The Nature of Thrifting (Part One of Four)

I read a complaint by a social activist that people who think they're doing something for justice by buying clothes secondhand aren't doing the right things, or enough of them. Her point, as I understand it, is that buying a used t-shirt doesn't educate us about capital-I Issues, nor does it channel money into capital-B Businesses owned by capital-P People that the social activist wants us to patronize. Like small independent fashion designers.

Okay.

Well, that's like saying that just putting money into a church collection plate isn't the same as getting out there and "working for the Lord." Agreed that it's not the same, but it's still important. There are front-liners, there are second-stringers, there are supporters. Some people will always stay in the back rooms of ministries, or just be names on donor lists and prayer chains, but that Does Not Make Them Less Valuable.

When you  choose to buy something secondhand, or swap or re-use or buy-not, it is a small act, but it is felt.

It is felt because of what you didn't do. Because you chose to buy-or-not-buy your X from already-existing sources, you most likely chose not to buy a similar X new. That's a vote for the environment, against pollution and packaging and garbage dumps, all that industrial-nasty stuff. Some people would also say that it's a vote against "slave labour" or unjust practices which are commonly perpetrated mainly against women.

It is also felt because of what you did do, or what your thrifting money does by going into the funds of a charitable organization or ministry. Mennonite Central Committee, for example, posted this on its website in 2019:

MCC and its partners are helping create opportunities for women and girls to flourish by:

• Supporting survivors of sexual violence after Hurricane Matthew in Haiti
• Participating in the UN's Commission on the Status of Women
• Working to improve maternal and child health in Kenya
• Partnering to provide women with access to loans and agricultural training in India
• Facilitating mental health services for women in Afghanistan

So it's all about choice, isn't it? I can support a small business by buying its products, if I can afford them and if they have something I need myself, or can use for my own business, or want to give to someone. Or I can support a ministry or charity that has worthwhile goals. Or I can make a hundred other choices.

But don't ever think that any of those choices are too small to be noticed.

Top and skirt from Salvation Army Thrift Store

Quote for the Day: Food and Cheer and Song

"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." ~~ Thorin Oakenshield, as quoted by J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

It's National Thrift Shop Day. Help them go out of business.

I'm not going to mark National Thrift Shop Day by suggesting that everybody out there should go and buy something at a thrift shop (although you know that's one of my favourite things to do).

I'm not even going to mark it by suggesting that everybody should donate something today (although you know how much fun I have unpacking books at the MCC store. It's Christmas every week).

I'm going to suggest something far more radical.

Non-profit thrift shops...in spite of all the good they do by raising money for the ministries and charities that run them and by giving lots of stuff a potential second life...reflect something about our world, our culture, our attitude towards buying and un-buying stuff, that isn't a good thing. In a perfect world, ministries that run thrift stores would have to find another way to raise money, because people would be buying just what they need, using things longer, fixing what's broken, trading what's outgrown, borrowing what they can, re-purposing things themselves. And those organizations wouldn't totally mind that, I think, because any one of them accepting donations of Stuff must deal with an Increasingly Big Headache of Responsible Disposal.

So keep the thrift store of your favourite charity in mind today by not buying one particular new thing (besides food or other consumables). That way, when that one unbought thing doesn't arrive at the hypothetical end of its usefulness to you, you won't have to drive it to the thrift store. Nobody will have to unpack it; nobody will have to price it and hang it on a rack; nobody will have to pay the cost of the computerized cash register system and the credit card fees; or (if it sits unsold) nobody will have to bale it up and figure out where to send it next. By not buying something new today, you've created one less future thing-in-thing-out decision for a crew of staff and volunteers. Wasn't that easy?

(But you could also send the charity a financial contribution.)

Gotta thank somebody (KonMari tidying)

I probably don't need to repeat this, but I'm old. I've been around through a lot of decluttering and organizing fads. I always wished for a magic clean-up wand, but I never connected success with seriously purging my belongings (weren't they all important?), or with not buying more yarn on sale. I grew up without much sense of "stop, that's enough stuff." If someone gave you a present, you were supposed to keep it. When the dolls on your dresser outgrew the dresser,  you didn't stop collecting, you built them a shelf. I had no idea that anyone could have too many books.

But I did try. I moved out on my own with books by Don Aslett and Sandra Felton (and stayed just as Messie), I survived house moves with It's Here...Somewhere and Deniece Schofield, and I watched Peter Walsh do the Clean Sweep.  I attempted Sidetracked Home Executives, but somehow escaped the FlyLady. The old advice to Keep What You Need is about as obvious as Don't Spend Money So You Don't Go Into Debt, but we got better at that than we did at keeping a handle on Stuff. We didn't buy a lot of new Stuff, but we did find a lot of used Stuff, and had a lot of free Stuff given to us, to the point that we had trouble sorting out the Keeper Stuff from the rest (or what one person called Keeper, the rest of us called the rest).

Pop psychology time: Mr. Fixit and I are both firstborns, and both of us were close to our grandparents. We felt a lot of expectation that we would be keepers of the family story. You can figure out the rest. 

Fast forward through our full-on decluttering and downsizing, which brought in more library books, Tiny House videos, and Apartment Therapy posts, plus Project 333, but not much awareness of Marie Kondo or KonMari. (I did post something about it once.) When I went to the Tiny Wardrobe Tour lecture the summer before last, I got there early and sat beside a woman who introduced herself as a professional KonMari organizer. She didn't know much about Project 333, and I didn't know much about KonMari, but our attempt to compare notes got cut short by a loud argument over priority seating. I seemed to be sitting in the middle of the war zone, and I think the KonMari lady blamed me somehow, so I did not learn any more about it that night.

Then Tidying fell into my lap while I was sorting books at the thrift store. Our move to a smaller space had sparked a new kind of Tiny-House-ish deliberateness about what we were keeping and where it should go, so the book helped us get over some storage bumps.

Now, suddenly,  Marie Kondo is on the Lifestyle page of our local paper, not to mention all over Youtube and everybody's media. Folding your clothes is suddenly cool. And the Big Thing that I am picking up from this came from a brief review where, I think, they got the reason for her popularity absolutely right. Even if you don't literally hug your sweater to see if it sparks joy (I don't), KonMari appeals to our emotions, because it is about valuing and thanking. If you arrange your shoes on a rack from lightest to heaviest, top to bottom, you're not saying "look at all the shoes I have" but "I am taking the time to appreciate how each pair fits into my life and into my space." If you're a bit animistic, you add "And I want the shoes to know that." If you're a Christian, you use that boring term stewardship, which means, essentially, that you're Jeeves cheerfully polishing Wooster's silverware. Stewardship is just taking care. Guardianship, sort of. You get the privilege of living with and caring for the shoes, but you know Who really owns them. When they're dirty, you clean them. When they wear out, you get them fixed.

And here's the rub: you can't do that with as much stuff as North Americans typically live with. Lots, in this sense, is not better than a few. Or one. We are finite beings, with limited time and attention spans. But, as Charlotte Mason says, we can develop habits of attention. We can invest time into knowing where pieces in our collection came from, hearing their stories. We can value loyalty. We can be thankful. We just can't do it so well with an overload of stuff.

A year of KonMari tidying here

Marie Kondo seems to be getting more popular than ever--she now has a show on Netflix (which I can't watch because we just unsubscribed). The word most often applied to her personally is "cute," but she also has her firm side. In one You-tube video, the owner of a messy pantry shows her a package of spoon-shaped cookies, drawing appreciative coos from Kondo but followed quickly by a pointing out of their months-old expiry date. Cute cookies aren't worth much if you don't eat them.

In 2017, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and described some of my early experiments on the blog. Someone commented (kindly) that it would be interesting to know how long I'd stick with it.

Well, it's been a year-plus since I made my first t-shirt stand up straight, so I guess that's long enough now to call a habit. The food in our storage room has remained organized (and the wrapping paper I used on the bins has held up pretty well). The bathroom has stayed uncluttered. We had already gone through a lot of decluttering, during our downsize to the apartment. I had also done quite a lot of putting things into containers, and containers within containers, before I read Tidying Up. 

What I think KonMari added to our vision for a newer, cleaner space here was a sense of aesthetic pleasure, an extra bit of harmony. One of the odd bits I picked up from Kondo's books was the idea that containers and boxes with clashing labels and random printing may contribute to a sense of info-overload. They can feel like commercials that never get turned off. Solutions to garish containers include peeling off a label, painting or covering the box (as I did with the very miscellaneous pantry bins), or emptying the contents into a jar or something else neutral. If it's a shoebox or something to be repurposed as a drawer organizer, then the outside printing doesn't matter. But if the storage container is going on a shelf, you might want to pretty it up a bit. That doesn't mean crocheted cozies for the toilet paper, but just keeping in mind how what we look at every day can boost moods (or bring them down). If we have to look at words in our homes, let's make them important and beautiful words.

I appreciate Kondo's encouragement to use whatever you have instead of buying new (often plastic) storage goods. One thing she does like are the sets of large plastic drawers for closets, partly because they keep storage behind closed doors. I don't have any, but I've compromised by treating a couple of under-bed baskets as if they were drawers. (We don't get as many dust-bunnies here as we did at our old house, so under-bed storage is workable.)

Another KonMari idea that I found useful was sorting by categories, especially with seemingly miscellaneous stuff. Not that we hadn't already done a lot of that, but I appreciated her emphasis on its usefulness. It helps us know not only where things are in the apartment, but also when we need to re-stock.

Finally, Kondo's knack for turning even an underwear drawer into a sort of Bento box array should lead not to obsession with one's undies, but to appreciation and gratitude for what we have. This is something we can share with and model for children. Look--we have socks! They're nice colours! They're clean! They're (mostly) hole-free! Let's take care of them! Even small things arranged carefully can make our days brighter, and that echoes Edith Schaeffer's thoughts on tabletop flowers, sandwich plates for hobos, and writing little notes to cheer people up.

I still don't talk to my shoes. But I'm glad for the help KonMari has given us.

"Yet it was chiefly her body that was tired now; her mind, which had been so weary and fretted in London, had been wonderfully rested by this house that was now her home....[Nadine] stretched out a hand and laid it upon the paneled wall beside her; it was warm in the sun, as though it were alive....This house was maison-dieu [a house of God], and the stripping away of all that was unworthy and the building up of new beauty was in the nature of a crusade.  And the house had agreed and collaborated."  ~~ Elizabeth Goudge, The Herb of Grace (Pilgrim's Inn)

There is nothing new about decluttering

Our local paper has a story today about the latest celebrity declutterer. She's said to be different from (list of other clutter experts) because she doesn't turn it into a spiritual exercise. Two paragraphs later, she's extolled as a "guru" who promotes "healing." Sigh. You can't have it both ways.

(This same expert boasts that she's so paper-free, she owns only two pieces of paper, both official documents.)

Do we use our stuff, or does it use us? It's not a new question (Ecclesiastes 5:13, for one). Does what we want, or what we spend on getting it, or how we store it, cause stress, create hazards, or strain relationships? If this didn't seem like a bigger problem than the occasional Mount Laundry, the newspapers wouldn't be running decluttering stories.

Let's invoke some reality. There are life situations that, by their nature, involve some clutter.  It may not be pathological at all, more just about having a hard time keeping on top of the material stuff when there are other demands. Clutter-free counters are less important than making sure everyone can get at what they need. Small people who can't reach up, or any people who can't reach down, or who need visual reminders to take their vitamins or whatever, take priority over empty spaces.

The bigger problems seem to be the amount of stuff (expensive or cheap, new or thrifted, keepable or trashable) that comes into our homes; making the best use of it while we allow it space in our lives; and then letting go when its value is gone. That last is more of a problem than you'd think. I read an article recently with low-clutter gift suggestions for children, many of them paper (ironically). One was a cardboard playhouse that could easily be recycled when its time was over. Great idea, but at our house a few years ago, give-it-up time would have been never. When everything receives equal emotional investment, decluttering is not an option. (I had a cardboard house as a small child, and remember hours of neighbourhood tea parties and other goings-on inside it; but I wasn't consulted about its ultimate disposal. That may be the difference between parents in 1970 and 2010.)

So maybe the tritest slogan is also the truest: don't spend your energy loving things that can't love you back, or that may even be imprisoning you. (Textbook case: Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, "The Won't-Pick-Up-Toys Cure." Bible case: camels and needles' eyes.) If your stuff is working for you, even if it's a mess, just clean it up when you get time. But if it's moved into neutral or negative, look at it with a sterner eye. You don't owe your things a thing,

Is decluttering only for the wealthy? (How to be a better materialist)

Minimalist blogger Joshua Becker recently linked to a Wall Street Journal article about Baby Boomers downsizing. The story seemed to be aimed at upscale readers whose biggest downsizing headache is selling off their art collections.

On the other end of the scale is this blog post at This Simple Balance: 8 Tips for Decluttering on a Low Income (from a mom who's been there). This writer points out the difficulty of asking "Does this bring joy?" when the bigger concerns are "Is this still functional?" and "What if we can't afford another one?"

Our family lived on one income for a long time, and then on even less as we moved to self-employment. We did go through tight-budget, don't-say-no-to-anything times, especially when the kids were young and seemed to need different-sized shoes and clothes every time we turned around.

And even that, compared to serious poverty in this country and overseas, was really nothing. We still had lots of clutter and overload, partly because we got too good at scrounging, and partly because we figured we would eventually find uses for stored stuff. (Often we did.) We were also holding on to many childhood and family items.

So are minimalism and decluttering only options for those who don't have to get anxious about living with less, or about giving away possibly useful things?

I agree with This Simple Balance that some minimalist maxims and strategies work better for those who have more choices. But everybody needs a little of what Amy Dacyczyn calls "margin": clear spaces around things and events, so that we appreciate them properly.  And we may actually benefit when we use our imaginations to repurpose things, or our generosity to share them.

Many of us have stories of our children, or ourselves as children, cherishing one toy, or improvising playthings. When our oldest was a toddler, she used a kitchen chair as her toy stove, with a few yard-saled toy pots. A few years later, we found a large plastic "play kitchen" on Kijiji for her younger sister. Yes, they played with it, but it was an eyesore in the room, and it was always a mess. Then there was even more stress when they outgrew the thing and we suggested passing it on. That would never have happened with a kitchen chair, right?

We also need to claim the right to say "enough," no matter what our income. Someday, sooner or later, the whole economy could change so that we can no longer easily access consumer goods. We might be trading chicken eggs for plumbing work, and making over old clothes because we can't get new ones.  But even then, we have the right to live with, use, and enjoy just enough, and to say no to whatever multiplicity we're stepping on and tripping over. We should feel free to be That Family or That Person, the ones who always sing the same songs, play the same card game after meals, or stop at the same deli on weekends. Maybe your grandchildren will remember your one and only cookie recipe, or your beat-up hat. Call those things quirks, call them traditions, call them your signature item; but don't call them bad things. The author of Affluenza says that if we were a truly materialist (vs. consumerist) culture, we would resist buying new old couches and coats, because we're so fond of the ones we have.

For a few of us, choosing to live with less may start with trimming down the artwork. For others, it's cleaning out the basement once and for all. But the key seems to be, not idolizing, but learning to cherish.

Do you want a limited special edition?

Two years ago, I posted a quote from Charlotte Mason on the benefits of owning a cherished, worthwhile collection of something, vs. the continual acquisition of mindless "collectibles." For some of us, a desire to "collect them all!" began with our first commercials for breakfast cereal (with toys), and moved on from there.

Buster Baxter (unwrapping a Christmas gift): Cool, it's CyberCod!
Bitzi: I'm sorry, Buster. We can return it.
Buster: (confused) Huh? Why?
Bitzi: Because you already have that one. See? (holds up a figure that looks similar, but decidedly not the same) I found it in your room right after I bought the other one.
Buster: That's TechnoTrout, Mom. He's very different. He has a speckled belly and he doesn't have CyberCod's kung-fu feet. (He demonstrates.)
Bitzi: Oh, thank goodness!
 (Arthur's Perfect Christmas)

In Goodbye, Things, Fumio Sasaki tells about a short-lived craze in Tokyo when the transit system offered a special anniversary edition pass. The card didn't offer any more benefits than a regular pass, but people still lined up for hours trying to get one. Sasaki decided to "pass" on it.

He also gives this very C.M.-resonant piece of advice: "Discard any possessions that you can't discuss with passion." Obviously, there are exceptions to this sparking-joy idea; many things are more functional than passion-provoking. But those things that we choose to keep around us, that we use to help tell our stories--they should have meaning.  And the worst offenders are things we keep because they make us appear trendy or intellectual or rich or cozily domestic. If we let them go, we might have to admit we're not any of those things. Big ouch.

What if we decided to detach, just a little more, from "collect them all?"

What if...we decided to be comfortably ourselves, and started to see the humourous side of our innocent but humbuggish attempts to "be somebody?"

Because each of us is, already, a limited special edition.

Quote for the day: "The mechanics of unhappiness"

"In the same way that your joy does not equal the price of an item you buy, neither do the functions of that item. A down jacket that costs double the price of the one you already have will not offer double the warmth. Your dissatisfaction continues, and you reach out for something else. You know you'll get used to the next thing and become tired of it as well, but you can't help predicting the future based on your present feelings...In the back of your mind you know that you'll never be satisfied, but you keep thinking that maybe this time the brief sense of happiness you feel will be the real thing. These are the mechanics of unhappiness, and they exist no matter how much you spend, no matter how much you own." ~~ Goodbye, Things: The New Japanese Minimalism, by Fumio Sasaki

R-E-S, C-U-E (Fashion Revolution Week)

Fashion Revolution Week starts next Monday

Recently we were watching the 1990's series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, an episode called "The Quickening." Starfleet travellers landed on a planet where everyone was born with a plague, and would eventually die in agony. Starfleet's Doctor Bashir thought he could easily find a cure for the problem, but his attempts at treatment failed. The people of the planet were angry with him, and he felt humiliated by his powerlessness. Near the end, the doctor's favourite patient died in spite of the new drug he had been giving her; but her baby had absorbed the drug and was born free of the disease. The adults were not cured, but their children could be saved.

This story can be read in many ways. It may be about admitting our own arrogance, and the limits of our knowledge. It is also about compassion, dedication, and hope for a better future. One of the biggest points was that nobody could help those already born with the plague; but someone who cared, and who kept trying, could make a difference for the next generation.

Who cares that much about the people of our planet, especially those who get the least attention? In spite of the annual media blitz around Fashion Revolution Week, disheartening stories continue to surface.

"In the wake of Rana Plaza, which occurred months after a deadly factory fire at Tazreen Fashions killed 112 mostly female garment workers, global outrage spurred several international efforts to prevent deaths and injuries due to fire or structural failures. Safety measures were instituted at more than 1,600 factories. Hundreds of brands and companies signed the five-year, binding Bangladesh Accord on Building and Fire Safety ...

 "In a recent series of Solidarity Center interviews, garment worker-organizers from several national unions applaud the significant safety improvements but warn that employers are backsliding. And workers seeking to improve safety in their factories often face employer intimidation, threats, physical violence, loss of jobs and government-imposed barriers to union registration.*

"They have forgotten the lessons of Rana Plaza," Fashion Revolution blog.

*I know the link is incorrect; that's how it was posted on their blog.

Whose responsibility is it to remember the lessons, and to make sure the rest of us do as well? Factory owners? Big corporations and retailers? Consumers? Media organizations like Fashion Revolution? National and local governments?  Religious groups?  Political activists? The United Nations? The workers themselves? At first we may feel far away from both the scene and the cause of such tragedies. But when we do become informed and want to do...something...we may feel like mice with very little power. Especially if we're just the guy holding the broom.


But there are things even mice can do. Ask questions and talk to people, in person or on social media. Find out "who made your clothes." Do some "haulternative" shopping (that includes non-shopping). Read news sources that seem to care about giving true facts (not propaganda). Give Black Friday shopping sprees a pass. Write letters. Make videos. Donate, or give some volunteer hours, to groups concerned with justice in the garment industry, and with the education and health of women and the families they support.

Can't it be this generation that creates hope?

Minimalism: sometimes it's hard to count on

I've said before that my "second Bible" during our early married life was the 1990's Tightwad Gazette. Amy Dacyczyn wrote about her life as a dedicated yard-saler, stuff-stretcher, dupe-it-yourself-er, and occasional do-without-er. She described her wardrobe at the time as consisting of three pairs of jeans (this year's, last year's, and the year before's), and three pairs of sneakers (ditto).Like Amy, I have a mostly-casual lifestyle, so for a long time, I was pretty happy to follow suit. Or rather, jeans. If it came along, fit more or less, and was cheap enough, I would probably wear it. (I drew the line at mustard and orange.)

A couple of years ago, after a period of too much black stuff, I dumped almost everything and started from scratch. I also noticed the growing trend towards minimalism of all kinds. Japanese. Ecological. Inner-peaceful. What that meant for me was zeroing in on a few clothes I really liked and that fit, rather than trying to deal with my previous thrifted and freebie mishmash.

The funny part was that, once I started looking a little harder at my favourite thrift stores, I kept finding stuff I liked. (Was it all there before? I don't know.) Following the Project 333 tiny-wardrobe plan, plus our move to a smaller space, helped to keep a limit on what was hanging in the closet. But I wasn't sure if I could or should aspire to Courtney Carver's level of non-self-consciousness about clothes. (Been there, done that.) It's possible to say that time spent shopping and figuring out what to wear is, essentially, time wasted, because (Courtney asserts) nobody really notices or cares what you wear. But for me, that negative side of minimalism feels like the equivalent of "nobody notices what you cook" (well, sometimes that's true), or "nobody cares what you say." Why bother?

I find it to be the other way around. I think about and enjoy what I'm wearing, the texture of a corduroy skirt, the shade of a scarf, the way my boots fit. I like the furniture and art that we've arranged in our apartment, the flowered teapot we found on an antiquing trip, my grandfather's little chair, the doily a friend crocheted, Mr. Fixit's electronic works-in-progress spread on the table. I like the poetry books, including Wendell Berry's Sabbath poems that I found for sale along with beeswax candles and essential oils in the "hemp cafe." (I bought the book and a vegan brownie, left the rest.) I like the unexpectedness of late corn on the cob from the farm stand, and the bowl of red grapes that's waiting for dessert tonight.

My conclusion is that sometimes I just like to bother. I am happier bothering. The mistake would be if I counted on clothes, food, or other stuff to fill the empty places. Or if I started keeping score of compliments, or worrying about negative remarks.

And for that reason, I decided two things. First, I pulled out my few extra non-capsule clothes, and added them to the closet where they can be responsible for any bouts of wardrobe indecision I may incur as a result. (I'm not too worried.) Second, I won't be posting a new clothes page for the winter. I feel like I've barely gotten started wearing the fall clothes, and anyway I don't own any others to rotate them with. Snow boots, maybe, but that's it.

So: fewer numbers, less planning, at least for the next few months. Less guilt if I add in a thrifted sweater or two (I could actually use one), or wear a top I thought I wouldn't see for awhile. A little more freedom to bother...so I won't have to bother.

Challenging Quote (and blog post) for the Day

"There’s a big difference between tidying up your home and freeing up your life. Instead of merely sparking some joy within yourself, light a fire in the world." ~~ Joshua Becker, "'Does it Spark Joy?' is the Wrong Decluttering Question"

Some serious talk about minimalism. And what I did in Toronto.

"Consider the trend toward numbers in light of our relationship to God. Metrics are quantitative and not qualitative, so they measure performance, but not relationships. They tell us about the externals of religion and say nothing about the heart...metrics can record the frequency of our church attendance, the regularity of our Bible reading and the exact amount of our tithing, but they can never gauge the genuineness of any of them..." ~~ Os Guinness, Renaissance: The Power of the Gospel However Dark the Times

"Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?" ~~ Isaiah 55:2a, English Standard Version 

I spent yesterday travelling to, around, and from Toronto. The official reason was that I had a ticket to Courtney Carver's Tiny Wardrobe Tour. I also wanted to spend time with relatives I hadn't seen for a long time, hear a lunchtime concert at a church, and maybe do a little sightseeing slash shopping. The logistics of the day all came together well (Google Maps gets you from place to place very succinctly), and the Greyhound bus got me back here before midnight.

But something was bothering me at four in the morning, and it wasn't the falafel plate I had for dinner. I had been looking forward to the Tiny Wardrobe event for a long time, and of course it was nice to hear Courtney in person, with her rack of clothes behind her; so why wasn't the event quite the highlight I had expected? Earlier in the day I heard Beethoven and Mozart played in a church with wonderful acoustics. Maybe it was the "acoustics" of the evening event that made the message feel somewhat unclear. Was it the argument over seating arrangements that broke out in the front row, that seemed to sour the evening a bit? In the afternoon I spent time with family, and maybe I expected to find a similar connection with those who had bought Tiny Wardrobe tickets.Was it that I was tired from the day's travels, so of course it all felt a bit disjointed? Was I just "not feeling it," as my teenager would say?

Yes, people make too much stuff, buy too much stuff, dump too much stuff. This is something we really do need to talk about. In a world plagued with over-consumption, waste, garbage, labour injustice, consumer debt, and false promises of advertising, any message that helps us step away from the system even a little can only be a good thing. But in a month like this past one, when masses of people have lost their homes and possessions to natural disasters, any discussion of choosing to minimize can seem ludicrous. It is true that going through flood, fire or political upheaval may change your relationship with "stuff" (such as being all too aware of its impermanence), but in the short term, survival means getting enough of what you need or can pass on to others equally in need, and not worrying about the global implications of too many towels. (For those of us whose lives seem safe and "normal" for now, we might want to consider the ways that the money we plan to spend on "stuff" could be used to help others in need.)

Courtney Carver, Ann Voskamp, and others continually make the point that the goal isn't to have a simple life, or even a beautiful life, it's to have a life. A meaningful life. A good life. A life centered outside ourselves. Simplifying possessions can be a discipline that encourages more focus, less materialism. Or it can be just a numbers game, even if you pick your own number. It can be the pride of money spent for "that which is not bread," or it can equally be the boasting of money not spent. In either of those cases, the focus is on the wrong thing.

"The difference does not seem to be great; but two streams that rise within a foot of one another may water different countries and fall into different seas, and a broad divergence in practice often arises from what appears to be a small difference in conception..." ~~ Charlotte Mason, School Education 

And what is it that was keeping me from falling back to sleep? Guilt over a few small things I did buy while I was in the city? Worry about not fitting in with somebody else's minimalist program? No...I think I've come to terms with the "problem" that I like having fun with clothes, and scouting thrift shops is one way I do that without hurting our bank account and producing more waste. That's why I keep posting my own Project 333 stories. I have never done a capsule wardrobe exactly "right." But I am learning to use my own talents (such as scrounging) in ways that, maybe, can encourage others.

Maybe it was just an impossible wish that we could spend more time getting to listen to each other's stories. Not judging, or arguing about details, but seeing each other as people who have lives and stuff and needs and questions and ideas. That means relationships. That means time. We need to make more room for both. And to come back to exactly what Courtney says: if any aspect of your stuff (including clothes) is standing in the way of the important things, it's time to make a change.

So maybe the acoustics weren't so bad after all.

Less. More. The right to fry onions.

What more can be said about more vs. less stuff?

I remember a vintage Mad Magazine parody of home renovations, where weekend handyman projects involved turning an extra bathroom into a messy closet, and a knotty pine rec room into an attractive cement-walled basement. Perhaps satires of minimalism (if they don't already exist) will feature trendoids Upsizing, knocking around in Giant Over-sized Houses.

Some people object to the term "minimalism," preferring "intentional" or "conscious" over a word suggesting a cold, unreal sort of asceticism. Others object to hyper-romantic notions that small is necessarily better. Sometimes a family's needs change. A couple I saw in a video had lived in a tiny house for a year, but decided to give it up when they had a baby. They wanted to give her some floor space for crawling and toddling.

One writer complained that cooking caramelized onions for three hours in a tiny apartment created an indelible reek in everything she owned, including her bra. Comments on that story were largely unsympathetic, tending mostly towards "so don't cook onions for three hours." She did make the important point, though, that small-space living isn't always glamourous or fun, and it isn't for everyone.

For those who make a deliberate, conscious choice to live smaller, or with fewer possessions or clothes, does the romance rub off faster than the smell of the onions?

Or is the secret more in adapting? We live in a generous-sized apartment, with an eat-in kitchen and enough floor space for several (hypothetical) crawling babies. I probably wouldn't cook caramelized onions here, although we have baked cabbage rolls without too much olfactory distress. (To be honest, I didn't caramelize onions in our house either.) But we don't let garbage or laundry sit around too long, we wipe down damp things, and we clean the guinea pig's cage fairly often. We do have a kitchen vent fan, and a pretty good cross-draft when the balcony door is open, but why push your luck?

And in the end, we're not talking about onions at all, are we? We're talking about the things we feel entitled to do and have, never mind the consequences to us or those around us. Or to human beings half a world away who pick our coffee beans and sew our t-shirts.

Hey, where did that come from?

Because just as small spaces have inconvenient, less fun limitations, other intentional-conscious-minimalist decisions have their downsides too. If you buy expensive fair-trade organic coffee, you're probably going to drink less of it. If you wear 33 clothing items for three months, you may be fed up with your two or three pairs of shoes long before the season is over.

But you are getting less caffeine, and saving money on shoes. And saving time and energy spent figuring out which shoes to wear. And maybe putting money back into a people-helping coffee business, or the local store that sells it. Does that give you new resolve to stick with it?

You make the choice, you make a change, or at worst, you accept the situation you're in and try to find its good points. Maybe the tiny place where you can't fry onions is allowing you to live in a great city for awhile. Or letting you live on a smaller income. Or keeping you from having to own a lawn mower and a snow blower.  Maybe you have a bigger place, but having a tiny wardrobe or less stuff will allow you to share a smaller room and closet with your husband, and open up a bedroom for a parent, adult offspring, or friend to move in. (My grandparents did that for my aunt and uncle, and their toddler. Years later, the same aunt and uncle used their own basement as a granny flat for my grandparents.)

It's not about the adjectives. It's not about the fun-honeymoon side or the later second-thoughts side of choices. Everything may have advantages and disadvantages. So don't let either the fads or the critics blow away your decisions.

She's an outfit repeater, and why "again" is a good thing

No apologies for wearing the same thing again. When something's a favourite, a hard-wearing, perennial best choice, why run to change it?

If you shop at the same stores or eat at the same pizza place regularly, you become known. If you make great butter tarts, the people at church will want you to bring some to every potluck. If you have a favourite hymn or Scripture or poem that gets you through, each time you use it makes it richer, not staler.

It doesn't mean there's no room in life for new ideas.

Even favourites have to start someplace. But we probably don't need as much "choice" as we think we have. Quotation marks there, because finding good basic things these days is little short of miraculous. And that gives even more power to the idea of keeping something you like, and wearing or using it a lot. Sometimes you even find a new use for it, like the shelves I posted about which have filled multiple needs over the past twenty years, and now hold Mr. Fixit's stereo components. Or the baskets I have scattered around the apartment, some from yard sales, some that were gifts. Or the chest we use as a coffee table, which used to hold "old baby stuff" (for lack of a better description), but now hides all our board and card games. Those home things are all repeaters for us, but we like them and want to keep using them.

Keeping a short rein on clothes isn't just an attempt not to have a "wicked" overstuffed closet, as Anne Ortlund called it (and "wicked," forty years ago, was not a compliment). It's not only about the environment or workplace justice or keeping out of debt. There's something in there for us, too. There's a reason Anne mentioned setting clothes limits in Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman, which is a book mostly focused on spiritual goals and keeping your life on track: it's good for us, not as in eating liver is good (and that's debatable), but as something that can bring more peace and less frustration. In the same way that children focus better when there are fewer toys, it is a good thing to allow ourselves to become less scattered.

And that's why it's okay to repeat repeat repeat repeat.

Wednesday Hodgepodge: Can I have a grass skirt to go?

1. May 17th is National Pack Rat Day. Sidebar-should we be celebrating this? Hmmm...

Are you a pack rat? Even if you're not a full fledged pack rat, most people have one thing or another they struggle to part with. Tell us what's yours.

I grew up very pack-ratty. Maybe that had something to do with moving house a number of times: it was natural to want to hold on to my own stuff. I got stuck in an early idea that if someone gave you a birthday card, you held onto it forever; and that trips meant souvenirs, both for yourself and those back home. Which you also kept forever, unless it was a can of macadamia nuts. Then maybe you kept the can.

Aside from the purely sentimental stuff, hoarding certain things did make sense years ago: finding another copy of the map or part for the toaster might be hard. Better to keep the thing around if it ever had any chance of being passed on or recycled. Cobbling bits and pieces together was morally superior, even if they didn't work as well or look as good as if you had bought new materials. Maybe that's why I got so good at using leftovers. Add to that the Mama Squirrel and Mr. Fixit shared interest in old things and yardsaling (not to mention two years of thrift store volunteering), and we could have ended up with a true packrat's nest. We did donate things often, but we still ended up with quite a lot.

You might think that it was the recent move that impelled a new view of Treehouse stuff, and that's partly true, because we remembered how hard previous moves were, even when we had less to pack. But we've been working on paring down for longer than that. In some ways what smoothed this move was timing: maturing and moved-out Squirrelings who did not insist on keeping childhood belongings; not too much pressure from other relatives to keep what we no longer had room for; reaching a place ourselves where we could say goodbye to the antique desk, the math games, the electric train, the floor polisher.

Like this one

The things we brought along are a mixture of old, middle-aged, and new. The common threads are that we use them, we like them, and we have room for them, as much as possible. I did not know how I was going to make room for my family-heirloom little rocking chair, but we found a place for it in the dining area.

2. What are two things you know you should know how to do, but you don't?

Drive. Cook seafood (never had to, Mr. Fixit can't eat it).

3. Do you crave sugar? Do you add sugar to your coffee and/or tea? Do you use artificial sweeteners or sugar substitutes? When dining out is dessert a given? Are you someone who has slain the sugar dragon, and if so tell us how you did it.

I usually go for sweet rather than salty; but I am happy with a small piece.

4. What's a trend it took a while for you to come round to, but now you can't imagine living without?

I had to think about this one for awhile.

How about...Pinterest? I had a "Moving Stuff" board there long before we found this place, plus tips on organizing small spaces, and also a board for decorating photos. It's funny how many of those pictures did end up influencing our new space (Mr. Fixit had quite a lot to do with it as well).

5. What's a song that reminds you of a specific incident in your life? Please elaborate.

I can't think of just one right now.

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Random thought: today is hot.

Linked from the Wednesday Hodgepodge: Hodgepodge Hoarding, at From This Side of the Pond.

Frugal Finds and Fixes: Moving In Edition

Welcome to the first apartment-sized installment of Frugal Finds and Fixes.

Moving, of itself, is not a frugal thing to do, unless maybe you pack everything into free grocery store boxes (if you can find any) and stuff it all into the back of your car. (Or borrow Grandpa's hauling-stuff trailer, as my parents used to do.) The last time we moved, it was with a station wagon and the help of friends. This time around, we went with a moving company for the furniture and heaviest boxes, which did not save money but did save time, aggravation, and thrown-out backs. Because we had early access to the new place, we did pre-move what we could manage by ourselves.

The frugal part of moving, for us, was taking the opportunity to size down, to sell and donate (and trash) the things we no longer needed, and to make better use of what remained. You've probably all had the experience of moving a somewhat-ignored picture or a piece of furniture to a different spot, and all of a sudden you notice it again? Moving house is like that, only multiplied.

Scaling down does not have to mean bare walls and futons. It doesn't mean having an apartment that looks like nobody lives there.

Sometimes it means big things, like going from three bedrooms to two, and no longer having a rec room and the rest of the basement. Sometimes it means little improvements that accommodate personal needs, like a stepladder in the kitchen.

Or sticking the kitchen scissors on a round fridge magnet. (Only a very strong one will work, though.)

Or finding a home for kitchen clothespins in what used to be a magnetic laundry-room stray-button/coin catcher.

Or resurrecting the grandparents' kitchen table, which had gone to the workshop when we bought the green table which is now in our dining room.

Or putting the guinea pig in the centre of life. (Muffin says the meal service is much improved. He is already tuned in to the sound of the fridge door opening.)

April 24th is Fashion Revolution Day

A problem

The slogan posted on the Fashion Revolution site is "Be curious. Find out. Do something." When we are handed a new piece of information, we can choose to react in different ways. We might be able to blend it into our existing model of how the world works. We can refuse to believe it. Or we might have to shift a paradigm to allow it to make sense. And once we accept an idea, we need to act on it.

Fashion Revolution Day, for the past four years, has marked the anniversary of the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh. Something else happened less than ten days ago, that seems to evoke the same "that's so not fair but what can I do about it?" reaction. That's if you even heard about it on the news.

Sri Lanka Death Toll Rises in Garbage Dump Collapse

An explosion in the dump on Friday afternoon caused a portion of the mound to collapse, sweeping scores of houses off their foundations and burying others, trapping residents inside. Survivors described hearing a loud noise and running outside to see nearby dwellings rushing in their direction on a tide of debris, surrounded by smoke.

A team of geological investigators, who have been gathering evidence at the dump, believe that the explosion occurred when methane naturally produced by decaying waste ignited, Mr. Kodippili said.

Residents of the working-class neighborhoods around the dump had complained for years of reeking water flooding through their narrow lanes, where it collected during the hottest months of the year, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

A similar thing happened last month in Ethiopia. 

Living...and then dying...in a mountain of collapsing garbage sounds like it should be one of Dante's levels of hell. Who's at fault? Who made all that garbage? What combination of reasons forces people to live there? Is that shocking enough to inspire a paradigm shift?

A solution

Did you ever see this movie?

Do you remember the very last scene, as those who were exiled from a toxic, dirty Earth finally returned?



Let's grow some pizza plants.

I'm serious.

Anybody can go buy stuff. Anybody can throw stuff in the trash (and our family has certainly created our own share lately, cleaning out this house). To restore what is broken, we have to think differently. But we also have to start with one small, positive action. Planting a seed. Looking for "less is more." Vlogging about your favourite old piece of clothing instead of buying something new (that's what some people are doing for Fashion Revolution Day).

I don't have a big solution. But I do believe that a lot of small ones add up.


Birds and Vines wall hanging, made in Haiti from a discarded metal oil drum (Ten Thousand Villages)

How to unsquirrel (more moving stuff)

For years, our passion was picking up any acorns that seemed useful. There was lots of room to squirrel them away. Tool acorns. Craft acorns. Lots and lots of little acorns for the Squirrelings.

Over the past while, we've been unsquirreling. And since getting the go-ahead to move, we have put the pedal to the metal on cleaning out the Treehouse. We actually have some spaces now that look like this:

Cupboard that once held homeschool supplies. The shelves are not really falling out, it's just a weird camera angle.

And this:

Cupboard previously filled with board games, Christmas overflow, and extra fabric

Some of our unsquirreled stuff has gone to new homes, via Kijiji, our homeschooling friends, and the thrift store. Some of it, nobody else would seriously want.

The things we still like, want, and have room for are getting packed up:

Even the living room is taking on that "ready to move" look.

The fireplace is not coming with us.

Something to read today: beyond pretty things

Pointing you to A Holy Experience today to read "Go Ahead: Why You Can Give Up On the Goal of a Beautiful Life."