Downsizing in the midst of expanding: Part I

In the last 2 months, our 3 bedroom, 1400 sq ft townhouse has added 3 adult inhabitants to its previous 2 adults and 2 crazy cats. What do these numbers add up to? Potential chaos! Simplicity and organization have become key components to a smoothly running household.

As Willow mentioned previously, simplicity all starts with an attitude, a decision. My choice and subsequent attitude came out of necessity. I had to downsize my commitments, my possessions, and my mental clutter or sink into chaos, dragging my housemates down with me.

After de-cluttering and organizing our possessions and space (a post for another day!), my primary focus and time allotment is to feed the five of us, three of whom are active members of our military. The best advice I can give for this is Plan Out Meals!

I don't know about you, but I find myself loathe to use anything that looks ugly. If it is beautiful, it motivates me to keep it that way. In organizing my home, I need an abundance of cute storage baskets and boxes. In keeping track of exercise and diet goals, I have to have a cute, personally decorated journal to write in. In planning meals consistently, I need a cute meal planner! I found mine at Michaels, but Post-It also makes some great weekly planners that you can stick on your refrigerator and adapt to meal plans.

Every Sunday evening, I sit down with my oh-so-cute meal planner and write out the week's meals. I plan a day or two to use leftovers, but have an easy meal like "French Toast and Eggs" as a backup just in case. I try to plan a big lunch for Sunday afternoons that can be done mostly with a crockpot, so that we can always invite people over after church. I then go through the kitchen to verify that I have all the ingredients needed for the week, and jot down anything extra I may need to get from the store. Monday, I go grocery shopping.

This task requires forethought. I go to three main stores (Costco, Henry's and Trader Joe's) and divide my shopping list accordingly. I know the prices that are best at each store, and can therefore shop frugally. Another great idea is to keep a price book. This will allow you to know the best places and times to shop for various commonly used ingredients. Perhaps we can convince Willow to share her years of insight and experience with this.

As Kiti mentioned previously, simplicity has many facets and themes and the key to successful simplicity is an individualized smattering of these concepts applied to one's life.

As a life-long hoarder, I've found that in our expanding household, organization and de-cluttering have been the keys to our success. The fruits of these simple roots are rich time spent with the friends and family staying with us and meaningful investment in relationships.

Simplify, simplify

I think that a primary (and useful) facet of having a "simple life" is orchestrating one's day-to-day operations in such a manner that it becomes easier to just get stuff done in an effective way. As a single parent who works full-time, my available hours are at a premium, and no matter how much I do, my task list always grows, never diminishes. Add to that the fact that it really is difficult to accomplish just about anything with children underfoot, and my accomplishments at home have dropped precipitously since I became a mama. It finally occurred to me that I could do stuff on my lunch break at work! It will make things so much easier.

Things I can do at work:

• Pay bills online
• Take a walk outside (I may make it a goal to do this a few times per week until the snow comes)
• Update blogs

Things I can do with a quick car ride from and back to work:

• Go to the bank
• Go to the post office
• Go to the insurance agent
• Go to the grocery store (buying non-perishables and leaving them in the trunk or back seat of the car till I go home later in the day)

Sometimes, obvious solutions are simply staring us in the face.

Simple? What Does That Even Mean?!

I keep coming back to the basic question of simplicity: What does it actually mean to seek simplicity, and to have a lifestyle of which simplicity is a hallmark or a major component? Different people have different ideas regarding what it means to be simple. A few major themes I've noted in reading and researching on this topic:

• Frugal. Many people equate simplicity with living in such a way as to keep from spending much money. This is not a bad goal, to be sure, but reducing a lifestyle principle to pinching pennies seems rather extreme.
• "Green". This touches a nerve for me, because of all the many things that really irritate me (and believe me, there are a lot--just ask my family), one thing that truly galls me is a catchphrase-driven bandwagon. While I support sustainability, eco-friendly practices and products, and the whole shebang, I really dislike the fact that suddenly in the past few years, everybody has been trying way too hard to fit into this mold, and it shows, because terms like "green" and "eco-"anything are so overused that they are meaningless. Again, this concept constitutes a more-than-worthy goal, but the useful forest has gotten lost in the propaganda trees (which we should all hug now, right?).
• Back to Nature. Grow your own food, store it, be as self-sufficient as possible. [In fact, "Self-Sufficiency" is probably a better label than "Back to Nature". Oh well.] There is a lot to like about this sort of idea. It is similar to being "green", yet somehow less trendy and yuppie. However, this lifestyle is not practical or even possible for many of us.
• Food-Focused. Many people are re-examining what is in our food, how it is produced, and how it gets from its place of production to our tables. This has led to a largely grassroots movement to turn ever more toward local produce and goods, preferably responsibly grown, and, if we're lucky, even organic! Yet again, great idea here, and this one in particular lends itself to being practiced in moderation. However, I might just get a craving for a guava, and then what am I going to do?!
• Reduction. This is good for nearly all of us: Getting rid of not only excess possessions, but also excess complications in life. Simplifying routines, processes, habits, AND our stuff. Really, I just love the idea of tossing out both physical AND emotional baggage.
• Mixed Bag. Maybe the true key to living a realistically simple life, without creating excess stress by attempting to conform to more extreme views on simplicity itself (ironic, no?), is to take elements from differing ideas on simplicity and adapt them as best suits one's own life and style. Buffet-style. Smorgasbord. Mix-and-match. Pick your analogy.

Thoughts? Comment, please! And also, please remember that this was written quickly, late at night, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion! These thoughts are by no means finished. A follow-up post may very well follow.

On Being a Poor Consumer

I came across a statement in a book on simplicity that caused me to stop, reread it, and then think about it.

"When people reach this stage of self-acceptance, they often make very poor consumers, because if they are enough they may not need or want more."

Simple Prosperity, Finding Real Wealth in a Sustainable Lifestyle

David Wann was writing in reference to the idea of having enough.

Most, if not all, people I know have enough of every material possession they need. In fact, frankly, they usually have more than enough. Why is it that we, myself included, think we need more? More clothes, more shoes, more books, more dishes, more furniture, more cars, more toys. We have enough, really we do.

In fact, I often hear the comment, "I really need to declutter! I want my life to be simpler!" A simple life contains just the right number and kind of possessions to maintain that life. How do we determine what is 'enough' for a simple life and how do we go about attaining that balance? The basic answer is to get rid of what you don't use! If an item is not useful or beautiful, you don't love it, or if it has a sad memory attached to it, throw it away or give it away!

While I am not a hoarder or compulsive shopper, I do have clutter, quite a lot of clutter, around. It's time to delclutter and find out how little is enough. I think I like the idea of being a poor consumer.

A Simple Life Is An Uncluttered Life

I have been pondering Kiti's comment about the notion that getting a simple life is not merely learning the rules, memorizing the list, testing the practice test, and bingo! your life is simple. That's not how it works. Kiti's post started me thinking about simplicity and sent me, of all places, books.

I dropped by the local library one afternoon and typed 'simple living' in to the book search in the library database. Ninety-seven hits. Most of the books were not in our local branch but had to be placed on holds and sent over. I have picked up three volumes already and have spent several hours reading about the history of simplicity in the US, about how to becomes simple cooks, and about how to support world justic through simplicity. All these topics are right and good and interesting. But what we need first, before we can expand our horizons to our community and our world, is simplicity in our daily lives.

Simplicity in daily life. That's the focal point, the beginning. Simplicity has to start in our attitudes.

Ask yourself these questions.

Is your life cluttered and chaotic? If your personal life is chaotic and cluttered, it is likely that your personal space is too. If your life is disorganized and overwhelmed, your home will reflect the state of your being.

Is this immobilization, this fear, this sense of overwhelmed chaos what you want in your life? Or do you want a calm and courageous life?

I remember the day I decided that I would rather have a clean, calm and uncluttered home, that I would gladly give up my piles of possessions that gave me protection from fear and comfort from whatever it was that frightened me, than live in the mess that surrounded me and kept me paralyzed in clutter. The change occurred inside of me first. Then I was able to let go of the clutter that created the complexity in my life that kept me from living the joyful simple life I wanted. I am still on this journey. Some days, weeks, years are simpler than others. But having a calm and uncluttered home is still my goal.

Did you notice that my journey began with a decision, an attitude adjustment? That is where everyone's journey to simplicity begins. In your head. So I offer you the first step.

Make ONE change in your attitude and routine this week. You get to make the decision what it will be. It might help to tell someone else about your choice and request that person keep you accountable for your behavior and attitude.

My choice is a simple one. This week I will wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen after I eat. I do not like washing dishes, so even though this seems simple, it will require a major attitude adjustment for me.

And I will continue to read through the library books-I know my attitudes will continue to change and reflect my desire for a simple life!

La Dolce Vita

I started this simplicity web magazine several months ago, and haven't done very much with it. I have invited some people to contribute, and I hope that we will all do so soon, and on a somewhat regular basis. When I began toying with the idea of "Simple Pleasures", I kind of thought that I could learn about simplicity, and use this as a forum to encourage others to find simplicity and make it a goal in their own lives.

That was a fail.

I realized that I still struggle with getting anything about my life to be simple, and I haven't been able to just learn it, as though I could achieve it by memorizing a list of facts or principles. Instead, I'm going to have to begin by trying to figure out how to even "do" anything that could be termed "simple", and I can document my own struggles here.

There is joy in the journey, after all.

Upcoming

I hope to soon provide you with thoughts from Mama Mia, who has thoughts on living deliberately, loving beauty, giving grace, and working in the garden.

The Doom of Busy

A busy life begs for more, not less, attention to simplicity. I had a busy day; I completed so many items on my to-do list, and relished the rush that came with crossing off each item. I washed and dried and folded laundry; I chased a baby and two cats around the house; I ran errands, feeling the crunch of the looming 5:00 pm deadline (End of business day! The world stops!). Believe me when I say it was crazy: I had to put my baby son in a videoconference call just so he could see his father for a few minutes. While driving (in my car that is disintegrating, slowly but surely), the thoughts crowded into my head, reminding me of all the blogging that I haven't been doing for months. "I'm so busy," I thought. "I don't have time to write about simplicity and the simple pleasures of life." And yet, what better time to write? What better person to represent the struggle to simplify, to live meaningfully, than one whose life naturally tends toward the opposite extreme of chaos? Simplicity very well may come easily to some. In my life, it is something for which I must consciously strive, every day.

Don't let the doom of being busy drive you away from your goal of simplicity and a calm life under control. It is a downward spiral, to be sure, and the busier you are, the busier still you will become. Instead, just breathe. Rest. Be mindful of what is important. Take time to sharpen the saw, as Mr. Covey would say, and you'll be happier and more productive as a result.