Book Review: The More of Less

I have been feeling the weight of clutter recently in a big way.  The fact that we are getting ready to welcome our fourth baby in our home in the next few weeks might have something to do with it - but I have regularly found myself feeling overwhelmed and desperate when I see the amount of stuff we have accumulated over the past eight years of marriage and six years of being parents.  It's often, that my husband and I literally ask each other aloud, 'When did we get all this stuff?!'  In an effort to jump start my motivation to clear.all.the.clutter, I recently read The More of Less by Joshua Becker, and I am pleased to say, the book has definitely inspired me to work towards minimalism in our own life.

I was grateful right from the start that Becker promotes minimalism as 'the removal of things that distract us from the things we most value.'  It's not a removal of everything and living on the bare minimum - but unique to each of us and being able to live the life we most cherish by not holding on to things (or buying more things) that take away our time, space, and energy.

I especially appreciated the chapter on Troubleshooting, including suggestions on how to look at the areas of our personal belongings that in Becker's experience has been the most difficult for people to minimize - including two of my weaknesses: books and keepsakes.  Becker mentioned how his wife initially struggled with minimizing the box of keepsakes she inherited after the passing of her grandmother and I found myself nodding my head.  But then this explanation felt like such a light bulb moment, "We kept only the best - items with which to remember former times and beloved people.  Then, instead of keeping those special pieces in boxes , we found places for them in our home where we could see them....In keeping fewer of Grandma Irene's things, we have brought greater value to her memory." 

Becker covers a range of topics and reflections on how to make minimalism work for your specific life.  He offers many examples of people from all walks of life and from various stages of life and how minimalism looks for them - and how it has offered them a lease on life in which they can live out their greatest potential.  Becker even tackled the tricky situation in which only one member of the family is sold on living minimally, which felt like it was written directly for me.  My husband is interested in the idea, but is much less of a go-getter attitude than I am at actually acting on that idea. Becker gave specific suggestions for moving forward in minimalism with a partner and kids of varying ages that I found helpful and direct.

The book is laid out in a way that is really manageable for small, meaningful little bites of information and as a busy mom of three little ones, it made it easy for me to read throughout the day without losing momentum every time an interruption came up.   I liked the fact that it didn't feel like there was any superfluous fluff in the book, it reads almost like a presentation, where only the most important and blunt information has made it into the book.

As someone who is at the beginning stages of trying to living minimally, Becker's book truly felt like a useful tool in first understanding the importance in removing unnecessary items from my life, but also provided concrete steps and suggestions for moving forward.  I'm not only inspired to live minimally, but I feel like I have a plan now too after reading The More of Less.


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I received this book from Blogging for Books, but all opinions are my own. 

Around Here Fifteen: 04/08-04/14

A glimpse into what it is like to live in our home just this minute.

 

Intentional Hours Outside:  68 hours (out of 1000)

finally.  sunshine.  Even though it has only slowly crept into warmer weather this week, the sunshine alone has lifted my spirits quite a bit.  We added another 9 hours to our count this week! We had a warmish rainy day this week which inspired our muddle jumping in bathing suits one afternoon.  And we spent some time running bases at the baseball fields and cheering for Grey at his first machine pitch baseball game that was on Tuesday night (...we got his schedule this week, and it appears picnic-style dinner at the baseball field will be our new standard from now until early June.  I was almost kind of giddy copying the schedule into my planner and trying to imagine at one point in the season our little Studerbaby4 will be born!)

Reading and finishing (!) Better than Before by Gretchen Rubin and also finishing The More of Less by Joshua Becker this week!  Whoa, two books done in one week feels weirdly satisfying.  We are deciding our next Book Club book and I will be announcing it later today in our facebook group!  I also dove into The Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv and that coupled with my goal of 1000 hours outside has me majorly inspired and feeling passionate about fresh air and wide open spaces.  

Celebrating our six year old boy with lunch at his school on Friday afternoon, then a soccer party later that evening - complete with his tradition (second year running!) of dunking his own face in his cake.  He had a blast and it was so wonderful to spend the evening with our home filled with friends and family and kids running everyone shouting joyfully.  (I swear, it felt like it was our LOUDEST party to date!) 

Clearing some major clutter in the kids' toy room which has been such a burden on my soul.  A few months ago, I bagged everything up and literally just threw it in the toy room and blocked the entrance.  And since then, the kids have requested almost no toys (!) There are some things that I have re-introduced back with wild success (baby dolls and barbies...Grey literally only plays with sports equipment).  So this week, Gemmi was a huge help going through all the bags, separating what stays, what gets trashed, and what gets donated.  We ended up with three big donation collections, two garbage bags filled with broken/worn out toys, and organized the rest for what will stay and be kept in to-be-built built-ins for the room.  

Volunteering in Grey's classroom twice in one week!  I was the 'mystery reader' on Wednesday and went in to do a read aloud (we read How I Became a Pirate which was gifted to us by my sweet friend Shelly!  The class loved it - thank you!!) and then again yesterday to help create the students' painted Earth Day shirts.  I even got to have lunch with Greyson and his class yesterday after the shirt painting and it was so nice to get in some one-on-one time with him and to chat with his friends. 

Feeling so proud of my baby sister Tasha (always, but especially this week) as so many inspiring organizations gathered at Point Park for the Little Red Mailbox ribbon cutting ceremony.  Tasha discovered the original LRMB in Kill Devil Hills, NC and got in touch with Sue Goodrich, the creator, and the two of them have been working together for the past six months to have the second LRMB location be our hometown of Johnstown, PA!  The mailbox and the journal inside stand as a place for hope, love, and reflections to share with the community and any visitors.  #proudbigsis 

Loving the time we got to spend with aunts and uncles this week!  There was the birthday party that lasted into the night with Uncle Jonny, Ninna, Aunt Uch, and Kevin.  Then we had surprise afternoon visits with Aunt Uch, Kevin, and Uncle Juice on Wednesday night where they agreed to play high energy games like helicopter, trampoline jumping, and soccer to the kids' sheer delight.  And then we got to see Aunt Kitty yesterday at the Little Red Mailbox event.  There is certainly something special about aunts & uncles and I always feel overcome with blessings when I see how happy they make our kids.

Donating maternity clothes, baby hand-me-downs, and purchased diapers & bath supplies to our local YWCA this week for our April task for our 12 Months of Kindness project.  I was inspired by a passage from the More of Less book (full book review coming next week!) that said, 'we realized that for years we had let some items that were desperately needed by others gather dust in our closets or basement.  And for what? Just in case our supply...suddenly proved to be inadequate?'  It took all of one minute to glance in my closet to see two huge tubs of maternity clothes that I have stockpiled (from all seasons, lots of sizes and styles, and most which I don't wear) and realize that they would be the perfect addition to our April Kindness, which initially I was just going to donate the diapers & bath supplies.  Between my maternity clothes clean-out, and the toy room organization - we were able to drop off about 8 bags and one big box worth of items that will find a home where they are actually being used!

Calling it early to bed almost everyday this week on account of exhaustion and lower back pain.  Gemmi and I even hopped into bed last night around 7:30p, sipped hot cocoa and she read some books to her future baby brother until we both drifted off to sleep around 8p.  Too bad for the reason for early bedtime but yay for the extra snoozing and the happier mornings when I've been able to get up and drink that first sip of warmth while the rest of the house still sleeps.  These days are numbered big time (32 weeks pregnant as of this week!) and so I'm kind of cherishing this time to be a party pooper at night and the lone early bird each morning.  

Making these blueberry muffins on Thursday to accompany our girls to our cousin Tausha's house as she watched them for me in the morning so I could volunteer in Grey's class.  They were quick, easy, and delicious - and I'm so glad that my sweet friend (and cousin) Heather taught me that kind gesture of dropping off breakfast or dinner when you have a family or friend babysit in a pinch.  She always does that when we get to have a playdate with our cousin Caleb and it is so thoughtful and appreciated (thanks Heather for always inspiring me towards kindness!)  We finished off this chicken, green bean, and potato bake in one night (no leftovers!) and the kids were saying, 'make this all day, Mum!' 

my sixth momiversary

I haven't ever been able to get past the birthday song for one of my babies without a lump in my throat and missing a few words as I try to choke back the urge to cry.  Their birthdays always feel like a moment of gratitude and pride and disbelief.  These babies of ours are impossibly growing, even when the days feel so long and exhausting...and yet, somehow there we all are again, huddled around our birthday kid singing while they beam with a wide smile above the candlelight.

But Greyson's birthday always has me the weepiest.  Simply because his birthday is also the anniversary of the day I became a mom.

One of my favorite bloggers Lindsay Mead once wrote that motherhood is 'the prism through which all of life is seen'.  I've reflected on this exact sentiment a million times, and I haven't been able to find a better way to describe how I feel about motherhood.

Since that day six years ago, when all the joy and love and worry and hope that comes with being a parent was revealed in that sudden and overwhelming moment when I looked into our son's eyes - motherhood has since been the lens through which the rest of every aspect of my life has been viewed.

It is natural for me to define myself by the roles I play in my life.  I am a woman, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend - each of these vastly important to the ways that I make decisions or react to news and situations.  But being a mum, has by far blanketed every aspect of my life more so than any other role I hold.

My momiversary is like a silent celebration of all the ways I learned and grew and adapted since becoming a mum.

All those nights that I peeked on sleeping babies, the messy faces I've wiped, the sibling battles I broke up, the unfounded worries I wished away in the minutes before I fell asleep, the hugs and snugs and kisses and sniffs of tops of heads, of all the scheduling and errands and grocery lists and birthday plans and holiday wishlists, the emptying of pockets to find rocks and crayons and nail polish bottles, all the first sips of coffee, the stolen pieces of chocolate, the pounding on the bathroom door when I'm in the shower; all the noses blown, the teeth brushed and nails clipped and booboos kissed; the waking up early, the waking up in the middle of the night, the waking up when I didn't know I had just fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of the day, all the books I can read blindfolded because their words are burned into my memory.

It's giving pause to all those moments where the good of everyone else in our family took precedent over the good for me; as tends to be the way of moms.  Like one of my favorite momma quotes credited to Tenneva Jordan which says, "A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie."

Although I now have six years experience as a Mum, the vast majority of my days are still spent wondering how much I might be screwing this all up.  The biggest lessons I have learned over the last six years though have been:  that patience actually is an incredible virtue, that I have been blessed with an amazing and supportive 'village' of whom I could not do this without, and that when push comes to shove - what my children need most from me is love.

I still have so much to learn, so many ways to be better and more patient and more kind (not only to this family of mine, but kinder to myself), so much life to enjoy and be frustrated by and to grow from.  And each year, as we sing and hug and celebrate our oldest boy's birthday, I also send out a kiss of gratitude for the opportunity to do this thing; to be these kids' mum.  A silent celebration in my heart for my momiversary.

Becoming a mum was like pulling the curtains back to reveal a window I didn't even know was in the room.  It flooded my whole space with new light, new perspective, and a view far into the future; a future that I'm not even permitted to go.  As our kids continue to grow, I see them venturing farther from my window view, and someday they'll make it all the way to the horizon.  They turn back to see me giving them a thumbs up and a smile; the windowpane fogging up as I whisper in hope that they'll 'do all the things we've practiced,' and 'I'm proud of you,' and 'I love you, my darlings.'

It has, is, and forever will be a privilege to have such a close seat next to this window that looks out on their lives.  Forever and ever, for all of my life, the fact that I am these kids' mum will always be the north star of my soul.