Simple Changes

Hey y'all!  Glad to be back after an unexpected hiatus last week.  The Hubs sprained his back and has been largely incapacitated, and I had a birthday party to whip up...watch for more on that on Wednesday.  In the meantime, I have missed you!

Today I am kicking off my "Simplicity Series," a series of updates around my new motto of Simpler is Better.

I've caught the bug for a simpler life by reading (and loving) Tsh Oxenreider's book, Organized Simplicity.  That book led me to her blog, which I visit for its content and also the very useful downloads she offers.  But...that's not the only thing going on.  In the course of one week I had a series of events occur which pointed me directly to Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University.  My husband and I have now been through the first three lessons, and have recommitted to working our way out of debt and living within our means.  In short, I won a book about making our home function perfectly for our family's goals, and started a financial program designed to make our money work for our family's goals.  This is not coincidence.

Now, in some ways this means doing more.  More work cleaning up, selling stuff, paring down. More work staying organized, staying streamlined, and staying focused.  But the trade-off is (hopefully) going to be a more fulfilling life.  That's a fair trade.

I'll be keeping you up to date as we clean out our spaces, consign our clothing, organize our lives.  Pretty soon we'll be without television, so I might be blogging too much!  For today I just wanted to show you how keeping a close eye on what happens in our home is helping me watch for organizing opportunities.  The very first change I made was so simple it is embarrassing!

We don't have a mudroom--it is straight from the garage into the kitchen.  And because I am way too lazy to take newspapers straight out to the recycling bin, they would sit on the counter next to the garage door and create a disorganized mess.

Here's the before:

Why yes, those are keys, sunglasses and a wallet atop a pile of trash.
More than one thing has been accidentally "recycled" due to this chaos.

I could have just made a rule to always take the papers out right away.  But--let's be real--that aint happenin'.  And I am not into setting myself up for failure.  So, I found a narrow basket still wide enough for newspaper when Hobby lobby had them at 50% off one day...and here's the after:

Hello, countertop.  How have you been all these years?

This isn't some huge eye-catching makeover, but it shows how by noticing my own (bad) habits I can improve my environment without having to change much of anything...not even my own laziness.  Simple change... simple solution...simpler is better!