Remember last month when I gave Everett Bouge’s The Art of Being Minimalist a kind of lackluster review in this post on *8Things to Minimize?

I changed my mind. (You knew I’d come around, didn’t you Everett?)

It’s sticking with me, this little book, and the ideas presented in it are turning ’round and ’round in my mind. Since reading it Paul and I are seriously considering:

• living without a car when we return stateside.
• extending the lease on our six bedroom house in Seattle in order to experiment with  living in small, downtown condo. 
• selling 90% of our 1,000 volume library. (150 is our new golden number)
• getting rid of most of our DVD’s.

Anything that makes you re-think that much stuff is worth the $9.95. (Soon to go up to $19.95.) Plus, it’s an ebook – no physical clutter required. And it has a beautiful minimalist design, which I, the migrainuer, appreciates. (No visual clutter!)

Now look, I know a lot of you are doing too much.  So don’t buy this if it’s just going to be one more thing sitting on your desk waiting to be read. But if you have 90 minutes to read it this weekend, it might change your life.

Click here to buy The Art of Being Minimalist.

P.s. If you buy the book by clicking on a link in this post, you’ll be buying me a cuppa. For my full disclosure statement about how I love you and only tell you good things, click here.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to introduce you all to the goodness that is the community over at Flock: a nesting place for restless souls. Joining an online community when it is just starting is a rare opportunity.  Getting in on the ground floor means you have time to get to know each other, and you don’t get lost in the crowd.

I long to show you more of the good things that are going on in the Flock, but I’m trying to balance privacy with my boundless compulsion to sing Flock’s good praises. (It really is very cool over there.) For instance, just today Karen Mori Bonner, one of our liscensed therapists, came by to help us understand the symbols in our recurring dreams. It was just fascinating! Oh, I wish you would join us there!

Flock needs to be a place of safety and security, so I can’t go about pell-mell letting the whole internet in on the discussions that go on there. People need a little privacy to tell their stories. But suffice it to say, what’s going down in the Flock  is good stuff!

I am trying to think of ways to let you in sideways a little, and you can learn a lot from people by what they read. So today I am sharing with you some of the intriguing books that Flock members have on their bedside table. There are A LOT of good ones, so I’ll start with just three novels today. May you find a book to companion you on your journey — and may you join us in the Flockso we can be your withmates as well.

Much Warmth,

-Rachelle

Sing Them Home: A Novel
This is a new novel from Stephanie Kallos, author of Broken for You, which was a formative novel for me in my process of deconstructing/reconstructing faith. (See this postfrom 2005 to see what I started breaking.) Now Kallos is back and Publisher Weekly says: “This novel will find a welcome audience in anyone who has experienced grief, struggled with family ties or, most importantly, appreciates blossoming talent.”

The Help
by Kathryn Stockett. This debut novel is about a white woman gathering stories from the black women that served in their upper crust households in the early 1960′s. Again from Publisher Weekly: “What perfect timing for this optimistic, uplifting debut novel…set during the nascent civil rights movement in Jackson, Miss., where black women were trusted to raise white children but not to polish the household silver… Assured and layered, full of heart and history, this one has bestseller written all over it.” (This one was raved about by more than one Flock reader!)

Her Fearful Symmetry: A Novel 
Oh, thank God Audrey Niffengger is writing again! I adored The Time Traveler’s Wife. It remains one of my all time favorite novels. And her incredible The Three Incestuous Sisters: An Illustrated Novel is a favorite art piece of mine. (It was ten years in the making!) Now Niffenger is back with another haunting tale, as described by Amazon reviews:  “The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits. I am SO buying this the next time I am in an English booksellers!

Stay tuned for more recommendations from the Flock bedside table. Sign up on my mailing list, or follow me on Twitter and you won’t miss a single post. Thanks for being here!

The things you keep close at hand are usually the most reliable, handy, treasured items in your stash. So I ask you, what do you keep on your bedside table? I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

*8Things: On My Bedside Table

1. The Body Shops’ Hemp Hand Protector – smell suspiciously like a teenager’s bedroom after the parentals have been away, but it works wonders

2. Burt’s Bees – Almond Milk Beeswax Hand Creme -  my feet love this stuff.

3. Vintage red and gold reading glasses case from Tonya. (Occasionally, my glasses are actually in it.)

4. Divine Dreaming mp3 – a sleep/dream enhancing meditation from the beloved Leonie Allen.

5. Your Nine Year Old and Your Ten- to Fourteen-Year-Old - invaluable child development guidebooks. (All of them are great.)

6. Music & Silence by Rose Tremaine – an excellent piece of historic fiction about Denmark’s King Christian IV.

7. Sublingual Melatonin and 5-HTP - – because melatonin by itself increases depression. (Wish the sleep doc had told me that when she FIRST suggested meltaonin!)

8. A spiral note book and pen, usually with a collaged cover. The one I’m using right now I collaged with my travel art kit while in Paris.

What  *8Things are on your bedside table? Grab a button and play along, or put your list in the comments below.  If you post on your list on your blog, please give us the permalink in the Mr. Linky below so we can come say hi! Thanks for being here.

There are things you want to be doing with your life. There are adventures to be had, projects you’d love to dive into, and people you want to have time for. You want room to breathe, to think, to play.

Yet, there it is. The stuff in your home, the paper piles in your home office, and the 101 things on your to-do list, all clamoring for your time and attention.”
–Lisa Baldwin, Clutter Coach and Professional Simplifier

In the gap between the day we signed our mortgage and the day we could move into our 1920’s craftsman, I would sit on the back porch with my soulful housemate Sharon, and wait for the day we could call The Densmore House home. “It’s good here, Rachelle.” she’d say “Someone has been prayerful in this space.”

Where we live has a feel, an energy…a zeitgeist. We long to live in peaceful, beautiful spaces. But often we find ourselves living in clutter, mess and mayhem. There’s the physical clutter—the mail, and the socks, and the stacks of paper. (How does all that paper procreate anyway?!) Physical clutter stops us in our tracks. It keeps us from starting creative projects—because who wants to work at that messy table? It keeps us from finishing tasks because we can’t find what we started on. It drains us of our inspiration, and tires us out with menial tasks.

Then there is the energetic clutter—the anxiety, the regret, and that mysterious slimy residue that hangs around when something particularly sad or nasty has gone down. Energetic clutter is more subtle than the physical kind. It resides on the edge of our awareness like something you can only see out of the corner of your eye. Yet energetic clutter can be just as distracting and draining as the stack of mail on your countertop.

Thankfully I have two stellar practitioners who can help you remove BOTH kinds of clutter from your life – and they are teaming up to offer an e-course! (Oh you are so lucky!)

First there is the zen-ish, pragmatic Lisa Baldwin of Divine Order, clutter coach and professional simplifier. She specializes in the practical how-to’s of clearing the clutter to help her clients—you!– recover a sense of self, increase your sense of calm, and heighten your internal confidence. Her work releases you to have more time and energy so you can focus on what matters to YOU.

Then there is the colorful, enthusiastic Leonie Allen of Goddess Guidebook. Leonie’s hopeful, joyful approach to all things mysterious empowers her clients to live the kind of life they dream of by accessing their internal strength, and gaining the help of the positive energetic forces that reside around us and within us.

Leonie and Lisa are teaming up to offer an e-course in house (and life!) decluttering – Divinely Decluttered: Six Weeks to A De-Cluttered, Space-Cleared Home. Lisa will bring the tip and techniques to clearing, and keeping, your home clutter-free. While Leonie’s self-professed woo-woo goodness brings treasures to clear out the icky, stressed-out spiritual residue from the place you call home. Her herbs, crystals and rituals will help you create centered, joyful energy in your internal and external living space. (Centered, joyful energy is Leonie’s trademark. Get a little taste of her generous spirit in this ten-minute Space Clearing 101 video here.)

Traveling too much to take on Divine Decluttering this Summer? No worries, you can sign up now and receive all the workbooks, mp3 meditations, and guidance whenever you are ready. (Ready is important. You gotta know what you are ready for.) Browse Lisa and Leonie’s personal sites, or check out their course site and see if decluttering is the right thing right now to catapult you on to fuller, more creative, more joyful life!

What do you need to declutter in your home and heart? What might you achieve if your clutter was draining you? Leave your thought in the comments below. Thanks for being here.

The Do Less Revolution is an on-going, start-any-time project of Magpie Girl. Click here to join or find all the DO LESS posts here. Recieve an update on new Do Less items by following us on Twitter. Thanks for being here!