Mini Homes And A Mini Rant

Hey, how is it going? Did you have a nice weekend?

I have been thinking about blogging everyday again, I mean who does such a thing, it seems crazy?! I suppose if you write it like a diary it’s alright.., but yeah, for me it takes a lot of my time. And sometimes I’m so tired after a day of work and all this other crap I’m doing, it’s kind of almost not really fun. But I’m worried that if I stop for a day I won’t start again. And I do kind of like it.

There aren’t always new things happening as I mentioned in another post before, it’s more of a continuum. I have been watching some pretty cool videos, but they are all in German, so I don’t want to post them here. I also found a kids program I used to watch as a kid, it’s called ‘Löwenzahn’, which means dandelion in German, and it’s about an inventor guy living in a wagon, a trailer, whatever you wanna call it. It’s pretty cool. I just watched the first two episodes were he moves into his wagon. I just thought it was funny, because I don’t think they make children’s programs like this anymore, they are all so fucking annoying and screamy. I watched a couple of minutes of them the other day in the lunch room at work. Holy Fuck!! No wonder kids are fully ADD nowadays, with all this tv crap and the sugar and the msg and all the other freaking chemicals that are in everything.. We are pretty much fucked!!

So yeah, I couldn’t post the German videos. So I looked for some other ones. I’m still really into the mini homes idea, we both are, so I found those two videos.

Interesting construction having all the technical gear in the floor and using a Stirling engine. I still don’t know what the fuck a Stirling engine is, but apparently it heats the place at the same time as it produces electricity. And it runs on bio diesel.

Anyways, I thought the house in the videos is a bit different. It’s a bit big for transport, but it’s pretty cool. So I hope you like the videos. Have a great day or evening!

Saturday Update

Today we just chilled. It was raining anyways. So we watched some German videos on alternative living.

Then we made a list of stuff we need to sell on Ebay for our move. Gotta list them soon! As we need to move out of our house several days before we leave. Getting rid off most of our possessions is also gonna prepare us for the minimalist lifestyle.

And I’m just about to sell all the clothes from my online shop. Hopefully that isn’t gonna be too stressful. Also a bit sad, I’d hate to waste stuff.

And one of my blogging friends posted this link about Berlin foraging and mushroom walks in my comments the other day. I thought that was really awesome of her! We were struggling quite a bit with the foraging here and I think that’s gonna be a great introduction to the German foraging scene. I’m really excited about it! Gonna be eating dandelions soon and making woodruff drinks and shit like that.

Reflections On Two Months Of Blogging

Ok, today I’m completely burned out! Who would have thought minimalizing would be so exhausting!! I already wrote a bit about how exhausting transition can be in another post before.

Just looking through this post, I wrote after one month of blogging, not a lot has changed. It’s just constant progress, when you start eating better, you just have to keep doing it, when you start de-cluttering, you just gotta keep doing it, when you stop spending money on crap.. well, you get the picture. So, there hasn’t been much new stuff happening. With the de-cluttering, we are pretty much down to the essentials, just need to sell our furniture when we are moving. Except for my studio, which looks like a bomb went off.

The more parts of your life you’re tackling the more stressful it can be.

In the long run I’m trying to have more time and be more relaxed, but that’s still quite a way off. But I got a new goal, to stop working day jobs this year. This is basically my goal every year, but I feel like I can actually do it this year, being more focused and letting go off expectations of perfectionism.

This weekend we wanted to go camping and I love camping, but what I really want is, to just stay in bed the whole day, eat and read and watch silly or interesting videos. So, we might going to do that!

It’s weird, as I said, the more you are trying to change things, the more is on your plate and the more stressful things can become. And sometimes you don’t know if you are really making progress in de-stressing your life when it just seems to be getting worse. But I really do believe we are making progress and it will pay off in the near future. Once we moved to Germany we are going to take a break and go for a little roadtrip. We did that the last time we went there and LOVED it!!

So there is definitely a treat to be looking forward to. Maybe that’s what we need sometimes, a treat that is waiting for us at the finishing line?! Sometimes it helps.

Sometimes flowers look black and white

If you are trying to change significant parts of your life, and I’m speaking partially to myself here, take care of yourself. Have little treats on the way through, keep it fun and get lots of rest!

That’s what I’m gonna do tomorrow, eat… go to the post office, ..eat some more and eat. And probably do some sewing..

Do you have any tips on how to survive stress and transitions in your life?

Discretionary Spending

What is discretionary spending? Looking it up I just found there is quite a difference between disposable income and discretionary income. I always thought it was the same. I like learning new things..

Anyway, I think discretionary spending is kind of a flexible term. What counts as a necessity probably differs a lot between different people.

To us, it’s personal spending, that’s how we do our books at the moment. What each of us spends after we have paid rent, energy, water, petrol and food and stuff like that. The real basics.

I think once you set yourself up, with homewares and kitchen crap, clothes, shoes and furniture you don’t have to buy much stuff. I mean, what do you need?! If you don’t replace items just for a different style or for the sake of Keeping up with the Joneses and the latest gadgets, you just need to replace items if they are broken or become irrelevant. And you really don’t have to spend that much.

So now we are doing our spending diary, we can really see what we are spending exactly. We were never big on shopping and spending money on a whole lot of crap, but it’s really interesting to see what’s happening. I hardly spend any money on extras.

I got shoes, I got bags and I make my own clothes, not all of them, but it helps. I don’t buy shitty cosmetics. We hardly ever go out to fancy events, we are better at creating them for ourselves. Now that we are moving, we stopped buying homewares. But considering we are doing the minimalist thing, we would have done that anyways.

So yeah, I’m thinking hard, but I can’t come up with anything else people would “need to buy for fun”. I know some people have hobbies or like going out and that’s cool. What I’m saying is, you don’t always need the latest things or new things and you can have great experiences without spending a whole lot of money on them.

What do you spend your “extra money” on? Do you really need the treats you buy for yourself?

Changes

We are moving back to Berlin in less than two months. I should say ‘I am moving Back to Berlin’, as my boyfriend hasn’t been living there before. He doesn’t speak German and I think he is shitting himself a bit.

To be fair, I have some mixed feelings about it too. I haven’t been living in Germany for 8 YEARS!!! I don’t know how to behave like a proper German anymore..

A New Day

We already booked our tickets, we are leaving just before my birthday and I just checked my passport, that makes it EXACTLY 6 years, to the day, I have been living in Australia. Fucking Crazy!!

When I first came here, I would have never expected to stay that long! Ah well, meeting my boyfriend here took care of that.

In all the time I lived here, I never felt Australia was my home. I never took roots here, it’s where I live, have my stuff and where my partner lives. I actually think it’s quite boring. Now don’t get in a huff about it if you are Australian and patriotic, I find it quite boring everywhere, that’s why I left Germany in the first place. The People!!! I couldn’t stand them! I’m just a little bit antisocial in general, got high standards, right?!

The first couple of years living away from Germany I didn’t mind it at all, in fact, I really loved it. Now, that I haven’t been back for 5 years and I feel like going back. If I could afford flying over there once a year, things would probably look a bit different. But Australia is really so far away from EVERYTHING!! Another reason for going back is, where else would I live? What else is there?

We have been planning to go back for years and this year we’re finally ready for the jump. Don’t know why it has taken us so long??

My sisters. They used to be so cute!

It’s kind of good and bad. Scary, but exciting. Meeting up with my sisters and my friends again, who I haven’t seen for so long, is gonna be really cool. But it’s all a bit anxiety inducing too, especially considering we both won’t have jobs straight away.

That’s where minimalism comes in handy, getting rid of all this superfluous crap and cutting spending on items we don’t need. We never counted shopping as one of our hobbies anyways, now we’re just taking it to the next level.
Moving back is actually the reason why I started on this minimalist journey.

Just buying necessities and being able to live in a smaller space is also definitely going to help us setting up without a lot of money(actually my secret dream is to buy a gypsy or circus wagon and live in it, I will keep you updated on that).

A fresh start is always good for changing bad habits. Now that we’re changing them already it’s just an ongoing process.

So yeah, funny I will say goodbye to Melbourne soon. Not sure if I will be coming back. Remembering all the times I spent here.. To me, moving back feels really final, almost like a small death. Getting rid off stuff, getting your affairs in order, saying your goodbyes. You notice nothing is forever, things, people, experiences, you are growing older. It doesn’t last.

Changes

But hey, it’s good to do something different, keep on moving and developing. To bring some excitement and something new into ones life. Changes are constant.

All the best to you and wish me luck!

Zero Waste

I really like the concept of Zero Waste. I like the refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle mantra. To me, it really fits into the minimalist lifestyle that avoids overconsumption.

And if you are thinking of partially or fully getting off the grid, then that’s one concept to think about. It’s part of being self reliant and independent, not needing the weekly rubbish pick up.

Also it is obviously good for the environment.

I’m not quite sure how easy it would be to go zero waste in an urban environment, as you would definitely need a compost. Some cities provide compost bins for food waste, but not all.

Most of the rubbish we got in our home consists of food packaging and not much else. And there is always so much of it! Now, that we eat more fresh produce, it’s a shame to throw kitchen scraps into the bin, from where it goes straight into the landfill. If they could at least use it there, to make it into methane or something..

Plastic packaging is obviously evil, but it’s also other things that get discarded, that may be in perfect working condition, which we just trow out because we got a replacement or don’t use it anymore. Think about giving things away, to charity shopes for example.

I loved watching the clips of this Zero Waste families home. I like it because I found some other Zero Waste clips, where people are like really into their recycling. While that is obviously a good thing also, I really like the minimalist approach of refusing to drag waste into your house in the first place. Recycling is good, but plastic bottles still have to be made from oil, consume energy and water in production, recycling and transport processes. So yeah, with some thought, a lot of waste can be avoided in the first place. And it’s healthy, because most of the time packaged food=processed food, unpackaged food=whole food.

I love this and how stylish does their home look?! Here is another one!

And here are some easy tips to get your started if you are thinking about reducing waste in your home.

Go to the farmer’s market and buy fresh, unpackaged fruit and vegetable. Great for you the environment and small farmer’s.

Buy loose foods, reconsider packaged foods. Cook from scratch if possible.

Buy loose dry goods.

Use reusable containers, produce and shopping bags when shopping.

Make your own non toxic cleaners with lemon, bi-carb soda, vinegar or borax.

Make your own cosmetics with coconut oil, cocoa butter, bi-carb and crystal salt.

For more tips and information check out this great link to the tips section of The Zero Waste Home.

Have you tried cutting waste in your home? In what ways?

Facebook Ban

As I said the other day I’ve got too much on my plate lately. So I thought I’d pull the plug on the one thing that I don’t really need to do and that is spending time on facebook. I decided to do a week off facebook, cold turkey. That’s gonna be fun!

Gotta get some email addresses, so I can still message people and I’ll keep myself logged into my two facebook pages, but won’t go onto my personal profile. So yeah, very curious how that’s gonna be like, I’m actually looking forward to it! Even if I’m quite an addict, but nevermind.. that’s all going to change now.

I have tried quitting being a facebook junkie before, putting restrictions on the time I spend on it, reading links and status updates, but it never works. I’s too easy to trick myself into thinking, “Just another 5 minutes../OMG, I really need to read/watch that!!”. It works for a couple of days, but not in the long run.

I read this blog post, guy killing his internet, which seems extreme, but then, you can be as minimalist as you want to be. Pretty interesting. Some people even get rid off their mobile phones.. But yeah, I don’t have internet on mine, it’s well ancient.

I’ll keep you updated on how I go. Maybe I’m gonna go all crazy tomorrow and have anxiety attacks and wont know what to do.. getting all shaky and shit? Nah, it won’t be that bad..

What is a difficult thing for you to give up? Have you got unhealthy internet habits? How do you handle them?

Cooking Is Like Blogging And Something About Meditation

Writing a blog post is to me a lot like cooking. I go into the kitchen/on the computer and look at what I’ve got. Sometimes I’ve got an idea of what to write/to cook, normally I just collect bits and pieces and try to make something out of them. Usually that works quite well.
Thought I’d give you an update on my de-cluttering, healthy lifestyle challenge.

Markets, I never quite liked them, but now that we are going to the farmer’s market every weekend I’m a bit less apprehensive. I hate being pounced on and I feel bad sometimes going up to peoples stalls and looking at their stuff and not buying anything. And some people are trying the hard sell on you. In the beginning I was like, “Fuuuck, what am I gonna get??” coz obviously I couldn’t see the produce very well, from my safety distance. Which was only aggravated by the fact that I’m pretty short sighted.

I’ve also started meditation again. I’ve started it years and years ago, strangely enough reading and listening to more instructions on how to meditate correctly, I kind of lost the enthusiasm for it. I got really twitchy and itchy every time I sat down for it and I felt like my head is going to explode, after like a minute, while at the same time I felt like I had a whole ant colony running over my body. Well now, that may just be slightly over exaggerated.. but it wasn’t good. Now I’m back to freestyling it. Waaayy better!!

Today, I stayed in bed the whole day and just read books and napped. IT WAS AWESOME!! Good for clearing your head and getting a rest.
We also had some healthy meals and cleaned up the whole house in the evening. Which is nice, coz I like a clean, orderly house. I wanted to go camping this weekend, but the weather report said it would rain both days, so I thought I’d stay at home getting rid off stuff, relax and buy some healthy food. Well, obviously it hardly rained at all. What are these people doing in their weather stations?! I mean, I can do a better weather report by looking out of the window in the morning. I can tell you it will be raining tomorrow or the sun will shine and half of the time I would be right, which is basically just as often as the weather people get it right! This is supposed to be highly technological! I’m not impressed.

The de-cluttering is in full force. I pulled all the unfinished projects into my studio, which, it hardly needs mentioning, looks like shit now. I hate having so many unfinished projects in one room. It gives me headaches, it’s overwhelming. I don’t know where to start and I don’t even feel like setting a foot into the room. Ah well, I will deal with them tomorrow..

What have you been doing at the weekend? Did you finish any projects? Did you do anything exciting? Any de-cluttering?

Reflections On A Month Of Blogging

I started this blog spontaneously on the 1st of January this year. I decided to change my life in some ways and on the last day of 2011 I thought it would be great idea to blog about my progress every day, so I can see how I go, connect with people and learn from them and maybe inspire them to take action as well. You know, motivating each other and stuff..

Blogging has been pretty good, it takes up quite a bit of time, doing research for example, but it’s also a great tool to keep on track. If I have to research and write a post I’m automatically learning something new EVERY day! Which is pretty cool.

I thought I’d make a list of things we have changed so far.

FOOD

•baking half of our bread ourselves
•go to the farmer’s market every week
•at least two thirds of our food is organic
•less processed food
•more cooking, preparing food ourselves
•eat vegan
•foraging(which I didn’t like so far)

MINIMIZING

•sorting things into sell, give away, keep, use
•de-cluttering space
•selling things
•whittling away at the things we think we do need, reconsidering them

SPENDING

•not buying anything else then the absolute essentials, basically just food
•spending diary, have a look at expenses for the month

LEARNING

•about edible plants
•about food
•about people’s lifestyles
•about alternative lifestyles, especially frugal living and alternative housing
•how to make bread
•how to install warm water units and compost toilets(starting to learn anyways)
•about blogging and wordpress

RANDOM

•no more petrochemical cosmetics
•more reading books
•less wasting time

Hope I haven’t left anything out..

So yeah, this whole blogging thing is keeping me on track and it’s definitely awesome to learn new things and talk to people about it.

What have you learned lately? What aspect of your life do you like to work on?

Minimalism, Some Inspirations

I checked out some youtube videos today to see how other people minimize their possesions and simplify their lifes.

Here is a video about some extreme minimalizing. You need less then you think! Most likely..

This guy puts everything he owns in his carry on luggage!

This is obviously great if you wanna lead a lifestyle of travelling, learning new things and connecting with lots of people. Not so great if you want to cook something, except if you can share a flat. If you need furniture, like a bed and a wardrobe or something you can always get that quite easily.

Woman reflecting on her minimalist experience.

Preparing for living in one room.

And here is another one that goes more into the zen direction.

Have you found any good videos about simplifying or alternative lifestyles? Post them in the comments!