Minimalism:

How to Become a Minimalist

By

Bekka Thomas

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Talent Writers ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of
this publication is allowed to be reproduced in any form without written
permission from the author. Only reviewers are allowed to quote brief passages
from this publication.














































Minimalism: How to Become a Minimalist
Table of Contents

CHAPTER ONE
TRAPPED!
CHAPTER TWO
TOO MUCH STUFF!
CHAPTER THREE
PRODUCTIVITY AND LOVING YOUR WORK.
CHAPTER FOUR
VALUE.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOW DO I BECOME LESS?
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT I DO EVERY DAY.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOW DO MINIMALISTS EAT?
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOW I GET MORE FOR LESS.
CHAPTER NINE
BE HAPPY, NOT BROKE.
CHAPTER TEN
WHERE I AM.

 CHAPTER ONE
TRAPPED!

I was a mess.

Not just a hot mess, but a true drag-down-the-road-behind-a-car mess. My

job wasn’t just a dead-end, it was a box canyon. I was miserable when I woke up
until I went to sleep again, miserable. My weight and blood pressure were in a

contest to see which one could be higher. My weight was winning, otherwise I
would have been dead. Is that a good thing? Yea!

You know when you run down a hill and your upper body begins to fall past

your feet? Your center of balance shifts and you have to keep running or fall?

That’s how my life was every single day. Worst of all, I couldn’t figure out how
it got that way.

I was a property manager and I enjoyed my job when I first started. I’m a

problem-solver and I enjoy working with people, but I grew to hate both primary
aspects of my job.

Not just hate my job like most people do.

My hate was a bone deep hate that was all consuming and just a wee bit
insane.

The customer service aspect I liked so much, turned into people whining
 about the same things over and over.

I had a boss once who told me never to come to him with a problem if I
didn’t also have a solution. I used to think that was silly. I could then solve it

myself. Of course, that was what he was getting at; he wanted me to at least try. I

could be wrong, but he wanted me to think it through. My job was dealing with

people who didn’t seem to think even the smallest problem through. Worse yet,

they constantly demonstrated that they lacked any kind of real perspective.
 I actually had folks who demanded I check the security monitor on one

building because there was a particular squirrel that was chewing on their tire in

the garage.

Not just that squirrels might be damaging their vehicle, but a certain squirrel
they wanted me to deal with.
 Needless to say, I paid a different squirrel to rough the rogue up.

Another facet I loved, at the start, was troubleshooting the numerous

problems that came up. However, no matter how many times I addressed a
problem, my Board of Directors at the Homeowner Associations I handled only

cared how long it took me to accomplish my task.

 They never cared how well I handled it, just do it faster and faster.

Sure, they would never give me the money to fix things or replace broken
items, but it was always my fault that the work was never done.
All of the responsibility with no authority.

I used to be able to handle these unrealistic expectations, but I slowly lost the
“I give a damn” attitude over the several years I was a property manager.
 I was working days and nights with time on the weekends, just trying to keep

up. My in-box was perpetually loaded with two hundred emails at any given
time. My phone was filled with unreturned voice-mails from homeowners

demanding return calls. I couldn’t figure out how to visit my properties, attend

board meetings, return emails and voice-mails, while still trying to have a bit of

a life.

I was stuffing fast food in my mouth any moment I had free as I was driving

to inspections or meetings. I tried to eat right, but that takes time I just did not
have. It’s easier to grab a burrito or pizza, than to make a salad. My weight was
growing, along with my blood pressure and stress. The sodium levels alone in

fast food can kill you and that’s just reading the ingredient list!
 I could feel myself dying inside, but I was trapped by my life and job. The

more I worked, the more I needed the job. That whole growing up with

responsibilities thing sucks.

I was married to the most supportive and loving husband possible, but I was
treating him badly because I had no patience any longer.
 I was a very good painter and writer, but my art was going nowhere. I
couldn’t get into the right mindset and let go of the job. How can you create or

even imagine something beautiful to put on a canvas when a homeowner, or

three, explained to you that you are an idiot because you allowed earthworms to
infest the property and they needed to be removed immediately? This sort of

statement would be funny, if you weren’t barraged with similar unrealistic

demands every day.

I had a boss in the same field who would just laugh, good-naturedly, when a

homeowner or board member would treat him so horribly. Like water off a

duck’s back. They would call him the worst names possible, to his face, and he

would just shrug it off. I pictured him having a stroke one day from all the
repressed rage, but I think he really did have it right. He did not let the job

determine who he was or his self-worth. I could never master that particular skill
and I let it all eat at me.
 I was horrible to my amazing husband because of feeling so trapped. I

couldn’t help it, I was a rat trapped in a cage and I couldn’t get out. I started

having anxiety attacks and would get so angry because of the feeling that I had

no alternatives that I could see. I was never going to be a successful artist. I was
certain I would just be that woman that died at work from a heart attack who

everyone would talk about as a cautionary tale. Like Scrooge told during the

office Christmas party, but with a whole lot more pathetic stuffed in.

“No seriously, she was lying on her face with her butt straight up in the air.

Probably the most undignified position you could die in,” the secretary would
say, as all of the little managers huddled together before the fire, trembling with

fear.
 The clincher came the day my boss asked me to take on some additional
properties after I had begged everyone in upper-management to relieve me of

some problem areas.

I snapped.

It wasn’t a mid-life crisis or anything violent. I didn’t turn postal or buy a

fancy red sports car.

A switch clicked in my head and I said, “Enough.”

It was the evening after a particularly rough day when I asked my husband,

“Do you want to move to Portland?”

 We both loved the silly show Portlandia and we had joked about moving

there. I can’t tell you why I asked, and I was completely and totally serious this

time. I had never thought I would move to the Pacific Northwest and I certainly
did not see myself in Oregon. It was madness to get an idea like this from a

comedy show on the Independent Film Channel, but I was a woman desperately

grasping for a life-preserver as the water closed over her head.

“Yes, please,” he said with a smile.

Eight months later, a lot of stuff lighter, and we’re having the time of our

lives living a minimalist lifestyle.

 CHAPTER TWO
TOO MUCH STUFF!

It wasn’t until after my move to Oregon (and the frantic weeks preceding that

turning point), that I realized I was already on the minimalist path.

My life, until this point, was filled with collecting things. I collected books,

art materials, papers and notes from past/future writing projects, DVDs, and

people. I know the last sounds weird, but bare me out.

I never reached the level of hoarder, thank god! Have you seen those shows?
I may not be the tidiest person in the world, but I get skeeved out when there’s a
hair on my toothbrush.

How the heck could I live with rooms filled with newspapers and

mummified cat carcasses?

I was a bookseller for many years and a book-lover for many more. Books
defined me and saved me as a teenager. I grew up in an Italian home where my

father was a womanizing child-man. He took care of the family, but couldn’t
figure out that whole love thing. He was very handicapped when it came to

showing his feelings. I was awkward, misinformed, and badly in need of

direction growing up. I had few friends and even fewer ideas on how to get
them.
 I turned to books for my companionship and that’s when my love affair

started. I sold books for years and I used them as a demonstration piece to guests
to prove I was smart and worthwhile.

I know, boo-hoo pity party for me.

Anyway, I became so attached to books that my collection reached almost
3000 at any given time. I also had approximately 2000 DVDs, which take up a

heck of a lot of space. At times, I really was bitten by the collecting mentality
and I shopped for various first editions and rare prints. I needed to get every
release of “Evil Dead” to complete my collection. It was a bit obsessive, time-
consuming, and cluttering. There is also the money I spent!

I really did love those books and movies, but what I loved more was what
people thought when they came into my home. How smart was I? How well

rounded was I? I was so terribly interesting.

I used these props to make myself feel better and to impress people. I

certainly enjoyed them, but how many did I really read or watch?

Which books did I really enjoy and learn from? Which movies did I watch or
did I just crash in front of the TV at night?
 When I moved from California to Florida, I had to ship everything by

freight. I had a couple of tons of books alone and they weren’t cheap!

But this is all leading to a point.

We’re all different people at different places in our lives, but the core almost
always remains the same. Whether you ever discover who that core person is

would be a different matter entirely.

I knew who I wanted to be, but I let so many factors, internal and external,

get in the way. I was concerned with what people thought and not what I
thought. I became my job and it took over every aspect of my life. I let the run
for material possessions define me. I lost the pleasure in life.
 These were some, but not all of the factors that lead to this major change in

my life and the assessment that came with it.

When I hit my snapping point at work, I also hit my snapping point with

myself. I realized that I felt trapped by everything. A move across country again

felt overwhelming just considering how much my husband and I had to pack.

Figuring out what we needed to get rid of was stressful in itself. Were we

shipping everything, or just the important stuff? Were we driving across country

with a truck and the cars? What were the logistics concerning gas and lodging

with that much stuff? Was it cheaper just to buy it all again when we got there?
It’s enough to make you chuck it all and move into a monastery.
 After a long conversation, my husband and I decided to do just that.

Okay, everything but the monastery.

What do you need to enjoy your life as opposed to what you want to
enjoy your life? These are two different concepts and ones I took a very long
time to understand.
I started packing for the move and I was overwhelmed by every room in

my two-bedroom house. Where did it all come from? How could so much stuff

get in there?

I bought, what I thought at the time, a sufficient number of boxes to pack.

During the course of the move, I went back to Home Depot six more times for

more stacks of boxes.

Putting the books and DVDs aside for now, I found tons of magazines I

had saved. There were articles I hadn’t had time to read when I bought them, but
I put sticky notes on the spots and stored the magazines for a quieter day.
 That day never came and I had dozens of articles waiting for me. I boxed

up the magazines for recycling and vowed to never do that again. What a useless
clutter.

I was really packing on the pounds at this point, so my closet was filled
with clothes. Like an archaeologist studying different earth strata for clues to an

ancient civilization, my closet reflected the different stress eating layers of my

life.
“I think I found something buried between ‘The board meetings are
killing me, so I need several bean burritos STAT!’ strata and the “Stop calling
me-stop calling me-STOP CALLING ME!’ layer.”

“Is it her dignity?”

“Nope, I fear that is buried much deeper!”

God, I had some really nice clothes in the skinny strata.

I guess feeling out of control means, for some of us, we struggle to

control the areas we can. We use buying things as a replacement for being able
to make choices. A new haircut, a new skirt, eating out, all was meager control

in an out-of-control situation. I know I felt better buying books on art,

marketing, and stress relief, but I was always disappointed when I left the

bookstore.
I know how to paint, but I kept buying technique book after technique
book. My library was getting bigger, but I wasn’t finding what I needed.

What I wanted to find in the book store was a book titled How to regain

control of your life and not feel like you’re trapped and at the whim of everyone

who seems to possess even the slightest bit of authority over you and you can
still sell your artwork with the ever so slightest slim chance of supporting

yourself by doing so.

Yeah, the title is a little too long to be catchy and I could never find this

section at Barnes & Noble.

I was surrounding myself with stuff because I felt powerful, even if only
briefly, when I bought it. My mistake was in not learning sooner to go in the

opposite direction. I was using stuff as armor when it was just anchoring me
down.
 I walked the two floors of our house and I really looked at everything. I

just kept looking and seeing more things.

I couldn’t believe I needed all of this stuff. I couldn’t remember buying

all of it, let alone putting it places. My spare room/office was packed with boxes
and piles of things.

The room was useless as an office because neither my husband nor I

could get into it. We couldn’t use, or even find, what was in that room. The Ark

of the Covenant could have been buried there and I would never have found it.
 I’ve always heard that if you haven’t thought about or used an item in six
months you get rid of it.

I made my decision to do just that.

“Do I really need this?” I kept asking myself as I packed.

I guess what I felt at my job was translating to my home - I felt trapped.

Unlike the job, I was feeling trapped by all of my things. That second bedroom
was the symbol of all of those feelings.

It was to be a studio and office for my husband and I, but it was filled
with so many boxes. Just organizing it all was a Herculean task, or Sisyphean,

I’m not sure which is the better term.

 After a hugely stressful week at work, there was no way that I wanted to

tackle that room. I had art supplies buried places and I’d forgotten about them.

Worst, I bought new supplies to replace what I had not realized I already had.
There was no way this chaotic dungeon was going to foster any creativity.

I started with the little things, so I began looking through my books. The

paperbacks to be specific.

There was a lot of nostalgia buried in those pages, but there were a lot of
pages filling the boxes. I already placed my collections in moving boxes, but

there were so many of them. I had to cull them.

I started by sorting out the must keep, occasional read, and giveaways. I
have to admit, I felt a great deal of anxiety at the start, but that eased fairly
quickly. I went from twelve boxes of paperbacks, down to three.

It felt so good that I moved onto the hardbacks. I kept anything signed,

but I got rid of most of the fiction. Non-fiction was a little harder, but that ended
up going along pretty smoothly. A major key was that I spent time on Amazon

replacing much of my library with ebooks and I searched online for free versions

of the classics. I could fill my account and read on my tablet or phone anywhere.

My final count concerning my library went from 21 boxes down to 9.

That was a pretty significant gain of shipping space and personal space. I felt
freer than I had in some time.

I took the DVDs, bought several terabyte backup units, and started

ripping my movies. It took a while, but I managed to move most of my library

onto those drives. Instead of seven boxes of DVDs, I had one. The rest were on

four backup units that take up as much room as my box set from the Lord of the

Rings.
It was this technique I learned that I could apply to most things, and I

did.
 CHAPTER THREE
PRODUCTIVITY AND LOVING YOUR WORK

We had resolved to get a studio space when we first moved to Portland. We

both decided that six months in a studio would give us time to get accustomed to

the city and find where we wanted to live. This was a big decision and we were
moving from one corner of the country to the exact opposite corner. I’ve done

this before in the past, but I’ve always had a landing spot. Friends I crashed with

in LA, parents to stay with in Florida, the future husband when I went to

Wisconsin, but we had no one in Portland. Heck, no one within two states of

Oregon. Needless to say, I was crazy scared. The husband, not so much, as usual.

Sure, 400 to 500 square feet would be a terribly small living space after our

two story - two bedroom house with a fireplace and backyard, but we could
adapt for a short time. We had studied up on Portland for months to learn about
our new city. We read up on the neighborhoods, the public transit, the food, and

we felt we had a grasp on what was happening there.

We were both looking to reinvent ourselves.

We wanted to live in the city instead of the suburbs, so the decision was
made. We ended up with a 500 square foot studio in the center of downtown.

I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was when we moved in.

All wood floors, a VERY small kitchen with doors that closed it off like a

hide-a-bed, an actual call system from the 1940’s on the wall that no longer
worked, and a bathroom that was a cross between the 1930’s and a school locker
room.
 We loved it immediately.

We were not able to ship our three pallets out yet, but I almost wanted to let

them go.

I know, how wasteful!

We only had our three bags each we brought on the plane, but I found it so

freeing to not have much in our apartment.

 We went to Ikea and bought a small dining room table where the extensions
folded up inside. It was a small, space-saver and I was really beginning to

appreciate this feature.

We bought two desk tops with stands underneath because I was going to

focus on freelance art and writing as part of my reinvention. We also bought a

small couch with a pullout full-sized bed.

That’s it.

I was really beginning to enjoy the simplicity of our surroundings. Two

people in this studio should have left me feeling cramped, but far from it. I felt

free.
 We had three towels and I kept my frillies and socks in one of my suitcases. I

used to have shoe boxes, shelves, hanging shelves, drawer dividers, and

stretchers for shoes, gym bags, and metal shelves in the closets. My upper closet

shelves annoyed me because we kept extra stuff up there for storage. It all felt so

cluttered.

I had dozens of pairs of white socks and as many pairs of dress socks.
Stockings piled up and garters nearby. I think I had almost thirty satin camisoles
filling a drawer and a half. I was constantly weeding out stained or old items to
be replaced with packages of new.

I threw out everything old and I came to Portland with one package of brand

new white tee shirts and white socks. I kept the frillies and dress socks, they
never seemed to suffer as much as the whites. Sue me, I’m awful at washing the

whites.

I brought four pairs of jeans, four dress pants, 4 blouses, and various tees.

The rest was packed on the pallet for shipping.

I’ve never felt better about such a limited selection. The only problem is I’m
losing weight so fast here that I wished I packed the smaller clothes. Poor me!

Our kitchen is small with small cup boards, but we eat out at food carts or

keep minor staples in the fridge. Yup, we eat at food carts.

 The food is amazing here and the food carts are filled with the most brilliant

chefs around. Virtually everything is locally sourced, good for you, and super

hearty. We live a vegetarian lifestyle and this place just seems to cater to us. The

husband and I could not afford to make food this good and plentiful for the price
we pay for it. We walk two blocks to the carts, pick out something like Indian for

the evening and bring our heaping helpings home. Did I mention I’m losing a

ton, maybe not literally, of weight?

 We keep some essentials in our small kitchen and fridge, like teas or fruits,

but that’s it.

The simplicity of our new life surprises and scares me, mostly because it’s
working.

Also, the studio includes electric, water, and Wi-Fi.

That’s it.

So simple, clean, and freeing over the trap that was our house.
 Around my desk are a few high quality posters displaying typewriters and
such for inspiration. I have postcards and art cards from various galleries tacked

to my wall for more inspiration.

That’s it.

My work space is twenty feet from my husband’s area and I can easily share

what I’m writing or ask for advice. The distractions are so few now, that I’m

astonished at how much content I produce. I used to write with a TV on and

some movie/TV show playing. I would frequently break and do something

distracting. There was always something interesting around and I was like a

crow with a shiny object. Just shake your car keys at me and I’m gone.
 I was constantly trying to come down off work troubles or not think about

budgets/work orders/emails/calls I still had to do. I could not release the stress

high. On the weekends, I would only just start to relax around Sunday afternoon.

Now I just sit down and work.

I can’t tell if I feel guilty on-purpose or because I think I’m supposed to feel
that way. Maybe it’s just an off-shoot of the many years I spent in catholic

school? Just kidding, don’t ex-communicate me.

 I always feel guilty when I don’t recycle properly, let alone where to get rid

of my stuff. I swear, I look around like a kid trying to steal a candy bar when I

throw a cup away in the wrong garbage can. It’s like I expect the garbage police

to come, like some Monty-Pythonish SWAT team to kick my door in and scream
“FREEZE DIRTBAG!”
 Anyway, where do you get rid of everything when down-sizing?

Garage Sales?

Okay, nothing depresses me more than having a garage sale. Maybe it’s just

me, but I feel like I’m being judged by every person who picks up my Creepy
Clown Hummel series. Who wants to bargain with someone over stuff you think

is of tremendous value, but they only want to pay 35 cents? Then again, I used to
haggle like a demon when I found drive-by treasure! How do you think I got the
Creepy Clown Hummel series in the first place?

The solution my husband and I hit on was a donation truck/drop-off point for

Goodwill. We discussed a garage sale (shudder), selling stuff on eBay, and

running Craig’s List ads. Yeah, the idea of inviting strangers into my house to
look at my used stuff while my husband was at work ranked only slightly above

the garage sale idea.

We were driving back from lunch when we saw one of the trucks parked in

an empty section of a super market parking lot. It looked very sad there all alone
and the guy watching it sat in a threadbare lawn chair. You’d think they would
get him a better chair, but I guess donation collectors can’t be choosy.
 So, we loaded up the car and drove on over. The collection guy was
overjoyed at the bounty we had to drop off and he gave us tons of blank

donations receipts for our taxes.

Tons of blank tax write off papers. That’s a win for taxes next year and we

get to unload a lot of stuff quickly.

We surprised him by making several trips to his truck with lots of good
donations.

“People usually just bring their crap and trash, but this is really good stuff,”

he exclaimed. He was right, it was tons of good stuff.

Here’s a funny little thing that happens when you’re moving. The closer the

deadline gets, added to you miscalculating everything, including time, you start
to not give a damn about things. The value or nostalgia falls away and you start
to discover what really matters to you.

Here’s where the Creepy Clown Hummel series really shows its true colors.

Do you NEED these creepy clowns, or do they matter to you because your

friends find them kitschy when they come over? Is that why you honestly keep

them, or do they really start to add value to your life?

Value is what I started to recognize. None of this stuff was adding value to
my life that in any way was worth the trouble shipping. In place of those Creepy

Clown Hummels I packed a dozen blank journals. These I used for notes, stories,
art, and brain storming. These bring immense value to my life because they help
me create. They organize my thoughts to create. The space they consume is
compensated by the volume of information they help me contain. They bring

value to my life and make the cut.

Sorry and goodbye Creepy clowns!

My husband and I had decided that we could get rid of everything we could
easily replace and just keep the important stuff. We figured one pallet each

placed in storage until we moved would do the trick. We could then have a
freight company pick them up and ship the pallets across the country. It would be

short work to get rid of everything, sell it, make some money for the trip, and
pack the rest. Easy-peasy.
Nope.

The more we packed, the more stuff we found we owned. It felt like the

rooms kept filling themselves back up each time we took boxes to the storage
unit. The closer we got to the departure day, the more cavalier I grew in what I

was keeping or discarding. Things I was desperate to keep only a week ago I just

tossed on the Goodwill pile.

It was now that I was really starting to discover that minimalist attitude

developing, but I hadn’t recognized it as a life choice yet.

I only knew that I was like the captain deciding who was going on that

lifeboat.

Alexander Dumas collection? Pfft, who needs the Musketeers?

Box set DVDs of Sex in the City? Seen it and I could REALLY use the extra

foot of packing space those things were taking up.

Trip after trip, my husband and I made to the Goodwill truck. The guy there
was becoming like an old friend. He was so happy that what we were bringing

was such good stuff.

 “There are so many families that need these things.”

“Sex in the City DVDs?”

“Okay, those not so much.”

The husband and I were amazed at how many trips it took to get the house

emptied. Neither one of us could believe we owned so many things. There were
only two of us, but we had enough stuff for the Von Trapp family.
And here was the problem I was slowly growing to recognize.

We planned on getting rid of everything, shipping two pallets, securing a

studio for six months, then finding the two-bedroom apartment that would suit

our needs and location. We ended up with three pallets in storage, not two. Even
then, that was after an extreme culling of everything we owned.
 Three versus two is a huge oversight, but I was certain this was the most
ESSENTIAL stuff we needed to have in Portland.

We plastic wrapped all three pallets, closed the storage door, and locked it. I

dropped off the key with my mom and she would be there when the freight
company needed to load the lot on a truck.

A long plane ride later and we were in our hotel in Portland.

It was all fun and games until our first apartment fell through and we only
had a few days left in our hotel until things started to get expensive. We hadn’t

realized how quickly apartments were snapped up here and the competition was
pretty robust.

After a stressful few days and a lot of telephone calls, we secured another
studio that was better than the first.

That phone call from the property manager caused me to sweat three pounds

off in thirty seconds as he told me we could pick the keys up that night. My

husband continued to smile because he knew we’d have no problem getting a

place. Sometimes I can’t decide if he’s a little soft or he knows something I

don’t, usually the latter.

 Anyway, weeks later and we are enjoying our studio and new city. It’s now
that I make the realization that I really wouldn’t mind if we decided to ship not a

single pallet out here.

Not a single one.

Not the signed collection of Clive Barker novels, not the art supplies, not the

kitchen utensils, not the remaining glassware, or the Kitchen-aid mixer.

I even broached the subject to the husband, who, unsurprisingly, shot the

idea down. I can’t blame him, I know there is stuff we could use, especially

when we do move to a bigger place, but this is so nice.

However, I don’t think I’ll keep much of it when it gets here. I wish the now
me could go back to the packing me and supervise. I have been away from the

packed stuff for long enough that I don’t really need it. I have been doing fine
with what I have and I really don’t want to be that trapped person again. I know
it won’t be the same, but it still concerns me.
I have so little value placed on that stuff now and I can’t imagine that

changing. I can’t say that I have felt like this at any other point in my life. I have

always looked to acquiring material possessions as proof of my worth and

success. Now, I look at how little drama and clutter is in my life as proof of

worth and success.

I don’t feel that cold hand that used to squeeze my heart every time I went
into work. Who was I going to piss off and have a complaint filed against me

today? What I did for a living helped no one and had such little effect on people
beyond keeping their walls painted and grass cut, but that sort of thing was most

important to them. I was tired of feeling worthless and filling the gap by
surrounding myself with purchased goods.

Not having those things anymore was freedom and I was resenting those

pallets like they were trying to impinge on my new-found life.

Silly to put such power in inanimate objects, but they do have power over us.

I am in no way anti-consumerist. I just now look to see if true value comes into
my life as a result of the thing I am buying.

I have postcards and art show cards pinned to the walls around my desk.
They are beautiful examples of local art work. These are free in the galleries I go
to here in Portland and they bring immense value to me. They cost nothing, take

up very little room, but they inspire me as I look at them. They foster a creative
space around my desk. That is true value.
 CHAPTER FOUR
VALUE

Being a minimalist doesn’t mean that you sit naked in the middle of a bare

room. You just decide what value is brought to you by your possessions or

actions. I have no interest in turning into a Shaolin monk. Walking the roads of
the world and doing good deeds like Caine might be fun for a little while, but I

get weird if I can’t shower regularly.

 Minimalism to me means to do away with everything that keeps me from

what gives me the most joy. Life isn’t just living for what makes you happy, or is

it? Have we just been programmed to accept less in life and like it?

My dad used to tell me when I was younger to not expect much out of life

and you won’t be disappointed.

Wow, take that little nugget to the bank.

My dad has lived his whole life this way and it shows. He retired 13 years
ago and he has been just waiting to die that whole time.
 I simply can’t understand how you can just allow your life to be a
placeholder to tide over the time between birth and death. He takes no joy in

anything.

Food means nothing to him as long as there are huge portions. Fast food is

best as he gets it sooner and without the hassle of dealing with a restaurant.
 I have yet to eat anywhere where he didn’t disapprove of the food, the

service, the dining room, or some random and beyond anyone’s control
impediment to his eating. That’s why mom likes to just bring him a big bag of

burgers, and I did not say burger, for him to eat.

Sitting in front of the TV from waking until sleep, while playing some
mindless game on the computer, is all he does. His health and body shows this

decline as well as the emergency hospital visits and surgeries to save his life. He
lives on dozens of pills a day with blood sugar numbers that would kill a regular
diabetic if they so much as stood next to him.

He can’t climb stairs any longer and is winded getting out of bed. He is a

wreck and there is nothing anyone can do to help him because he doesn’t want
any help. Believe me, I tried.

Remember, you can only change one person in the world and that is yourself.

You can be understanding, supportive, and loving - but only that person can
change themselves. Consequently, it is completely within your power to fix what

is wrong with you.

 Sure, our parents may have screwed us up and built the foundation for the

house of cards that is our lives, but we have every opportunity to go back and
rebuild.

They weren’t taught any better and they have only so much to work with

themselves. I’ve seen my grandparents and they were just as messed up as

everyone else. To keep blaming them for your insecurities and doubts is selfish
and lazy.
I know because I’ve been doing it a long time.

Minimalism means you also take an assessment of the baggage and things

cluttering your head-attic. Boy, I thought handling that second bedroom was a
pain in the ass.

I suffered from a tremendous load of guilt and my husband is always

reminding me that I allowed it to be put on my shoulders. I agree, but I couldn’t

figure out how to relieve it. I’ve always been afraid that I was letting people
down all around me. I could know you for ten minutes or all my life, and I
would be terrified of letting you down. I valued other people’s opinions of me

over my own. After all, I’m biased and no one else has a personal agenda that
may cloud or shape how they respond to me, right?
 I’ve always felt a tremendous obligation to my family. Even when we argue

and fight, I have always felt guilty if I didn’t apologize and try to mend bridges.
It really just comes down to remembering that they will be gone one day.

That’s not a fair assessment to qualify everything with, but it’s one I have

lived with for years.

No one lives forever, but I am certainly going to try. However, in the event

that I fail, I don’t want to feel that I let my loved ones down by not spending
enough time with them.
 The turning point in my relations with my mother, father, and sister was my

wedding. The amazing husband of mine asked me to marry him and I finally
said yes. We decided to just get married on Valentine’s Day at a group wedding

in a national park. We assumed we could plan a more intimate ceremony later,

but just have a quick little thing here with a romantic dinner later. The quirkiness

really appealed to both of us like an Elvis wedding in Vegas does to many. I

vetoed that idea because it also appealed to the handsome husband. There’s a

fine line between quirky and tacky, Elvis and his impersonators are my line.

The family drama blew up when my sister got into a verbal fight with my
husband over statements that still make no sense. I don’t know if she felt he was
pulling me away from the family or if she was jealous, but it really didn’t matter

in the end.

The husband defended me and the sister refused to attend the wedding. My

father proved to be sick that day and my mother was the only member of the

family that showed. The whole day was a miserable affair and again spoiled by
drama.

Sigh, I really do hate drama.

I found out later that dad wasn’t sick, but refused to attend since my sister
was not going to be there.

Okay, the situation seems pretty cut and dry. The majority of my family

made their decision by refusing to be at the wedding. I was starting my own

family, yet my immediate family was ruining my happy day over something

pretty petty. Sometimes you get hung up by your own petard.

I however, felt guilty because I love my sister, and I love, grudgingly, my

pain of a father. My mother was in a bad position and wanted everyone to just

get along. All I wanted was my day with my husband to be of fond memories,
yet it felt like my fault because I couldn’t fix things. Worst of all, my husband’s
day was ruined too and it was my family’s fault. I just kept going back and forth
trying to think how I could fix things.

Now here is where we tie this mess into the minimalist through-line.

Obligations and guilt can be as imprisoning as a room full of stuff. Just as

you need to figure out if that second wide screen plasma TV brings value into

your life, so do you need to judge the relationships you maintain to see what
value they bring.
 My sister is very important to me and I have always had her in the forefront

of my thoughts. We have lived both on separate sides of the country or rooms

next to each other.

She is someone I would die for or give a kidney, but I no longer speak to her.
 My husband is the most important person in the world to me. His is the

relationship that brings ultimate value to my life and anyone who diminishes that

has to go. To not set aside differences and try to build a relationship means that

my family and I now travel different paths. The fact that no one remembers his

birthday, let alone called him when his mother passed recently, means a lot to
me.

This level of drama disintegrated my obligations, real and imposed by me, to

my family. I would be there for them in a heartbeat, but I no longer feel bad for

exploring options that don’t include them. I worry about my father still, but I
rarely interact with him. Not attending my wedding, not even calling to
congratulate me, shows where his priorities are and that’s fine.

Part of my minimalism journey is to let people make their decisions and

follow that path. I could be hurt and angry. I could let that baggage build up and

everything that goes with it. It would probably domino toward more pain and

resentment.

Or…

I could just accept it and move on. This means that I am free of that pain
because I am not responsible for other people’s feelings. I did not force him to

make this decision and I did not force him to not discuss the matter. He punished
me by not attending my wedding and I choose to think he just punished himself.
People have to live with the consequences of their actions or words. We can be

supportive, but that doesn’t alleviate them of their responsibility.

Letting go lifts that pressure from my heart and my mind. I don’t feel
obligated to trying to please people and that is the next step on my journey.

I don’t try to make others happy any more. I love my husband and I support

him in every way, but I don’t try to make him happy. I provide an environment
that we can both choose to be either happy or sad, we just choose to be happy. Is
that simplistic? Hell yes, that’s the point.

We have decided to be happy and we’ve done a pretty good job so far.

We are in a new city and we have no friends yet, but we introduce ourselves
to virtually everyone we meet. We give a smile and have almost always received

one back. I’m actually starting to believe that old saying that you get back what

you put out.

In my old job, I was crushed by the expectations, unrealistic or otherwise, of

others and their agendas. I was often the powerless tool they pounded on and I
couldn’t meet the unrelenting workload. These were angry people who, in most

cases, were stuck in condos and HOAs where their property was so far

underwater that their nearest neighbor lived in Atlantis.

They were angry that they paid so much in fees and expected instantaneous
service. They were overwhelmed by their circumstances and they let it show in
the ugliest ways possible.

I was turning into that, and it was affecting every important relationship -
including the husband.

Arriving in Portland meant I could wipe all of those obligations away and

start new. The first obligation was to myself and I was going to choose to be
happy.

Portland has its warts. There is rampart homelessness, begging in the streets,

a great deal of drug and meth use, crime, and dirt. But I also see the amazing

food, the historic buildings, the good people trying to make a difference, and the

positive attitudes.
I could be depressed or I could be happy. I choose the one that makes me feel

good.

I’m choosing to go to my favorite coffee cart, share some good-natured

chatter with the owner/barista, and pay for a suspended coffee that will help

someone have some caffeine that day who may not have it otherwise.
I choose to walk to the library to gather some research for the art work or
writing assignment I have due and I take the time to enjoy the presence of all of
those books for a while. I choose to go sit and work on my assignment in the

restaurant window where my husband is a new pastry chef and enjoy the

ambiance. I then choose to go grab my favorite Indian cart food and head to my
cozy apartment to enjoy dinner with my amazing pastry chef husband before I

finish my assignment due that day.

No added drama, no judgment, no need to feel I need approval from my

family any longer. I’m choosing to walk a happy path now and steer clear of

unnecessary drama.
Why didn’t I do this years ago?

One thing I have discovered after moving to Portland is that I don’t need

as much money now. Maintaining a two floor-two bedroom house was

expensive! Not to mention, two cars, utilities, insurance, food, clothes, and

anything remotely approaching fun.

We were constantly living well above our means and most of this was

due to being miserable. We were always in search of distractions from how

much we did not enjoy our lives.
 The husband and I are vegetarians and we lived in one of the areas that

seemed to declare war on veggies. It isn’t like we’re militant or tried to make

people angry. It was the lifestyle we chose and we tried to make it work. We

could almost always find something on a menu to eat or politely ask if a meat

item could be easily removed. Some restaurants took this as a challenge, and
some as an offense.

Sigh.

We also had to drive quite a bit because everything in Saint Petersburg

was so far spread out. I used to say that the next thing we wanted to do was
always forty minutes from where we were at that moment. Money just poured
out as we lived day to day. We weren’t extravagant people, we just liked to eat
out every once in a while or even to just eat healthy.

Moving to Portland was an eye opener. The studio apartment was half

what it cost to live in the two bedroom house. Less stuff meant we needed less
space. Less space meant less money spent on square footage filled with boxes of

stuff we didn’t need in the first place.

Brilliant!

The studio also included Wi-Fi and utilities - brilliant times two!

Since we eat out so often, we don’t do a lot of shopping. As I’ve said, the
food we get now is healthy, hearty, and satisfying. We couldn’t make it for what

it costs in most instances. We are now able to cut back on the supplements and

vitamins we were eating because we both have lost so much weight and are

healthier. Trust me, that is a cost savings motherlode right there.

We spend so much time walking the city and exploring that we don’t

have to spend money on distractions like we used to do. Losing weight, instead
of gaining it, means I don’t have to keep…erm… expanding the wardrobe.
 Cha-ching!

We don’t have one TV, let alone the TV in every room we had before. We

aren’t constantly buying movies and books that end up stacked on the fireplace.

We aren’t buying art supplies that end up on a box in the second bedroom. We

aren’t driving fifty miles, there and back, to go to the one decent Italian

restaurant serving veggie lasagna.

Now, we walk two blocks to an Italian restaurant that doesn’t treat its

vegetarian clientele like lepers, that serves us a well planned and executed
dinner, and costs half what a crappy meal used to cost in Saint Petersburg.
That is simplicity that I can handle.
 CHAPTER FIVE
HOW DO I BECOME LESS?

Are there rules to follow as a minimalist? Well, I think that how I shape my

life as a minimalist will be different than how you live. The simplest rule to

follow would be to judge everything by how much value that thing adds to your
life.

Living a minimalist lifestyle is doing things as simply as possible.

Occam’s razor means that the simplest solution is often the correct solution.
This is a good principle to live your life by. Unneeded material goods, too many

distractions, and waste can destroy you.

Apply minimalism to the structure of your life as well as the clutter and
demands. Not everyone can work as their own boss doing freelance work, but

you would be surprised at how much structural clutter you can trim away.

I used to get up at 6 AM to get ready for work. I would do all of my normal

grooming beforehand, sometimes eat breakfast, more often eat fast food

breakfast, and get into the office by 8:30 AM. On my drive, I would handle a

couple of calls, return a couple more, then call into the client services

department to see what problems were brewing. I would either give directions on

how these problems should be handled or ask that they email or deliver
reminders to my office.

Once in, I would try to answer emails, or at least identify the really big
problems. I would flag the unread emails and organize them into sub-folders for
each property and hope that I could deal with them and not forget.
 I would definitely forget as other problems would come up or fires needed to

be put out.

I would then drive to one of my properties for a weekly meeting. Sometimes

this was only a forty minute drive and sometimes it would be an hour and a half
drive to a southern property.
 Once there, I would spend an hour or more walking the property with a

board member going over every inch for problems. This walk should have been

scheduled once a month, but most of the time our contracts deemed them

necessary once a week. Huge waste of time, but a contract is a contract. The

board would never skimp as they figured we weren’t earning our keep anyway.

I would then drive back with a checklist of problems, usually after being
chewed out for not completing various previous tasks yet. Of course, this

ignored the fact that the tasks may have been impossible to take care of because
of a lack of money, no vendor interested in the work, no decision from the rest of
the board to even proceed, not enough time, or any various combinations of the

previous qualifiers.

I may have other meetings that day, or a full blown board meeting that night.

These lasted anywhere from two hours to four with angry homeowners and
board members looking to shove the blame on someone else. In between all of

this,

I would squeeze in some nasty fast food or some frozen meal.

Day in and day out, I preformed these duties. I was organized, professional,

and I cared. However, I had more properties than I could handle and they were
looking to pile more on me because I could save accounts other managers were
losing.
There was no way that I could live a minimalist lifestyle with this job, so I

quit. It’s never that simple, but I had to make it that way. It was leave or die. Boy

that sounds so dramatic. However, I have the doctor’s reports and hospital
records to show otherwise. That said, quitting meant that I also had to leave a

very lucrative salary behind.

Here’s where I had to restructure things and rebuild our lives.

Freelancing pays, but not as well as my old job. The husband and I really had

to come to grips with changing how we lived. Thankfully, neither of us are really
the type who needs expensive things. My husband picked out an Android tablet

for me three years ago and did a brilliant job of researching the most bang for the
buck. I’ve used it to the max of its capabilities and wrote part of this book with

it. It’s still going strong, even though new tablets offer some pretty amazing
features.
 The husband and I had to adapt to less income, but we find our dollar going

further now.

Now that we’ve corrected the naked in a bare room myth, let’s tackle the

next misunderstanding. Minimalism doesn’t mean you need to scrape by with

something cheap. Again, it’s the value that the item brings to your life and not
the value of the item.

Before I moved, I had the laptop I am using now, a desktop that I used as my
media center, a printer/scanner, and my tablet. Of the three, I donated the
desktop and the printer to a friend’s school for the art department to use. I kept
the laptop and the tablet because I use both interchangeably, depending on the

situation. I purchased a Roku in place of the desktop because I could use the

backup hard-drives, full of my movies, with it and compress down from a full
sized desktop to a device only 4 inches across.

Same functionality, but simpler.

Distill every situation to the most basic level that still fulfills your needs.

My husband and I owned two cars in Florida. That meant double the

insurance, gas, maintenance, tires, cleaning, parking, and use. Huge cost and
nothing we could do about it. We could get bikes, but the need for vehicles was
not canceled out by two-wheelers. Living in Florida meant you did a lot of

driving. Public transportation was pitiful and my job required a vehicle, so we

poured more money down that hole.

The flip-side was that we didn’t walk all that much either. Sure, we tried to
walk downtown once a weekend, but it was 20 blocks and 4 of them were
through a sketchy part of the neighborhood. It was simpler and safer to just
drive. This meant no exercise and several blocks circled as we tried to find

parking in the general vicinity of where we wanted to go.

One of the hardest decisions we made when moving to Portland was

deciding to get rid of both vehicles.

Crazy, huh?

Getting rid of the cars would solidify our travel plans, but owning a car was
so ingrained into each of us.
 We were still trying to decide if driving across country with a moving truck

and one car would work or if we should get rid of everything and fly. Disposing

of both cars made our travel decision possible and moved us along the
minimalist path.

We checked out our new city and discovered it was filled with public
transport options. Not only did we have trolleys, trams, and train lines, but this

city was designed for bikes and walking. We had cheap cabs to choose from
along with more unique options like bike cabs.

Should we need a vehicle, there were two inexpensive car loan services in
the city. Zipcar was our service of choice. We could reserve a car, any type up to
a truck or van. This vehicle would be between $8 and $18 per hour depending on

vehicle. They were located at spots all over the city and surrounding area. There

are five within two blocks of my apartment. The vehicle usage includes gas and
insurance with an 80 mile cap before you are charged extra. There is no credit

card down and apps to register. You interact with no one. Just walk up, flash

your card at the windshield, it unlocks and the keys are attached inside.

We rented a Zipcar, a hybrid, and drove to Ikea. We loaded our furniture in it

and wrapped everything up in 3 hours. No muss no fuss.

These cars are at our disposal any time we reserve them and I can even get a

luxury car if I need one for a meeting. There is no need to own a car here and I
am loving every second of it. I have never felt freer than to not own a car and
discovering that I don’t need a car. There is no value added to my life by owning

my own car.
 Living in the city means we walk everywhere. We head to Chinatown for a

vegetarian lunch at the Vegetarian House = 18 blocks. We swing down to

Voodoo Donuts for a tasty treat = 5 blocks. We visit Powell’s Books = 12 blocks.
We head home = 6 blocks. 41 blocks of exercise = my ass getting much smaller.

You would not believe how winded I would get on short excursions to the
food carts when we first got here, but now I swing it like a champ.
 Of course, some days it feels like we are going uphill in both directions, but
I’m getting there.

Having so few personal items has been a dream come true when it comes to
keeping organized. Anyone who knows me knows I am an organizing freak. I

had scores of plastic boxes, sorting boxes, photo boxes, accordion files, plastic
sleeves, labeling machines, and binders. The problem was that I was getting so
cluttered up with my organization system because I had too much organized

stuff!

Keeping up with everything I had already organized was driving me crazy.

The paperwork alone was madness.

However, during packing I realized what I could do with that paperwork -

digitize it and dispose of it all.

I started by shredding all of my W2s and my check stubs. I went to my

company website and found all of the electronic copies of my paperwork there. I

downloaded it to dated files and stored backups in my Google Drive and

Dropbox. I did the same by going to my online tax site and downloaded all of

my returns. I started scanning important paperwork like my medical records and

started shredding papers that were no longer of use. It was crazy what I had in

my accordions that I longer needed. Expired registrations for old screenplays,

book club or library cards. Electric bills from California, and old receipts.

Everything I didn’t need hit the shredder.

 Needless to say, there are definitely things you can’t digitize like passports or

birth certificates. However, I was surprised at how much I could get rid of
physically and keep safe copies backed up in case of an emergency.

I also uploaded apps to my phone that allow me to scan in paperwork simply

by taking a picture. I can scan a receipt and send it to my Dropbox in two steps

instead of taking it home and filing in an accordion file. I can now scan articles I

find in the library or documents I sign in person. Pretty nifty device, these

smartphones.

I keep both Dropbox and Google Drive on my computer to back all of my

important information up. I know that I can access either account from anywhere

and I get a ton of space for free. I also use these accounts to link my current
work projects in case I feel like taking my tablet to a coffee shop to work instead

of my laptop.
 I don’t keep a physical calendar anymore, I use Google calendar linked to

Outlook with Gsync. I got tired of keeping a notebook in my bag with

appointments, while trying to keep my desk calendar and my online calendar

updated. I wasted so much time trying to have everything working together

when it was simpler to just use Google on my phone. Technology has really

saved my butt.

I also used to carry a digital recorder around with me to take notes. What a
horrible chore it was to transcribe those audio files. It took hours to do because I
either don’t speak clearly or I just don’t type fast enough. A little of both most of

the time I imagine. Instead, I now use an app called Flex T9 Speak that

transcribes my notes as I speak them. What a lifesaver to be able to dictate my

articles as I’m walking home or riding a bus.

Apps are the greatest invention yet. I can multitask with my phone or tablet

in ways I could only dream about 5 years ago. I eliminated my IPod, digital

recorders, camera, scanners, calculators, compass, maps, and more by simply by

finding the app that could handle the tasks I need.

A phone or tablet is a minimalist’s dream device.
 CHAPTER SIX
WHAT I DO EVERY DAY

I used to hear my alarm clock scream at me from anywhere between 6 AM

and 9 AM, depending on where I had to be that day. Now, I don’t even set my
alarm. Truth of the matter, I still wake up around 8:30 AM, unless I’ve been up

late writing or drawing.

Freelancing means that I don’t have to get up at a specific time any longer

and that is a very relaxing thing. My schedule is as uncluttered as I can make it.
 Cleaning the apartment takes a tenth of the time the house did. It takes me
literally 5 minutes to wash dishes as the most we use is a few glasses and some

silverware. Almost all of the containers we get from food carts or restaurants

comes in Eco-friendly materials. Good for the environment and recyclable for

us. We try to reuse the cups or containers several times, but we do separate our

recyclables as much as possible. I run a dust-mop around the hardwood floors

and check our air-mattress in just a few minutes.

Yes, we skipped a traditional bed and bought a full-sized air-mattress. We

also purchased two full-sized memory foam sheets. One went on the floor
underneath and the second went on top. I love traditional mattresses, but this set
up feels like heaven. Also, we can easily store it if we need some additional
room and the whole thing cost us $75. Simple, cheap, and it brings value that an

expensive traditional bed set can’t.

The bathroom takes a little longer, maybe 15 minutes and I’m done.
Now I have to decide if I am heading out to write or if I’m going to stay in. I

try to keep my schedule loose and today I think I want a little more freedom, so

out it’s going to be.

I decide to get breakfast first, so I head to a bar we like called Kelly’s

Olympian. It’s a strange hybrid really. There are a dozen, very expensive,
vintage motorcycles hanging from the ceiling and the place is filled with old gas

pumps, guitars, and either barflies or hipsters.

The food is outstanding and mostly vegetarian. The other big factor is, like
many places here with hearty food, cheap. I crack open my tablet, order an iced
coffee, the French toast with eggs, and start researching my next assignment. I
never skimp on the tip because I like to park places and work. I always make

certain that I’m not killing real estate that cheat the ladies out of tips, so I leave

before the lunch rush comes in.

I may either head back home to continue working or go to a coffee shop like
Case Study. I choose the latter. Along the way, I check my library app to see if

my holds have come in. Case Study is across the street from the main branch, so

I swing by and pickup my research material. I then spend a couple of hours

doing more writing and drinking more iced coffee. I can’t help it, I’m addicted to
the stuff.

I check my phone to see a text from the husband saying he is getting off
work and would I like to grab dinner at our favorite restaurant. Of course I do
and it happens to be two blocks from our studio. Not only have I gotten a huge

chunk of writing done, but I’ve also walked a good twenty blocks that day.

The husband and I wrap up a lovely meal sitting street-side and drinking the
restaurant’s own house-brew beers. When we get home, the husband rests and I

put in another couple of hours reading or writing. We then head off to a solid

night’s sleep to start over the next day both doing the things we love.

Did I mention that I sleep through the night and wake up rested? It has been

a very long time since I’ve done that.

I never dreamed I could have days like these when I was killing myself for
years doing the property management gig.
 I feel like a castaway who vaguely remembers the years they spent on the

island. I let it trap me and ensure me in an unmanageable and self-fulfilling

schedule. Yuck.

I should feel guilty now for living like this, but I refuse to do so. I paid both
my dues and a heavy toll in that past career. I only feel guilty for not taking the

steps I needed to so that I could get to this point sooner. I should have been
braver and I should have taken a better inventory of my life. Yet, even that isn’t
helpful. What happened before brought me here and I accept that. Living in the
past means never leaving the past. There is no growth or point to it.

Choose a career that will give you the freedom you need and the joy you

crave. You can use all of the excuses you like to avoid being honest, but they
don’t matter in the end if you kill yourself serving other people’s needs. There is

nothing wrong with being selfish about your own needs first.

Maybe you have a family to take care of, but you’re working yourself to

death. Who takes care of them when you are gone? Would it not be better to do

more with them at the cost of buying them less things? Wouldn’t your son enjoy
spending the weekend with you more than a new TV? Wouldn’t your wife enjoy

dinners with you more than the vacation that required weeks and weeks of
overtime?
 My schedule doesn’t bring in huge sums of money, but my stress level is

virtually nil. I know that my blood pressure has dropped forty points alone and I

don’t feel sick virtually every minute of my waking day.

 True story…
I was on-call 24 hours a day 7 days a week. I had one property where the fire

alarms and system would go off constantly in the middle of the night. This is a

12 story building and I had nightmares where it caught fire and our alarm system

didn’t work for some reason. I would hear my phone ring, despite the fact that it

sat next to me constantly and actually had not rung after all.

I got a call late one evening that the alarms had gone off again. I had been at
dinner with the husband and we had just ordered. I had to call a cab to go home,

get my books and keys, and then drive thirty minutes to get to the building. Once
there, a heat sensor had indicated that there was a fire in a stairwell, but there
was no such heat source. I checked and everything was clear, but my boss said to

contact the fire department just in case, why take chances?

I called the non-emergency number and explained the situation. The fire

department still came with sirens roaring and checked out the building. A

lieutenant chewed me out, in front of two trucks of firemen and tenants, about

calling in a false alarm. She said I could have been arrested for this and that they

would be billing me.

 Nice lady.
I could have sliced up my stress and built a second 12 story building with it.

I would do it again because I still would not take chances with people’s lives, but

my job now is only stressful if I don’t hit a deadline. At least the consequences
aren’t fines, jail, or people’s lives being damaged or lost.

My schedule is so much calmer now and a heck of a lot more rewarding.

Tomorrow’s schedule is up in the air and I really don’t have any solid plans.

I’m laying out some new projects and looking to finish my book, but my only

real goal is to line up new clients.

 CHAPTER SEVEN
HOW DO MINIMALISTS EAT?

The husband and I are vegetarians. Is it important to being a minimalist? Not

at all.

Being a minimalist means making choices that enrich and simplify your life.

What I do makes my life easier, but that doesn’t mean it will make yours. My
relationship with my family has caused us to go separate ways in life, this in turn

has relieved me of many obligations. You may be tight as thieves with your
family and emulating my choices would only hurt that.
 I’m a vegetarian because of health reasons. I ended up with pancreatitis a

few years back and the doctors didn’t think I was coming out of the ER. It was

so bad that I was screaming in the emergency room. My blood pressure and

sugar numbers were through the roof. I was one hundred pounds overweight and

I spent several days in intensive care. I was at a very low point in my life and I

had only started doing the property management job a year before.

I had left LA two years before my hospital vacation and I had all but given
up on my dream of being a successful writer and artist. I was alone and had no
one in my life. I was in full high pressure mode as a property manager and I was
eating the worst fast food imaginable. The night before my attack, I was at an
all-you-can-eat country buffet with my boss after a terrifically stressful board

meeting.

I ate my fill that night.

Now I know it wasn’t the buffet that sent me to the hospital, it was

everything. It was the soda I was pounding by the two liter bottle, it was the

Taco Bell, it was the McDonald’s, it was the hohos, and peanut butter cups. I was
a wreck inside and I was a wreck outside.

I left the hospital, alive, but I still had not learned my lesson. I was eating
better, but still not quite well enough. I started eating a lot of Boca burgers
instead of McDonald’s Big Macs. I drank tons of iced tea, but I still had some

soda. I ate more vegetables, but still chased it with fries. I managed to lose some

weight, but not enough to seriously impact my body.

It was then that I met the pastry chef husband online. He was an amazing
person with his own shop in Wisconsin. We agreed to meet and I flew up on

Christmas Day. The following week was fantastic and we fell in love.
 I quit the business and moved to Wisconsin two months later. Over the next

two years, I lost the hundred pounds and I became an occasional meat eater who

ate a great deal of vegetables. He was tolerant as he had been a full vegetarian

for several years.

 I gave up the soda for tea and water. He taught me that there were so many

ways to eat as a vegetarian and not have to live on rabbit food. I felt better than I

had in a very long time.

Nothing tastes as good as being healthy.

After two years, we decided to leave his small town and move back to
Florida. I figured we could live on my property manager income while he
resumed being a pastry chef. Unfortunately, Tampa is not known for their food,

and pastry chef positions are as rare as hen’s teeth. After two more years of

struggling, we hit the start of my story where we moved to Portland.

So, the vegetarian lifestyle was a health choice for me. I still enjoy the

occasional meat meal, but I’ve lost most of my taste for it. That doesn’t mean

you can’t be a minimalist and eat meat. Just eat healthy meat. Organic is such an

overused and abused word, but find a place where it is still respected. We are
lucky here in that most of the foods are locally sourced and listed on the menus.

Restaurants are proud of that fact.

 The fewer ingredients on the package the better for you. If you can’t

pronounce it, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Minimalism also applies to your

foods. I’m not saying Paleo this and Atkins that, but sensible is not a bad way to

go.

I may drink a touch more coffee than I should, but I try to balance one glass
of water for every coffee I have. I try to drink decaf tea instead of just Earl Grey.

Simplicity is also creating a balance.

 If I have fried foods, like falafel or onion rings, I try to visit this amazing

salad shop near the studio for dinner. If I have French toast in the morning, I try
to have a lighter dinner from a soup food cart. The one I enjoy the most offers a

soup flight. Like a flight of beer, a soup flight consists of several smaller samples

of the soups they produce for the day. What a brilliant idea.

You’ll find that when you eat healthier food, you don’t need to eat as much. I

was a buffet terror years ago. You could see the sweat breaking out on the
manager’s lip when I walked in like the Olympic champion of eating contests.
Now, I find myself unable to finish most meals with sensible portions. Two

slices of pizza stuff me when I used to pack away a large by myself. I’ve
discovered that the restaurant that serves the platter sized portions is usually
providing lesser ingredients for that meal. How else can they meet the food
costs? When they serve a giant steak, a softball sized glob of mashed potatoes, a

baseball sized heap of vegetables, and none of it is locally sourced - you know it

came from cans, powders, and grade W meat. The worst part is you’re putting
that into your body.

I understand, I did it for years.

Think what happens if you put very low quality gas into your car. Don’t ever
take it to a mechanic, don’t change the oil, let all of the filters go, and never add

water. Now guess what happens to your car after a few years? Yeah, now rethink
that scenario with your body as the car and you get what happened to me right
before I ended up in the emergency room.

That’s why I practice minimalism in what I eat and how I eat. Every once in

a while I cheat and I promise that I never enjoy it. I always go back to proper,
healthy food and my cheats grow farther apart.

I’m not preaching, just laying out the facts as they happen to me.

 CHAPTER EIGHT
HOW I GET MORE FOR LESS

The pressure here in our society is to buy lots of things. We’re a culture of

gatherers. Watching TV means you are inundated with commercials pushing you
to buy things. Not things you need so much as things you want. Like anything,

consumerism is good in moderation. If you drink too much water, you die. If you

drink what you need, you thrive.

I get past a lot of that consumerism thrust by not owning a television any
more.
 Once, I was a TV maniac. There was nothing better than doing some art and

running my shows in the background. I fooled myself into thinking I could do

several things at once and still accomplish. Damn, was I wrong?

I don’t have a TV any longer, so I just focus on the writing or artwork. Sure,

I play music as I work, but nothing more complicated than that. The crazy part is

I used to think pushing out a thousand words was great for a day’s work. Now, I

could do a rough 10,000 words if I really push. Ten times the work load by
simplifying my surroundings and removing the distractions. Minimalism is all

about removing distractions.

I’m excited to work better and not harder. The words flow more easily and

the drawing goes much smoother.

 It’s all about choices and being honest with yourself.

I liked the idea of being a multitasker. There is no shame in needing to

concentrate and who was I impressing anyway? Why did I need people to think I
could do it all?

Now I make time to watch a few episodes of a show on Hulu with my

husband because I accomplish more of the tasks I lay out for myself. I give

myself time to goof off and I give myself time to work. I try to be consistent, but

flexible.

I’m no longer worried about having a new car or the latest tech because
someone will think it is cool, and by extension, think I’m cool. I’ve reached the
point where I don’t need that type of validation.

I buy the tech I need to get done what I need done. It has to provide services

and abilities my current tech cannot and it has to be at a cost that doesn’t negate

the value. That’s the reason I have not replaced my three year old tablet, it still

walks the walk I need it to.

People buy things because they think they need it and have been told they
need it, when they really don’t. Breaking that cycle is the most important thing.

Self-awareness and self-assessment are sorely missing in many people today.

 Does that product add true value to your life and does that counter-balance
what you do to buy that product?

Does that person add true value to your life, or do they drain you with their

negativity and dark attitude? Is that pain worth all the energy you give to that
person?

These are questions you ask yourself when assessing situations, and try not

to be afraid of the answers. So many people are not worth the struggle and drama

they bring into your life. Many things are not worth the time you will spend to

earn them.

Categorizing things you are assessing helps when becoming a minimalist.

My laptop is facing a problem. The screen goes blank when I use too many

graphic intensive programs. The board gets very hot and the system can crash

the display. A real pain in the backside when doing artwork or writing. Should I

rush out and replace it? Well, in the past I would have done that in a heartbeat.
 It is a 17 inch screen laptop with 4 gigs of memory and I’ve been pretty

satisfied with it. I have Dropbox and Google Drive set up with my documents all
saved as backup. I do my art work in folders set up on both accounts. I have all

of the volatile files saved to these two locations also. I even have Chrome

installed so that my bookmarks are constantly backed up. If I lost the system, the

damage would be minimal.

No, I have not rushed out to replace it.

My laptop still continues to serve me well and the blackouts, when they do
occur, are rare annoyances. Every once in a while I erase the whole system and
reinstall. I think a clean sweep clears the cobwebs, but I won’t replace this laptop

until I start getting the Blue Screen of Death. I still find a great deal of value in

it.
It isn’t that I’m cheap, I just appreciate what it still can do for me if I show it

some TLC.

I do the same thing with everything I own or am considering buying. I set up

categories and analyze things before moving on them.

Do I want a technique book on perspective illustration? Normally, I would

have just bought it. Now I consider the question carefully.

 ● If I buy it, will it fulfill my need to expand my technique?

○ I read the reviews on the book and do a bit of research on the net.

○ I find it will do so and I move to the next thought.

● If I buy it, should I look locally or online to buy it?

○ I check the prices for local and net purchases. I check my local art

store to see if they have a coupon. I see they don’t and the online version is

cheaper.
○ I move to the next level.

● Do I need this as a physical book or would an ebook do?

○ An ebook would reduce the cost more, but sometimes the physical

copy is more useful to me for technical or non-fiction material.

○ I can make the notes I need on the ebook and I can use my tablet to

read it since the images are larger than I like for my phone.
 ● I buy the ebook and have it sent to my phone, tablet, and laptop.

So now I own a book on perspective drawing that will not take up one square

inch of physical space, that cost me less than I expected, that I can carry around
with me to read during any spare moment, and I will also learn more about three

point perspective drawing while doing a city landscape.

Minimalism at work.

Storage units can be a Bermuda Triangle.

I’ve had storage units in the past and they weighed on me like a sword of

Damocles hanging over my head. You’re paying a monthly fee to someone to

hold stuff you don’t use and probably can’t remember what half of it is anymore.
 Unless it’s family heirlooms, get rid of it.

If you can’t use it in your house right now, get rid of it.

A good rule of thumb is get rid of it if you haven’t used it in six months. If

you have so much stuff that you have to store it someplace else entirely, get rid

of it.

Go to the storage unit and start with one box at a time. Take two boxes with
you and start sorting keep and dump. When you are done with that box, put it

aside and start going through the keep box. Be honest and cut loose half that box
into dump. Take the dump box to Goodwill and let it go. You will feel great and
even removing the one box will leave you feeling accomplished.

Now open another box and do the same thing all over again, but put keep
items into the old keep box. This time when you cut the keep box in half you

will find some of the previous precious items are not keep anymore.

When you get to the last box in the storage unit you might find yourself

surprised at how much you let go.

However, I would still go through that keep box one last time and cut it in

half again.

Remember, keep up with that minimalist thinking. Simple is best.

 CHAPTER NINE
BE HAPPY, NOT BROKE

I try not to spend money wildly, but wisely. I buy quality items that I have
researched thoroughly and I’m satisfied that they’re worth the value. This isn’t a

long process and I don’t agonize over my decisions, but I try to be smart about

them.

Recently, my husband and I were in a paper store. As a writer and an artist, I

am addicted to paper and its accessories. They even had the shop and tubs in
back where they made their own paper. I saw fountain pens, journals, posters,

and cards everywhere. It’s one of my most favorite places to be and I was
overjoyed to discover such a place here in Portland.
 We looked at every square inch and examined almost every item. My

amazing husband found journals designed for chocolatiers and their recipes. He

found a lovely French poster and a couple cards he wanted to send to friends.

I wandered looking at the notebooks and drawing tablets. Nothing pulls me

in like the delicious virginal first pages of a notebook waiting for fresh ideas.

They are bound books of potential.

Yet, I knew I had notebooks and tablets at home waiting for me. I looked at

the pens and knew I had several at home on my desk. I desperately wanted to

take something home, but we left with only my husband’s purchases.

Did I feel bad or cheated because I came away with nothing?

 Not in the least.
If I need something, I can go back. I wanted something from that store, but I

didn’t need anything from the paper store. Nothing I purchased would add value

because I already possessed everything I needed. There was no added value right
now.

However, we did go to a nearby pastry shop because an iced coffee and fig

cookie added tremendous value to my stomach.

I loved clothes and I still do. I had ten different pairs of converse sneakers,

several heels, a dozen dress shoes for work, and one pair of Doc Martens. I had a

drawer and a half of white tee shirts and so much underwear I couldn’t count.

A dozen pairs of jeans, a dozen dress slacks, blouses and shirts everywhere,
and three trench coats.
 Granted a lot of this was because of my fluctuating tummy, but I would have

had as many even if I had maintained a healthy normal weight. So much of me

was tied into my clothes.

When I was skinny, I liked being a clothes horse. When I was fat, I like using

them as a distraction. At that point, I couldn’t control my weight, but I could

control the clothes.

Moving to Portland forced me to make hard choices as I could only take a

limited selection. I packed all of my small outfits for shipping, donated all of the

big clothes, and I brought a chunk of the mid-range clothes with me.
I’ve lost so much weight now, that I’m considering donating some of the
mid-range clothes to Goodwill here in Portland. Also, without a dresser, I hang
almost everything. I’m finding that I don’t need much now.

Instead of the baskets of clothes I washed before, I wash a brown paper sack

of clothes. Without the weight, I don’t sweat in my clothes like I used to and I
can reuse them several times.

I spend more time in jeans, converses, and tees than I have since I was a kid.

I can make more select decisions when shopping for new skinny clothes and

I don’t think I’ll need a packed closet any more. I can focus on quality over

quantity.
 Three pairs of jeans, three dressier shirts, a few nice dresses, and maybe one
suit for meetings will do fine.

Minimal choices mean minimal decisions.

Simple.
 CHAPTER TEN
WHERE I AM

So here I sit in a coffee shop on a bright sunny Portland Tuesday morning. I

plan to drink this iced coffee, eat my cherry scone, and finish this chapter. I have
plans to eat lunch with my handsome husband at a Russian food cart this

afternoon and enjoy the sun in a nearby park.

He’ll head back to bake a cheese cake or something else yummy, while I go

back to our studio apartment to edit. I’m hoping to do a little water color this
afternoon, but I may not.
 Last year at this time, I was worried sick over a board meeting where the

president wanted to fire my company since I had not forced a roofing company
to honor the warranty this president screwed up years before. I had budgets due

for June and election meeting notices to get out. I was still struggling with how

my family handled my wedding and I was tentatively talking to my mother and

accepting her lunch invitation for my birthday.

I was in the middle of a new property that tipped my workload into the red
zone and upper management kept promising, but declining to relieve me of my
most time-consuming condominiums. All of this, and the husband was being

neglected or outright snapped at for nothing at all.

I was drowning and still four months from reaching the snapping point that

would eventually send us to Portland and a minimalist lifestyle.

I never imagined I could be living the way I am now and doing it guilt-free.
I’m clutter, drama, and stress free.
 I’m making better decisions and I’m enjoying the fruits of those decisions.

I’m seizing opportunities I never would have before and I’m free.

It isn’t easy and at no point have I meant to imply that. Changing your life is

traumatic and scary as hell, but nothing worthwhile is easy. It shouldn’t be. If it

was, then it wasn’t that big of a change.

Recently, I was walking the 18 blocks back to our studio with the husband.

We had lunch at the brilliant vegetarian Chinese restaurant we frequent in

Chinatown. We were marveling over how far we have come in such a short time.
We have less than we ever have had in our time together, but we both felt our

lives were tremendously full. I was a paid freelance artist and writer, while he
was running his own pastry kitchen in a big restaurant in a major city.
 We had a studio apartment in a location even jaded Portlanders marveled at
our luck in securing. We earned a modest income, but it covered our needs and

allowed us to build. I no longer felt that sick dread that grasped my heart day and

night, worried about what I was missing or what could go wrong at work.

“What are you feeling?” he asked.

“Content,” was the only word I could answer that summed everything up.

Remember, keep it simple!

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