One point for Yaya

 One of the little voices I always hear in my head when I'm working on a purge project is Yaya saying, "I wish I would have kept that ___________." 

Or, don't we still have that _________ somewhere out in the barn,

or in the closet

or the garage. 

Being a typical daughter, I usually roll my eyes and huff.  Yes, even 33-year-old-daughters still do that.

It pains me to admit that occasionally I'm glad that there is something she's kept all these years. 

Example: This old school desk that she pulled out of the barn for Stella.  It is a great place for Stella to sit and work on her projects.  Of which she usually has about 10 going on all at once.  These pictures are from when we first set it up for her in the play room.  It usually has about a thousand scraps of paper, tape and markers all over it.  The nice thing is we can just shove them all in the desk when we're cleaning up. 

This one was a net gain on my quest for less things, but I appreciate that it is a solid piece made from metal and wood - not plastic! - that will probably keep getting passed down through the family.

Started with: no old school desks
Final tally: one old school desk
 = one point for Yaya

FiveFinger frenzy

As you may or may not know, Mr. Yost is quite the fan of Vibram FiveFinger shoes. 

My wonderful friend - shout out to Kathi! - texted me yesterday about a shoe sale in town with kids' FiveFingers.

Today I went to check it out.  Did I come home with a pair?

Nope.

I came home with TWO pair!

 Hudson's are still a little big.  I think they are the smallest size they make though, so he'll just have to grow into them.

 Stella was born to be a bare-foot baby.  I have a feeling they will get a lot of use. 

 A family of five fingers.  We thought it would be fun to buy a pair for me and tiny ones for Vivi.  Then we'd be the five FiveFinger family!

The kids know that Mr. Yost goes out for his nighttime "barefoot" runs.  They decided they better see what it was like for themselves.  Here they are testing them out in the snow.

Off they go!  They went a good couple of blocks...I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight!

Purge project: Jewelry

I worked on this purge project before Christmas.  I'm just now getting around to posting about it.  Over the course of the last 6 weeks or so, it appears that I've lost my notes about how many necklaces I started with and how many I purged.  It know it looked something like this:

Started with: A Lot
Kept: 60% of A Lot
Final purge tally: 40% less than A Lot

I learned a few things during this process. 

I like jewelry!

I think I already knew that before, but this solidified it in my mind. 

I also learned that it is more fun to open up a clean, organized jewelry box so that I can actually see all the jewelry that I love.  Shortly after this purge, Hudson was up on the bathroom counter looking through the drawers as he's known to do.  A delighted look came over his face as he declared, "Oh, I've never been shopping in this aisle before!"  

Shoe polish - who knew?

I haven't been too focused on my minimalist mission in the past few weeks.  However, as I found myself craving a new pair of Danksos and coveting those of others around me, I thought, "WWMD?" (you know, "what would a minimalist do?")

I didn't have to think too hard because that night, as I visited with my sister, "Auntie M," I noticed her shiny black Danskos.  Did she get new ones?  Nope. Her reply: "shoe polish."

Huh?

You mean, people still use shoe polish? It kind of seems like a lost art to me.  Maybe it is because I rarely by shoes that are real leather.  Somehow I think shoe polish doesn't quite work on synthetic clearance shoes from Ross.

Last week I had a minute to pull out my worn shoes.  Now, let me just tell you that these were purchased in Missoula sometime around when Clinton was entering his second term.  Yes, these puppies are OLD!  And WORN!  However, the basic structure of the shoe was still totally intact.  That is why I've kept wearing them.  They still work fine and are oh so comfortable.

Anyway, when I finally had time to contemplate refurbishing my old friends, I decided to rummage around the house before I went out to buy shoe polish.  Lo and behold, I found a bottle of black polish in Mr. Yost's things. Even more minimalisty!

The directions said you should make sure the surface was clean and dry.  Do you think I have time for that?  I decided to just jump right in (after I took some "before" shots of how pitiful they looked.)

Sad, sad Danksos.

2 minutes later and the results were, dare I say, dramatic?  I even had Mr. Yost use some fancy-schmancy glue from his workbench to fix where the stitching was coming apart.

Voila!  My beloved Danskos have entered a brand new chapter in their cherished life.  Every time I've worn them since, I get a warm little minimalist glow knowing that I have nice looking shoes that I didn't spend any money replacing and I didn't add to the landfill.

Still here

Man, can time fly when you are reading the Hunger Games, surfing Pinterest and working on Turbo Tax. I'm still here and we are all doing fine. I would throw in a cute picture, but I am on my iPad and the Darn BlogPress app is not cooperating. Posts on tap: Shoe polish - who knew? Purge project: jewelry Score one for Yaya

Three Jars - online allowance tracking

I was raised with a very deliberate and organized allowance system.  My Mom, aka "YaYa", kept a paper ledger for each of us showing our weekly allowance and any spending.  I can remember going to the little local grocery store, buying some Swedish Fish and then coming home and deducting the amount I spent from my allowance balance. 

When I decided to start giving Stella and Hudson an allowance, I quickly realized that I needed an easy system.  For a few months I tried giving them actual money because I believe that it is good for kids to learn about money by actual having and using real money.  However, I never seemed to have the correct change--or any money at all, for that matter--and so pretty soon my allowance system broke down.

Enter the 2012 version of the paper ledger system:

www.threejars.com

One of the things I really like about this system is that every dollar that goes in is split into three jars - Save, Spend and Share.  You can set the percentage of each allowance payment. 

I have ours set like this:
 50%  - Save
 40%  - Spend
 10%  - Share

If the kids do a special job to earn extra money, you can either have the same split or it could all go in their Spend jar.  When they are ready to use the money from one of their jars, you make a "withdrawal" and it keeps track of it for you.   So far Hudson hasn't made any withdrawals, and Stella has pretty much spent her "Spend" jar down to nothing.  Her three transactions:

$3.50 - a book at her school book fair
$2.50 - a new app for the iPad - Bartleby's Book of Buttons Part 2
$9.49 - a huge pack of dry erase markers from Costco

She is currently earmarking her "Save" jar for a horse.  I haven't had the heart to tell her that at her current earnings rate, it will take her 34 years to buy a horse that costs $2,500.  I just keep telling her that she better start doing some extra paid jobs to increase her savings. 

Vivian's ABR hearing test - take 3

This time, we were smart. At least maybe smarter. 

Vivian needed another ABR(Auditory Brain-stem Response) hearing test.  These are the ones that we have to have done in Billings, and she is supposed to be sound asleep.  One of the reasons she needed to do another one is that she was not sound asleep for the first two. 

This time we went to Billings the night before the test so we could manipulate her sleep/wake times before the test the next day.  We decided to make it a fun little get-a-way for the whole family.  Even Pouli & YaYa came. 

Here are the kids in the hotel before swimming.  

Vivian's first swim! 

I don't think she likes the water...what do you think?

Here we are the next morning trying to keep her awake in the hotel room.  You would not believe how long this bag of Doritos kept her entertained.  

The waiting room of the audiologist's office...still awake!

 I thought this was seriously cute, but a little freaky at the same time.  They have to rough up her forehead and then attach this electrode with a snap on it.  Still awake...

All hooked up and ready to go.  Still awake but getting very sleepy.  She ended up sleeping like an angel.  We got all the testing done that they needed to complete her hearing profile.  Yeah!!!  I didn't take any pictures because I was afraid of waking her up.  I don't think Aaron or I hardly moved a muscle the whole hour and a half. 

(I just realized that the bottle looks HUGE in those pictures. )