Only keep what you use and love

1. Even if I like something, I can still get rid of it.
2. Why spend my whole life moving stuff from one wrong place to another?

I'm in love with minimalism. Simplicity, frugality, anticonsumerism, veganism, greenieness - it goes with all of these and nothing has made me this happy since the children were born. Apologies to the DH!

No shortage of great stuff online for being a minimalist - I'll be linking to lots of my favourites. But a minimalist with kids? Looks like I have to start my own. That's cool, because New Zealand is a really great place to be a minimalist.

My house...well, it still looks like a house occupied largely by children. But I've applied my minimalist mantra so many times recently that the change is visible. And peaceful.

Amazingly, I've owned BIG things for years and never considered whether they were good or bad for the house and my sanity. Furniture. An old TV. Metres of books that I never read. Stacks of blankets and cushions.

Some of these improvements have not even been frugal. We have had some gigantic speakers on permanent loan from a family member since we all left university, some AHERAHMMMMHUM years ago. They work really well. In days of yore, you could hear this system all the way up and down Grafton Hall from the 6th floor.

But because of the awesome humongousness of these speakers, we never ever opened one of our sliding doors. Well, hardly ever. For 2 years. Why does it take so long to notice these things? Is "good enough" always the main thing? The happy ending includes wall-mounted surround-sound speakers, and free access to our sliding door in time for the summer. And the ginormous speakers have gone to a more appreciative audience.

There's so much less, but wait!