Day 3: What Now?

Panda bears,

The euphoria of Day 1 & 2 are ebbing away. Now the tyre really hits the gravel.

What now? What should I tell you about now?

Maybe this:

My lover has been sick this week, leaving me to do most of the parenting & keeping us alive tasks. It’s at times like this I realise just how much our load is shared, and how shit I am at most daily household activities.

Case in point: my kids have had a gold star run of never being late to school this whole year. This is all due to Chris’ military timing and precision. Me? I am late the very first day I have to do school run by myself. I careen around like a sloppy badger with poor executive functioning.

Also: after dropping them off at school today, I suddenly realised I hadn’t packed any lunchboxes for them. I never have to think about this! Chris takes care of all of this! Fuck! What do I do? I question Chris when I get home. Luckily, he’d felt well long enough last night to cook pasta for their lunches, and it appears my 10 year old did indeed pack her and her little sister’s lunch this morning. Thank FUCK someone has their shit together, because it’s clearly NOT ME.

I know a lot of women struggle with having to bear most of the mental load of parenting & housework. And I definitely feel like I do a lot of organising schedules, filling out forms & tidying shit… but as soon as Chris isn’t Chris-ing, it’s prettttttty easy to see where the holes are.

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I’ve been decluttering extensively, inspired by:

1. My mental overwhelm
2. The bushfires.

Getting evacuated from a bushfire last year was really eye-opening for me on a few different fronts.

Firstly: we would have been able to live indefinitely on the handful of clothes we evacuated with. We had three sets of clothes each, and it was easy as shit to manage them. We rotated them and rinsed them and we didn’t need anything more. It made me think about what clothes I’d take if I was travelling, and how I could live that lifestyle longer term.

Secondly: my husband joked when we got evacuated that he didn’t mind if we lost anything to the fires, he’d been overwhelmed and meaning to declutter anyway. And I totally felt the same way. It felt good to be free of our stuff momentarily.

Thirdly: we were very lucky to be able to stay in a friend’s house & a cousin’s holiday rental. And we were amazed at how little clutter they had, and how their houses functioned so much better than ours.

So it’s been a slow process, but it’s definitely making a difference. Anything we do let go of goes to our local charity shop who are thrilled to get donations.

I’ve been researching about decluttering to keep me motivated as well. I’ve been resisting decluttering because I’m a maximalist creative clutterbug, but it’s finally time for me.

I like The Minimal Mom‘s philosophy:

The more stuff you have, the more things you have to manage. All of it is inventory that you are going to have to organise, pick up and keep tidy forever!

I also resisted reading Marie Kondo’s book, but a few weeks ago I read the MANGA GRAPHIC NOVEL version of her book and it was excellent. Goddaaaaaamn I love me a graphic novel!

I don’t think I’ll ever be a real minimalist, but if I can get shit to manageable that will be bonza. Have a house that is a little more pile-free, ya know?

I’ve also been researching having more of a “capsule wardrobe” – about 5 outfits I wear out and about on a daily basis (and some sloppy home clothes too). It helps me think about a time when we will get to travel again, and what I’d wear when walking down the streets of Florence, ya know?

Minimal Mom’s video about her wardrobe was useful, as was Young House Love’s blog post about Sherry’s minimal wardrobe.

I’ve been going through my clothes to work out what I want to wear on a daily basis, and what needs to be let go of. I’ve still got t-shirts I’ve been wearing for 15 years that are falling apart, and I wear a lot of my husband’s hand-me-downs as well. I just don’t tend to give muuuuch of a fuck about clothes! Still – I want to get it to a point where it feels effortless to manage my clothes… and to wear stuff I love wearing everyday. It feels like a more sustainable, environmentally-conscious model rather than having heaps of clothes.

At this stage, my uniform looks like comfy printed t-shirts with colourful, soft hippy pants. We will see how it evolves!

Other things of note:

• I’ve been meaning to share this with you for a while, but this video clip by Zoe Boekbinder is beautiful.
• Tony Hseih, former Zappo’s CEO, died in a fire a few days ago at the age of 46. My heart feels tender about it. I loved his incredible business book Delivering Happiness, and thought he seemed a wise, quirky, kind-hearted visionary.

Righto!

We did this! Day 3! HIGH FIVE MYSELF!

Tomorrow is the last day of school, and is jam-packed with performances & driving. No idea how/if I’ll manage writing then.

Either way: ONWARDS!

Again: if you want to get emails of my daily writings, just plop your namesies & email addresskies in here:

Now… time to get some work done before school pickup!

Big love,
Leonie