Card Games

Depending on your child’s age, card games might be difficult. But most kids from the age of 3-4 and up can play a handful of basic card games. In an age of technology, sometimes we need to get back to basics and stop overthinking entertainment. My kids and I bond so much when I sit on the floor and play a simple game of “go fish”. A few of my family’s favorites are Go Fish, War, Old Maid, Animal Rummy, Spoons and of course Uno. So many of my favorite childhood memories involve playing games with my family. It is where some of the best conversations happened and these experiences will create a tight family bond as well as some healthy competition.

Hang Man

Laugh all you want but my kids and I play Hang Man on a white board a few nights a week and it is a blast. The white board is not very large and doesn’t take up much space and the dry erase markers are left over from my daughters school supplies from last year. Not expensive and not much space. My kids ages are 10, 5, & 4 and each one is in different stages of learning but it’s a simple activity the whole family can enjoy. Hang Man helps my children learn their letters, spell words, take turns, and again doesn’t involve electronics or toys that take up lots of space. 

Charades

We play this a few different ways. Either we act it out for the rest of the family to guess or we pull out that white board I was just telling you about and we draw it. The person to guess the most wins. This game involves lots of laughs and lots of creativity. 

Scavenger Hunt

An indoor scavenger hunt is so much fun. This one can require planning ahead but is just as easy in a small space as it is in a large space. My house is very small but still has lots of spaces. Hide clues around the house that will keep your little ones busy solving riddles and working together as a team. At the end they find the prize or treat. It creates a sense of accomplishment that builds confidence and they start to navigate that hard world of solving problems together. 

Book Making

A few white pieces of paper folded together and stapled and then let their imagination run wild. At the end, let them each take their turn to read their book out loud to the family. This is a common activity in my home. Now my 4 yr old’s book is mostly filled with pictures while my 10 yr old’s book is incredible; filled with details, a great plot and has sparked in her a love for creating books. She is currently on the third draft of her book which she hopes to publish one day.

Get in the Kitchen

The kitchen is a great place to create memories and bond as a family. The earlier you teach your kids cooking and baking basics, the better. I can’t say this loud enough, Let your kids in the kitchen with you! I don’t care if its making a basic pb&j or a 5 course meal. Start letting them help and at least teach them the basics. 

Play dough

Play dough can be found in every classroom or daycare and for a good reason. There is no wrong way to play with play dough. It’s not a competition and children often feel success about their creations. Playing with play dough has so many benefits including building their finger and hand muscles, creativity, work on their concentration, and can be a great calming activity. You could also make your own play dough with a few ingredients you most likely already have at home. This activity can help your child learn to measure, follow simple directions, have a sense of accomplishment and have a great activity to share with friends and family. 

Arts & Crafts

I know what you are thinking, what in the world does this have to do with minimalist living. Isn’t this bringing more stuff in our home? Yes and No, hear me out. Let’s get the benefits of making a craft and instead of keeping it, give it away. There are lots of articles about the benefits of art for children, but there is also great benefit in giving and thinking of others. I love spending the time with my kids making the crafts but our house just doesn’t have the space to keep them. Just have the conversation with your kids before you start that we are going to do a craft and afterward we are going to go to the local nursing home and hand them out to put a smile on someone else’s face. You could also take them to a children’s hospital or send them to a grand parent. The point is, don’t let being a minimalist deter you from the incredible experience making art with your kids. One spring, my 3 kids and I painted around 30 easter pictures on construction paper. It took us a few days to complete them and after I wrote on each picture the name of the child who painted it and what their age was. On Easter Sunday, I drove my kids to the local assisted living facility to hand them out to people who had no where to go on this holiday. I am not sure which were more excited, my kids or the residents. It boosted moral in the facility and my kids beemed with pride. Since this, we have made it a point to do something for others, especially around the holidays for those who are alone.

Family Jenga

This is a made up game that I read about a few years ago but has become more of a family favorite as my kids get older. This would be a great game if you have older children or just a group of adults. You take a regular wood Jenga set and write one question on every piece and then set the tower up as usual. The player pulls the piece out, reads the question out loud and answers it before putting it at the top of the tower. You learn a lot about each other and create a better bond as well as have fun. 

Build a Fort

This one is a blast but can be a bit tricky in a small space. Yes it makes a big mess but it takes up hours of the day and creates lot of laughs. Everyone has to work together and everyone gets a turn to express what they want in the fort. In the evening we turn the fort into a pretend tent for a sleepover/movie night or we build a pretend camp fire out of our toys, bring our star machine out and shine it on the ceiling and pretend we are sleeping under the stars. Let your imagination run wild and have fun. Trusts me, it will all be worth having to clean up the mess.   

The post 10 Indoor Activities to help your family bond appeared first on Simplify for the Good Life.

A few years ago, I was so overwhelmed with keeping up, keeping my house organized, my schedule organized, and struggled not feeling burnt out all the time. I was starting to believe that I was not very good at this organizing thing, turns out I just needed less. I needed to eliminate half the items I owned so everything had a place and could easily be put back. I needed to stop over scheduling myself, I needed to learn to say no, to say no to things that drained me of the precious little energy I had. I needed to learn to stand up for myself, I had allowed myself to be talked down to, belittled, and it was time for me to draw a line in the sand. I had to learn the hard way that I was the problem, I was the reason my life was a mess, and I also learned that I was the solution. So, if you are just starting out on your own simple living journey or if you are struggling with the concept like I was in the beginning, here are a few tips on how to start simplifying your life.

Get Clear on your most important “things

Let’s face it, life is busy. At the end of the day most people don’t have much time for themselves. Take time to evaluate your day to day needs. Which ones are the most important? Write them down and live by them. Then ask yourself, are you giving them the time they deserve? I would suggest reworking your schedule to include your personal list of important non negotiable things. Let’s be honest, most of us are doing that concept backwards. I know I was. I was listening to a podcast once that said “when we are lost or struggling on what is most important or our legacy that we are leaving behind, then the best plan is to create a personal mission statement”. This hit home hard, at the time I was spending so much wasted energy on all the wrong areas of importance. Now its your turn to really put the thought into it and remember that our mission statement will change as we grow and evolve into better people. Once I got that straight in my own life, things started to fall into place so much easier. Don’t get me wrong, I still struggle with it, but with it in place, the decision to get rid of 75% of my belongings was so much easier, I stopped over buying items, or buying items to fill a void and I eliminated toxic people in my life, I started listening to my inner voice, I stopped being a people pleaser that always said yes, and most importantly I rested when I needed to instead of running myself into the ground because society tells me I was supposed to. I started living life the way I wanted and stopped living it to the way others were pushing me too. 

Financial situation

Get your financial situation in check. You would not believe how much your day to day stress stems from all these bad financial choices you made. Stop buying clothes, cars, jewelry, and fancy dinners that you can’t afford to impress others or fill a void in your life. They don’t have to pay your bills at the end of the day. And honestly, if they don’t like the truest form of you then they aren’t your friend. Stop putting yourself and even worse your family into debt to pretend to the world you have your crap together. Or maybe you aren’t in debt but you still spend all your extra money on things you don’t need to impress people you hardly know. Get your butt into therapy and deal with the root issue. Once you stop buying so much and put that money towards being financially secure, going back to school, or getting yourself out of debt. Once that starts to go away, you will be amazed how much of your stress will go away with it. If you don’t know where to start, sign up for a financial class at your local church, get connected to a financial support group on social media, listen to podcasts about finances, or read books about finance. But get started and stop making the excuses. Take one baby step forward at a time and refuse to quit till you achieve the goal you set out for yourself. You won’t get it perfect every time, but don’t give up and keep trying.

Physical clutter

Getting rid of the physical clutter is hard. The items seem to quickly accumulate and before you know it, it’s gotten out of control. I know you don’t have lots of time to just stop your life and de-clutter, but let’s start with simple steps so we have somewhere to start. Don’t spend too much time thinking about it, just start. Start with your closet, a drawer, a corner of the room, a shelf on a book case or even your purse. Start with something fairly small and don’t move onto the next area till that task is complete. When I started my journey, I would set a goal each day of a number of items I was going to get rid of. Say it was 15, I would walk around my house till I found 15 items I was going to sell or donate. They would never come back into my home. Once the area is the de-cluttered then the second part of your goal is to maintain it. Refuse to allow yourself to fill it back up. This takes time because we are rewiring our brains to think and react differently. Just remember you didn’t create the mess overnight and you won’t de-clutter your life overnight either. Small but consistent steps is key. 

Mental clutter

Reducing mental clutter is in my opinion one of the most important ones. When you start to free your mind, it begins to relax and greatly reduce stress and mental strain. Physical clutter is such a visual item but mental clutter might be causing way more damage than you think. That endless To do list, those unanswered emails, those phone calls you need to make, that project that needs to be finished, that laundry that needs to be put away, those dishes that need to be washed, etc. Your brain is very aware that these are unfinished tasks that need to be complete. You won’t sleep well because your brain is trying to tell you to get them done. Now I know we will never have a full checked off list, but learning to manage this properly can ease the mental mess that is going on in your head is the key. My advice is to grab a piece of paper, nothing fancy needed and write everything and I mean everything you can think of down on that piece of paper. You will not believe how much this simple task does to help reduce the mental clutter. Once all written down, start prioritizing the unfinished tasks and create a plan to start working through them. Once we start to rethink our thinking, we can to restore some balance in our life.

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When I say “Simplify For The Good Life”, I am simply challenging you to change your mindset to possibly live without so “much”. FREE yourself!!! Most humans consume to much, we over indulge in everything. We buy to much, eat to much, drink to much, work to much, and we convince ourselves that it is solving something. We look through social media and look at other people’s lives and instantly don’t feel like ours is enough anymore. So, we go buy better clothes, more clothes, the new hottest trends or we buy more items that we think we need. A new cooking utensil, or book, or house decor items, or even worse a newer car or bigger house that we can’t afford just to fill that void. I currently clean people’s houses and it is so sad to see all the piles of unused stuff that was purchased on a whim and now sits in the corner with its tags still on it. I see walk in closets the size of bedrooms overflowing with clothes that no one ever wears. I see clients move their junk piles around so I can clean and then move it back. It’s been a year and most of those piles are still there while Amazon boxes are still arriving and I can’t help but shake my head. It’s time to stop buying and start evaluating. I once went a month without buying any additional food……a month with a family of four……..and what I learned was I buy way more food then my family can eat & I end up throwing a lot of food away. I was horrified by myself. I no longer have a walk-in pantry overflowing with food that will most likely expire before we can eat it. I no longer feel the need to have my fridge and freezer crammed full to somehow make me feel like this is what makes me a good mom. I no longer have a deep freezer full of more food that will most likely expire before we ever had a chance to eat it. I continue to self corrected those toxic habits and changed the story line. I now keep about a week to 2 weeks worth of food in my house at a time and I now keep my dry goods in a cupboard, yes 1 cupboard in my kitchen instead of a walk-in pantry. Let me say this, I have yet to run out of food and we eat most of our meals at home. Yes I know it’s scary to change those behaviors that are so engrained into us and yes it’s really hard when family and friends think you are a little crazy but trust me it’s so FREEING!!! I am excited to go on this journey with you! I will show you some of the things that helped me get more balance back into my life. Let’s do this!

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