Day 72

Part 2 of 4 part Vacation Series* in which I explain how I have actually simplified things.

When I was young, I used to pore over fashion magazines, but as I have grown older, I have exchanged my Vogue fantasies for Pottery Barn dreams.  I love the orderly, upscale and seemingly perfect life depicted in the glossy pages of those decorator catalogs.  As a military family, we move quite a bit, and each time, I torture my entire family by launching into full scale “decorator mode”.

Anytime we roll into a new town, we paint, hang window treatments and wire for surround sound.  There are always hundreds of dollars of things to buy– the right size barstools or the perfect planters for the patio, or maybe different lighting and specialty storage pieces for the closest.  And, of course, dozens of hours of additional labor.

I learned when we were first married, to do it early, so that we could enjoy the home the way we like it.  As a result. we are all very busy for the first few months after a PCS, which is a military acronym that means, Pack-your-Crap-and-Shove-off-again. Really, it means Permanent Change of Station, while more professional sounding, is not nearly as descriptive nor entertaining.  The military should hire me as a consultant to update their vernacular.  For instance, when anyone in the military goes on a “business trip”, they call it TDY which stands for Temporary Duty Yon which, I think, is a term coined by Alexander the Great.

So, my husband, based on his time in the military and rank is allocated 18,000 pounds of “household goods”  to move (which is roughly equivalent to a very densely packed semi) .  I am slightly embarrassed to admit that on during our move to Texas, we actually exceeded that weight by 3,000 pounds.

Why so much stuff?

I am afraid to get rid of anything.  Anytime, I get rid of anything like hall table we don’t need  anymore, the rolling dishwasher, or the “blue themed” decorating items.  I wind up needing them in the next house.  And I HATE buying something I have already owned.

As a result, I have turned into a bit of a hoarder, but the kind that keeps various decorating items in the attic, not the kind that keeps cans of tuna and Windex under the bed.

If you read my post about poor planning, you know that we don’t currently have lots of things for The Simple Year (minimalists by accident, more than design).   We just didn’t bring that much for this year.

This is a photo of my living room from an earlier post.

The empty room, although I could probably make it sound better if I called it “Danish design”

During The Simple Year, I have made the conscience decision not to decorate anything.  I am not going to fill up the space allotted to me with designer used things.  In the office, I just thumbtack the kid’s artwork to the walls instead of going out to find tasteful matching frames and mats.  The walls are eggshell and the window treatments are the white blinds that came with the house.

And, that choice has significantly made things easier, and the lack of time and effort expended for decorating hasn’t made my life any less similar to the invisible Pottery Barn catalog residents.  But, I do have more free time to blog about our adventures.

*By Vacation Series, I mean the kids and I are on vacation right now and I’m probably trying to keep them led by my mother out of the Chicago American Girl Doll store.