Day of No Clutter (March 6)

I recently read Year of No Clutter by Eve Schaub, which I talked about a little bit here. I accepted this book from Netgalley & Sourcebooks in advance of its publication in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book and found it inspiring and humorous. I feel like I am constantly sorting through clutter in our home - this is the product of having two small children, a lot of doting people in our lives (NOT complaining), and from working full-time etc. etc. I have managed to purge A LOT in the last year or so, but it's still always a work in progress to keep the papers & artwork & toys from piling up.

A post I read last week on Modern Mrs. Darcy sums up the way I feel about productivity, life betterment, and non-fiction perfectly: I need to read books about certain topics in order to live out those topics in my life. Reading books about things that I want to improve in my life helps me to focus on these things. Sometimes, I need to re-read certain books in order to maintain that theme. If I'm reading a book about bettering myself or my habitat, I generally have these thoughts at the forefront of my mind and I am able to strive towards these things in my daily life. That's how I felt when I was reading alongside Eve Schaub's journey in Year of No Clutter. In some ways, I expected the book to be a bit more of a how-to, but when I finished it, I realized that I have already read a lot of how-to books. What I needed at that time was to realize that other people suffer from these types of things and have managed to conquer the clutter.

Sourcebooks asked me if I would share some information this week for their Week of No Clutter during the publication and release of Eve Schaub's book. I was happy to do this since they sent me the free copy of the book :)

To sign up for the week of no clutter challenge, go HERE.
To win a free copy of the book, enter via this Rafflecopter giveaway.

Do you enjoy books like this one? Other books I've really enjoyed that are loosely related to this topic:

Clutterfree with Kids
The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up
The Happiness Project 

Some blogs that talk about minimalism that I really enjoy and find inspiring (even though I am uncertain if I will ever become 100% minimalist in ANY way)

Becoming Minimalist
Not Entirely Perfect
Measure & Whisk

Our weekend and the hottest Monday ever

We had a beautiful, sunny weekend here in Halifax around 30 degrees each day. SO HOT OUT. It was great though! We weeded the garden, ran some errands, cleaned the cars (hubby not me) and went to a kiddie birthday party on Saturday morning...then went to my cousin's fiddle concert in Sackville in the afternoon, and a BBQ with my family that evening. Sunday, did more errands, took it easy and meal prepped and had my in-laws over for a BBQ. It's impossible to cook indoors in this kind of heat!

We also watched 2 interesting Netflix movies this weekend: Take me Home and Your Sister's Sister. I am a huge fan of Joel from Parenthood aka Sam Jaeger (who isn't? A stay at home Dad who is also a carpenter/contractor? Helloooooo)...and he starred in Take Me Home with his real-life wife. It was a cute story. Honestly though, if you've seen these pics around of Ryan Gosling talking to "women everywhere"...



(via Pinterest)

I feel like I could make some with Sam Jaeger. He's not as famous, but he's so easy on the eyes! Ok...girly moment over. Almost.



(Image via my hero website, IMDB and caption Heathershurrah)

Your Sister's Sister had some humor, and it starred from Mark Duplass The League and Emily Blunt, who I like, so it was a good one. Terrible ending though...don't watch it if you can't stand cliffhangers! Ugh!!

All in all, I feel like I re-charged my batteries a bit after a stressful week and I also got our kitchen floor washed and the bathrooms cleaned so I'd call that a successful weekend!! We spent a bit of the afternoon yesterday outside with Molly in her little kiddie pool and with the hose, and this resulted:





I just finished a strength training circuit that was CRAZY intense, but it got my heart rate up and my body sweating, so I can't complain. Now to have a protein shake and call it a night on that front. I'm going to prep my lunch for tomorrow and fold some laundry :)

We have another relatively quiet weekend coming up - anyone have any good Netflix recommendations? We have the American and Canadian versions, which gives us some good variety, but we spent a lot of time browsing.

See ya tomorrow for Tuesday's Tot Talks! I'm going to start off this series with Molly's birth story, which I haven't told on the blog before :)