Just to Claireify

healthy food, lifestyle, travel, & everyday moments.

A Decluttering Journey: How Much Do We Actually Need?

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Recently I read a lovely book, The Joy of Less by Francine Jay. One of the key ideas from the book is that we use 20% of our stuff 80% of the time. What does that say about the other 80% of our stuff?

Our family has been extremely busy lately working on some big projects. I hope to share the outcome of those with you soon! But part of the work has involved not just decluttering superfluous, unused items but also many aspirational things. Pieces of who I used to be and who I wanted to be.… Read More »

Reflections on This Lonely Country

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I often think about the fact that in two and a half short years, it will be time for my oldest child to start kindergarten.

Not in a teary, nostalgic kind of way–this child loves friends, adventures, learning, and general commotion; he’s a strong-willed, high-energy child–but in a “what am I going to do about that?” kind of way.

My own experience with the American education system was poor and (though I’ve never written about it) riddled with lockdown drills and the same threat of gun violence that pervades every public school in our country.… Read More »

A Decluttering Journey: The Next 100 Items (and Beyond)

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A lot of new cleaning products I gave away this weekend; I’ve given away over a dozen items in the past 72 hours, and trashed many more.

In retrospect, I think it’s a bit funny that I wrote a post after the first 100 items I decluttered, like that would be a sizeable portion of the project. Quite the opposite–the more I decluttered, the more I saw that should go! I stopped keeping track after the next 100 items. I would estimate that I’m now somewhere between 400-500 items gone, and MANY more still to go.

After getting rid of obvious trash, irreparably broken things, or things that hadn’t been touched in years, there’s a whole other category of stuff that I’m slogging through now. It’s things that are still pretty and/or useful, just not to me.… Read More »

A Decluttering Journey: The Purpose of Minimalism

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Sometimes you just have those moments when a concept you’ve been trying to understand for a while just clicks.

Recently I had one of those moments. Life is very busy and overwhelming lately. We’ve had lots of things to do and places to go, lots of thinking about the future, lots of decisions to make. It feels like I’ve been going nonstop since getting back from Hawaii in mid-April, honestly.… Read More »

30 Days of Feminine Inspiration: Day 8

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Today’s inspiration is hopefully useful in your spring cleaning! It’s an Instagram account @the.minimal.mom and her YouTube channel.

Something I’ve realized since having kids is that you should schedule big, whole-house decluttering projects sometimes–like we did in the spring, when we loaded up a whole truckload to sell at Half-Price Books & donate at Goodwill. But if you really want to keep your house livable, decluttering is lifestyle, not an occasional hobby.… Read More »

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