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.

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.