assalamualaikum and hi!
its almost May guys! it sure feels like a few weeks ago that i wished you happy new year. oh i couldn't keep my promise to write as often as it is basically drought season in my head. crickets are singing. life is awesome alhamdulillah. hope yours are too. i have been decluttering couple of weeks ago. and i should probably tell you about it here. it was one of my new year's resolution, to practice minimalism. and life is great as it is, i got the chance to declutter and i can happily say that we are 90% living on the minimal, the essentials.
the drive was from my resolution as i said, and also because we were planning for a move around March and April. we found a place in Sri Gombak, a 2 storey terrace which is super nice and cheap for its standard but unfortunately we still feels like we should stay in Shah Alam (boleh ke gitu? lol) my husband is still doing his masters and his job requires him to be in Shah Alam, the main reason why we imagine it would be such a hassle to move now. so we let the house go. mentally i was ready to pack so i did a little spring cleaning. that turned out to be an actual spring clean.
it didn't take a day to finish all the cleaning, i spent almost 3 days selecting what we needed and what needed to be thrown away. first i did was selecting the kids small clothes (which i already did early this year because i was pregnant and i thought some of their newborn clothes could still be good for baby number 3). i selected a few that i thought was okay and i put them online to sell in Shopee for like RM10-RM30 each, not much. the rest went back into the bag, im thinking about donating them, probably gonna drop off at Tesco (they have this big boxes where you can put in clothes you want to donate). and oh, i choose to donate because we're not going to have another baby in the near time i guess, that's the plan hehe.
our clothes. that should be tough selecting your favourite clothes, tudung and all right? but i was brutal, the ones that i cant fit anymore, i just put them aside and they went in a big plastic bag that later went into a big box. my small jubah, the ones with tears, the ones with fabric that stretch way too much, out of season prints, all. i closed one eye and let them go. i just keep my neutral styled jubah, jeans, shirts, and my everyday t shirts that are loose and comfy. any materials that do not absorb sweats, i can no longer tolerate lol. as for my husband's clothes, i let him decide which he wanted to wear and which he thought should go. he kept most of his shirts. only a few shirts, work wears that went into the box, mostly because they are too small for his body now huhu. our clothes will be donated too. the plan is for us to carefully buy our clothes in the future, if it comes to a point that we hate the clothes we're wearing or they are no longer in good condition, then we can donate /throw them and then buy a new one. (just us two, the kids will always have new clothes because they are growing everyday).
decluttering is not just about cleaning your wardrobe, we also got rid of a lot of other stuff too. i threw away the kids' play mats, our mats slash carpets, some of the kids' torn books, some of the kids' toys and a lot of teeny tiny things that we collected like a broken piece of something we thought we might need someday but someday never arrives, those kind of things. as for the kitchen, we dont have much clutter there, if there's one thing we have a little too much is the plastic containers slash Tupperwares but im keeping them because i think we need that. we also threw away a couple broken kitchen appliances (coffee maker and water heater) and i used them all the time before but i dont really miss them now, weird huh. the 10% that we couldn't get rid yet are our sofa set and the TV cabinet. since we're aiming for minimalism, we like the idea of no seating furniture at our living room because we dont really have much guests all year round and also because of the kids. the idea i have now for the living room is we will throw out the sofas and probably get 2 XXL bean bags. or maybe a sofa that we can convert into a bed. and as for the TV cabinet, we're throwing it out because of the simple fact that i hate it lol but that one for sure we will buy a replacement because the wall is made of concrete and my husband is not a fan of drilling into the walls.
minimalism for us is not solely the black and white theme house or a nice Instagram pictures of our house. minimalism for us is possessing what we actually need and utilising what we have in our daily lives. and honest to God, i have never felt more full and content. i never knew throwing away stuff feels this good haha. i may still feel disturbed by the sight of the sofas and TV cabinet but i know they are going away and that is good enough. the only reason we still have that sofa is because my brother is busy and i cant let my husband carry them out himself kesian lah haha. we dont really plan on anything extravagant or fancy and that is somehow calming. it is the most relieving feeling i have ever felt. but hey, decluttering doesnt mean that you ignore all the deco right? you can have the simplest home, the most basic furniture and you can still make it pinterest worthy.
also i read on pinterest that it is not only that we need to declutter our living space and wardrobes, we also need to declutter our social media, who we're interacting and being friends with. and i dont think i have problem with that because my circle is really small huhu.
ahh i guess that is all. my opinion if you want to declutter you should just do it. although, if you hesitate to throw away some things that probably have sentimental values, you should wait and reevaluate your decision, you dont want to regret about it the next days, years. but if its rubbish for sure, like a terrible piece of something you put on the wall, if its still in a good condition, maybe you can sell it, give it to someone you know who will like it or donate. if it looks old and dirty, just throw them away. and sometimes that feeling to cling onto the memory of the stuff, is not all good but you can reevaluate. but i tell you, detaching your feeling from the physical things in your home is freeing. burn if you can lol (that's what my mom does with our stuff).
remember, they are just things. and im not being all religious here but aint Islam is all about modesty and simplicity? :)
ps: how and why we declutter is based on our lifestyle. we dont really have a lot of visitors and our house is the kids playground. if you always have company, meaning you need sofa or at least a super comfy carpet. what im saying is, if you're interested in minimalism and you want to declutter, you can adjust the physical things in your life to your lifestyle, what and however it is.
love,
ansari