Her friends online know her as the minimalist who got rid of the minivan, the stress and the clutter. Now @MadisunGray, a mom in her 30s named Maddie, was standing on a front porch on a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific, watching movers carry in boxes she had not seen in seven months.
She had packed them into a storage unit, and she admits she no longer remembered half of what was inside. Her big question for the day was simple: should she have kept any of it?
It had been about a week since she and her husband Kyle landed on the island with their kids. The movers showed up around 7:30 in the morning, and the whole family was still in pajamas.
Before the first box came off the truck, she introduced the neighbor’s dog, Sandy, who she says has pretty much adopted the family already.
“If It’s Not A Yes Then It’s A No,” Says The Mom Who Hid A Glowing Green Gadget In The House
Maddie says she used to be the “mainstream minivan leader of the potluck,” too stressed to sleep, with her hair falling out. She credits one simple habit with changing that: getting rid of the things you do not use anymore.
Her theory is that all the stuff people save for “someday” thinks it is being responsible, but it is really blocking the way. “If it’s not a yes then it’s a no,” she says, and she admits it is basic advice that almost nobody follows.
Then came the box-by-box test. For every item, she asked herself whether she was glad she kept it or wished she had let it go.
The French press came out first, then the Vitamix, and she gave both a hearty yes. Next up were an Instant Pot, a stainless steel rice cooker and a pile of pans, baking sheets and roasting dishes she says she missed terribly, since vacation rentals never seem to have good ones.
The Kitchen Gear She Missed Most While Living Out Of Suitcases
Meal prepping is Maddie’s happy place. She says she even used to pay for a meal prep service, and she likes to set aside one or two home days a week so she can coast on her batch cooking for the rest of the week.
Traveling for months knocked her out of that rhythm, and she says never having a stocked pantry turned into one of the biggest pain points of her life. That is why the Instant Pot and the rice cooker earned the label “crucial for the batching.”
She also keeps a kitchen scale instead of measuring cups and follows recipes in grams. She admits it is not something she is proud of, but she says it actually makes her food turn out better.
Her husband and she even had a friendly debate over Dutch ovens. She likes her all-metal one, he prefers a French brand because he likes how the lid latches, and she says she once owned two of another brand before one went missing.
She was quick to add that nobody paid her to say any of it. “I don’t do sponsorships on this channel,” she says.
Sheepskins, Camping Plates And Three Pie Dishes: The Keepers Her Husband Teased Her About
Some of the items that survived her minimalist purge are not what you would expect. A sheepskin she bought in England made the cut after she laid it on her airplane seat and napped on it on couches, and she says her sheepskins rank somewhere in her top three or five favorite possessions.
When you own very little, she points out, each thing becomes special. One of the kids brushed the sheepskin right there on the porch and it came out soft and beautiful.
She has also taken plenty of grief online over her stainless steel plates. Viewers ask why she uses what look like camping plates at home, and her answer is that they are practical and the kids cannot break them.
Then there is the pie dish business. She says Kyle once tried to talk her into letting go of one of her pie dishes, and when he said he has three, she shot back that if you are making one pie, you might as well make three.
She feels the same way about bread. “I will not make one loaf of bread ever,” she says. “I will always make two or more.”
The One Thing She Wasn’t Sure About: A Tea Strainer
The first item that made her pause was a tea strainer for loose leaf tea. She wondered whether she needed to keep it, but then remembered that whenever she makes tea now, it is a giant batch for the whole family.
There was also a gadget she bought that promises to calm the electromagnetic fields in a home. Maddie laughed that it glows green at night like a 2010 essential oil diffuser, and she says she hides it because it looks so atrocious.
Not everything was a hard decision. She spotted a travertine kitchen riser she had forgotten all about and hopes her husband can turn it into an outdoor kitchen table with a big slab of stone.
A vintage ice cream scoop she picked up at an antique store, stainless steel dip saucers a subscriber once sent, and the kids’ bento boxes all got warm welcomes too. She says the bento boxes are great because the kids can grab a leftover snack plate while dinner is cooking.
The Real Reason She Paid For A Storage Unit: An Organic Mattress
After lunch and a few hours of putting things away, the family tackled a second round of boxes. Out came a shower curtain made from recycled sailboat sails, a bidet she counts among her top three favorite things the family owns, and a French market tote with backpack straps that she has used for years.
Then came the moment she had been waiting for. She says the whole reason they paid for a storage unit at all was so she could lie down on her mattress again.
It had been seven months since she slept on it. She flopped down on camera and called it the best mattress in the world, adding that she had tried every kind and that it is a headache to return a mattress bought online if you do not like it.
She stressed it was not an ad, though she joked she looked like a mattress salesman at age 33. That said, she and Kyle shipped two mattresses across the ocean, which tells you how much she values sleep.
What The Storage Unit Teaches About Keeping Less
Maddie’s day on the porch works as a handy test for anyone staring at a closet or garage full of boxes. You can try her version at home without renting anything.
- Pull out one item at a time and ask whether you are glad you kept it. If the answer is a quick yes, it stays.
- Look at how you actually live now. Her tea strainer made sense because her whole family drinks tea in big batches.
- Keep the things that save you stress. For her, that meant meal prep gear, since an empty pantry was her biggest daily headache.
- Do not apologize for odd keepers. Stainless steel plates for the kids and extra pie dishes passed her test because they work for her family.
- Be honest about the clutter in the pile. The glowing green gadget she hides from view is a good reminder that some stuff is only taking up space.
The biggest lesson might be her own. After five years of moving from a nine to five life toward running her own business with Kyle, she says she finally feels settled, and that having her things around her felt like “a warm hug.”
Keep what makes your days easier and your home feel like yours. The rest can go.
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