Sunday Snippets: Beyond Ceasefire

We have to move beyond the ceasefire. It's past arms embargo time. Far too many people have been killed and this has to stop.

These small Black-owned farms are growing crops with the climate in mind

U.K. dads are wrapping baby slings on male statues to push for more paternity leave

He survived the water, but not the flood

Ohio sheriff suggests residents keep a list of homes with Harris yard signs

'I Don’t Want to Die.' He needed mental health care. He found a ghost network

Shaped by Memory

The comfort of clutter: why stuff brings us joy

Woodrow Wilson Got the Flu in a Pandemic During the World War I Peace Talks

9 Readers Share Their Cozy Corners

Money Changes Everything

Sunday Snippets: Leo season

Leos unite! Love being a summer baby.

The Dutch are returning looted artifacts to Indonesia and Sri Lanka. Does it matter?

The Sunday Story: Permission to share

Employees consider suing employers for ‘geographical discrimination’ against remote work

Prince George's Dinosaurs: Here's what to know about the dig site where paleontologists find fossils with the public

'Missing' Houston man Rudy Farias says his mother brainwashed him

FDA approves Opill, the first daily birth control pill without a prescription

MINIMALISM IS NEAT, BUT CLUTTER MAKES A HOME

The Science of Analysis Paralysis

Clutter

I've always been de-cluttering something. My roommates in college can attest to that. If it wasn't needed or I hadn't worn it in a year, out it went. I never cared much for brand name stuff in high school, so thrift store shopping has been a part of my life for quite a while. My favorite article about clutter is always this one.

But things have changed. I moved, between the yearly trips to college to our now home, five times in college, twice the year I graduated and then to two more apartments before we bought our house in 2012. I've never liked moving, mostly because it meant I had to pack all my crap. And I'm tired of being controlled by my crap.

When the recession hit, my job wasn't the only thing to go. I tried to stop buying unnecessary things. I had yard sales, reacquainted myself with the local library, and rode the bus like it was my car. But things are changing even more. When articles like this grace the New York Times, people sit up and take notice.
“We never liked furnishing or cleaning or taking care of things we really didn't need,” said Ms. Copenagle."

I'm still searching for ways to avoid having to spend most of my weekends cleaning. I don't need a ton of knick-knacks. I even got rid of enough clothes to sell the extra wardrobe we bought a year and a half ago. The husband and I share a closet that still has plenty of space. And the weird part is that with less clothes, I find more ways to style my everyday outfits.And ever since I read The Zero Waste Home, I've been trying to implement more and more ideas like that into my life and our home. Why would I need, for example, 15 pairs of shoes when three would do? At a certain point, you can't even appreciate the favorites you own when you are bogged down with too much.

The average American home was less than 1,000 in the 1950's and now it's more than doubled. They are building a new housing community up the road and the houses, a) all look the same and b) why the hell would you want to pay heat/cool that much space? Our house is just under 1,500 and I want to go smaller with our next house. But as it is, we can probably live comfortably in this house with up to two kids. I shared a room with my younger brother for three years and was no worse for the wear.

I just finished the book You Can Buy Happiness by Tammy Strobel and found it a great read, much like Zero Waste. Strobel has the "dream" and realizes it is crap. The New York Times interviewed her a few years ago:

"Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”

So one day she stepped off. “The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false,” she says. “I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn't bring about happiness.”

Agreed. Life is too short to be controlled by your possessions. Strobel now lives in a tiny house, 128 square feet to be exact. While I'm not sure if I could go that far, I like that I can dream about that.

Book Review: A Cluttered Life

One of Seal Press's latest titles, A Cluttered Life: Searching for God, Serenity and My Missing Keys, gives us Pesi Dinnerstein, a very very cluttered professor.

My puns aren't usually that bad. I apologize.

She has been struggling with clutter all her life and also searching for her spiritual journey along the way. She ends up having an ephiphany late December 1999 when she runs into an old acquaintance and this person begins to relive some of the more embarrassing clutter stories aloud. Dinnerstein vows to begin tackling the clutter and her seemingly stagnated quest for a relationship with God. Her friends, the Holy Sisters, mother, and husband join her in her journey, which has many unexpected twists and turns and most often, very poignant stops along the way.

Dinnerstein's memoir is one of the more readable books I've experienced in a long time. Too often, memoirs are bloated, trying to squeeze everything but the kitchen sink (again, my sincerest apologies) whereas Dinnerstein sticks to a very streamlined and linear approach to her story. And despite her academic background, the prose is very accessible but intelligent at the same time.

At over 300 pages, it's one to settle in with a favorite cup of tea and enjoy the author's very real attempts to tackle a subject that's currently plastered everywhere, with the show Hoarders becoming a cult phenomenon and evangelicals preaching from the tv pulpit. While there are no pictures present in the text, a vivid portrait is painted, enough that the reader can realize how much the writer needs the help she seeks.

The build up toward the climax is gradual and somewhat subtle, but still very enjoyable as the reader cheers for Dinnerstein to achieve her goals. I groaned with her throughout the various seemingly inevitable disasters that occur, including when she and her husband Yankel return from a vacation to find a leaky toilet has collapsed their dining room ceiling, but I also cheered her on when she realizes that sometimes the best pleasures in life are the simplest. A recommendation for anyone in your life, be they pack rat or church lover.

(Photo credit: Seal Press/I received a review copy of this book, but all opinions are my own.)