I feel like I need a name for the Angie version of Minimalism, something that conveys my aspirations for all this simplifying activity. Joshua Fields Millstone and Ryan Nicodemus from Minimalist website have an ideal that is impressive, and I know that my ultimate spin on it will look like quite different. I admit that I am envious when I see images of the pristine JFM apartment with the brick walls, a lone piece of art above a simple quality chair. He has an immaculate closet with five identical white shirts hanging ready and 2 white candles on the desk with 5 select books stacked neatly nearby. The Angie version, of course, has to accomodate for my hobbies, passions, spouse and idiocyncracies. As JFM said, they are offering Minimalism up as a recipe for others to consider; their goal is to show people ingredients which might add value to their own life. That is where I am right now, playing with ingredients, seeking my own version of the recipe.

I’m not sure how close I am to the national average of 300,000 items in the home. On the one hand, I already had a habit of keeping a box of items to go to Goodwill near the door at all times, so that the amount of stuff coming in at least matched the amount of stuff leaving. When I look at my tidy decor, I tend to think I had a bit of a minimalist aesthetic already working, but when I look at my closets and garage, I know there is plenty of opportunity for aggressive purging. Instead of counting items in the home, I instead will measure my progress by number of trips to Goodwill and boxes to Lisa for eBay, as well as number of empty shelves and drawers.

In the past this bare mantle would bother me until I filled it with decor. Now it makes me happy.

So far in 2017, I have filled an entire car for Goodwill and have 5 bags ready for my next trip. I have packed 3 boxes of nicer items for Lisa to sell, with a fourth box started. Yesterday I took pictures of old plaques and awards, casually tossing them in the trash or donating the frames from the certificates after posting the photos on my Facebook page. I kept 2 Leadership Augusta keepsakes, one for graduating the program and one for serving as Board Chair. I also kept the Girl Scouts Women of Distinction clock. Those are big deals to me. Today I plan to play a game with Kevin called 1 in 10, where I present him with 10 objects I suspect he wants to keep, and ask him which one I can give away. I’m hopeful for some baby steps but do not expect him to embrace my same level of streamlining.

So far the process has been easy and fun, and serves as part of a larger plan for mine and Kev’s future. I feel an enhanced appreciation for the items which have thus far made the cut and remain in place, and a sense of purpose for my activity. In the past, my constant rearranging of stuff had a little bit of senselessness to it, a busy work or excuse to clean around things. Now I am motivated to reach a place of calmness and an aspiration to focus on more important uses of my energy.

I started reading “Everything That Remains”, which is as awesome as I knew it would be, based on the blog content from the website. It is personal, relatable and inspiring. From it, my biggest take-away so far is the warning to always remember the “Why” behind the purging. It is much like going on a healthy diet with the intention of truly changing one’s life with better choices, so that old ways don’t creep in down the road. There is a need for thoughtfulness in my decisions and consciousness of why I allowed myself to purchase so many superfluous items in the first place.

love this book!

I’ve read of people of who purged most of their excess material goods within a year and others who have taken a decade to gradually reach their goals. I hope to land somewhere in between. Paying off debt, making better purchase decisions, eating more thoughtfully and living more in the moment are certainly part of the Minimalist mindset which I am excited to embrace, but which will take time to form as habits. For the present time, I am happy to have a plan which helps me to feel less like a hamster stuck on the wheel of crazy work hours and impossible visions for my oversized home. Finding the right balance has helped me to enjoy my job more, where I also have done some reducing, and appreciate the non-material aspects of my life more, like family, friends, reading.

While this progress report is helpful, I’m still left without a name. For now, because I’m focused on thoughtful balance, I’ll call it meditative minimalism, so that I am encouraged to slow down and really think through the meaning of physical stuff, including items that I own, as well as those that I feel the urge to purchase. I have no doubt that this lifestyle will translate into less stress and more gratitude, and look forward to sharing more updates in the future.

Around every corner there is a stage, and I am standing behind the curtain to make sure the show goes smoothly. This is the life of an event planner: every day there is preparation for some future get-together. My job is to convince people an event is needed, convince other people to help me put it together, and convince still more people that they want to attend. That’s a lot of convincing. I guess my true job is really selling, but let’s stick with the Event Planner label for the purpose of this blog.

The purpose of this blog is to offer a big box of thanks to the people in the second category. I have wrapped up a large event at Jim Hudson Lexus, and am riding that exhausted-relieved-happy-grateful wave right now. Since “he who is grateful gives credit where it is due”, I offer the following party summation.

The star of this latest show was the re-designed Lexus GS, which competes with the Mercedes E-Class and BMW 5-Series. Lexus did an amazing job with the car, from the aggressive design cues to the world-first 12.3” display screen. 2013 GS drivers will be able to adjust their 18-way seat for comfort, make dinner reservations, buy movie tickets and update their Facebook status from their car. Then they can drive 0-60 in 5.7 seconds while listening to Pandora and having an Enform concierge give them directions to their next destination. It is car and computer, performance and luxury, style and function. If they could find a way to build a shower into this vehicle, you could almost live in it. Suffice it to say, this GS definitely gave us a good excuse have a party, and Lexus made it perfectly clear that we needed to do it right.

So Lexus gave me the first 3 pieces of the event puzzle: reason, date, and location. The rest was up to me. I always choose my caterer first, because –as any event planner will tell you- the caterer makes or breaks any party. I am particular about the caterer I choose, because I am a high-maintenance planner. Thankfully for this gig I chose Fat Man’s Catering; Brad and his event manager Dorie made my job so much easier! They revised the menu when I pushed for a “wow-factor” and came up with an assortment of food that impressed the guests. Brad and his son Havird helped select amazing wines for the event, and there wasn’t a single guest who wasn’t thrilled with the presentation.

In addition to Brad and his team, I also want to thank a group who are loyal and helpful to me through almost all of my events, extending the utmost in courtesy and excellence: Brook Facey of Brook Facey Photography, Tara Scheyer for music, Margaret Brown for flowers, John and VJ of American Audio Visual. I also want to offer my appreciation to Jim and his team at Ranco, for setting up an amazing tent and bar for the occasion. Jim’s team worked extremely hard to make sure we had a special atmosphere.

My sales/event planning gig can be stressful at times, but getting to work with people like Margaret, Tara, Brook, Brad, Jim and VJ made it fun.  The stress was also abated thanks to the team at Jim Hudson Lexus. They encouraged guests to attend, assisted with set-up and tear-down, and moved cars for parking. Mr. Hudson drove in from Columbia to join the festivities, and Carrie Pulliam drove in from Statesboro to help with registration. The day of a Jim Hudson Lexus party was wide-open activity, and it was cool to see all of the teamwork behind it.

Finally, I want to offer a shout-out to all of the guests who attended the festivities-you shared your excitement for the new GS and we appreciate your loyalty to the dealership.

Check in soon to www.facebook.com/jimhudsonlexus , where we will post Brook’s always-amazing photos, and while you are there, be sure to view picture albums of past parties. Then be on the lookout for the next Lexus show, and when you do, be sure to peek behind the curtain to say hello to Angela. She may be a little stressed-out and needing a friendly face.

A co-worker once told me she had a policy against the future tense. She said she never tells anyone what she intends to do. Her motto was one of all action and no talk. Since then, I have tried to do the same and found that it takes a great deal of willpower. It is just so easy to spew out whatever pops into your head. “I am going to do this and this, and it is going to be awesome.” It is very difficult to keep those thoughts to yourself, and just mentally tell people, “Wait til you see what I am getting ready to unleash on the world.”

Whether you say it out loud or tell it to yourself, the trick at that point is to hold yourself accountable. At the age of 39, I started what most people call a “bucket list”, but I called a TDBID (to do before I die). It was filled with adventures like learning to ride a motorcycle, driving a racecar, jumping out of a plane. I did not want to tell people about the list, unless it was after one of the adventures was completed.

The TDBID morphed into a general point-of-view: I just forced myself to be open to adventures that crossed my path. The most magnaminous of these was Dancing with the Stars (the local version, for charity). The Alzheimer’s Association asked me to be a dancer, and I had never heard of anything more frightening in my life. Here I was, a relatively subdued personality with a twinge of shyness, going to perform a dance routine in front of a packed auditorium. In addition to stage fright, I was out of shape and had never danced before.

This overwhelming, all-consuming adventure is what started my need to write. It helped me to verbalize the process-the fitness challenge, the crazy dance moves, the panic attacks. In this blog you can read about the experiences that came from the Dancing Stars adventure, as well as other endeavors I chose to unleash upon the world.