Use Up -- A Year In

 I planned and thought about this post a lot during the first week of December -- I should have drafted it then because now, instead of being two weeks early it's two weeks past when I launched this site. Ah well. Getting to it when one can. 

It's been a year of this buzzing around my head, serving as an additional Instagram account, giving me a place to say Hey I Used a Thing! I didn't have a specific rushing focus to achieve minimalism. I'm somewhere between my friend J's maximalist decorating approach and the Entirely Empty Rooms look.

Last year would have been very different had we not decided to buy and move. There's still a lot more cardboard in my life than there was in December of 2020. And my schedule and workload evolves with the pandemic, which has also changed how much I can do and what. 

But it's also made me a little more attentive of the piles and the wish for acquisitions.  I went through my  clothes before and after we moved and I think I want to go through them again -- only this time with an eye towards sending a box to ThredUp for some things rarely or barely worn that I'm unlikely to pull out again. 

I've started a bag of books that have been read and are ready to go onwards; unfortunately it's a very small bag still and and I'm not sure where it's going but it's started!

And it's a little easier to resist the siren call of new bath scrubs when I actively *know* that there's no space for them in the new bathroom. You'd think after a year that I'd have made a significant dent but they seem to spawn in there when I'm not looking. 

While the year winds down I'm making plans for the new year and those continue to include the Using Up. We shall see if 2022 can bring some more empty space.