On Saturday, April 30th, we finished our Cycling Savvy training and biked an additional bit to see one last apartment. After 4+ months of looking, and little luck, it was decision day: give notice that we would vacate by the end of May or sign a year-long renewal.
We took it right down to the wire, but in the end, we renewed the lease on our one bedroom apartment for another year.
What does this mean? Well, we haven’t quit looking, but as my due date draws ever closer, it’s becoming more and more likely that our little apartment will be accommodating an additional person (albeit a tiny one) come July.
On the upside, smaller spaces are more efficient than larger ones, we’ll be saving money, and we have a VERY GOOD reason for keeping baby stuff to an absolute minimum. We will carefully screen any new item that comes into the apartment.
Right now, my goal is to continue looking for unnecessary stuff that we can eliminate from the space, while finding better ways to organize what remains. In a recent post on clutter, the Eco Cat Lady shared this minimalist standard for decluttering, “if your house burnt to the ground, would you replace this item?” As much as this makes sense, for most people, it is actually very hard to follow through on the conclusions to this question. You almost need to actually HAVE a fire and be FORCED to start from scratch.
Funny thing is, this kind-of happened to me in high school, when my bedroom caught fire. And while I would not wish for something this dramatic (and potentially dangerous), there is a certain appeal to having a perfectly clean slate.
In my mind, moving to a new place was going to somehow provide that clean slate, a rather unrealistic assumption, given that we would just be moving all of our current “stuff” into a new, slightly larger, space.
We are making some progress — a pile of stuff to take to scrap metal, other stuff for donating — but it feels SO slow. About that clean slate . . . .
Her Green Life 