One of the biggest obstacles to becoming a minimalist is summoning the energy and making the time to undo what we’ve done for so many years. Now, I loved the process of decluttering once I did it, the lightness I gained as I finally let things go, and the feeling that the items I was […]
Decluttering to Make Room for What Really Matters
I started decluttering our lives about six years ago. Our home felt light and minimized, with one exception. A finished room in our basement. We used this room for occasional guests and it was the only real storage area in our home. No matter how many times I cleaned that room out, clutter just kept […]
What Running Taught Me About Living
I’ve been a long distance runner for two decades, and I’m currently training for a marathon. I’m not fast, but I love it. I plod out miles, one foot in front of the other, adding race medals to my collection. I recently spent some time with a physiotherapist for some knee pain I was having. […]
Redefining Rich: How Minimalism Leads to a More Meaningful Life
Two year ago this weekend, my mind spun with the concept of what it meant to be rich. I knew the world’s definition well. But striving for that wasn’t exactly working out for me. The more stuff we acquired, the more weighed down I felt. The more I had to clean, to pick up, and […]
Mid-Life Minimizing
Mom often told me, “Cheryl, none of us came here to stay always.” It always bothered me when she said that because I deeply feared losing her and Dad. Now I stand on the other side of that fear becoming reality, and my husband, Kevin, and I are around the same age my parents were […]
Put the Phone Down
I love to take photos. In fact, in college, I studied photography. And yet, there are so many moments I haven’t captured with my camera or my phone. Because I choose to be in the moment, some of the best memories are the ones that aren’t stored on my phone- like all of the firsts […]
Instead of “Does It Spark Joy?”, Ask This Question When Decluttering
If there was such a thing as a decluttering guru, Marie Kondo would be it. Her book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was, in a word, life-changing for many. In fact, I believe it caused a global paradigm shift when it came to our relationship with our stuff. Kondo encouraged us to take everything […]
What Can the Pandemic Teach us About Travel?
If there’s anything disenchanting about travel it’s people’s facial expressions at airports. Nonchalant and bored, they carry neck pillows and reusable water bottles, answer emails on slick tablets, and Facetime in the middle of Heathrow as comfortably as in their living room. They have done this before. They’re frequent flyers with air miles and apps […]
Live Looking Forward
“Pedal pedal pedal!” my dad shouted to me as he let go of the back of my banana seat and gave me a big thrust forward. My dad taught me to ride a beautiful yellow bicycle with white streamers over 40 years ago, and I remember it as if it were yesterday. It was […]
Let’s Think of Future Us
“Let’s think of future us” is a phrase I introduced to my kids a while ago. After coming in from playing outside in the snow I watched them fling their wet stuff everywhere, leaving their boots and coats in various places. Having been through this before I know how this is going to end. When […]