:)

So I was talking to my mom this morning and she pretty much gave me the go ahead to move in with Daniel this weekend! We were talking about their new house and the subject of me moving came up. She asked when I was going to move in with him. She knew that I have brought a few things over already. I told her I wanted to move in this weekend but I wasn't sure. So she asked me why and I told her because I felt bad for leaving her. But she told me not to feel bad and that she understands. She told me that when we was my age she was already married to my dad. She actually had me at 21 (pretty scary cause I'll be 21 next year). It makes me feel better. Also, she's almost never home. I really never see her. The only time I really see her is a few days a week before she leaves for work. So I'm not going to torture myself by living here in this dirty house. Hopefully Daniel will be willing to help me move some stuff today. The hardest part is going to be moving my dresser and my desk. I'm not bringing my bed since they have one. If we were to completely move me in one sitting I honestly think it would only take 2 hours at the very most. I'm not going to "pack" anything because A) everything is either in a bin or in a drawer B) the only stuff remaining besides that is clothes really C) because he lives like 7 minutes away from me.

The bad part is there's still going to be that giant pile in my room. Since my family is moving, they're going to have a huge garage sale so I'm just going to wait for that. Also, I have my art in that pile. The pile consists of stuff that needs to go, stuff that I don't really have a place for so I'll probably get rid of it but I still need to go through it, and my art that needs to be either photographed and thrown out or kept. So still more work to do unfortunately. :(.

I'm really hoping I'm going to lose weight and save money by living there. ALL my money goes to fast food. (no wonder it's so easy to be a minimalist for me). I never have food in my house. So I spend all my money eating out and therefor gaining weight. His mom offers to buy us food all the time at their house but we just never tell her what to buy so she doesn't buy anything. (I don't blame her the food would just go bad.) Also the saving money part, I kinda need to get a job before I can save money lol. I still have some from my last 2 paychecks, but I need a job soon.

I'm kinda stressed cause my tuition isn't paid yet. I owe about $500 even after my scholarship which is supposed to pay for everything. My mom will pay for that I'm hoping. I need textbooks and I need a job. When that stuff is taken care of I'll feel a lot better.

It's weird writing a post in the day time because I almost always write blogs after midnight. lol

Well..

I'm feeling pretty good :) I've finally developed a system that I feel will really work for me. The past week or so I've been decluttering like a mad woman. Don't get me wrong though. That stuff is still sitting in a huge pile in my room and I've been adding to it. I know there's a few things in there I may end up pulling out but for the most part it's all stuff I don't want. :)

Anyway, so I came up with this idea. I literally pull out the boxes in my closet all the time and look for stuff to get rid of. In addition I have one of those storage things that hangs in your closet with different slots and it's cloth. I'm not exactly sure what it's called but I store random items in it along with tank tops. I decided to take all the clothes out of my dresser (besides 1 drawer with undies and such) and put them in my closet and in that storage thing. Then I took all the random objects and put them in my drawers. So now my 5 drawer dresser is only using one drawer for clothes and the rest for objects. My idea was to bring those objects that I'm always going through in better sight so I can stop being so OCD about it.

However there are still those stupid bins. I have gone through them and am pretty satisfied. I just hate looking at them. In one big bin I have things such as my high school diploma, senior year book, cap and gown things along the lines of that. Irreplaceable things. In a small bin I have keepsakes. I may be able to part with some of them one day, but for now I want them. In the last bin (large) there are things that I am saving for when Daniel and I have a house together. Any minimalist would think I'm nuts. I have a french press style tea pot, a drawer organizer, 4 plastic plates in the design we want, vases. I've thought about just replacing it when we actually have a house but Daniel told me that I would regret getting rid of the stuff. I know he's right. I just have to tell myself to leave that stupid bin alone.

So as far as bins go I need to keep telling myself that there's nothing in there I need to get rid of. All that will be in my closet with that stuff (besides clothes) is the stuff I've already brought to Daniels. (Sewing box, macbook box, xbox box).

I'm pretty excited :) I'm really getting down to the nitty gritty now and it's making me so happy.

Moving

So my family got that house. I've had a lot of time to think about it so I probably won't write much more about that. However, I'm going to be moving in with Daniel as I've mentioned before. In fact, I've already kind of started. I've been moving a few things over there the past few things. So far I've taken over my sweatshirts/cardigans, winter jackets, sewing box, mini Christmas tree and ornaments, and my macbook box and xbox box. I know I shouldn't even keep those. Who knows maybe I'll get rid of them one day. My mom doesn't know that I'd like to be in there by next weekend. I haven't got the heart to tell her yet. I know this is hitting her hard that I'm leaving because realistically I won't be living with her ever again. Not only that but my rebellious, slob sister wants to move in with her 15 year old BF (she's 18). Let's see how well that works out. So that leaves my brother who is 16.

Then again she can't really be surprised. My house is so dirty and I'm a neat freak. Nobody in my house picks up after themselves not even my mom. Also she is never home. I seriously go 2-3 days without seeing her all the time. Mostly it's just me, Daniel, and my brother at my house. On top of that we like to watch Netflix alot, but it's very hard to in my house. My brother will play world of warcraft and "watch" netflix while we're trying to give our full attention to something on netflix. The internet is unbearably slow and is seriously interrupted atleast 10 times for a one hour show. It gets really old.

I am very excited about the room I'm moving into! It's tiny, has practically white walls (they're a little off white compared to the ceilings), no attic, and blinds! I like blinds I just don't have them. It didn't take me long to figure out how I want to arrange everything :D What I'm having a hard time with is my room here. You can probably guess that I yet again did not have my garage sale. So there is a huge pile of junk in the middle of my room. I could move it all back in but that would be a huge pain. With that a mess it's really hard to keep up with the rest of it. My room is disgusting right now. I'm trying to figure out if I can reduce any more before I move over there and it's VERY difficult when my room looks like this. It's honestly exhausting me mentally to a great degree.

On top of that I've decided to get my keepsakes box (which is one of those huge plastic bins) and my art bin. I think I've finally hit that point as a minimalist that I'm ready to photograph most of my pieces. Now I just need to do it.

Inspiration

Not necessarily for interiors. Just kind of the style I've been feeling lately. I've got like 3 different styles. 1. Bright colors like teals and oranges 2. black and white and neutral 3. kind of dark. I've had the first 2 styles for a while but the dark, creepy, woodsy kind of style is somewhat new. Kind of breaks up my black and white "perfection" style.

Clothes

Hmm. I've just been thinking a lot about clothes lately. How much clothes should a minimalist have? Do I want to have that little?

The other day I pulled all of my clothes out of my closet and sorted them into two piles: absolutely do not want to get rid of and could live without. The piles were about 50/50. Then I put the clothes that I definitely want back into my closet. Excluding tank tops and long sleeve shirts, those clothes leave about 50% of the closet free (with the hangers spaced out an adequate amount). I did go through my LS shirts and tank tops, they just didn't go into my closet). For those I have a drawer for each. Mostly because I'm not wearing long sleeve shirts right now and my tank tops are a pain to hang. It's just easier for me if they're in a drawer. On top of that I asked Daniel to sort through my clothes and figure out what he liked and didn't like out of both keep and possibly get rid of piles. (A bold move for most women probably) I figured this would help me make decisions easier. I was actually kind of surprised by the results. He liked just about everything in my possibly get rid of bin. As for my keep clothes he picked out a few items that I had kind of overlooked. They were things that weren't very flattering on me (he didn't say that but after he chose them I realized they didn't) or were old fashioned looking. Some women may find those results discouraging, but honestly I like knowing what my man likes on me and what he doesn't. Being apathetic towards basically everything kind of helped. Anyway. So now I have two piles of clothes sitting on my floor. One that I need to put back. I don't want to though cause I like the way it looks without it. lol. Who knows maybe I'll get down to that one day, but right now I'm not quite ready to get rid of them.

Oh yeah. I decided clothes wise I'm not buying anything unless I'm in love with it. I should be doing this anyway, but I've been trying to experiment with fashion. I believe every time I've bought something for that reason I've ended up wanting to get rid of it. So no more wasting money! Stick to what I love.

Houses

So I've been looking at houses that I can't afford right now, but it's fun to look! For some reason, I keep looking at ranches. I never would've pegged myself as a ranch person, but I like them I'm realizing.
Here's a couple I've been looking at. The second is my favorite.

I just want something smaller and easy to maintain while still having room to move around. Oh yeah we'd like to get a pool too :)

My outbox

Yes. My outbox. The pile looks a lot bigger than it does in the picture. This is all the stuff that I've been referring to when I say the stuff in my attic. I want it all gone so bad. I'm going to try to have the garage sale this weekend. As of right now, I'm not really prepared for it. All I really have done for it is pulling it out of my attic. This stuff is really stressing me out.

I have a lot of stuff going on lately. I quit my job. I need another one but haven't started looking yet. I don't really feel like talking about that though besides what I've already said. Buttt my parents who I thought were getting a divorce just put an offer in on a house that is about 50 minutes from where I live now. The house is smaller but it needs A LOT of work. It's in pretty crappy shape. I guess they're going to try to rent my house out. We have potential renters already thanks to my neighbor. I will not be moving in with my family though. I will move in with Daniel. I'm kinda nervous. Mostly because I will be living with his mom also and I am a very shy, keep to myself kind of person. Also, I feel like the room I'll be staying in won't really be mine. I'm hoping to atleast get an empty closet. I think I'd be a lot more excited if all my outbox stuff was gone. I would donate it, but I really need the money. On top of that, it's not junk. It's decent stuff, it's just stuff I can live without. I just can't believe I have this much stuff! How did this happen? I'm only 20 years old. Thrift stores I guess. A lot of it is from thrift stores so I really won't completely be out the money. I just cannot express how badly I want that stuff gone! I don't even want to bring it inside after the garage sale. I want to bring it straight to goodwill after.

I know I may seem upset about this stuff being here and I am, but another part of me is happy. Me getting rid of this stuff will make me finally feel like a real minimalist. Sure I may not only own 100 things or less, but I will be living with what I need and love. I've just worked so hard and still don't feel like one. Just a little bit longer I guess. That reminds me. I've actually been working on my inventory and have been for quite some time. I've been counting just about every single thing. Besides clothes (although I do have a photo inventory) and individual documents. I'm not done yet though. Also, I don't number like most do. I number my things by categories. I guess if I had less I wouldn't need categories but oh well.

I feel like me becoming a minimalist has taken longer for me than it has other people. Based on blogs anyway. Oh well as long as it's happening I guess. Also I'm glad it's now and not after I've got two kids and a 3,000 square foot house.

Man I just want to get out of the house I'm in so bad! My mom has spoiled me by moving just about every 4 years. Also I feel kind of dumb for just now realizing this but we are just now coming up on our 4th year living here, not 5th. We got into our house like right on July 2nd or 3rd in 2007 cause I remember we were trying to find something to do for the fourth of July here. Anyway I've just kind of grown to hate this house and the size of it. It's impossible to clean. I'm overwhelmed that I have an attic in my room. I was happy at my last house because I had a normal bedroom. The house before that in Louisiana I had a bathroom in my room. Part of me liked it and part of me hated it. It was just dirty since before we lived bought it. I'm getting grossed out thinking about it. I'll be looking forward to that when I live with Daniel too. My room is gonna be tiny which I'm excited about. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to fit my desk. I'll have to have room for a dresser and my tv stand. So I guess my desk will just have to patiently wait in the basement until we move out. Honestly I could probably live without it, but I'm not going to. I pretty much only use it for the little storage it has. It's not comfortable to sit there. Wow I just realized I've spent like an hour writing this blog entry. Alright well I guess I've blabbed enough.