Mins Game – Days 13 to 19

Well… I guess that month is done… And I fell off the Mins Game wagon again… And the blogging wagon… But I’m not gone for good. I really do want to get in to consistent posting, and also really want to get through this Mins Game.

So now I’m just assigning random days when I find time to do the decluttering… Let’s see where we got to lately…

Day 13

As we get in to bigger numbers of items, I am finding it harder to take a single picture of the items, as I find things in various places around the house, it is better to take the picture and put them in the donation box right away. If I wait… then it gets messy… and then I might lose motivation or forget which items are leaving… So there will probably be multiple photos for each of the “days” going forward…

Day 13 items consist of 2 old yearbooks (don’t worry, I kept my copy – these were spares because I was involved in the creation of the book), a tray, a bag of bath goodies, 4 gift bags, a photo frame, a cutting board, a drink tray, a box and a wire shelf. 13 items. Done.

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Mins Game Days 6-12

I’m continuing on with the mins game… still working on getting things out of the house… Today I’ll quickly go over the things that I’ve gotten rid of over the last week…

Day 6

Found a box of random kitchen stuff that we don’t use in the garage. 2 cutting boards, 2 plates, and 2 cups.

Day 7

More random kitchen stuff that we don’t use. 4 bowls, a knife, a can opener, and a cup.

Mins Game Revisited

I have recently discovered a blog called Living with Less by Brittany who feels a bit like a kindred spirit when I read her posts. For the month of April she is doing the minimalism game. I have done this before, though it took me longer than a month… But I’ve been slowly decluttering stuff as we recover from the mass relocation of all our basement stuff for the basement renovation that I mentioned in my last post, so I thought it would be fun to join her.

In case you need a quick refresher, the minimalism game (or mins game for short) was created by the minimalists (Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus) and basically entails getting rid of one thing on the first day of the month, two things on the second day, three things on the third day, etc. By the end of the month you have removed nearly 500 items from your house!

Brittany is planning on doing her challenge backwards, starting with the 30 things, and working downwards, but I am sticking with the traditional increasing count.

The other catch is that you are technically supposed to get it out of your house by midnight of that day… I am not sticking to that because that would mean a trip to the donation center or transfer station or whatever EVERY DAY! I do not have time for a special trip every day, but I will be sure to get the items out of the house before the end of the month. I may be selling some of these items too, so it might take a bit of time to get a buyer…

Anyway, I realize I am posting this after the beginning of April, but maybe you can join us with your version of the mins game challenge? Let’s get started going over the things I have gotten rid of so far…

My Mins Game Conclusion

Today is June 8th, so it is well past the scheduled last day of my January MinsGame challenge.  As I mentioned in my personal goals post, I am picking a monthly challenge to complete each month this year (though I have definitely missed a few months – okay, I’ve missed more months than I’ve done… whatever…).  January’s challenge was to complete the Mins Game as defined by the Minimalists.  However, I didn’t actually complete the full 31 days of the challenge before the end of January.

I posted updates along the way… First was days 1 to 10, which saw 55+ items leave the house.  The second update was days 11 to 18, which brought the total up to 170+ items.  My third update was days 19 to 22 which brought my total up to 250+ items… And then there was blog silence…  I mentioned briefly that I was behind on the MinsGame, but all was not lost.  I slowly worked on the last 9 “days” of the challenge and can now say that I have completed it!  So, let’s quickly go over the end of my challenge…

Another Mins Game Update…

You are probably getting sick of these updates now… But I need them to keep me accountable.  I commented on my last update that I was getting behind because of a busy weekend, and so I need this push to catch up and keep going…

For those just tuning in, I am doing the Mins Game as my monthly challenge for January.  I have done 2 updates so far (here and here).  We resume the reporting on day 19…

My Mins Game Continued…

On Tuesday, I posted the first 10 days of my “Mins Game” challenge, which saw over 55 items leave my house, and I promised I would continue with it, so let’s just keep trucking along… Today I bring you days 11 to 18…

My Mins Game So Far…

Today is January 17th, so it is day 17 of my “Mins Game” that I set as my January monthly challenge when I discussed my personal goals for 2017 last week.  If you haven’t heard of the challenge, check out this page on the Minimalists website.  I guess technically I’m not playing the game right because I’m doing it alone… but whatever.  I’m  going to do it.  Feel free to join in and make it so that I’m not alone…

So, 17 days in, my grand total is supposed to be 153.  Let’s go over what I’ve gotten rid of so far…

Minimalist Honeymoon Packing

Recently, Anne Lene over at Minimalist Sometimes did a post about her one bag only packing for a 3 week trip to Houston.  It got me thinking about doing a similar post about our 3 week honeymoon.

For our honeymoon, my husband and I wanted to use trains and public transit (with quite a bit of walking in between) for most of our travel, so we decided to try to pack as minimalist as possible.  We each brought only a carry-on roll-y suitcase and a small backpack.

Packing for 3 weeks of travel in a small suitcase was a little tough, mostly because of the time of year we were traveling.  March and April are transition months for weather in the north-western area of Europe where we were traveling.  Some mornings at the beginning of the trip we would get up and there would be remnants of frost on the ground… And by the end of our trip, my husband was in shorts and a t-shirt and was plenty warm.  (As you’ll see a bit later, I didn’t bring shorts, so this wasn’t an option for me…)

When I was packing, I also wanted to make sure that I packed for all the possible activities that we might be doing.  We didn’t go to Europe with a set itinerary planned out, so we had no idea what we might end up doing.  As such, I ended up with a lot of things that I packed “just in case we spend a day or two doing this…” or “we might go to something fancy and need to dress up…”  And I didn’t want to look totally out of place in fashionable Paris… not that I ever claim to be fashionable, but thought it best to try and look a little nicer than if I was backpacking through the woods in rural BC.

Oh, and the last thing I wanted to avoid was having to do laundry all the time.  It was vacation time, and so I wanted enough clothing that I could get away with only one or two required laundry stops.  We ended up only doing one major laundry wash (while staying with family in Belgium) and then did a couple “hand wash in the sink and hang in the bathroom overnight to dry” type cleanings for a few key items.

So, with all that in mind, how did I do?  Did I pack too much?  Did I use everything I took?  Would I do something different “next time”?  (I don’t anticipate another honeymoon, but you get the idea…)  Let’s go over everything in detail…