On This Day After Earth Day

Earth Day was yesterday. I stopped at the local health food store after church for some bulk spices. I took a reusable bag along for extra points on my rewards account.

At checkout, I was offered a free packet of heirloom tomato seeds in honor of Earth Day. Yes, please.

Some folks are big into Earth Day and loving the earth the other 364. Some folks scoff. Some folks like me, are somewhere in the middle.

I compost. I use reusable water bottles instead of buying bottled water. I use cloth napkins and real dinnerware. I cook from scratch, am careful about food waste, line dry some of my laundry, use reusable lunch containers and shop second hand quite often. I'm careful about the use of chemicals in our home.

Part of my cloth napkin stash. These have been going strong for around 3 years now. They're starting to show some wear from repeated washings. I usually get 3-4 years out of a stack of napkins. When they're worn out, I make new ones.

I grew up on the West Coast where things are just different. Overall, people tend to live a little greener. I hate styrofoam.

I also use some paper towels and paper plates some days. I use some ziploc baggies. We buy packaged food sometimes. I shop at Aldi where the produce is highly packaged but the price is right. Sometimes (like most of last year), I'm just too tired to recycle.

In spite of growing up in Oregon, I'm not a tree hugger. But I can't swing so far over to the extreme where I have no interest in caring for the environment.

This is where we live.  The Earth is one of God's gifts to us. As with all of God's gifts, I wish to be a good steward of what He has given.

On this day after Earth Day, can we all agree to be good stewards of our resources?

• To be intentional with our choices?
• To create more than consume?
• To conserve more than we waste? 
• To save more than we spend?
• To think before we act?

 A "green" smoothie.

Maybe you are full out "green". Or maybe you're like me and make small choices each day to minimize waste and maximize health, both for ourselves, our finances and the environment.

I cannot do everything but I sure can do something.

Maybe I can turn the lights off when I leave the room. Turn off the water instead of letting it run.  Save those veggie scraps to make stock. Walk somewhere instead of drive. Hang those clothes up to dry instead of running the dryer. Plant those tomato seeds already. Just this once.

And tomorrow, make some of the same choices again. 

Little choices add up to create a big impact. 

What will you do on this day after Earth Day?

**You may be interested in another Earth Day post I wrote "back in the day": Kermit, It is Easy Being Green.

Pretty Spring

My heart has been craving some slowing and enjoying of natural beauty.

These are some things I captured on a recent walk around the neighborhood. 

Proof that beauty isn't always perfect and can be seen and enjoyed even among the weeds and imperfections. 

Green. Color. Life. Spring.

**Bonus points if you spot the photo bomb. LOL!**

Yummy

Tomatoes from a friend at work.

Home-grown basil.

Late season strawberries from my Mom's  garden. In vintage Tupperware. (This picture was taken around July 4th when we visited my parents.)

Picnic On The Deck

Now that fall is here and the days are cooler, we're enjoying much time spent outdoors! The littles enjoy playing outside so much that one day I decided to set up a picnic on the deck for lunch.

Toddler Girl (age 2 1/2) especially got into the idea. When she saw me moving their chairs outside, she ran to help!

We'd gathered a basket of sticks that morning for another project so I set those on the table for our centerpiece.

 I enjoyed the change of pace and the bright sunshine while we ate! The littles enjoyed it too, for the most part. We could hear construction going on behind our neighborhood, acorns falling and planes in the sky!

But for a dose of reality--- the lunch time/before nap time slot with toddlers is not usually all sunshine and roses! The littles were tired, irritable and one person did not like their lunch and made it known loudly. I'm sure the neighbors enjoyed our charming little picnic too! :-)

In spite of all this, a picnic on the deck is something we'll be doing more often!

It's a simple fun way to enjoy our lovely fall!

Quiet

Source

I've been enjoying a couple computer-free days each week. 

It's taken some getting used to, but I love it! 

It started by evaluating how I could make my two longest and busiest days not quite so hectic. I eliminated the computer from those days and suddenly they are more peaceful with  time to do what I need to do. 

Amazing, huh! 

And I haven't missed much at all!

Quiet. It's a wonderful thing.

"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we  told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."

 I Thessalonians 4: 11-12

100 Things In 100 Days

I've been following The Year Of Less blog with interest as this family chooses one small thing to do to simplify their lives almost every day for a year. I've enjoyed reading Kelly's other blog for some time now and this new one is good too! I learn a lot from her.

I really don't have a need to sweep through and do a major decluttering right now. But as I consider carefully the purchases we're making and what's coming into our home and the time and money taken to buy and maintain these items, I am inspired to consistently evaluate what we have. Setting aside those items that are not adding value to our lives in some way and resisting the urge to replace things once we get rid of them!

So when Kelly posted about her personal challenge to give away 100 items in 100 days, I was inspired to do my own challenge! When I'm purposely getting rid of items on a consistent basis, I'm more objective about what's coming in to my home.  So that was my main reason for doing this challenge--to be intentional about not only my purchases but also what I accept from other people.

I will admit, sometimes it's easier to accept other people's hand me downs and get rid of them later than to just decline them right away. But at the same time, many of these offered  items are useful so being wise about what is offered and only accepting those things that will be truly useful to us is important here. Because in the long run, constantly moving and getting rid of things that are given to us is tiring too and takes energy I would rather put towards other things that have lasting value.

Kelly is giving away her items to friends. I've been giving away some of what I've accumulated(when I know specifically that a friend can use it). A new bottle of contact solution and a box of plastic bags are two things I offered to friends because I was pretty sure they could use them and I was right! Otherwise, I'm throwing these things in a box to either donate or yard sale later.

Note: Real life friends are welcome to sift through this box and help themselves to anything they would like!

I started the challenge on August 1st and will end on November 8th. So far I've discarded 25 items. So I'm a few days ahead. :-)  I'm keeping a list so I know exactly where I'm at in the challenge and I've already figured out that 100 things is a lot more decluttering than it looks! But doing around one item per day is doable and keeps me going.

Some items included in my decluttering box are shorts that I hated wearing, freebies I got while drugstore shopping and never used, a few toys and children's books that didn't get much use or constantly came apart when being played with (you know the ones!), a few random household items and 3 bottles of Worcestershire Sauce. Yes, three... I had 4 and considering that this is an ingredient used rather sparingly, keeping 4 as backup in the pantry seemed rather excessive so I kept 1 and am giving away the others.

I will update on this challenge as we continue...

Are you interested in joining in? 

Hot Dog Saturday and Sweet Potato Fries

Recently, our Saturday dinner standby is hot dogs!

It is so nice to know exactly what to make each week.  Maybe not the healthiest option, although we typically use nitrate/nitrite free chicken hot dogs from Trader Joe's which make them somewhat better for us. But it's quick and easy and works for our current season. Having hot dogs on the menu regularly means one less meal to think about!

We eat our hot dogs bunless in keeping with our lower grain diet and serve with pickles and some kind of vegetables or salad. Tonight we had sweet potato fries. They are so yummy and make us feel like we are eating junk food, but really they are quite good for us!

Sweet Potato Fries

I first had these at my friend Abbie's house and she graciously shared her simple method for making them. 

Sweet potatoes-1 medium size potato per person

Olive oil

Sea salt

Peel and thinly slice sweet potatoes. Place on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and sea salt. Bake them at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes then flip them over and cook 8 to 10 minutes more or until slightly browned and crispy.  

The thin slices will cook faster.  Watch the pan and try to get them crispy but not burnt.  They will crisp up more once removed from pan too so don't overcook!

  

Do you have a favorite weekend meal?

Sunflower

After filling my bag with fresh Farmer's Market goodies, I treated myself to a single sunflower.

It's bright sunny face perched in a Mason jar makes me happy!

A pretty little splurge!

Fall Beauty

 A pretty tree.

We have this yellow rose bush vine in our yard winding its way up behind some bushes. One day late last week, I noticed a bud and then Sunday saw this huge yellow rose! I picked it right away to enjoy since they don't last long. It seemed fitting to display it beside a wedding picture in the vase we bought on our honeymoon since our anniversary is in October and we had yellow roses at our wedding. The yellow rose, I've found out since, stands for bitterness. Supposedly they also stand for joy and friendship so we'll go with those instead! Whatever. I think they are so pretty and it doesn't matter what it means!

It's such a pretty season, isn't it?

Why I Regularly Purge, Declutter and Get Rid Of Things

 I had a whole post written with a bulleted list of all the reasons I regularly whirl through the house purging, decluttering and getting rid of things that we no longer use.

We live in a small house. We rent so therefore, we move more often than if we owned a home. We are given lots of stuff--both a blessing and a curse!  Clutter and little knick-knacks make me jumpy. We have a lot of people in and out of our home on a daily basis.

But when it comes right down to it, there is really only one reason:

Too much stuff.

I have too much stuff.

Too much stuff for the space I live in. Too much stuff for the life we live. Too much stuff to deal with.

Today as I walked through an estate sale, it struck me. We spend our lives accumulating stuff. Then we die and strangers shuffle through our stuff and pay pennies for what we worked so hard to accumulate.

We love yard sales and find lots of useful things there for much cheaper than purchasing new. We also buy a few things to resell. My husband and I love to go to yard sales and it's one hobby we have in common and can do together. So I don't see us ending this activity anytime soon. But we've been much more selective in our purchases this year.

Do we really need this? Will it make our life better or cause more work and expense? Can we live without it? Do we really need to replace the one we have? Did I just get rid of something similar? Will having this cause me stress if the kids mess with it?

I don't know about you, but I really don't want to spend all my time sorting and organizing stuff. Stuff that I don't use. Stuff I haven't looked at since I got married 7 years ago. And I certainly don't want to continue moving all these things from house to house!

Are some things worth storing and saving? Yes! We keep family heirlooms, our special baby stuff and  a few favorite childhood toys, some furniture and nice things that while we don't have space to have out now, are things that we will enjoy later in a larger home. And a few things we are sentimental about or just like having in our home.

What we decide to keep and not keep is a very personal decision. We are the ones who will have to clean and care for these things. We are the ones who will need to walk around these things on a daily basis. We are the ones who will be moving these things from house to house. So we are the ones who need to decide what we will keep!

Just this week, we went through our storage shed and purged through a huge pile of boxes. Some of which we had never gone through in 7 years. A lot of which I had never seen. We sorted and purged for a whole day. Many items were set aside for an upcoming yard sale. We threw away a lot of trash. Only a fraction of the stuff was boxed back up to go back into storage. The boxes in storage have now been reduced by about 50%.

I'm not against stuff. I have plenty of it, thank you! I like cute things for my home. I have hobbies....

It's a balance between things that are eternal and things we take the time to enjoy here.  And I'm still learning!


Related Reading:
Buying Stuff For A Life I Don't Live
10 Ways To Simplify Without Becoming A Minimalist
Loosen The Grip Of More Stuff
Downsizing Your Home, Downsizing Your Life

Change of Scenery

Tired of our usual morning route and needing a change of scenery, I packed the dog and camera in the car and headed to a nearby lake for our morning walk.

I took in the quiet and simple beauty and returned home refreshed and better prepared for another busy day!

 You make known to me the path of life;

 you will fill me with joy in your presence,

 with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16:11

Do I Need It? My Simple Approach To Using the Coupon and Deal Blogs

 One of the ways I'm able to save money on groceries and household items is by following a few money saving/coupon blogs.

There are so many good blogs in this genre to choose from. The two I follow regularly are Money Saving Mom and Southern Savers. Occasionally I may check out some others but these are my two favorites and are more than sufficient for meeting my coupon and money saving needs. :-)

Southern Savers posts grocery store match-ups each week for stores in the Southeast. Since this is where I live, this site covers the stores that I shop at.

I've followed Money Saving Mom since the beginning and find her blog so helpful with many frugal tips, money-saving articles and of course, coupons and daily deals.

If you follow any of the coupon blogs, you'll quickly notice the sheer amount of posts added to these blogs daily. This is one reason I only follow two-- there are a lot of posts to sift through on a daily basis, which quickly can become overwhelming especially if I go a day or more without reading. The other reason I keep these blogs to a minimum is the amount of "good deals" that pop up. After a while, too much is just too much.

It's tempting to want to run out for or order the latest deals when I see them. But that takes a lot of money and time and isn't really necessary.

I've started asking, "Do I need this?" and "Do I have the money for this?" as I quickly scroll through the posts and see something that would really be a great deal.

Store deals come and go. I could easily run myself ragged with running to the store every time a special deal pops up. Instead I ask myself the above questions. If the answer to one or both is 'yes' then I'll see if I can pick it up during my weekly errands or if we'll be near that store at some other time during the week. Otherwise, I just skip it.


I always check the store match-ups before going grocery shopping and try to print coupons for items I know I'll buy or those that I know will make for a very good deal combined with a sale. I love reading all the articles on frugal and simple living. We occasionally use the free movie codes. And sometimes I'll purchase a Groupon or something else online that is either needed or in the budget.

So maybe I've missed some great deals over the years by taking this laid-back approach to couponing and deals. I will note, though, that I've lived to tell about  it and we haven't suffered one bit!

And I'm pretty sure we've saved a good bit of money this way!


**This post is a part of Life As Mom's Frugal Friday. 

Simple Pleasures: Gardenias

So happy to see that the gardenia bushes in our backyard are blooming again. The flowers are so beautiful and the leaves so shiny!

I'm not much for flowery scents but I do like how these smell!

When I see gardenias, I always think of my husband's grandmother who passed away a few summers ago. She was quite a gardener. Andy's parents have a gardenia bush in their yard that she started with a gardenia from a corsage.

These bushes were at the end of their blooming season when we moved here last year. I'm looking forward to enjoying them all season long this year!

Wild Roses

The wild rose bush outside my front door provides natural spring decor to replace the pots of grass that we've enjoyed for over a month now.

I just love the simple beauty of these roses! It brings me joy to place them all over the house.

I really enjoy using pretty vases.

The smaller blue vase in the front is one we purchased on our honeymoon to Williamsburg, VA. It was handblown at the glassworks in Jamestown. Several people suggested that we purchase something on our honeymoon for our home so we decided on this vase; small but easy to pack and move through the years plus it's something that can be used. I love using it and like that it's not just a souvenir from China.

The tall green bud vase belonged to my great-aunt.

The clear bud vase on the far left was a gift about 10 years ago.

The large blue vase was a church yard sale find. Maybe 10 cents? It wasn't much. One reason I liked this vase, other than the fact that it's blue and would look great holding simple garden bouquets was that it was slightly imperfect in design. You can't see it in the picture but the sides are not completely even. For some reason, I really liked that!

And the small squatty vase is a tiny baby food jar! It looks almost elegant holding a single flower, doesn't it?

Hope you're taking time to appreciate the small beautiful things in life today!

Simplify Your Email: Unsubscribe

After reading this post, I made the decision to be diligent today to unsubscribe from any emails I receive that I never open to read.

These are anything from political newsletters, coupon sites, store specials, and sites that I've registered on in order to print a coupon. After a while the clutter adds up and I have mostly emails that I don't even read.

It only takes a minute and will simplify my life tremendously as I won't have to sort through stuff every time I open my email.

I also periodically go through my Google Reader subscription and unsubscribe from any blogs that I notice that I'm not reading anymore. It does happen.  Life changes or I come to the realization that a particular blog is no longer what I need.

So let's take a few minutes today to clean out those inboxes!

I'm Thankful For Food!

I'm so thankful for the bounty of food that God has blessed us with. Even in leaner times, we still eat so well! Thank you, God!

Mrs. Meyer's Hand Soap

Mrs. Meyer's Lemon Verbena hand soap.

A little splurge that makes me smile! 

And certainly a step up from the dish soap I've had beside the bathroom sink ever since we've moved!

I'm Thankful For Beautiful Fall Leaves!

This fall has been such a pretty one! The leaves have been especially bright and colorful this year. I really like the red ones. These photos were taken while out on a walk around our neighborhood.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalm 19:1

 Red, yellow, green and brown

Leaves are floating to the ground.

We pile them up, oh so high!

Then we jump in,

My dog and I!

Let all creation rejoice before the LORD.

Psalm 96:13

 He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

What are you thankful for today?

I'm Thankful For You!

Today I'm thankful for you, my blog readers! Thank you so much for regularly stopping by to read my ramblings. I'm humbled that you choose to visit my house each day!

I do enjoy your comments! If you read here and have never left a comment before, would you please take the a minute to introduce yourself? I'd love to "meet" you!

A New Cath Kidston Catalog

I was so excited when the mailman brought a new Cath Kidston catalog this week. I love to sit down and look at the lovely pictures. Such a nice array of beautiful items and gorgeous colors.

After I'm done looking through them, I love to keep them in my pattern drawer as inspiration. The pictures make beautiful handmade cards, too. 

 

What simple pleasures are you  taking the time to enjoy today?