321 Stop - Stop Running and Start Living Giveaway

Today's guest post and giveaway are from Lorilee Lippincott of the blog Loving Simple Living and the ebook, '321 Stop - stop running and and start living'.

Ever get overwhelmed with the amount of toys to pick up? Clothes? The huge pile of dishes? The page long list of things to do on the weekend?

About a year and a half ago I hit the point in my life where I felt so frustrated and overwhelmed with everything I had to do and keep up with that I had to make a change. I was upset so much of my time and limited energy was spent trying to keep up and so little was spent hanging out with my kids and working on things I enjoyed. About this time my kids and I got to go along with my husband on a traveling work project. We spent a good part of 3 months away from home living in a motel about 5 hours away. It gave us time away from our life to think and talk. We wanted to make sure we centered our life around living, family, and doing what we enjoyed. During that time we made some big decisions.

We decided:

• to get rid of most of our stuff
• to rent our 2000 sqare foot house and move to an apartment that didn't require maintenance
• to make time to travel as a family
• to find time to learn and grow in areas we were personally interested in

We did it! It took several months to get out of our house and several more months to keep cutting back our belongings to where we felt we had what we wanted and could stay on top of everything. We took a 5 week road trip vacation. My husband has been learning photography and I have had time to work on writing.

Now, the house is not always clean but it only takes about an hour to clean it. The kids still fight over toys (just less of them). The kitchen still gets dirty, but the counter space and the amount of kitchen tools limits the disaster. We spend our evenings and weekends working on our dreams instead of mowing, raking, cleaning, and other house projects. Not perfect, but a huge improvement.

I have been learning more and more about this concept that I now know is called minimalism. Minimalism is about living with what you need and love and nothing else. It isn't about cutting back as much as it is respecting and cherishing what we truly value. It works to apply these concepts to our material belongings, our schedules, our finances, our eating, and even our emotions.

Somewhere in culture, probably originating in retail, we have come to believe that bigger and more is always better without really thinking about why we make this decision. Most of the time it is wrong and robs us of the time, money, and energy we want to spend on what truly matters.

The whole process we have gone through has taught me so much I wanted to share it with others. I have written up a complete manual that includes our story as well as all the tricks and tips we learned along the way.  '321 Stop - stop running and start living'; includes everything you need to know to simplify your house, your life, and your head. I haven't figured everything out yet, but I have gotten my life back and love it.

To thank the fabulous Clean Mama for a chance to share this post I am giving away 3 copies of my ebook - '321 Stop - stop running and start living'. Because it is all about simple living it is super simple to enter. Just comment on the Rafflecopter with the area of your life you most need to simplify - contest closes Sunday at midnight.  Three winners will be chosen at random when the contest closes.

Don't want to wait to see if you won?   Click on the 'buy now' box below to check out the book more - you can purchase in different formats and you can read the first chapter for free with a Tweet!

a Rafflecopter giveaway