7 Quick Takes 52: Travels: Lone Star Leg

1. After eight months when I barely left Starkville MS, we're on the road twice in March. We spent last week in Texas, visiting family and friends - and managed to take no photos. I am the world's worst photo taker in both senses of the phrase, which is ironic given the time I spent working as an archivist. So here's a quick word picture -  Texas: it's like where you live, but bigger. Unless you live in Texas.

2. My mother-in-law was eager to tell us about the new Aldi open in Lake Dallas. I wasn't really interested in shopping there, since I've been going to Aldi in England for several years, and I was trying not to come back with a stuffed car. Then, I happened to read a recommendation for their moisturizer on the UK blog Shoestring Cottage blog. It didn't seem likely they'd have it in the US, but it was worth a look. So off we went... and the moment I stepped in the door, I was facing all the European foods I get in the UK. For some reason, I didn't think Aldi in the US would have German food. So I danced around the store, buying up chocolate (which went to the back of the cupboard for after Lent), cookies (which didn't), and German muesli (no added sugar - hurrah). Oh, and the face cream was there too - at $3.60 a pot, a fraction of the cost of other Q10/ retinol creams.

3. I could waltz round because there were only two other shoppers there. A phenomenon we noted this trip was that there's no one in the supermarkets. We decided - and a friend confirmed - that people in the Dallas area must just eat out all the time.

4. In addition to Aldi, I got a thrift store score. Friends took us to Thrift Giant, which was. And it happened to be 50 percent off everything day, so the place was heaving (unlike the supermarkets). I snapped up a skirt that looked to be good quality for $1.50. When I checked the label (Dahlia Collection), I found it was a British company, and skirts on their website sell for up to 60 pounds ( $75). That and the German muesli made the trip worthwhile.

5. We took two days to make the eight and a half hour drive there and back because we thought we wouldn't survive with a toddler who hates journeys longer than about twenty minutes. Plus, we're old and tire easily. On the way back, we finally spent a night in Vicksburg and visited the battlefield, which is a national park.
How to make your husband choke on his hotel breakfast: Ask, "So which side won, apart from the Americans?"
It turned out to be a trick question, because technically the Confederates won all the battles since every attempt to take Vicksburg by force failed. The Union won the siege when the Confederates surrendered.
Talking of tricks, the park weirdly turned out to be a Union memorial, funded by donations from the north, with huge monuments to the northern troops and a few markers signalling the Confederate battle lines.

Whoa. I want this toy.

6. The other fruit of our trip: Well, we had to keep the toddler occupied somehow, so he got many more hours of Youtube than he ever gets at home. As a result, he still can't pronounce his own name, but he can utter "Maisy Mouse" with perfect enunciation.

7. Now I'm trying to catch up before we leave for Boston/Cambridge next week to visit our eldest. Temperatures there are currently still dipping into the 30s, which sounds a heck of a lot better to me than the almost 90-degree day we had here this week.

For more Quick Takes around the US, and maybe across the world, visit Kelly at This Ain't the Lyceum.

7 quick takes 51: Minimalish

1. The other week, we watched Minimalism: A Documentary about the Important Things, produced by The Minimalists, a couple of endearing best buddies in their thirties - mainly because it featured Courtney Carver of Be More with Less, whose blog I follow. The film began with a series of very short takes which seemed designed to attract the Twitter generation, and I thought I was going to be disappointed. Yet, suddenly, I found myself hooked, even though that format continued, and I knew about most of the trends and arguments discussed.

Even so, it didn't leave me wanting to leap up, throw out all our possessions, and move into a house the size of our chicken coop. As I pondered why, I realised it wasn't because the documentary isn't inspiring, but because we've been editing our lives for months, and we're actually at a plateau that suits our family right now. (Or I'm over that obsession and about to embark on a new one. But let's not go there.)

But we don't all have perfectly organised closets, own only fifty-one items, or live in a 200-square foot house. So here, in all honesty, no styling for photos, is our selectively minimalist life. And when I say "no styling" this excuses my non-existent photographic skills, and the fact that our house was built before most people had cameras or House Beautiful existed, and just doesn't present great angles. Plus the low, blinding Mississippi winter sun photobombed everything.

2. Middle daughter:  This is her Marie Kondo-inspired chest of drawers. Note the hip, one-handle-missing look.

And this is her bathroom before cleaning day. Actually, this wasn't a bad week - I was sort of disappointed.

3. These are all the toys our toddler owns.

OK, there is his "cave". I said I'd throw it out for Advent, but it's still here. Maybe Easter???

Of course, he turns anything in the house, especially kitchen items, into toys. And raids his sisters' old toys, so he's not deprived.

But this is his changing area in a corner of our bedroom. We do cloth and disposable diapers, and he can get through three outfits a day by drooling/ running through puddles/ falling face down in the chicken coop, so I'm resigned to an overflowing area until he's older (not much older, please God).

4. Eldest daughter has basically moved out so her dorm room is her affair. I keep hinting at her clearing her stuff out when she comes back for short stays, but she never gets around to it. One day, I might break down and 'edit' her room for her. My mother-in-law eventually boxed up each of her three sons' things and sent them on. 'Our' box is unopened in the attic. Sometimes we debate about what's in there. Maybe one day we'll look.

5. This is our closet. I've Konmarie'd it twice, but I still haven't got it down to only ten items made of organic, naturally dyed, sustainably produced cotton. Those are mostly my clothes on the bottom rails (with some of my husband's at the back) except for four pairs of leggings in my underwear drawer. Since it's a tiny space carved out of a 1907 house, and impossible to photograph with a cell phone, I counted my clothes out of curiosity: it came to about 65 items. I've no idea where that comes on the minimalism scale. I have ten pairs of shoes/boots. Two are summer and evening dress shoes, which I guess is frivolous (but they're children's shoes, so I didn't spend a bomb). And, of course, there's the extra pair of converse I found in a ditch. My husband threw out three pairs of shoes last time I cleaned out the closet. A fourth, a pair of dress shoes, threw themselves out by coming apart while we were at a posh gala the other weekend.
(Aside. Saying "my husband" is starting to look repetitive. Maybe I'll have to come up with a blog alias. "The mathematician"?)

6. These are our bookshelves. I think this is pretty spartan for two academics, one of whom is an English teacher. (OK, disclaimer: all of my husband's maths books are in his office). I always thought I couldn't give up books, until I read about a retiring clergyman who gave away a third of his collection and explained how spiritually lightening it was. The comment planted a slow-growing seed. A couple of other things helped: when we finally got these built-in bookshelves and put our collections together, we realised we had at least thirty duplicates. And the Mississippi climate took care of a huge number of our older paperbacks - maybe the only thing I can thank the MS weather for.

7. This one you can't see, because I finished digitizing all our photos last month. I was so proud, I allowed myself the treat of throwing out my two pairs of garden shoes with holes and buying one new pair of wellies. I think that counts as being minimalist.

But you know what, working on this post got me itching to get rid of more stuff. While I go to look for something to throw away, why don't you save paper and visit some of the other blogs via Kelly's link up at This Ain't the Lyceum?