Simple Living

Today was Day 10 of 10! 


As a lot of you know, I spent the last 10 days scrubbing, purging and decluttering the apartment. My inspiration was from an empowering and practical spiral book by Tsh Oxenreider called Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living.


Tsh's main idea: simple living is about living holistically with your life's purpose. All things intentionally work together -- including your stuff -- to purse your purpose. So, with that in mind, I spent 10 days on this massive, frustrating and wonderful process of cleaning and reassessing each nook and cranny of our apartment. 

Each night I made a pretty long list of my TO DOs for the next day. 

William Morris helped with some guidelines, advising to "have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful." 

BEFORE: Goodness, we keep a pretty clean frig, but after taking out the shelves, I found some surprises! 

AFTER: Everything got a nice scrub down (even the jelly jars!), all expired foods were tossed and now it's nice and fresh! 

It was really helpful to have our JAR Purpose Statement up on our wall throughout the process:

We believe that Jesus can use us to change the course of history. Our purpose is to:

• Enjoy a life-giving relationship with Jesus 

• Love each other 

• Build bridges that encourage community 

• Invite others to rest, pray, heal, grow, play, give thanks, create and celebrate with us

There were many many many times I wanted to quit the process, but sticking to the plan for 10 whole days gives me a hugh sense of accomplishment. 

This was between our washer and dryer. 

I now feel like I can do anything if I put my mind to it. And, I will think a bit harder the next time I go to the store and put anything in my shopping cart. 

Josh helped me take two car's full of stuff to Good Will.
Everything has a second chance to be beautiful or useful to someone else now :) 

Tsh says "All the independent things in your life -- the items you own, how you spend your time, the relationships you cultivate, and the books you read -- ultimately benefit your life's purpose." I am all about living holistically. I love this kind of intentionality, and feel refreshed and ready to live lighter in 2012. 


Shout outs: 
**Mom and Dad for helping me put up curtains in my room! I love them!
**Josh for riding behind me on the way to Good Will -- I was a little nervous that coffee table was going to be sprawled out on Strickland Road...but luckily it stayed put!
**Jess and Liz for providing the entertainment of Ugly Betty to keep me going. 
**Antje and Kate for being so affirming and supportive of this process!!