Finally, a real comment. Thank you, Bethany.
I haven’t been much of a minimalist lately. With Halloween around the corner and a young daughter, I felt the urge to decorate. There’s this need in me to create traditions, and I’ve always appreciated that my mother would take a bin from the basement at each holiday and decorate the house. Is it necessary? No – but I enjoy it, so decorate I will. 
I’ve done most of the inside decorations and hopefully in the next week or two we will start on the outside.
Back to simplifying and organizing: I have made some leaps and bounds in the last few weeks. I finally have a clothes system for G. All of her baby clothes have been sorted by size and put into plastic bins to keep in the basement and now I have a designated container in her closet for everything she outgrows so it’s easy to access and doesn’t end up like the mess I had to deal with before! It only took 2 years, but hey – baby steps.
Be careful what you wish for…I tend to go a bit overboard with comment writing. But, hey, I love getting them and figure everyone else does too!
Minimalism is not martyrdom. It’s getting rid of excess, so you can enjoy the things you love. It’s making room for the fun crafty decorations, if that’s your thing!
Heck, I own a sailing yacht and call myself a minimalist…