far too long. To keep the minimalism going, I chose to clean out my second junk box still lurking in the second bedroom, clean out my medicine and under-sink cabinets, and to clean up my woefully neglected garden in preparation for fall and an upcoming special event in the neighborhood. Close enough!

Day Twenty-One: Keep only the necessities in the kitchen. Tackle your kitchen and remove items you never use. Donate these items, or recycle items beyond repair.

This was a big one, and one I am glad I started early, since it took several days. I have a fairly large pantry, and a ton of cabinets and drawers, so I had a lot to go through!

As it turns out, our neighbors made themselves an awesome custom pot-rack and had their old pot-rack available to hand down to us! This is awesome, because our decently-sized but poorly-laid-out kitchen has low deep cabinets in awkward places, and getting to all our pots and pans had been a constant issue.

No longer! The pot rack has really helped us get our stuff out in the open and within reach. Thanks Mike and Steve!

Now we can arrange less stuff more shallowly in our awkward-to-reach cabinets. (One day when remodel, we are so getting pull-out everything!) I bought a pull-out tray to try over by the stove and while it does make it somewhat easier to get in there to get our stuff, I don’t think I’ll expand the experiment to the rest of the kitchen, because it is still a two-step system: open drawer, pull out tray. I’d rather it be a one-step system, so we’ll just wait until that lovely day in the future when we remodel the kitchen.

Next up was the pantry… I went through all three levels and the door, getting rid of tons of stuff that we bought, used a little of, and then kept forever. We had multiple open boxes of things like saltines and vanilla wafers that we buy for specific recipes when we have a craving (old-fashioned squash casserole and banana pudding) and then never look at or use again because they don’t fit into our typical habits.

Fun fact: The oldest thing in the pantry expired in 2004. It was probably still good, being confectioner’s sugar, but I threw it out anyway. Booyah.

There was also a bunch of stuff my grandmother has given us that I’ve been holding on to because I love my grandmother. She doesn’t really get that we don’t eat certain things, and we’d accumulated all sorts of things we’ll never eat (and are probably too old now anyway). Now, this is pretty ridiculous because I love my grandmother regardless of what I do or don’t eat or do or don’t throw away. So farewell extra bits.

It also came to my attention that spices are once again taking over my pantry. We have a couple dozen magnetic spice tins on the side of our fridge, but we like to cook across so many styles and cuisines that the homeless spices are starting to stack up in the pantry. I bought another eight tins online and hopefully this will help out.

Throughout the course of this challenge, our donation box swiftly became a donation pile and started taking over the second bedroom. We finally got sick of it and took it all to Goodwill. We have a houseguest showing up this week and it would just be no good to have a bunch of to-be-donated crap junking up the room we worked so hard to clear out, just to get one big embarrassing pic of all the extraneous crap we’ve had lying around.

So it was another successful week, though I am definitely struggling to keep up a bit and barely eked by. I am starting to think that I’ll be setting some bonus goals for October, because I want to keep the “good times” rolling so that every part of the house will have gotten at least a once-over. We’ll see!

In the meantime, Mary is continuing to rock it out. Check out her Week Three update and her companion post on Minimalism in the kitchen on n00bcakes. And I am continuing to flood our minimalism-themed Pinterest board with all sorts of minimalism and simplification articles and inspiration.

The post Simplicity In September – Week Three appeared first on spatialdrift.

You can read about our progress on our respective blogs, so I won’t go into detail about that here.  Instead I wanted to write a whole post on one of this week’s specific challenges: minimalism in the kitchen.

My kitchen is a mess.  This isn’t really surprising if you’ve looked at any of my other posts on minimalism (my entire apartment is kind of a mess), but my kitchen is no different.  I’ve always been distressed at my kitchens’ size in relation to the amount of cooking I do and the amount of kitchen implements I have, but instead of getting rid of things I spent a lot of time looking for extra nooks and crannies in which to shove them.

Before I get too ahead of myself, though, I want to talk about more than kitchen implements.  To my eyes, there’s 2 forms of minimalism in the kitchen: in your utensils and in your actual cooking.  Both of these required me to do an overhaul of my kitchen, small though it may be.

Minimizing Utensils

When I did any reading about minimalism in the kitchen, all the articles and posts talked about owning a few good-quality, multi-functional tools and nothing else, which is an idea I can absolutely get behind.  Unfortunately all of the “bad” items the articles then went on to list were stand mixers, microwaves, ice cream machines, and cake tins, just to name a few.  Now if you’ve read n00bcakes for any period of time, you know that I own all of these items (not to mention a crock pot, dutch oven, and multiple cake stands).  It was going to be tough figuring out what to ditch and what to keep.

In the end I did the same thing I’ve started going with each minimalism challenge I’ve tackled: I took an inventory, then considered which items I felt I used the most and which I wouldn’t mind parting with.

After some consideration, I decided to ditch the microwave, an old coffee maker, and one of my cake stands.  In a perfect world I’d be able to part with more of my bigger items, but as a frequent baker I probably use my mixer an average of once a week, and as a lover of easy food, my crock pot is indispensable.  The dutch oven is a fabulous piece of cookware that I know I simply won’t be getting rid of, and while I don’t use the ice cream maker that often, I derive a lot of pleasure from everything I make using it.  If it makes you happy, don’t jump to getting rid of it right away.

I also spent a lot of time winnowing down my stock of pots, pans, and other kitchen paraphernalia, some of which were old, dusty, and I hadn’t used in over a year.  Here’s the set of pans I decided to keep in the end (plus a set of Pyrex pans, not shown).  This is still probably too many, but a decent start in cutting down my kitchenware.

Pots’n’Pans

Taking inventory of your stuff is, I’ve found, essential to starting any minimization process.  I didn’t realize the items I’d accumulated until I pulled open all my drawers and took a look.  Here’s a look at the pile of items I have so far for donation and selling:

Pile for Selling & Donations

It’s still pretty possible (likely, even?) that I’ll get rid of more things as I start paying closer attention to what I do and don’t use frequently, but I’m happy with this initial dent I’ve made in my cookware.

Minimizing Cooking

Minimizing my cooking is going to take more work for me than the physical utensils, but I already have a good idea of how I want to go about it; namely, I want to get into the habit of keeping the basics around and using those basics in all my meals.

For years now I’ve been in the habit of keeping baking ingredients around, and recently I finally went ought and bought air-tight containers to keep them fresh and away from bugs.  I slapped some labels on them this week to make them easier to read from above.

Boom

Next I considered what I eat on a regular basis.  I eat a lot of chilis, stews, and things that go in tortillas (fajitas, sandwich wraps, etc); I’m big on one-pot meals and things that are easy to make and frequently yield leftovers.  That being the case, I cleared room for fresh and canned goods:

I love hanging baskets for fresh vegetables

Cans & Boxes

When it comes to refrigerated items, I keep a stock of butter for baking, and then some basic vegetables: carrots, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.  Plus I always keep a bowl of fruit stocked for quick snacks.

My goal is to eventually weed the complexity out of my food-buying habits and be able to stick more consistently to the basics which, hypothetically, I’ll always have around.  Healthier, cheaper, and easier!

And So…

What I learned from this, as I have from most all of my minimalism challenges so far, is that the best way to keep your kitchen from getting out of hand is considering your items before they make their way into your home.  Know what you currently own so if you get something new either from yourself or as a gift from another, you know what it should replace or if it even has a spot in your kitchen.

Top image from iconoclassst on Tumblr

The post Minimalism in the Kitchen appeared first on spatialdrift.

• Sleep on it (rather than immediately buying an item you want, sleep on it and consider the pros and cons of owning it)
• Tackling sentimental items
• Declutter your shoe collection
• Virtual disconnect (a 3-day challenge)
• Keep only the necessities in the kitchen
• Place one item a day into a donate box for the next 30 days (recurring)

It’s been another challenging week in the world of minimalism.  Similar to last week where my big challenge was turning my bedroom into a “place of relaxation”, this week my big challenge revolved around dealing with my kitchen.  In fact, the challenge was so big that I decided to put most of it on my baking blog, n00bcakes.  Go there to read a longer-form version of my kitchen-minimalism if it’s something that interests you!

Otherwise, here’s the low-down on the rest of what went on this week.  It turned out to be a lot of learning new habits and breaking old ones.

Sleep on it

This is a challenge I’m already pretty good at.  More than once I’ve picked up something at the beginning of my trip into the store, and by the end of it have returned it to the shelf.  I’m fairly good at being reasonable about what I really do or don’t need.  Most recently I spotted a set of lantern lights 30% off at Target, but shortly after I put them into my cart, I turned around and put them back.  Were they cute?  Sure!  Did I really need them?  Well…no, not at all.  Sleeping on it is, I think, a good rule of thumb when making many purchases.

Tackling sentimental items

As a kid I had a tendency to anthropomorphise everything from my stuffed animals to my favorite shirts.  I’m not saying I talked to my t-shirts and told them stories, but my belongings felt very personal to me, and I was always loaded with guilt when getting rid of them, like I was ditching an old friend.  These 3 weeks of minimalism have helped me be honest about the things I own, and realize that getting rid of them is the healthy thing to do.  Instead of feeling guilty or sad about getting rid of a shirt that holds good memories or a book that spoke to me, what’s important are the memories attached to those items, which don’t rely on physically having them.

My favorite example of this is from a blog post  I read (I’ll post a link once I can find the original URL) about a woman who was struggling with what to do with a piano her mother left her after her death.  She didn’t have room with it, but was wracked with guild whenever she considered selling it.  With help she determined that it wasn’t the piano itself that held the good memories of her mother (she didn’t play piano herself, and in fact the piano was actually a point of contention between her and her mother), but rather the memory of her mother playing the piano for and laughing with the family.  That helped assuage the initial guilt she felt in getting rid of the piano, since the physical instrument wasn’t really what held the best memories for her.

3-day virtual disconnect

Emily and I both agreed that this challenge was basically impossible for us both.  We both work full time in computer-related jobs, and we’ve both been working on serious computer-related projects and jobs in our off-hours that made disconnecting for 3 straight days impossible.

Instead I decided to to make some small changes related to technology, namely that being completely shutting myself down at night.  I’ve had a bad habit of tinkering on my computer in bed, eventually leaving Netflix or something on until I fell asleep.  For awhile it was a comfort to have sound on in the background, but more recently the light and constant noise started waking me backup after I fell asleep, and often times proved to be more of a distraction keeping me awake instead of soothing me to sleep.

Adorable dog optional.

It proved to be a tougher habit to break than I thought; sometimes I even felt anxious leaving my technology behind when I got into bed.  Quickly, though, 30 minutes to an hour of reading proved to be the perfect way to relax before bed, and ended up far better at preparing me for sleep than the distraction of movies or TV.  My bedroom’s darker and I’m far sleepier than I used to be.  Now my laptop stays on the coffee table where it belongs.  TAKE THAT, BAD SLEEP!

Declutter your shoe collection

I don’t have a closet full of fancy shoes, but I do have a habit of keeping old ones around.  A quick walk through my apartment yielded a pair of “work” tennis shoes full of cobwebs, a pair of hiking boots I literally walked the soles off of, and a pair of brown flats I bought specifically for a wedding and never wore again.  Not many habits built or broken here, I suppose, except for the usual of keeping track of what things I actually own and what I actually use.

And so…

The last week or so of minimalism challenges are coming, with hopefully a nice summary of our findings if Emily and I can find time to sit down with a glass of wine and discuss.  Don’t forget to keep up with our Pinterest board, my post on Minimalism in the Kitchen at n00bcakes, and to check out Emily’s Week 3 post!

Top image from iconoclassst on Tumblr

The post Minimalism Week 3: Breaking Habits appeared first on spatialdrift.

• Pick one corner and remove everything that doesn’t belong
• Opt for a digital picture frame
• Take an hour for yourself away from all electronics
• Clean out the toy chest
• Donate items you’re holding “just in case”
• Opt out of store email offers
• Turn your bedroom into a place of relaxation
• Place one item a day into a donate box for the next 30 days (recurring)

The first week of the Minimalism Challenge felt easy; it was more simple organization than anything else, and that made me feel like maybe I was cheating by not taking it more seriously.  This week the challenges got more difficult as I was faced with some of the more ridiculously out of control areas of my life (yes, even more ridiculous than the Coat/Storage/Utility closet from last week), so I tried to seriously consider minimalism in conjunction with my organization and cleaning.  Here are the highlights of my activities!

Pick one corner and remove everything that doesn’t belong

Instead of a corner I opted to pick my coffee table.

When I purchased this table second hand from an old co-worker last year, my first thought (after “hooray, now I can throw acceptable gaming parties”) was that I was going to have to be very careful that it didn’t become just another place for me to deposit my junk.  I’d done a reasonable job keeping it relatively clear, but inevitably every couple of weeks the piles would stack up and I’d have to take some time to clean it off again.

I could have just gone through another cleaning cycle and have done with it, but instead I decided to take the challenge a little more to heart.  The subtitle of the challenge (emphasis mine) is “Remove the items that do not belong and enjoy the space”, so I took some time to think about it: what does and does not belong on my coffee table?

I started by listing what currently or frequently existed on the coffee table: cups, magazines, laptops, controllers, notebooks, and more!  In short, too much for a single coffee table to handle.

Coffee Table: Before!

Next I looked at the list and noted the items that already had another place in my home.  Writing utensils, for example, already have a cup in my kitchen in which to live.  Obviously cups and dishes belong either in the wash or in their cupboards.  All gaming paraphernalia goes on the shelf underneath the coffee table with the rest of the board games.  Those I was able to immediately remove (“A place for everything and everything in its place”, as my Grandma says).

Then I thought about the things I wanted on the table, what things I felt belong and knew I use every day.  Laptop?  Definitely – it’s an ever-present piece of technology in my life.  Controllers?  For sure – the coffee table is the most logical place for them to live.  Everything else?  Actually, those are the things I probably use the most, outside of an occasional magazine.

That meant that the remaining items were going to require either a new place of their own or a lifestyle change, and since I was trying to actively minimize the items in my life, a lifestyle change seemed to make more sense.

The biggest issue for me was my magazines and reading material.  I subscribe to 4 magazines (1 is weekly , 2 are monthly, and 1 is quarterly), and I have a bad habit of letting them pile up on my table.  The new goal I’ve set for myself?  Only the most recent issue of each magazine may reside on the coffee table.  Everything older must get thrown away.  Any that I find particularly beneficial and want to keep for reference I already have an area for on my bookshelf.

For curious parties, yes, I’ve toyed with digital-only subscriptions, but the bottom line is that I like my physical copy of the Economist way better than the app.  Bon Appetit is much better, but if I don’t have a physical copy, I can’t clip recipes. For now, at least, restricting myself to having only a single issue at a time will have to do.  Perhaps I will reassess in the future!

Anyway, booyah:

Coffee Table: After

You can see from my After picture here that I’ve stripped out everything doesn’t “belong” on the coffee table, which gives me a big open area between my ever-present laptop and the single pile of most-recent magazines and notebooks I’ve allowed myself.  I think the notebooks will eventually get moved too, but having one available for brain storming and note-taking for projects have proved beneficial.  Hey it’s a work in progress, gimme a break!

Clean out the toy chest

Not having a toy chest specifically, I decided to clean up my computer desk.  LOOK UPON MY MESS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR!

<cries of women and children>

This challenge went hand-in-hand with “Turn your bedroom into a place of relaxation”; this crazy-ass desk lives in my bedroom with the rest of my crazy belongings.  It is, as the kids say, cray.

Or it was. (cue dramatic gopher)

I started out using the same pattern I used for the coffee table: I took a brief inventory of belongings, and then began to relocate items that already had a home and trash others that simply weren’t needed anymore.  But this time instead of being pleased with my progress, the longer I cleaned, the unhappier I felt.  Sure, the desk was cleaner, but it wasn’t feeling any better about it.  What actually belonged on this desk?

And then I realized that I simply didn’t need the desk at all.

Since I started taking my laptop everywhere with me and since I stopped playing PC games (or, more honestly, since I stopped playing World of Warcraft) I just wasn’t using the desktop computer much anymore.  Currently it’s mostly just a repository for pictures; on occasion I’ll play a game of Fallout or Left4Dead, and every once and awhile I’ll mock up a silly image with Illustrator or Photoshop, but mostly it sits alone, poor thing, unused.

Now as much as I’m attempting to be minimal I’d never get rid of it – it’s a great (and expensive) computer and it’s full of potential for future projects…but I didn’t need an entire desk, a desk used mostly (as you can see) as a repository for my flotsam.  So I decided to get rid of it.  It was a 6-year old piece of Ikea junk, anyway.

Computer Desk: After

Realizing that I don’t use a computer that I relied on so heavily for years was surprising to me, but it was fantastic to downsize from that huge desk to a simple set of drawers for my occasional usage.  Not only does it remove a place for me to store things, but it also freed up a big chunk of space in my bedroom.

The desk no longer belonged – I didn’t need it.  So I chucked it.  Unlike other things I’ve struggled with this week, no emotional attachments.

Week 2 Summary

This week was more difficult; the cleaning took longer and the decisions have started becoming more difficult.  While cleaning out my bedroom I started going through my clothing in repeated waves – each time I walk through my closet and boxes, I pick up a few more shirts and drop them into the donation pile.  That Kermit the Frog shirt I’ve had since middle school?  It’s in the pile (and it still squeezes my heart a bit thinking about it).  Those Camp Big Creek shirts from my summer teaching kids at an outdoor camp?  Time to let them go too, good memories aside.

I also wasn’t able to complete all the challenges this week because I was out of town Thursday afternoon through Sunday (hence why this post is up so late) – I’ll be sure to make sure I accomplish them by the month’s end, I promise.  I do feel like I’m still keeping up with the spirit of the challenge, however!

Oh, though there’s one challenge I’m gracefully refusing – getting rid of my picture frames.  I’ll have no problem putting most pictures into albums or digitally online…but I have 5 picture frames of family and friends that will not be relegated to a digital frame – they make me happy, and that’s what minimalism is about, right?  Keeping the things that make you genuinely happy, and leaving the rest behind.

Also, digital frames are tacky and I hate them.

Don’t forget!

Don’t forget to keep up with Emily’s Week 2 post, and to keep up with our ever-grown Pinterest board on minimalism.  Has anybody else joined up with the cause?  What have your experiences been so far?

Top image from iconoclassst on Tumblr

The post Minimalism Week 2: What Belongs in Your Space? appeared first on spatialdrift.

via

Day Eight: Pick one corner. Remove the items that do not belong and enjoy the space.

I chose the corner of my dining room and cleared out a box of stuff that has been sitting there since spring. Now I have a nice-looking dining room again.

We also picked a second area in the living room full of fabric items from when we thought everything was going to be consumed by moths (long story). We’ve been waiting to see that the moths are definitely gone, and it was time to unpack the stuff and have a functional living room again.

Day Nine: Opt for a digital picture frame. You can simplify the amount of photo albums and picture frames you keep by opting for a digital photo frame. Now all your pictures can be proudly displayed at all times, without all the clutter!

This doesn’t really apply to me, since I am young enough to be mostly digital anyway. I print out only what I really want to display, and everything else stays digital (Mirrored onsite and backed up offsite! Make sure you are protecting yourself from losing all though digital files!)

Day Ten: Take an hour for yourself. Spend an hour away from electronics (TV and cell phones included) and use that time for yourself.

If I had to describe an hour taken for myself, it would probably be watching TV or playing a video game. Or playing board games with my friends, or cooking something fun – while streaming background music from my laptop. But for something entirely without technology I decided to weed in the garden – something that sorely needs doing, though it’s not necessarily fun.

via

Day Eleven: Clean out the toy chest. This includes all the toys in the home (pet, child, etc). Work with your family members and sort through items you may no longer need.

We’ve no children here, but we did once have a dog, and we still had a bunch of dog medicines and accessories hanging out on the top shelf of our hallway closet. I should have gotten rid of them a while ago, but I guess I’ve been harboring the hope that we’d want another dog in our lives. Truth is, we’re busy, and until I’m ready to hit the brakes on my career to have kids, having a dog would probably be a disservice to my dog. Sigh. Farewell unneeded doggie bits, I’ve already begun giving you away to friends with dogs.

Day Twelve: Donate items you’re holding onto “just in case”. Today we are going to donate all the items we have purchased in the last year that we are holding onto “just in case”. Extra Credit: If you’re feeling up to it, donate the items you’re holding onto that haven’t been used in the last 3 months.

I don’t buy things “just in case,” but I could still take a stroll through the house for unneeded items, and place them in the box with the rest of the items. So I did!

Day Thirteen: Opt out of store email offers. Let’s clear out our inboxes so we spend less time sifting through the “sales” and more time getting to what really counts.

De-cluttering the inbox… clearly needed.

This was clearly needed, based on this screenshot from a week or so ago. I actually started de-cluttering the inbox then and have since unsubscribed from DOZENS of mailing lists – and some lists more than once. I am definitely feeling a bit more calm when I check my mail!

Day Fourteen: Turn your bedroom into a place of relaxation. Remove the clutter from your bedroom (on top of your nightstand, the foot of your bed, etc). An hour before bed disconnect from electronics to allow yourself time to calm down for the evening.

I am big into relaxation in the bedroom. One of the things I discussed with Adam before we moved in together than that I simply do not do TVs and other distractions in the bedroom. We read on our Kindles and we charge our cellphones on the opposite side of the room from where we sleep. No radios, TVs, computers, or gaming consoles. We also have blackout curtains to keep out unwanted light (like headlights) after hours.

For surface clutter, the dresser is still doing well since I installed the jewelry rack last week, and the (on sale) date leaf baskets I recently picked up from the Container Store are helping Adam and I keep our little items contained.

So, our main challenges in the bedroom are closet clutter, the accumulation of small things on our dresser and headboard-shelf-thingy, and laundry! I recently got some baskets to contain our little daily or near-daily items, so the biggest issues are related: closets and laundry.

Really we need to work on some minimalist wardrobes (see this, this, this, and this… this would make me miserable) to reduce laundry so as to reduce laundry clutter. After reading the aforementioned articles, I challenged myself to go through my closet AGAIN and get rid of stuff that I don’t wear a lot. I managed to clear out an overflowing bag of goodies for the swap, and to reorganize my closet (it was in a state of disarray from shoving everything clean into wardrobe bags… more of the moth madness we recently went through).

If I find that I gave away something that fulfilled a particular role, I’ll pick up some second-hand pieces that fit in well (mix-n-match with other pieces) with my wardrobe. At the swap, I snagged two pairs of pants and a dress, as well as several pairs of shoes… nowhere close to the overflowing bag I brought to the swap!

Well, it was definitely more challenging to find time for all the challenge activities this week. I really struggled to keep up and still didn’t get all the things done that I wanted to!

Still, I feel good about the direction I am headed, and I already feel inspired to extend the goodness to some areas that I don’t think this challenge covers, like my car, medicine cabinet, pantry and yard. Mary, for her part, rocked out Week Two. You should check it out, as well as our minimalism-themed Pinterest board.

I can’t wait to see what next week has in store.

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