live simple Tag

abandon ship!

I mean…abandon crap!

It’s Saturday afternoon. We’ve just finished up another project helping a client take back control of their life, and I’m finally having a few quiet minutes at my desk. Shocker I’m thrilled to have some time to read articles about lifestyle and minimalism that have popped in my inbox recently. I’m adopting the following as the quote of my month of February. It makes me cheer and imagine high-fiving all the soon-to-be clients I will repeat it to:

“Never underestimate the importance of abandoning crap you don’t need. It has the power to change your life dramatically.”

We got this sweet card in the mail from a client we worked with a few weeks ago:

We helped this client abandon a LOT of crap. No, her lifelong items bought with hard-earned money were not garbage, but they were things she no longer needed/wanted/used, and they were holding her back from moving on to the next adventure in life she wants to be on. So? We said peace out, crap! as we waved goodbye and thank you to the donation truck and driver from AMVETS.

(Did I mention how much we love our clients and they become like family?)

Circling back to today…

I just texted one of the realtors I work with and told him the first thought that popped in my head the instant my eyes opened this morning was I wonder if the donation truck has picked up the items from the house yet. The house I’m referring to is the one we prepped for market ready this week. Photos are being taken on Monday, and the house is officially up for sale next weekend. Most people on a Saturday morning would be waking up thinking of coffee, a honey-do list, kids sports games to get to, or who’s turn it is to cook the bacon. My 24/7 thoughts are constantly trying to come up with more ideas on how I can help those around me abandon more crap, so they can seamlessly get to where they’re trying to be.

Can you imagine trying to wake up and get dressed and out the door to your job, or get your kids off to school after walking into your closet looking like this?

If you can’t find your socks, how can you find your sanity in this busy life?

The above photos are from the Blue Lollipop Road collection of before and after. In this case, the “after” aren’t even fully complete, but you get the idea. The before are the reason I wake up thinking about abandoning crap and donation trucks. They also make my head hurt thinking of how stressed I’d be if that was the closet I attempted to dress myself in on a daily basis. No wonder why everyone in America is beeping and angry by the time they reach the Starbucks drive through at 7:30AM Monday – Friday.

IF YOU HAVE LESS CRAP. YOU HAVE LESS CRAP TO MAINTAIN.

Doesn’t that sound so freeing?

ABANDON THE CRAP AND CHANGE YOUR LIFE.

I promise, it works, and we can help you:)

Maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up thinking only about bacon…

#LessStuffMoreFreedomHappyLife #LiveSimpleDoMore #KnowYourInventory

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micro-apartments rock my socks

After reading this article last week about micro-apartments coming to Charlotte, I jumped out of bed like an excited kid ready to race downstairs to see what was under the Christmas tree. I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve mentioned in conversation since moving to the Queen City, that I wished well designed micro-spaces were here.

Ask and you shall receive!

My favorite apartment to date was the 430 square foot one I had in Virginia back in 2009:

Small smart spaces

Small smart space

Small is simple. Simple is smart. Smart is mighty.

I have no idea why I took or saved these shots. Perhaps they were meant just for this, eight years later. The above is what my place looked like every day in all of It’s simple, small, unfussy, glory. No extra CRAP anywhere to take care of/manage or pay for! Ahhh…I love you, freedom! (Not pictured are my full sized bathroom and kitchen.) The units were brand new and my rent was $595/month. At the time I rented there, the developer tried selling me the unit. It would’ve only been $80k to own. What a deal. I should have scooped that spot up in a heartbeat. I’ve occasionally kicked myself for not doing it.

A Charlotte Agenda writer put out this piece today about the new micro-apartments coming soon. I completely disagree with her. The claim of small spaces and everything having to have a place all the time being stressful, is the exact opposite of anything I’ve ever experienced. (Still love you anyway, Agenda!) Everyday I work with clients who hire me because they have too much space, too much stuff, too many expenses…and they’ve reach a point they’re so over it all. I’ve found time and time again that the stressed and buried feelings much of us swirl in, are directly related to the excess of everything in our lives, not because the carefully selected items we’ve chosen, we love, and we actually use are best kept in their specific places at days end.

I’d never try to convince anyone who wasn’t interested, to live in a small space. You do you! I don’t necessarily think big is bad. I do think however, that far too many of us are incredibly wasteful, living smack dab in the middle of a serious drone zone believing we need a whole lot more than we actually do, to be happy.

I’ll see you for the Grand Opening at The RailYard!

#SmartSpaces #LiveSimpleDoMore #LessStuffMoreFreedomHappyLife

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Live simple. Do more.

Freedom!

Hello, hello and welcome to the all-new Blue Lollipop Road!

I am SO EXCITED (did I mention excited?) about not just a fresh and different look for my site, but for finally  sharing about a huge shift I’ve been focusing on for a while now.

First I have to give huge props to my branding company, Big Ring, for taking 7+ years of everything I’ve worked so hard on and putting it in to an online presence that looks amazing! I’m happy to report all the photos you see throughout Blue Lollipop Road are my own, nothing stock photo here, just all from years in travel and everyday life. The photos we chose to use from my archive of about 10,000, are some of my all-time favorites. If they give you any sense of freedom or feeling that anything is possible, then we have done our job!

So onto this new BLR:

You will see freedom as a theme throughout this new site and everything in my work. Many conversations I had during my years on the road over coffee or dinner with friends or strangers, and now in home base life have the same theme; people feeling like they just don’t have enough time, space or money (translation – freedom) to do things like:

A.) What they really want to do for work or a hobby.

B.) Spend time with family or friends.

C.) Work out.

D.) Travel.

E.) Go back to school.

Many, many more.

This great world is spinning and we’re running around like chickens with our heads cut off because there somehow ends up being so much to do and think about in a day. I’ve never understood why it always seems to take some kind of tragedy, for us to slow down and think about what really matters, so I created a business that helps people take back time, space, and money so they can do more of what they love. That’s what life is supposed to be about, right?

This means I work with people in any kind of transition, or ready to make a change; Everyone from people moving/relocating, for work (managing everything from moving company to handyman and all in between), for fun, or for things not so fun, (Divorce, death in family), to people who are busy with their careers and kids who’s homes have become cluttered and need reorganizing, to people who want to downsize and live simpler, to people who need to reassess their baseline bills (when’s the last time you checked to see if your bank offers a lesser interest rate or why the cable company is charging you hundreds of dollars for basic cable and internet services?), to people who need systems implemented to make their homes function better, to people to want to make a huge life shift (quit job/start a business/start training for a marathon…), to people needing family vacation plans made, to people wanting to sell no longer needed furniture because they are remodeling, moving, or have just sent the last kid off to college.

All those kinds of projects and more.

I facilitate and manage whatever chaos and busy is going on and help you put healthy breathing room back into your life.

And I make the super stressful times, fun.

Boom!

When clients write or call to tell me they could focus on work because they knew I was taking care of everything with their corporate relocation, or when they tell me they are now working out regularly and cooking with their kids because they could find the cook books, or that they have time to actually go to the gym because they feel more organized in their space, it makes me happy. Like clap up and jump up and down happy. It’s like being able to gift a sense of freedom, balance, and perspective for at least a moment, or a day in this big world of madness swirling around us.

I love it!

I hope reading this post and meandering through my spankin’ new pretty site makes you feel like you have a little extra pep in your step to go for that thing, that person, or that moment you’ve been missing. Let’s live simple, and do more of what we love and with who we love. If you have a hard time getting there yourself, call me. I’d love to help you get rid of the physical, financial, or personal “stuff” that’s weighing you down. We can tackle your busy beast/lift your burdens/exorcise your demons.

Life is short. Freedom awaits.

#LessStuffMoreFreedomHappyLife #LiveSimpleDoMore #TodayIsTheDay

PS ~ Please scroll down to the bottom of this page and sign up to get my blog posts via email! I will be regularly posting great tips & tricks on how to live simple and do more- and of course continuing to share about how I make adventure in my everyday:)

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all the things you gain

More experiences, less stuff.

More freedom, less stuff.

More fun, less stuff.

This is everything that BLR has always been about. I am loving stories, articles, and books like these that illustrate just what’s possible (and important) for this life; time, people, and time with your people doing awesome things.

I cannot WAIT to share BLR 2.0, coming mid-October; A new beginning, a new life, and even more amazing adventure.

Stay tuned, and get ready to hop on the live simple do more of what you love, train!

Happy here

*(Photo credit…random day road trip to Indiana when I lived in Chicago a few years ago. Written on a door in an ice cream shop.)

#LessIsMore #Freedom #ThingsThatMatter

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