Stuck in a minimalist rut!

If you've been following our blog for awhile you know we are on a minimalist journey. This journey started in January, but really got in gear in April/May. We were taking truck loads of bags to Goodwill, it was amazing! It felt so great to truly clean out everything. Fast forward to July, it's been months and we still have more stuff than I am comfortable with. Our buying habits have changed drastically, we no longer buy things just because and we think more about purchases. It's crazy because even though we have gotten rid of so many different things it just isn't enough. We are stuck in this never ending cycle of "Get rid of, clean the room, enjoy" but they never really seem to stay clean and there's really no reason for it. The amount of time it takes me to clean the house is getting insane, especially since we have like no items! After watching tons of minimalist videos I've realized I'm not the only one starting this process who feels like they get stuck in a rut from time to time. It actually seemed like everyone has experienced this at least once, the best advice I found was from a minimalist Youtuber(I can't think of their name or find their video sorry!). She talked about thinking about your house catching on fire(I know morbid but stay with me). If your house was on fire what would you save? Obviously for me it would first be my kids and animals. Okay now that the living things, that don't even count in minimalism, are safe-now what? As bad as it sounds I would want my laptop, phone, and honestly that's probably it. I'm not longer the super sentimental person I used to be-I used to hold onto ANYTHING that reminded me of someone especially if they had passed away. Now I realize that's not what keeps their memory with me. For example, my nephew passed away and a year ago I probably would have NEVER let go of anything of his. Today when we were cleaning out the "Harry Potter Room" we found a shirt that was his and I almost got rid of it, then I realized Ryker is going to need that size soon so I held onto it(or at least that was my reasoning). I no longer live with the "what ifs" for small things like baskets or trinkets "What if so and so wants this in the future?", they can buy it most likely, it's not a huge deal to get rid of these things. The main issue I am now running into is my mom just doesn't see a benefit to being a minimalist, she keeps telling people I'm not really becoming a minimalist and hearing that kind of kills me. This is a journey, it's not just something you wake up and do and people-family included-don't realize that. I'm hoping once this insane pre journey is over people realize how serious I am about this, because it's getting really hard having to defend my choices even though this choice isn't dangerous people still seem worried about it. Anyway! I have hungry children glaring at me, so I'm going to make lunch now.