by Tessa | Homemaking
It has occured to me how complicated we can make our effort to living simply. We feel that we need to do it all and then some. We read blogs and books and feel like if we aren’t growing everything we eat and making everything we use, we must be doing something wrong. This revelation came to me when I was reading an article on how to simplify your DIY.
Or maybe I’m just talking about myself here. I know that I have a tendency to over complicate things. I have a wonderfully annoying habit of researching the pants off of anything and then trying to dive in head first. I really should remember what my goals are for changing our lifestyle.
I have a number of reasons: frugality, health, appreciating the simple things, teach my kids the importance of work and more. But, when I dream about my goals for my life, I don’t picture money in the bank, or being superfit/healthy. I picture being able to take the time to enjoy my family. Working alongside them without being tied down by the craziness of this world. Slowing down. Peace.
Now I need to ask myself, will what I’m doing lead me to that life? I’m pretty sure that, if I attempted to learn and do everything at once (garden, canning, herbalism, soap making, cheese making, weaving, knitting, sewing, building and wood working and the list goes on) that I would just burn out. We are not designed to do it all. And very few people are able to dive in head first without drowning. That doesn’t sound very peaceful to me.
So, instead of my grand plan for our garden this year, I managed to move one step further than last year. The only vegetables I planted were tomatoes and carrots. Oh, and onions because I saw an idea on pinterest and thought it would be a simple way to use up the space where I planted my chamomile (that didn’t come up). I planted in containers because I figured it made sense to have a portable garden due to our impending move. I watered with a bucket from my kitchen sink because I have no faucet on my house. And I watched and waited. I did very minimal weeding (one of my favorite parts of container gardening) and only a little bit of fertilizing.
My garden took about 10 minutes to care for every couple of days and I didn’t lose my mind. I learned a lot about growing tomatoes and carrots. I didn’t get a huge and bountiful crop this year but I did manage to learn enough to point me in the right direction for next year’s garden.
Next year my goal is small: plant enough of a garden so I don’t need to buy veggies through the growing season. If that goes well, the year after next I’ll plant enough so that we can store some for the winter.
But, for now, 10 minutes extra into my schedule is simple. Because simplifying should be simple to do.Another couple great posts that I have recently read that are great grounders when you’re feeling overwhelmed or like you’re not doing enough:
How Do you Know When You Are Natural Enough? (Cheeky Bums Blog)
dear sweet mom who feels like she is failing (Finding Joy)
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by Tessa | Homemaking
If this is the first time you’ve have heard about the news I’m about to share, I apologize. I wish I could tell everyone personally instead of having them find out in such an impersonal manner. But I can’t and the deadline is coming closer. So here’s my big news:
We are moving.
We are moving about 3.5 hours away but we have family, friends, and other ties to our current area so we will be back on a pretty regular basis. We bought a farm and are doing some barn renovations down there so things have been pretty hectic lately. Lots of trips down there to arrange renos and prepare the farm for animals and much more needs to be done. So there is a lot of work to be done and I’ve been doing what I can to prepare my family.
This includes things like figuring out internet, grocery stores, mail, banking, church information, kids activitiesc and mommy groups. I’ve also been trying to visualize how we will live in the new place. The house we are going to live in down there has about 200 square feet less space than here. Not a big deal for bedrooms but the main floor of the house is something else. It’s proving to be a tough layout to work with. For example, the “coat closet” is inside the bathroom and the space for the fridge is in the laundry room. I think that we have figured out how we can make our belongings work and I know that God will provide the peace and patience we need to live in that house for the time being. Due to the down sizing, we have had to make some tough decisions. We won’t have the space or storage that we do in our current house (there are only 3 closets in the whole house) so we are getting rid of stuff.
It is amazing how much stuff a person can accumulate. I filled a garbage bag with toys to donate and I packed some of the less popular toys. The boys haven’t missed them. They are actually sitting in a clear plastic bin on a shelf in the playroom and neither boy has asked for them to play with in the whole 6 weeks they have been packed. I may have to donate them as well. I have noticed that since I packed up a good number of toys (the boys play outside most of the time anyway) that I don’t have nearly as many issues getting them to clean up. I’m not tripping on toys the way I used to either. I like that!
I have also taken this opportunity to simplify other areas of our life. I packed about half of our dinnerware. I do still have extra plastic plates/bowls for snack times but we mostly haven’t missed the extra dinnerware. I have been doing way less dishes. I have a dishwasher but I used to wash all the plastics and pots and larger items by hand because the dishwasher was always full with plates. Now I can fit nearly every dirty dish and pot into the dishwasher and just run it every other day. It takes me 20 minutes to do dishes and clean the kitchen in the morning instead of 1.5 hours. The only issue I’ve run into with this is that my husband was upset that both large coffee mugs were dirty and he didn’t want to use a medium one so he didn’t drink his coffee one day.
Things I have already packed/donated: DVDs (we watch Netflix once in a while but that’s about it), books (just kept a couple out that I will read before the move), baby gear (lent it to my sister actually), all of the kids’ clothes that they don’t currently wear (plus most of what actually fits them too – less laundry!) and a lot of my clothes (sad yet freeing to donate all my nice business clothes I used before I became a SAHM, they can bless someone else).
Next areas to simplify/pack: towels (probably leave 1 towel per son, 1 for me, and 2 for hubby), computer gear (we have extras of nearly everything), some fabric (I have to face the fact that I won’t have time to sew it all before the move).
So preparing to move has given me a great opportunity to live with less. It has shown me that we really do have an abundance of “stuff” that we don’t really need. I’m not at the point that I could get rid of it all but I certainly am looking at things differently. I still have a bin with clothes that fit my boys because I know that they (especially my 4 year old) will wear out a couple pairs of pants before they outgrow them. I can just go to the bin to grab a “new” pair. I know that we will eventually have company over for dinner and will require those extra plates. So I’ll just go to the box to grab them. But the won’t go into my regular rotation because I don’t want to be a slave to my stuff. I don’t enjoy dishes or laundry so I’m going to keep it to a minimum.
Less stuff really does translate into more time!
Is there an area in your life and household that you can simplify? Ask yourself, do you really need that stuff or can you do with less?
