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Hey there! Happy Wednesday!

So I’ve been thinking a great deal about this post and I think I have to admit that I don’t REALLY want to be a “minimalist”. The term coined “minimalism” as I understand means to “reduce to it’s necessary elements” via wikapedia. I know I don’t want to live with only what’s necessary. And that brings up a whole new discussion on defining “necessary”. I mean what we in America think of as necessary many people throughout the world would consider pure luxuries.

What I want is to live more simply (consume less, repurpose and reuse as much as possible). More importantly I want to be content in the HERE & NOW. I want to focus everyday on how happy & blessed I am to live in a home that’s heated, to be able to take a hot shower & wash my dishes with warm water! Instead of focusing on the items I “need” to complete my home.

It is so easy for us to get so focused on what we don’t have or what we “need” to make us happy. We compare our situation to someone who has more and feel discouraged or sorry for ourselves. I am certainly guilty of looking at other blogs and wishing mine were as “good” or looking through gorgeous home tours and comparing them to mine. This always results in  feeling discouraged and feeling sorry for myself. SUCH a silly waste of time, and I know this – yet I feel like I’m constantly battling it. The poster above is for sale through Etsy and I’m thinking seriously about buying it to put somewhere that I will see it every day! What a good reminder: Never let the things you want make you forge the things you have! Wow! I love that..

So my #1 goal for figuring out how to balance the desire to decorate while living simply is this: Keep a mindset of Thankfulness. Choose to be thankful daily for all that I am blessed with  & try not to take it for granted.

I have a few other solutions/ideas around this topic I’d like to share with you. I will save them for another day. I hope you enjoyed reading this. I’d love to hear what you think about my ramblings…Hopefully we can encourage one another to live a life on contentment!

Hello There!

Warning this is a pretty long blog post. I kept trying to edit it down – but it’s still pretty long. Just to let you know!

So, how are you? Can you believe the first month of 2013 is over halfway over. Crazy, huh? We have a little over 8 weeks before Baby G’s estimated arrival time. Now that’s really crazy! In many ways it feels like we were just on vacation at Kiawah Island and finding out about the little guy or girl!

We’ve have had a lot going on lately which I’ve used as my excuse for not blogging – but really the reason I haven’t been writing is because I’ve been feeling very conflicted/frustrated/overwhelmed. Maybe it’s the pregnancy, I don’t know. Do you ever have times where you just kinda question everything? Goodness where do I begin. . .

Let’s start with the house updates. I’ve told you about how we’ve been working on getting rid of “stuff” and getting organized before baby G’s arrival. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that our land lord offered to do some updates in our apartment since we decided to stay and we’re having a baby. If you follow me on Facebook you’ve probably seen some postings along these lines. I, of course, jumped on the offer and created a “inspiration board” and “wish list”.  Luckily our landlords love us so slowly but surely Mr. Don (aka landlord) has been checking things off my list.

Let me explain “slowly but surely”. Things started with fresh paint in the entire apartment during the week of Thanksgiving while Matt and I were away. I was able to choose the paint (Baja by Behr) a nice neutral! We previously had about 5 different colors through out our tiny 2 bedroom apartment, yuck! While the painting was going on Mr. Don updated a few light fixtures. Getting rid of the fluorescent lights above our kitchen table (yay!!) and adding a vent fan to the bathroom since we had a slight mold problem (super yay!).

We did have a tree and decorate for Christmas even though we have zero art on the walls! After Christmas Matt and I decided to switch bedrooms and make our bedroom into the baby room/guest room/play area since it is a much larger space. Note – I was no help moving furniture at 28 weeks pregnant so this was over a week long process since we had to wait for a friend to help Matt move the larger furniture pieces.

The week after that my parent came to visit and brought us a “new” sofa that is much more neutral than our big blue sofa that I wrote about here. My parents spent a full day and a half here helping me do miscelaneous projects like shampooing the carpet, cleaning my “new” yellow chair (which I plan to blog about soon), refinishing/repairing a couple of my vintage furniture pieces, etc. VERY busy couple of days resulting in me being exhausted when they left and literally taking two days to recover!

Side note: Have I mentioned how exhausting it is to be pregnant? I literally had no idea how tiring growing another person could be. This is definetely one of the reasons that I have been so frustrated. I have so many things I want to do – but I’m just so tired! At least 2 or 3 times over the last few weeks I’ve sat down in front of my computer to write a blog post and my eyelids get so heavy I end up taking a nap…ugh!

OK, last but not least this week laminate wood flooring was installed to cover the awful grey/blue painted concrete that I’ve HATED since the day we moved in! AND…Mr. Don surprised us by having a glass tile backsplash installed to cover the peeling beige and red striped wallpaper!  Can you say excited? Yes! We feel like we’re living in a totally new home – and we loved our little apartment before!

So all of this to catch you up on where I’ve been these past few weeks in my physical life. Now to try to put into words my thinking and brain process the last few weeks. I’ve recently said to those around me that I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. Am I the only one that feels this way?

I question if having a limited budget is the only reason for “(re)U-ing”. Yes that’s a word now! If I could would I spend thousands of dollars to create the apartment I want without regards to the environmental impact? Do I really think having a perfectly decorated home will make me happy?

I struggle between being a decorator and wanting a home that is beautifully decorated and living a simple lifestyle. I’m struggling with how to blend these two desires that I have. I mean really how do we rationalize spending money on decorating our homes when there are children going hungry in the world?

Every day we spend money on “things” (material possessions) that aren’t really necessary.  And I’m not saying this is completely wrong, but is it? There is a part of me feels really guilty for all the money that was spent recently updating our apartment. Another part of me wants to change the rugs and art and pillows to “complete the look” of our new update.

So where do I draw the line? How do I live simply while also loving decorating? That is what part 2 of this little impromptu series will be all about. I’ll be working on it over the weekend and plan to publish it early next week. For the time being please share your thoughts in the comments below. I’d love to hear from you!