Less Cluttered is More Relaxed

I love this time of year. The air is crisp but not yet cold (I live in SoCal), the dawn light is available to me in the morning when I walk the dog, and although I hate that it gets dark in the evening so suddenly early (that one hour makes a big difference), the cooler temperature encourages me to walk Buttercup earlier, put on a pot of soup or make homemade tomato sauce, and curl up with a book while Shira does her homework. And this is what being uncluttered on the outside allows me to do better: relax more and enjoy my time after work because I don’t have the constant nagging feeling that I should be tidying or cleaning or organizing. Less cluttered is just more relaxed.

That said, my living room isn’t a minimalist paradise. It definitely has its share of stuff. But it’s all stuff I want. Things that are important to me. Pictures of my kids, souvenirs from trips, music on the piano, blankets on the sofa. My adult kids’ rooms, they are another story…but everything that is in our shared living space is supposed to be there (usually). And that is living simply for me.