Donating Our Clothes and Sharing Our Thoughts

"Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts." - Henry David Thoreau

Today we donated five more bags of clothing and shoes. This follows on our previous donation of five bags of clothing. It's astounding how when these clothes were in our closet and on our shelves they didn't seem like so much. It's a very stark realization that we donated ten trash bags filled with clothes (and a couple pairs of shoes each) and we still have some more clothes recently given to us to go through and the lot that we kept. Thankfully I can now say I have distilled my clothing down to enough to fit comfortably in my half of our small closet (including t-shirts, but not including underwear) with room to spare. That also includes the three or so outfits of each of two sizes smaller so I'm prepared for the weight I'll be losing over the rest of summer and autumn. Clothing still takes up more than half of my list of 100 things, but I hope to lose enough weight to get rid of at least the current stock, if not also the next size down, by January 1.

Five bags of donated clothes compared to the blue and yellow laundry bags, which contain one week of laundry for our family of three and three blankets and a bathrobe that we've put off washing for a while.

The more we work toward our goal of 100 things each (plus 100 shared family items at most), the more liberating it feels and the less reluctant I am to get rid of stuff. I can already see and feel the difference in our home, and how less cluttered it becomes with each donation. I can't wait until we can have a big yard sale!

Making Our Lists, Checking Them Thrice

We're still working on overall goal setting, but we have a decent set of short and long term goals to start. I'll post those later when I have them handy. In the meantime, we're working on our lists for the 100 Thing Challenge. We're giving ourselves until January 1, 2011, which is roughly six months from our decision to do this, to get down to 100 things each.

So far I've managed to get rid of five trash bags full of clothes and keep those which are best suited for work, school, and down time. This is after I already purged a bunch of clothes. I had been holding on to a lot of clothes in the hopes that they would fit me again, but really in the meantime there are other people who could use those clothes and I can find clothes when I lose weight. This time around I kept a couple outfits of each size lower so I have some backup as I will be losing weight soon, but not much. Even still my list of 100 things is still half full with clothes alone, so I need to lose weight before January 1 enough to get rid of at least the current stuff, possibly the next size down, too.

In other news, we've been talking about just how small we could live, and the possibility of getting the Fencl model (130 sf) and getting creative with use of space, such as when Ian is older and needs privacy giving him the loft and building a compartment to store a roll-out futon mattress in the living area for our sleeping needs. If we build it ourselves and find a suitable cheap lot on Craigslist or similar (making sure we check for no quit claim, legal building lot, zoning permits essentially mobile homes/temporary structures/camps, etc.) we could easily save up the money and own our own home without mortgage in four or five years, and it would be very eco-friendly and, should we need to relocate, we could take our home with us.

We Have A Bicycle Trailer!

My parents bought us a bicycle trailer for Ian's first birthday! Apparently they also have one of my old bikes in the barn, so my Dad is possibly going to fix it up for us and bring it up to us next weekend. With any luck, within a week, we should be on the road bicycling places instead of driving in a car whenever possible. Thanks Mom and Dad!

Wishlist

We could really use the following things to get started in our sustainability efforts. Used in good condition is preferred, but if you really want to buy it for us new we won't complain. Mostly this is if you have it and don't need it, we'll gladly take it! We're also willing to trade if we have something you want/need and we don't want/need it.

• Bike trailer for baby and/or groceries
• Bicycle (hybrid best, road bike second best, mountain bike is okay)
• Bicycle baskets/saddlebags for carrying groceries
• Hiking baby carrier pack
• Composter or scrap parts we can use to make our own tumbling composter:
• Plastic drum between 20-55 gallon capacity
• 48"-long 2"-diameter schedule 80 PVC pipe or 1 1/2"- to 2"-diameter galvanized steel pipe
• Scraps of 2"x4" long enough to build a wooden saw buck

More to come as we think of them. If we can think to post a list of stuff we have available to trade, we will, or you can ask and we'll let you know if we have it.

Some Links of Interest

To start I wanted to share some links to sites or resources we found particularly useful or inspirational. Check them out!

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company
Tiny House Design
100 Thing Challenge
Meatless Monday
Radical Simplicity and the Global Living Project
Backwoods Home Magazine
Primitive Ways
Composting 101