Living without furniture

For about 2 months now I have been living without furniture. 
4 years ago I got rid of my huge bulky bed and started sleeping on a futon matress.  It took about a week to get used to it, first I was quite sore.
In the last 4 years I´ve moved 4 times (only once by choice) so getting rid of furniture has helped me a lot.

Last thing I sold was two matresses I bought 2 months ago that didn´t really work for me, they were two bulky and cumbersome.  I really like sleeping on my yoga mat (let´s be honest here; they were mostly unused)
I lay my yoga mat on my rug, put a folded blanket and sheet next then my pillow and duvet. 
It´s really comfy.
I also am getting rid of a coffie table that is to high for me since I always sit on floor cushions.

This living without furniture has made my life much easier. 
I now rent a 20 square meter (200 square feet) appartment and it doesn´t feel cluttered.
Also cleaning takes very little time.

My mother has asked me what I´m going to let my guests sit on.  My friends who have visited me haven´t complained, I think sitting on pillows on the floor for about hour or two (or longer) isn´t going to kill people.  I mean I don´t find sitting on regular chairs very comfy, I get stiff and my knees hurt but it doesn´t kill me.

I would defenetly recomend sitting on the floor on a pillow, your ass will be sore at first but you´ll get used to it.  Same goes for sleeping on the floor.

Getting back into riding my bike

So I moved sunday and started riding my bike again and I´m really out of shape. I haven´t ridden my bike very much when I lived in the other town so I need to work up some stamina.

I also have to admit to myself that this town is just as windy as the other one if not windier, the only diffirence is that now I don´t have to deal both with wind and crazy hills.

Unrelated to the biking, the move went well. My parents and nephew helped me move and we made it in one trip with two cars and a small trailer, being a minimalist sure does make things simpler.  

I´ve already been to the social activity for the disabled yesterday but I did miss the library knitting group monday (time mixup, my mistake) and I am already liking it here.

Moving

Well so I´m moving to another town in about a week.

I fortunately saw an ad for the appartment and jumped on it and I was lucky, I got it.

It´s a very good thing about minimalism is much simpler to move.

I´m almost packed everything and I want to have to have the last week here easy going so I´m going to try finish cleaning the apt. tomorrow.

I´ve lived before in my new town and I liked it very much. It´s called Akranes and it´s so flat my friend calls it little Denmark.

So it won´t be as hard to ride my bicycle as in the town I live now, called Borgarnes. It extremely hilly.

I will miss the people I got to know in my little town, I knew only one person when I moved here so I started to volunteer at the Red cross both because I always wanted to do so and to get to know more people here. I also started going to the weekly craftnight at my town´s yarn store and got to know some more people. Last fall I started going to a social activity for the disabled and elderly where people can craft or play cards (mostly whist).

I do look forward to the social activity for the disabled, montly craftnights at the local yarnstore (I wish they were weekly) and Red cross volunteering in my new town.

Spring, finally

Well I hope it lasts and we wont get anymore snow but my expectations aren´t too high.

I´m just happy we have birds singing and the trees should start to bloom soon.

The picture is of a mt. Hafnarfjall wich I can see in it´s full glory from my sofa.

Year of socks

I have been busy knitting and crocheting socks.

I do wear wool socks a lot around the house, it´s cold most part of the year.

The first pair made after pattern called my favorite vanilla socks by Meaghan Schmaltz

I made them with drops fabel and 3 mm needles.

After that I decided to never knit with such small needles again, they were hell on my hands.

It did take me months to finish them but I did and I was very happy with them.

This was the second pair of socks I´ve knit and the first one I was happy with.

The second pair of socs was so vanilla socks by Mary Lucas. This time I made them with 4mm needles and it was much better but honestly I was really tired of knitting overall and did decide to stop it

It was really hurting my wrists and I wasn´t enjoying it.

So I chose to crochet mostly and I also want to learn to needlebind (I have been very interested in medieval crafts lately)

I used yarn called hot socks by Grundl in a very nice pastel colorway and they knit up lot faster then the first pair. They came out very well and I´m wearing them as I write this.

The third pair of socks was crocheted socks. Pattern was fathers day crochet socks by Karen Wooley (fitting name for someone who works with wool)

I did change the pattern a little bit from extended single crochet to single crochet and they worked up very fast.

I used couple of yarns I had in my stash, pairfect (Arne and Carlos) is the main color, dark blue drops fabel for the heel and varigated blue drops fabel.

I had crocheted a pair of socks before but I used a too course hook so they were uncomfortable to walk on(they cut into to the soles on my feet)

This pair was very comfortable and warm.

So I think I did pretty well.

I hope the next pair of socks I make will be a needle binded one it´s always difficult to learn something new. So I see a lot of irritation and hair pulling in my future.

Creampuff day

Creampuff day is every monday before lent. We eat pastry with jam, cream and frosting on top. It is one of my favorite days of the year and fits well in the bleakness of winter and tells us winter is going to let go soon.

Today is fat tuesday wich we call exploding day were people eat a lot of salted mutton although people here don´t take part in lent anymore.

On ash wednesday children get the day off put on costumes and sing for candy in shops and companies all over town.

Keeping a minimalist pantrty

So about two years ago I started my minimalist journey, I got rid of more then half of my possessions (much of them had been in my basement for years)

Minimalism has made my life much easier, it is quite a handy tool to get rid of distractions and to take a more realistic look at one self.

It is a long term thing minimalism and I am still figuring things out, for example my newest purging has been in my kitchen cupboards. I have stopped shopping for things I think I should be eating just because it´s healthy and would be good for me. 

I hate quinoa and I have been buying it because I think I should and it has stayed in my cupboard untouched. This has also sparked questions in me about superfoods and not falling for advertising. So I having whittled down my cupboards quite a bit. I don´t need to have many types of pasta or rice, one or two will do fine.

Looking through my cupboard is much easier and now I just need to buy some baskets to organize them wich is much better doing after getting rid of stuff then before

I would like to write more about minimalism in the future it´s such a interesting topic