What does minimalism mean for us

We are one adult and two children living in an 1100 square foot home.  It's not big by today's standards but it's not tiny either.  Because I got to make some changes to the layout of our home when we rebuilt after the fire, our home is now perfect for us.  The space is much more user-friendly than before and there is really no wasted space in our home.  We could get by with less space quite easily but it doesn't make financial sense for us to sell this house and find a smaller one.  It also doesn't make emotional sense for the girls, who have already been through so much and need stability right now.

We currently don't need to do a lot of downsizing in stuff either.  One thing with a fire like ours is that you lose everything.  We saved a few very special outfits for each girl, outfits bought in other countries with special people.  Outfits that can't be replaced here.  The little girl has one stuffed animal and one blanket from before the fire.  The big girl has a wax hand made the weekend before the fire.  I saved a desk my grandfather built when my mother was little and my childhood teddy bear. 

As we replaced stuff, I tried to be very conscious about what we were getting.  I got kitchen stuff that we'll actually use. I've bought some clothes for me but the only clothes I've bought for the girls are school uniforms and a couple of fun things.  We have the necessary furniture, although I haven't looked for real dining chairs yet and we're still using my parents' folding chairs.

The biggest issue with stuff is the little girl.  She attaches tremendous value to every. single. object!  She rarely agrees to throw anything away because it's all too special.  While I haven't bought her many toys, she's been given several stuffed animals.  She saves school papers and kids' menus and everything else.  It is a constant battle to keep her stuff under control. 

The big girl has seen the light as far as having enough but not too much.  She struggles to keep organized and realizes how important not having unnecessary items are in her quest to keep a neat room. 

I don't want to buy stuff for me unless I have to.  I'd rather not spend the money or have to figure out what to do with that item.

So, ultimately, for our family, I don't see minimalism as moving into a tiny house or scaling down possessions to fit in the back of my car.  For us, it means having only what we need...no more and no less.  Now if we can just get the little girl to see how much less she could live with.

2014 in review

 The significant moments of our year in pictures...

January 6

A dumpster and port-a-potty in front of our house...let the demo begin

January 8

It doesn't take long to gut a house...too bad rebuilding isn't so fast

January 25

Checking out progress on the house on a nice day led to some time on the trampoline

February 15

My mom, the little girl, and I took a shopping trip to Ikea to get ideas for the new house

March 29

Bathroom tile is in

April 8

Kitchen cabinets are in...

...and the pantry is built and ready to be installed

April 30

Paint...

...doors...

...and a sunroom ceiling!!!

May 1
Kitchen drawers (I LOVE my corner drawers!!!)

May 7
Disaster #2
A paint fume explosion in the kitchen
Blew out the back window...

...and a hole in the dining room ceiling

(It also cracked some rafters and did some other damage.)

May 10

We rescued a turtle off a busy street.  The girls named her Sparkle Betty and we set her free where she could roam without getting in the street.

June 29

We took a roadtrip of a lifetime with my parents

Big girl got to check off a bucket list item

We saw this too

And this

And Old Faithful, checking off one of my bucket list items

Dinosaur National Monument was almost the end of our road trip sight-seeing

July 12

We moved in!!!

July 14

The first artwork was hung

July 19
Thrilled to have been reunited with our sweet Izzy, who stayed with a friend during the rebuild (we also had my grandmother's dog, Molly, but we lost her in May)

September 6
This sweet little boy joined our family and made himself right at home on my bed.
His name is Romeo and he lives up to his name as a heart stealer.

October 26
Great Pumpkin Sunday...the big girl in costume

November 30
We decorated for Christmas.  Romeo still chews, hence no ornaments on the lower part of the tree.

December 22
The big girl's gingerbread house (an annual tradition with Nana)

December 25
The big girl folded the napkins for dinner...

...and the little girl demolished her gingerbread house to eat the candy

There were other good moments that would have been included if I had pictures that didn't include the girls' faces.

All in all, it was not a terrible year.  It wasn't a great one.  It had some of the hardest moments I've been through, although not the hardest and it could have been much worse.  Nonetheless, I'm glad to close the door on a year dominated by the fallout of fire.  Here's hoping for a much calmer and smoother 2015.  So far, we're starting off right.

2015

We made it.  2014 was a long and sometimes difficult year.  Still, we made it through and are now relaxing away the first day of 2015.   I like new beginnings.  We had a new beginning in July when we came home but now we get a bigger one...starting the first new year in our rebuilt home.

Unfortunately, procrastination is my BFF and I still have A LOT of paperwork to do related to the fire.  I'm determined to get it done as soon as possible because I need the weight of all of it off my shoulders and mind.

I'm not one to make new years resolutions because I never keep them.  However, I do like to make goals.

My goals for the year include the following...

1. Finish all paperwork related to the fire by the end of February.
2. Get back to a strict budget.
3. Continue to help the little girl on her journey to emotional peace.
4. Support the big girl to continue the success she's achieved in the last part of 2014.
5. Figure out a way to regularly incorporate exercise into my daily routine (I can do it for short times before the little girl loses it do to such rushed and late evenings it creates for her).
6. Start a veggie garden and grow some of our own food.

I would also like to blog more regularly, which seems to be an ongoing, unmet goal.  For now, I'm setting the goal at once a week.  My goal for the blog will be to document our (my) journey to maintain a life of only what we need.  That is a challenge while living with a young hoarder but we'll do our best.  I will also chronicle just a little of our day-to-day lives to have a record for the girls.

Happy 2015 and wishing for a peaceful, healing, and healthy year for all!!!

Minimalism and money

Since we had the fire, I've had to buy some things...new underwear and socks, a new washer and drier, etc.  Still, I haven't bought a lot.  We were lucky enough to have enough kitchen supplies and furniture donated or loaned to us that we haven't needed to buy much for the rental.  Other than the new underwear and socks the night of the fire, I also haven't bought the girls any clothes or shoes related to the fire (that doesn't count the new riding boots I got the little girl...that was not because her old ones were fire damaged.  They were just too small.)  I have bought myself a few new clothing items but not many.

Anyway, since I started contributing to the retirement plan at work and funding a separate Roth, saving extra money has been hard with all the other necesities of daily life.

My motivation for not shopping now is that I really want to get by with the bare necessities until we move back home.  I want the girls to learn how to live with less stuff.  I want to have less stuff to clean and organize.  Plus, we don't have storage pieces of furniture...at least not much...nothing like we were used to having.

The amount of time spent cleaning and organizing while still having a neat house is tremendously decreased from our prefire life.  There are some things laying around because we don't have book shelves to put them on but our house doesn't look like a tornado hit.

Another benefit of not buying...extra money.  I get paid every two weeks.  Two weeks ago, I had $400 left over from my previous paycheck.  Yesterday was payday again and I had $300 left over.  That was after some extra eating out, a trip to the Ethiopian restaurant an hour and a half away, and buying myself a new fitbit for $140.  Had I been better about the food, I would have had lots more left over.

There are a lot of easier ways to achieve a more minimalist lifestyle.  However, since this one has been forced upon us, I'm going to enjoy the side benefits.

Progress

My mom and I went to the house yesterday after I decided to get the desk out of the garage that I'd bought for the little girl.  She was thrilled by the way.  I decided to get it because she's cried about it a few times and she's lost so much already.  I'm not sure if it will need to go to restoration or not since the garage is not as bad as the rest of the house.

We also go a metal tub out of the garage and then took a look around the inside.  We ended up getting the quilt my uncle and then great grandmother had had and some place mats that my gran wove.  There was also a box of genealogy research and the big girl's kindergarten year book that I picked up too.

There's a porta-potty in front of the house now and the dumpster is supposed to come tomorrow.  I'm not sure if that will happen now with the weather (we woke up to snow) but at least it should come later this week if not tomorrow.

It was my last time, I think, seeing the house before demo starts.  It's still so crazy to look at.  I mean, I know it happened but when I walk into the house, it's like holy f!@#$%g s^&t! I can't believe this happened to us.

My mom and I talked about some remodeling stuff yesterday and then I looked at pinterest way to long into the night last night before I finally fell asleep to dreams of kitchen cabinets all night long.

At least the demo's getting ready to start!

Thoughts on 2013 and 2014

The best part of 2013

• Veggiemom - Seeing the big girl learn to love school again after a very difficult 2012-2013 school year and seeing the little girl learn to walk into school on her own
• The big girl - A trip to Dallas and Great Wolf Lodge
• The little girl - Great Wolf Lodge and a post-thanksgiving trip with Nana and Granny where she got to make a "wax hand"

The worst part of 2013

• The fire!!!

Goals/hopes/plans for 2014

• Veggiemom - 
• Get our home rebuilt and be wise about money in the process
• Exercise at least 4 times per week (I'd started doing this a couple of weeks before the fire but haven't since then)
• Blog about this transition
• Maintain our current minimalist lifestyle
• A pipedream...to have enough insurance money leftover to pay off our car

• The big girl -
• Have 1st babysitting job
• Get our house back
• Start playing more games together as a family
• More family activities in general
• Be really nice to enemies
• Get more info on first dad
• Sew more...or a lot!

• The little girl
• See first families, especially first dad
• Get more toys and have fun
• Get a prettier dress
• Learn to canter jumps

(Can you tell who makes it the hardest to maintain a minimalist lifestyle???)

We're spending this New Years Eve at home together.  We had a yummy dinner with sparkling cider.  We had ice cream.  We've watched movies.  We discussed the things listed above.  We'll probably go to bed long before midnight and hopefully we'll be in the mood to go see Frozen tomorrow.

As the big girl said, this house will never be home but at least we're getting settled into a new normal.

A few pics

Our melted Christmas tree with most of the ornaments gone...they must have vaporized because they weren't on the floor...they are just gone

The walls used to be lemon yellow but now they're all soot-covered

What was the thermostat with the drywall all charred

The interior pain of the double pain kitchen window broke due to the heat

Charred living room contents thrown out the window by the firemen...I guess they do this to clear the room of more flammable stuff

Our back porch...the green and yellow spots on the floor are the plastic Adirondack chairs that melted

What is forced minimalism

Forced minimalism is what happens when you have a house fire and lose almost everything in the span of less than an hour.

That's what happened to us on December 7, 2013.  No worries...we're all okay.  The three people and two dogs made it out of the burning house.  The only life lost, as a certain kiddo won't let me forget was our beta fish, Prancer.

The whole thing is still pretty surreal.  Sometimes this new life is starting to seem almost normal and other times I think, holy shit!  I can't believe that happened to us.  Losing everything in a fire happens to other people, not to us.  Except it did.  Wow!

The nitty gritty details...
It had snowed and the roads were still icy.  After spending the morning cleaning house so we could decorate for Christmas, the girls had spent some time jumping on the trampoline in the snow.  I'd turned the fireplace on so they could warm up in front of it when they came in.  (A backstory...my parents' neighbors had a chimney fire in early November so I had a chimney sweep out the day before Thanksgiving just to check things out before I turned on the fireplace for the first time this year.  Everything looked fine with the fireplace.)  Anyway, after the girls came in and warmed up, we started decorating the Christmas tree.  The tree was almost done when I turned and looked into the living room.  There was a layer of smoke across the room at the level of the mantel.  I ran over and turned off the fireplace, opened the door, and turned on the fan to clear the smoke.  At that time, I thought it was just smoke building up from the fire place.  Then more smoke kept coming and coming.  That's when I realized it was something more.  The girls and I grabbed the dogs and ran out through the garage to get leashes on the dogs.  Molly bolted to the back yard before I could leash her so as soon as I finished calling 911 (which took me several tries because I couldn't remember how to unlock my phone and make a call), I sent the girls all the way out to the yard and went to the back yard to find Molly.  Fortunately, that was quick and we went to meet the girls and head across the street to wait for the fire truck.  While I was getting Molly, I had the big girl call my parents and tell them what was going on.  My dad said when he answered the phone, the big girl said very deadpan, "mom told me to call you and tell you the house is burning."  The way she said it, he couldn't tell how bad it was or if we needed him to come.  We did!!!  Sometime before the fire truck showed up, the house flashed.  The big girl said she saw it (we left the door open as we ran out).  I didn't see that but I did see flames start billowing out the back porch.  Neighbors started showing up and after what seemed like forever (although I think it was really just a couple of minutes) the fire department arrived and got to work.  The rest was kind of a blur of talking to the firemen about what happened and my dad coming and taking the girls to their house before coming back to wait with me.

I assumed the fire was from the chimney because we had the fire going but the fire inspector said it was really from an outlet just down the wall from the chimney.  Two days later, the origin and cause investigator for the insurance company said the same thing.  Apparently, when that outlet was put in (sometime before I bought the house), when they pushed the wire though the floor, the insulation on the wire was torn so it was just a ticking time bomb all that time.  At least it picked a time when we were all awake and together to go off.  In other circumstances, it could have been much, much worse.

Our house was declared a total loss.  I've sent a few things to restoration...a desk my grandfather made when my mom was a little girl, a case he made for my childhood teddy bear and my teddy bear, my great grandmother's old singer sewing machine, and a few special outfits for the girls.  Otherwise, everything will be trashed.  We are starting from scratch.

The night of the fire, after we got to my parents, we all went to Target and got some new underwear and socks, a pair of jeans and a couple of new tshirts, and a pair of pajamas each.  Talk about minimalism!

Since then, we've receive a lot of clothing donations.  We've kept what the girls like and what fits and the rest have been passed on to other fire victims via a friend.

Besides clothing, someone basically furnished our house as he was moving out of his apartment, giving us a couch, desk, tv stand, and kitchen stuff.  Another person gave us a king size mattress and box springs while our landlord is loaning us a twin bed and bedding.  We've had to buy almost nothing.  It's been truly amazing. 

Of course, the little girl wants to replace every single thing right now.  And she has been given several stuffed animals.  However, the big girl and I have talked about my goals for our life in our rental and our life when we move back home.  I hope to maintain a minimalist life.  I'm hoping to limit our purchases while in the rental so we have only clothing and such to move when the time comes and then limit the purchases for our home to the things we really need and love.  The big girl has always complained about having too much stuff to clean and organize so I really want to prevent that.

I'm hoping that while we're here in the rental with so few things, we can all develop some good habits about picking up after ourselves on a regular basis.  And really, when you have nothing, cleaning up goes really, really fast!  It's kind of awesome.

So what's the purpose of this blog?  To chronicle the next 6ish months as we demo and rebuild our home and return to normal while continuing the minimalist lifestyle that has been force upon us.