About Me

I’m a minimalist. Truthfully I suppose I’m a minimalist-in-training. I think anyone who aspires to be a minimalist is always in training. Can one ever truly master avoiding the pitfalls of consumerism and materialism?

I became aware of the concept of simple living back in the 90′s when I read books by Elaine St. James. She was the first to open my eyes to the concept that you can have a good life without so much “stuff.” While I liked the concepts of simple living and her ideas on how to proceed, I pretty much still kept all the stuff I had and just made a few changes – like only having one of something.

After getting married and having kids a lot of my simple living tendencies went out the window for a few years. I had kept all my old pre-marriage collections (sports cards / comic books / coins / stamps / matchbox cars, etc) but I also added stuff. My interest in the Green Bay Packers extended past just watching the Sunday games in a jersey and hat. I felt the need to collect cards, pennants, collectible cars and trucks, pins, buttons, programs and, well, you get the idea. In 2003 I also started geocaching. Geocaching can actually be a very simple hobby. All you really need is a car, a GPS receiver, a computer and a pen. But as with anything there are ways to expand the hobby into so much more: buying or making T-shirts, collectible coins, personalized “I visited your geocache” cards and other small tchotchkes. I began to fill up my personal space with new junk and left all the old stuff in the attic for ‘just in case.’ It was probably more like “out of sight, out of mind”…plus I was sure that stuff was worth some money so I needed to keep it.

In 2010 and I became serious about getting rid of all that excess stuff. I stopped buying new stuff and have become happier and more satisfied with the things I do own. After taking a break from geocaching for a few years -and getting rid of most of the newer geoclutter in the process- I’ve reentered the hobby using just those things I mentioned above: car, computer, GPS and pen. It’s more gratifying and a heck of a lot easier that way. Something amusing to me is that the whole time geocaching has been around there’s been an acronym that folks use when they don’t want to make a trade in the container. It’s TNLN for Took Nothing, Left Nothing. It’s now one of my favorite things to write in geocaching logs.

If you’d like to see the progress I’m making as I eliminate the junk from my life please check out the tab marked My Decluttering. Thanks for reading along.

Other Stuff About Me:

I live outside a tiny Northwest Ohio town with my wonderful wife, our 2 kids, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 cars and a house with a mortgage that reminds us we are not wealthy (not $ wise at least.) I grew up in New England and later in North Central Ohio. I came to Northwest Ohio to attend college and have stayed here ever since. I’m now firmly rooted in the area and really feel like the only thing lacking is some decent terrain. I never realized that the part of Ohio where I grew up offered so many changes in altitude until I would go visit my parents. Stupid glacier, couldn’t even leave one decent hill.