Raising Mayhem

Navigating life, one crazy adventure at a time.
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  • Tag: minimalist parenting

    • Less is More. Way More.

      Posted at 3:25 pm by Carli McKinney, on April 11, 2015

      When I started to think about the story of our big, little move I realized I kept out a few parts of the story that add elements of hilarity to the situation, so allow me to back up a few years.

      If you can recall, we’ve been on a bit of a purge (you can read about the journey here and here). When I was pregnant with the twins we had to reorganize and make room for them and this involved switching rooms with Thad, and part of the process was purging much as possible. Coincidentally, Mr. M found minimalism during his 3-hour commute to and from the City and would forward countless blog posts on the topic and this helped with our purging efforts. Somewhere along the way all this talk about owning less resonated with me. Deeply. So much so that the end result took us both by surprise.

      You see… I bought a little house.

      Well, we did but Mr. M didn’t actually see it until after we were in contract. A week after we were in contract, to be exact. A contract that would close in a mere 18 days.

      Going back to my rant about the absurdness of the current real estate market, I was was completely determined to get a deal and would do just about anything. Which means our little family of five will be squeezing into an 800 square foot, 1 bedroom, 1 bath house (second awesome fact).

      When I started to get aggressive and narrow in on the neighborhood of choice, I totally overlooked this house when it was listed because of the size and the bedroom situation. However, it has a sleeping loft. Which means that Mr. M and I can sleep in the loft on our king mattress (and there’s still room for a book shelf for storage) while the boys take the bedroom. The house doesn’t have a dining room so we’ll just eat around a big enough coffee table on cushions and pretend we are glamping. It will be fun! And in another year or two, we’ll hopefully be able to add on (but not too much!) and if for whatever reason we can’t due to building constraints (or drought constraints), then we can turn it into something like this (note the sleeping loft!!!)

      Sure, I may have gotten a little too creative with the plan, but the boys are young and they’re still little (though Kai is weighing as much as Thad now… go figure).

      Yesterday as I cleaned the house while the boys were napping, I started to think about all the time I’d have with less house to clean and less stuff to organize, and I got excited. I will have time. And if time were a measure of wealth, then I will be richer than ever before and I can’t wait.

      So thank you, Gus, for letting us buy your little cottage in the big City. And thank you, dear friends for cheering us on during this whole crazy process.

      And thank you, Claire for such a wonderful reminder!

      And thank you, Claire for such a wonderful reminder!

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      Posted in Minimalism, Small Spaces | 0 Comments | Tagged Family Time, mindfulness, minimalist living, minimalist parenting
    • On Minimalism and Death (and Ice Cream Scoops)

      Posted at 10:15 am by Carli McKinney, on September 19, 2013

      icecreamscooperThanks to my parents, I’ve always had a healthy relationship with death. It happens. Oftentimes it sucks, but sometimes it’s just time.

      When my brother and I were young, for a while it felt like we were always going to funerals. Be it for (Great-Great) Aunt Liz, or (Great-Great) Uncle Al, or when I was three, for my Grandpa George (the dog’s name, not his. Obviously).

      From a child’s perspective we saw what it was like to grieve and to celebrate life. The family would get together, break bread, have some libations and share stories — most of which had my dad and his brothers laughing so hard they could hardly contain themselves. The stories were never just about the person whose time had come; they were always about the family and about the times well before my brother and I were even a thought.

      After our good Catholic celebration of life (we’re Italian after all), it was time to get down to business with going through households memories that were left behind.

      When my Great Grandmother passed away, my grandmother and her sons were left in charge of going through her memories, or things. This woman lived a good long life, but even with a will and estate plan in place, there were still all decades of memories to be dealt with. A day or so after the funeral everyone gathered at her house and start figuring out who would take what if it wasn’t already granted in the will. I think I was about 11 at the time, but I remember this one closet in the living room full with stuff. There were shoeboxes filled with black and white photos and a plethora of other things that hadn’t been touched in decades.

      Years go by, as they do, and more family left us. Which meant more memories had to be sifted through, divvied up and distributed, or just simply donated. Keep in mind this is much easier when you have close relationships with the people who pass. But then, you’re still guessing what was important to them and in turn becomes important to you.

      When chatting with my Uncle D about this, I asked him what he remembered about going through great-grandma’s things. From his perspective, things only have importance of value when the person has a memory to go with it.

      This makes a lot of sense, when you come to think of it.

      If I saw my grandmother using a particular thing. Then I’d find it valuable while others would not. For one of my uncles, it was the 5-piece bedroom set. For my dad, it was the ice cream scoop. While my uncle has long since departed with the bedroom set, my dad still has his ice cream scoop and he couldn’t be happier. Every time he scoops out some ice cream, he gets pleasure in the fact that the scooper belonged to his grandparents and he remembers the ice cream served up during the cold San Francisco summers. I’m also certain, knowing my father, he has a fond appreciation for the mechanics of this particular scooper.

      Since minimalism is a hot topic in the McKinney household right now, I started thinking about all of the crap we (err… I) still have to go through and what is important to keep or what needs to be tossed. My children will likely have no interest in my boxes upon boxes of memories stored in the garage — because they are my memories and not my memories with their father, but memories of a life long past that existed well before any of them were here. Plus, since all these memories — literally, crap. We’re talking photos, old concert stubs, ski passes, gym passes. Basically whatnots and do-dads — are boxed up, my boys will never see me using or admiring these things so they’ll never have an emotional connection to them.

      While I’ll likely be tossing most of these memories, or finding something crafty, yet minimalist to do with them, you can bet that I’ll be grabbing first dibs on that ice cream scooper.

      Posted in Minimalism, Random Crap | 4 Comments | Tagged death, dying, minimalism, minimalist, minimalist parenting
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      • Things people don’t tell you about tiny house living
      • How to Approach the Purge: 5 Game-Changing Steps
      • The Purging Process
      • Less is More. Way More.
      • The Purge, aka Wanna Buy a Couch?
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