One Pair of Pants

For the past month I have been suffering from an allergic reaction which caused me to break out in a nice mass of hives. In turn, the medication I was taking for the hives caused my immunity system to go down the tubes and I caught a nice cold. My sense of style has gone out the window and I've only been interested in being as comfortable as possible. So for 30 days I've been wearing the same pair of pants...and no one seems to have noticed.

The chosen pants are a pair of dark gray yoga pants from The Girls which are super soft, comfortable and non-wrinkling (with tummy control!). They don't show dirt and I only wash them every few days. In short, the ideal pair of pants.

I really thought that wearing the same pants every day would cause the people at my work to question either my sense of style or my lack of money, but no one mentioned a thing. It seemed that as long as I varied my shirt selection no one would notice. These type of pants would be just what I would choose if I were to attempt the Six Items or Less challenge or the Uniform Project which forces you to really scrutinize what items in your wardrobe can benefit your life the most.

Would you be able to live your daily life in just one pair of pants?

Clothes Diet: Jewelry

I am currently in the the third month of my 2013 clothes buying diet and I'm in the process of documenting the items of clothing and jewelry that are getting me through this year. I will be writing a small ebook about my year of not buying clothes, but throughout the year I will be writing a few posts on the actual process. A couple Saturdays ago, I decided to go through my jewelry box and document what I actually have. I don't have a lot of jewelry and most of it has been given to me or I've purchased items from places I've visited around the world, but it's a good, small place to start.

 

I purchased this necklace at Target for a holiday party. It's cool, but I don't know if I will keep it.

 

This is one of my favorite necklaces. It's a beautiful amber teardrop from Copenhagen.

 

I made this necklace from some turquoise and jasper beads.

 

My earrings and rings sit in a small pottery bowl from the Oregon Coast.

 

My typical, every day earrings.

 

More "business-y" earrings.

 

Some more amber from Denmark.

 

An asymmetrical ring from Denmark.

 

The left ring was made in Thailand and I got the wood ring on Easter Island.

 

My watches: a waterproof New Balance watch for traveling and a Skagen watch.

 

The necklace is a rain tree seed that I picked up in Fiji and the wood bracelet is from a local vintage shop.

 

Another vintage shop necklace.

 

A necklace from Denmark with a Viking ship and a fish on an old coin.

 

A few bracelets given to me by friends.

 

My name in Viking runes and a few shells I've picked up from various tropical islands.

 

A shell necklace I picked up on Easter Island.

 

The top earrings were a gift from my mother and the bottom earrings I purchased from New Tribe Textiles on Etsy.

 

A set of  three beaded necklaces I received as a gift at Burning Man 2012.

Decluttering the Pantry in 30 Minutes

We have a small pantry in a hallway that holds canned food, bottles, jars and a few bread mixes. It's a little annoying that we always have to crouch down to find anything in the pantry, but it's even more annoying when the pantry is a mess like it has been for the past few years.

Before decluttering

During decluttering

After decluttering

I took 30 minutes one weekend to go through the entire pantry, get rid of a few items, give some food away and even make lunch that day with a few items. Now it's clean and organized by type of food and how often we need an item.

Now what do I do with canned Malaysian rambutan fruit?

Decluttering the Junk Drawer

I don't care how clean or organized your home is...everyone has a junk drawer. Mine happens to be in a small, cherry hallway table that I've had since college. It's a small drawer, but is the catchall for everything that doesn't have a home. So I finally decided to spend an hour on Saturday morning cleaning out this last bastion of disorganization.

 This drawer was filled with random objects like a plastic bag of seeds for my beloved vegetable garden, some small bags of wasp attractant for our wasp traps, incense sticks, a phone answering machine manual, scissors, some light bulbs for outdoor lights, double sided tape, a few tapers, watch batteries, key tags, a flashlight, some cat hairball medicine and a cat hair brush.

Okay, after writing that, I'm starting to laugh. What a random mess!

So the cleaning process was:

1. Dump all the items out and sort them into KEEP and TOSS piles.
2. Put all the smaller items (batteries, seeds) into their own baggies to stop them from rolling around.
3. Keep like with like: the candles are grouped together as well as the pet-related items.
4. Remove as much packaging as possible so that items are easier to get to.
5. Move some items to other locations: the key tags and the wasp attractant went out to the garage and a pair of scissors went into my office.

I then cleaned the drawer with a damp rag and put all the items* I was keeping back into the drawer. The goal was to keep it all in one layer, but as you can see from the photo, the seeds just got placed on top. Oh well, it's almost spring anyway.



* One thing I had a hard time with was my dog's old collar. She passed away about two years ago and I've not had the heart to throw out her collar. I suppose I could give it to a friend's dog, or the humane shelter, but for now, I just need to hang on to it.

A Minimalist Haircut

I refuse to spend more than 5 minutes on my hair in the morning. A quick wash and condition, towel dry and comb and maybe some styling cream and that's all I want to commit to. However, what I want now is to really minimize my hair routine by cutting it all off.

Currently I have the kind of hair that many of my friends say they would kill for. It's naturally blonde and naturally curly and pretty fine. It air dries quickly with just some scrunching and my friend Nancy calls it the "best beach hair." I just wish I was always on the beach. But with curly hair comes frizziness and with blonde hair comes brassiness. Every strand goes flying or gets tangled in the slightest breeze and I usually end up putting it up in a bun or a ponytail just to get it out of my face.

About 12-13 years ago I got so tired of it that I cut it all off and ended up looking a lot like Mia Farrow with her signature pixie cut. I loved the feel of it and after most people got over the shock of seeing my long curls gone, I think they liked it too. However, with such short hair, I had to get it cut every month and that cost added up.

I am in the mood again to hack it off and have a really minimal cut ala Charlize Theron or Emma Watson. I would be curious to hear from you about how you feel about your own hair and how you minimize your hair frustrations.

Tool Shed Decluttering

We have a small pump house/tool shed in our yard that has a tendency to become a catchall for all our summer projects and items. I decided this fall to clean it from top to bottom and re-organize all the tools and equipment in it. The larger items, like the lawn mower and edger seemed to take up most of the space, but once I found room for everything else, those two items fit in just fine. The key was to utilize the wall space as much as possible with tool racks, a shelf for our above ground pool items and strong hooks for the edger. An old kitchen cabinet works great for smaller tools and items.

BEFORE

 

 

AFTER

 

 

 

 

Decluttering Under the Stairs Storage

In my mother's house is a strange, but rather large cabinet under the stairs. For years it has been neglected and random items like Halloween decorations, Christmas wrapping paper and art projects have been relegated to this dark hole. It's also been the place where my husband likes to store his various beers. There was never any shelving built in the space, so over time it has become cluttered and items are just piled on top of each other. With the holidays coming up, I thought last weekend would be a good time to clean out and organize the cabinet. That meant putting on knee pads and climbing into the dark, cobwebby space. Fun.

I purchased a few plastic shelving packages from Home Depot and began to clean and toss out what was not being used. You can see below what the space used to look like. Don't ask what was going to be done with that huge gourd in the corner.

Below you can see what the space looked like after I tackled it. Since I got rid of so much junk and old boxes, I did not have to utilize the space in the very back of the cabinet. In addition, it only took me about one hour to clean out the space and reorganize it. My cabinet under the stairs project is a good example of what can be accomplished in an afternoon with only about $60 worth of shelving and some knee pads.

 

 Photos by Christina Nellemann