My journey to simplicity

So I've gone through a whole month and a few days wearing only the clothes I took with me to New York City, with one exception: there was one day (a spring cleaning day) where I wore a t-shirt that wasn't part of the wardrobe. I didn't want to wear my nicer shirts for this heavy duty cleaning.  I'm glad the month is over because the weather is getting warmer so it will be nice to be able to wear lighter clothing. That being said, I was totally fine with my limited choices. As you'll read on most other blogs where they discuss capsule wardrobes, we do experience decision fatigue in our every day lives. Being able to simplify (even if it's just your wardrobe), and therefore limit the decisions you have to make in a day, makes a difference. I don't think anyone noticed that I was alternating between two pairs of pants and the three shirts, two sweaters and two tank tops. No one commented. (I didn't wear the skirt.) I think people really don't care what ...

I don't like the kitchen in the condo I'm renting. It looks nice enough, but it doesn't have enough counter space for me. I've watched many tiny home shows where people have maybe two to three feet of counter space for food preparation, and they seem fine with it. At least, on camera... Well, Madam, Mister, that's not for me! Despite not being a foodie, not having a work space I enjoy makes the task of cooking that much less enjoyable for me. So I haven't been cooking much in my kitchen. Which is really unfortunate because the more home cooked meals I make, the better I eat. The better I eat, the better I feel. Anyway... It turns out that before I moved in, the landlord removed the wall that used to separate the kitchen from the dining room. This leaves me with a decent open floor space. So, I figured I'd just get a kitchen island to add more counter space and storage. There was a kitchen island I really liked at a certain store. However, it was about ...

Ugh! One of the things that creeps me out the most: bugs! One of the creepiest ones in my opinion: bed bugs! Those little pests feast on human blood and are becoming harder and harder to kill off. Why am I talking about this? Let me back it up a little... Before leaving for our New York weekend, Mr. Romantic and I saw a video on how to look for bed bugs in hotels. Oh man! I never thought that this could be an issue! So when we got to our hotel room, we did a quick inspection of the bed to see if we could find any traces of these little critters. We didn't see anything. However, we still kept our backpacks in the washroom, just in case. But I think I could have been a bit more careful because I did leave some clothes lying on a dresser in the room. I should have kept them with my backpack in the washroom. When we got back from our trip, my daughter informed me that there's a bed bug infestation at her boyfriend's house. YIKES! Since then, I've been a little para...

When I took my Easter weekend trip to New York City , I brought very few items of clothing with me. They were: blue jeans (wore on the flight over) black jeans black skirt flowery shirt (wore on the flight over) black cardigan (wore on the flight over) green sweater black t-shirt teal cardigan Obviously I haven't listed the shoes, jackets, scarves, underwear, socks and nightgown here. They're irrelevant for the purpose of this post. So for the whole month of April, I will try to make due with the above items, adding only these two items: black tank-top white tank-top This will bring my total to ten items of clothing. Everything else I will put aside for now on the left side of my closet. A ten-piece wardrobe sounds super appealing to me! Why? Why not, right?! I want to see if these items will be enough for me. I may have been overthinking the whole minimalist wardrobe thing. Let's see if I'm right. This is what I've been doing since ...

For Easter long weekend, Mr. Romantic and I took a trip to New York City. It was my first and his second time there. My expectations I have to admit that NYC wouldn't have been my first choice. I'm not quite sure what would have been, but Mr. Romantic was talking about going and I figured it would be nice to travel with him, especially for my first "real" trip. He took care of everything. All I had to do was follow and I was definitely willing! My expectations were that NYC would probably be a very commercial looking/feeling city. Movies are filled with images of the exaggerated extravagant advertising in Time Square, super high rises, a plethora of stores and restaurants. I expected a lot of noise and pollution. Maybe a little chaos. And I expected Central Park would be a lovely little nature oasis in the middle of a busy city. Overall, it didn't seem like the most appealing place for me. Although I thought it probably wouldn't be so far ou...