The Freedom of Fewer Choices

How much do I love shopping at Trader Joe's? Sooooo much! There are too many reasons to list. Here are the top 3:

1. Every single time I've been there with Pia, one of the TJs "crew" has offered to help me take my groceries to the car and they've loaded up the trunk and whisked away my shopping cart before I've even gotten my wiggly babe into her car seat.

2. Black bean and cheese tacquitos. Chocolate honey mints. Reduced Guilt Chunky Guacamole.

3. A break from the Decision Fatigue of every other grocery store in town. When I want to buy, say, cereal, there are roughly a dozen options from which to choose. Pasta sauce? Eight options. Pickles? Spears, slices, or whole. Ketchup? One option: ketchup. I can be in and out of TJs with (usually, almost) everything I need for the week in 30 minutes, AND stick to a list and budget.

Bonus: The store is not jam-packed with displays and aisles. It feels open, navigable, and easy. You could fit the entire store into the Halloween Candy section of Target.

Does Trader Joe's have everything I could ever need for a recipe? No. But by narrowing our ingredient options, we've actually gotten more creative in the kitchen, and we are able to go to Whole Paycheck less frequently, which saves us a whole lot of money. And time. Shopping at TJs is efficient, cost-effective, and delicious.

I am pining for the day that our home will be conscientiously curated to contain only those Useful, Beautiful things that Spark Joy, like the Joy that is sparked by finding Gluten Free Candy Cane Joe Joes.

Like my favorite grocery store, I've found that my house is much tidier, more efficient, and happier to live in when I have fewer options. This is and has been an ongoing process, but every little step I have taken in the direction of Fewer has been rewarding so far.

Exhibit A:

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to apply the now-famous Marie Kondo lessons of Tidying Up to my closet. I haven't actually read her book (who has time to read entire books during baby naps??), but I have read a couple of reviews and articles about her New York Times bestseller, and concluded that I had gleaned enough to take a stab at purging my closet of anything that didn't Spark Joy.

I took every item of clothing out of my closet, laid them all on my bed, then picked each item up and held it in my hands before deciding its fate. I made four piles:

• Sparks Joy AND it currently fits!
• Sparks Joy but doesn't fit my new, plush, post-baby body
• No Joy here, but I've barely worn it, so I'll try to consign it
• No Joy, but it's in good shape, so I'll donate it

No surprise, most of what Sparked Joy and Fits consisted of cardigans and a couple of forgiving dresses and skirts. I'm still about 15 pounds from my pre-baby weight, so I'm going to remain hopeful that some of those Joy-sparking clothes with buttons and darts and zippers will fit again. I didn't part with them; I put them in a plastic tub in the storage closet. Here's what was left:

Disregard the upper-right piles - they are Les's pants!

I've been operating from this wardrobe of roughly 30 items + basics like tank tops, t-shirts, leggings, etc, for three weeks now, and I love it. When I rush to the closet in the morning to get ready for work, I know that everything in front of me fits, flatters (reasonably well), and makes me happy when I wear it. Soon I will add the winter sweaters that spark joy, but those are still packed away for now.

Gone are the sentimental items, the stash of overly-fussy wedding guest dresses from the season of my life when I attended 10 weddings every summer, and anything that I really wanted to like and wear but never or very rarely did. As I hear Kondo's book suggests, I thanked the items I discarded for their service or for their part in a previous season of my life, and stacked them neatly for re-homing.

Last year, I had a 40-Item Wardrobe for a season, and that was totally painless. Maternity clothes created their own capsule-wardrobe-by-default, and I did just fine for more than 6 months. I know I can live and work and play and go to church with a limited but versatile mix of clothes, but I still want More and New and Better and Different all the time. That's the part I can't quite seem to wrangle. And I do not promise that I will never buy any more clothes. No. But anything new must be versatile enough that I can wear it for at least two out of three main fashion venues: Regular Life, Work, Church. And, thanks to Ms. Kondo, it'll have to Spark Joy as well.

All You Need is Less

The world is shredding my heart these days. I look around at our comfortable life and our comfortable faith in our comfortable part of the world, and I feel really uncomfortable. And I want to feel that way for as long as it takes for us to make real changes and take real action, rather than just cry a few tears and heave a big sigh and then sink right back into our easy chairs with a tub of ice cream for a nice, brain-numbing Netflix binge.

There are a lot of ways to move from sugarshocked immobility to meaningful action. Give, pray, and get involved with organizations who know the issues well and can connect you with volunteer opportunities. (We've had terrific experiences with World Relief and Exodus, so if you're looking for an endorsement of a refugee-serving organization, check out either of them. Two thumbs way up).

Every time I think the plight of so many in the world, I feel newly convicted to pursue minimalism. And then I see something pretty or fun or on sale in my new, softer size and I buy it anyway. Just like a diet, my minimalism always starts tomorrow.

What does a new pair of jeans have to do with compassion? Let's set aside compassion-related environmental and labor issues that come into play when I buy buy buy anything and everything I want, and think more broadly about how Stuff can clog up our hearts and lives.

Les and I have been talking about how our Stuff and our Love of Stuff gets in the way of living the life we want, and feel convicted about living. Here are some ways:

• Clutter in our home makes us self-conscious about hosting and hospitality. (Well, clutter, and our Ornery Chihuahua-based home security system). Fewer possessions = less clean up when you want to invite someone into your home. We could just get over our hangups about what our home looks like and what our Fur Baby acts like, and we want to do that, too, but fewer piles would go a long way towards a more hospitable house.
• Money we spend on Stuff prevents us from being as generous as we say we want to be.
• Our Things are distractions. We'd rather be comfy in our home, doing our own thing, than out loving our neighbors. We do need time at home to recharge and relax as a family. Balance is important. We're in a slow, "home base" season with a new baby. But eventually, we need to get back out into Community and not just cling to our creature comforts like Pia clings to her lovey.
• Stuff takes up space. Duh. But seriously. Do we have room to host a Safe Families child, or will our guest room be full of boxes of crap for all eternity? Will we be tempted to upgrade to a bigger house when Pia is older because we don't have room to contain all our family's possessions? Will our cars deteriorate faster because we have to park them outside all winter because our garage is being used as an attached Stuff Storage Unit?
• Stuff takes up time. What are my plans for the weekend, every weekend, lately? Cleaning out the box-filled guest room, organizing our one small storage space, purging unneeded stuff from the garage... cleaning, organizing, tossing. Not my idea of a particularly fun time. Clutter hangs over us in our free time. And every time I have to rearrange a kitchen cabinet when I unload the dishwasher, I fantasize about donating half of the contents of our cupboards, and having clear, usable counter space. In my fantasy, a clean, spare kitchen makes it easier to cook and clean and entertain. 
• Stuff Begets Stuff. Did you know there's actually name for the fact that buying a new dress often leads to buying new shoes and a necklace to match? It's called the Diderot Effect, and it played out in frustrating fashion in my life last week. I bought a new (Target clearance section) watch because our office building has NO clocks, and I feel rude checking my phone all the time in meetings. The watch didn't fit, so now I need to buy a little kit with tiny tools to take links out of the band so I can wear it. Grrrr. And the dress + shoes + necklace? Story of my shopping life. Pretty soon, you're over-consuming just to use the one thing you wanted to buy in the first place. Yuck.

There's a famous Bible story in which Jesus tells a wealthy man to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor, and then come and follow him. It's a pretty famous story, usually called "The Rich Young Ruler". One could gloss over it and say "I'm not wealthy or powerful. This story has nothing to do with me". I remember several years ago when I read this story in The Message translation for the first time:

Mark 10:17-27 The Message 

To Enter God’s Kingdom

17 As he went out into the street, a man came running up, greeted him with great reverence, and asked, “Good Teacher, what must I do to get eternal life?”

18-19 Jesus said, “Why are you calling me good? No one is good, only God. You know the commandments: Don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t cheat, honor your father and mother.”

20 He said, “Teacher, I have—from my youth—kept them all!”

21 Jesus looked him hard in the eye—and loved him! He said, “There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow me.”

22 The man’s face clouded over. This was the last thing he expected to hear, and he walked off with a heavy heart. He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about to let go.

Did you catch that last line there? He was holding on tight to a lot of things, and not about about to let go. That's me! A punch in the gut.

Do I think we are all supposed to sell everything we own and give the money to the poor? No. But I do think we are called to let go of the things that we're clutching so tightly we can't take hold of Jesus, or stretch out our hands to help someone else. If we're using our hands to hold on tightly to our stuff, we can't very well be Jesus's hands in a hurting world.

There are a lot of reasons I would rather hold onto Stuff than to Jesus. For one thing, my stuff doesn't ask me to do hard things, or make hard choices, or love people. My stuff makes me comfortable. Jesus, if you take him very seriously, does the opposite. I want to project a certain version of myself to the world: a put-together, reasonably fashionable, interesting person who you should like/hire/show kindness to (or pity, depending on how much sleep I've had). My closet and my piles indicate that I think my stuff will present, or maybe even create, that likable, capable person. Somewhere I think I know that my actions and my character speak louder than the trendy necklace I picked up to go with that new shirtdress, but another part really believes that the necklace will help. Fashion is fun, and putting your best foot forward is important. Getting dressed in clothes that fit and make you feel great in the morning can be a sanity-preserving ritual. Some days, though, when I'm sputtering on 4 hours of broken sleep, I am reminded how little the looks matter when the inside is all crusty and gasping. My identity is not my reflection in the mirror. Jesus is enough. He has to be, because I sure am not, no matter how well-curated my outfit is.

Sometimes we hold onto things because they represent part of our identity, or our idealized identity. I am a writer, I should have a lot of books. People who are serious about their health have lots of workout clothes and cookbooks. I am creative, so I need a whole room full of craft supplies, just in case I ever decide to learn how to block print, silk screen, or use oil pastels. None of those things are wrong to buy and use. Hobbies are great! Supplies are necessary for good, creative work. But I have to ask myself: why am I holding on to *literally* boxes full of unused or once-read things? What pains me about letting go of them? They have become representations of pieces of myself that need shoring up. Maybe especially in this new-mommy stage of life. I DO WORK OUT! I DO COOK! I DO PAINT, SEW, and MAKE STUFF! I do. And honestly, I'll probably keep a lot of those items. But I'm trying to learn how to keep the things that add value, beauty, knowledge, and utility to my life and let go of the things that simply add to the pile of things that I keep as props for the character I'm trying to play for the world (or my ego).

We're making some de-stuffifying plans over here, and I'll try to write about our process as we go. I do not have it all figured out. We both loooooove us some Stuff, but we're trying to be more intentional about what we allow into our lives, and what needs to go.

I Marie Kondo-ed my closet this weekend, so that'll be the first project to share! Stay tuned.

How to Get Rid of Stuff

As I surveyed our garage and home last Tuesday evening, I felt a happy peacefulness. We had re-homed 9 big boxes of belongings that day, in addition to the 1 Bin + 2 Boxes of recycling and 1 Bin plus 1 Box of refuse that was hauled away from our curb through our regular garbage pick up. I'm telling you, our space instantly felt a lot more spacious.

Even though we had been living with piles of boxes in our garage and lower level for almost a year now, in retrospect I'm glad we left those boxes alone for so long. We'd unpacked all the things we need and use regularly, so it was much easier to bid farewell to things we had not even seen in 12 months. I mean, if we haven't needed that toaster oven in the last year, are we ever going to need it? Or that coat that is now two sizes too big?

I also took a jumbo tub of new and like-new house essentials to World Relief, and 4 bags of books and CDs to the local library for their annual Book Sale in addition to these things that the Epilepsy Foundation picked up outside our garage. 

There are really two questions to ask yourself when you ponder whether you should get rid of something:

1. Am I using this?

2. Is it beautiful?

This simple litmus test is based on this quote from William Morris:

"Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

William Morris, according to Wikipedia, was a textile designer during the Arts and Crafts movement. I think these are pretty wise words, and I tried to employ them unsentimentally during our Great Stuff Removal of 2014.

Here's the thing. I'm sentimental. I like cute do-dads. I have had about 15 different apartments in my adult life. Les and I got married, and we both liked "our own" things. We had, and still have, a lot of stuff that we sort of like and sometimes use. But we've also gotten a lot better about scrapping things that no longer fit our present life. They may have been PERFECT in our living room 7 apartments ago, but they aren't part of our life today.

Here are some tips that I've found helpful when trying to clear out the clutter:

1. Designate a couple of boxes for "Maybes".   Maybe I'll wear this again. Maybe I'll decide to make creme brulee once a week in October and I'll need that pastry torch. Give your stuff a chance to prove itself. Put it in a box that's clearly labeled with the contents and tuck it into a corner of your garage or storage closet. MARK IT WITH THE DATE. If you haven't needed or wanted something in the box in, say, 6 months or a year, donate whatever is still in the box.

2. Use Boxes or Plastic Tubs as Visual Goal Posts. Decide "I will fill up this rubbermaid tub with like-new items to donate to the local refugee resettlement agency" or, conversely, "I will only keep as many photos of my chihuahua as I can fit in this shoe box". This was a tip I got from a friend who had had to clean out her parents' home after they died. She found herself wanting to keep everything, and knew that she would never need or look at most of the stuff again. So she told herself that she could only keep what she could fit inside 2 big plastic tubs, and promised herself that the lids had to close on both.

3. It's OK to Throw Away. Yes, in a perfect world, we'd all recycle everything or find a responsible charitable organization to reuse our old bed sheets for the Common Good. But let's face it: some of your stuff belongs at the curb. Don't donate junky stuff. And don't hold on to huge boxes of things because you don't know how to recycle all those CD jewel cases. Post your loot on Freecycle and see if anyone WANTS your old sneakers or chemistry textbooks from 1992. You never know! But if you don't get any takers, it's OK to throw things away. Let the pain of overflowing garbage bins be a challenge to you to be more judicious about what you bring into your home in the first place!

4. Get Inspired. Check out the Becoming Minimalist blog, read the book 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess, or other simple living inspiration to rev up your motivation to simplify, simplify.

5. Give Yourself a Break. Our home is always going to have roughly 4,000 books. I'll always have an overflowing stash of DIY supplies. We'll probably have actual DVDs in actual cases on actual shelves at least until Netflix starts streaming our favorites. We have bins of holiday decor in our garage. Auggie's little toy basket is ridiculously stuffed. That's OK. Those things are, in a lot of ways, part of who we are as individuals and as a family. It's unlikely we'll ever have a streamlined, mismatched-mug-free minimalist home, and we're OK with that. The idea is to put a stop to the accumulation of unnecessary things, and things that don't add any joy or beauty to our home, and to clear out everything that weighs us down.

My 40-Hanger Winter Closet

Our house is mid-level chaos these days. We spent Les's winter break unpacking and situating and tackling projects. Now that we have everything unpacked, we're shin deep in piles of things we haven't figured out a place for yet. These piles are totally stressing me out - mentally and emotionally. Sometimes physically. (I'm looking at you, box of random formerly-hall-closet-contents now just box-in-the-middle-of-the-hall on which I keep stubbing my toe).

Everyone has stuff that they don't use that often, and it's hard to know what to toss and what to keep. No one wants to end up in the position of re-buying something you just donated or tossed. But the fact remains that we have more belongings than we actually need, so some of them are going to be re-homed. It has been overwhelming to figure out where exactly to start.

I've been stewing about all this for a couple of weeks, and apparently I'm not the only one. My dear sister and my dear Jackie are both in the midst of some Epic Closet Simplification. They inspired me to take a hard look at my clothing stash. The closet is as good a place to start as any, right?

I took one look at my closet, and then re-read this blog post from Living Well, Spending Less. I had read her 40 Hanger Closet post last year, but I wasn't quite ready to commit. Today, it turns out, was the day.

Behold, My 40 Hanger Winter Closet

• 9 sweaters (including one not pictured because it is on the drying rack downstairs)
• 7 cardigans
• 1 printed hoodie sweatshirt (which I am wearing right now)
• 3 skirts
• 8 tops
• 6 dresses
• 2 pairs of pants - one corduroy and one black denim
• 4 pairs of jeans

Whoa. I have a LOT of navy, gray, and camel-colored clothes. 

I chose my favorite, best-quality, best-fitting, most versatile pieces and decided that I would attempt to get through the end of March by wearing these and only these pieces. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be to choose. In fact, it was kind of a no-brainer. If I'm honest with myself, I wear the same things over and over and over again all winter. Especially sweaters. And guess what? If you limit yourself to the items that you like the best and look the best, I suspect it will be even easier to get dressed in the morning.

What's not included:

• Underthings
• Leggings/tights
• shoes & bags
• layering t-shirts
• workout / yoga clothes
• hooded sweatshirts that you wear around the house for days on end because it is in the negative double digits outside.
• Formal wear. We're going to 2 weddings in February, so I'll need to pull out the glam for those. 

My version of the 40 Hanger Wardrobe is actually a mishmash of the blog mentioned above and other minimalism writings that encourage a strictly seasonal, minimalist wardrobe. So I'll change up the 40 items when spring rolls around, which is why I haven't actually discarded any of my other clothes. 

I am actually pretty psyched about a truly seasonal wardrobe. I have a few items that will get a workout all year-round, but I'm eager to swap those sweaters for bright dresses in a few months. Let's face it, I am not the best dressed gal on the block, and that's OK with me. But if this simple discipline of a seasonal wardrobe helps me focus on the best I already have and look the best I can, then Yay For Me.

Eating mealy tomatoes in the middle of winter just feels "off", right? Well, so does seeing a 30-something year old woman trying to rock a sundress with a lemon yellow cardigan in January. No more.

Holy Crap! We have a lot of crap.

There's nothing like a move to drag your guise of simplification into the harsh light of day.

After nearly 2 years in Raleigh, Les and I moved back to Illinois last week. It was a bittersweet departure. We made so many incredible friends, and we fell in love with Raleigh in just 18 months. We will miss the Southland and all of our friends (especially in the winter), but we're excited for Les to start his new job as a full time professor.

We were sad to leave, but do you know what really sucks about moving? MOVING.

MOVING SUCKS.

Packing up all of our earthly belongings really made me stressed out about the number of our possessions and the lengths we are willing to go to move them from place to place.

Not only did we pay to acquire them in the first place, but we then have to pay to transport them from home to home. And let me tell you, moving ain't cheap! We very seriously discussed the idea of chucking almost everything (via donation), saving the couple of thousand dollars in moving expenses, and starting over with a clean slate and a commitment to only allow truly useful and beautiful things into our new home.

But we didn't do that. It seemed wasteful/impractical and ultimately pretty expensive. Won't we need socks and bottle openers and bowls in our new home? Didn't people we love just buy us most of the contents of this kitchen for our wedding? Didn't we carefully select this stuff when we bought it? (Most of it, anyway?)

So we didn't go with the Chuck it and Start Fresh plan, but I was still determined to pare down my stuff. I signed up for the Becoming Minimalist blog and started pinning tips on de-cluttering and purging. And to really seal the deal, I convinced Les that we would only take as much as could fit into 2 U-Boxes and our car trunks. That's actually not a lot of space for a 2 bedroom apartment that is insulated primarily by hardcover philosophy tomes.

We did manage to donate or discard a lot of things. I completed a massive Dresser Drawer Purge that was incredibly gratifying. Look at how easily these drawers close now! Look how neatly the remaining t-shirts are stacked!

Stuff I Did Not Move

So I got rid of an embarrassing mound of stretched out coffee-stained t-shirts. A good start, but more like a ding than a substantial dent in the Crap.

As the packing extravaganza finally wore down, we started cramming things randomly into boxes. Les and I started saying things like "If it makes it to Illinois in one piece, then great, and if not, then who cares...". If we don't care whether that particular photo frame or pie plate survives, then why oh why do we own it? And why are we moving it? We're strange, stuff-owning creatures, though. I do hope that those things all survive their long journey back to us. But ultimately they are just things, and I will (try) not (to) cry over their untimely demise if the time comes.

Now that we're here and our U-boxes are on the way, I do wish we had purged some more. I'm thinking I will keep thinning and thinning my clothing stash as we set up home in a new place with limited storage. My plan is to immediately dismiss anything we do not actually need or use or love in our new home. Give each item some sort of probation status for each season and then coldly kick it to the curb if it is not pulling its Beauty or Usefulness weight. If we had had time to do that before we packed two moving crates Tetris-style, that would have been even better. Now, we get to deal with the unpacking and post-move purging on the Illinois side.

But I do love a challenge! New home, new space, new opportunities for conscientious consumption and thoughtful simplificiation.

Oh, and since I am currently unemployed, more blogging. And hopefully a photography class to improve everyone's blog-reading experience.

When A Good Deal isn't a Great Buy - Choosing Stuff That Will Last

It's Boot Season again - Hooray! That means I get to bust out my mom's circa 1975 Frye Boots. Believe it or not, boots are hard to photograph in an interesting way. But these boots ROCK. And I get complements on them every time I wear them. They are creeping up on 40 years old, and they still look awesome. Mom actually had TWO pairs of Frye boots in her closet, which seemed Way Way Over the Top for my mom. My Mom didn't spend lots (any) cash on herself by the time she was my mom. So knowing what I know about how much Frye boots cost now, I'm sure these were a save-up purchase. And judging by the re-soled wear, she wore them a lot. And here they are, on my feet, rocking my jeggings and Dress Over Pants concoction in 2012. So an excellent cost-per-wear investment. Plus, I get to wear my mom's boots. The best hand-me-down ever.


Most of my clothes are cheap. Seriously cheap. Not just "Bought on J Crew clearance", although there are some of those. Cheap like "bought from Target/Old Navy/TJ Maxx and barely make it through one or two seasons before I start eyeing them with scissors to repurpose their raggy fabric". I own maybe 3 or 4 items that I could consider "investment" purchases. Clothes that I love and wear regularly, cost a bit more, and are holding up really well. Most of my stuff, however, has little to commend it into the "Excellent Stewardship of Resources!" category. Most are items that I just thought were cute and within my budget and ended up in the cart.

I'm starting to see improvements in this area. Maybe it's getting older. It's much easier to stick my fingers in my ears and sing LALALALALALAAAA over the siren song of trendy clothes. I also have a job where jeans and a t-shirt are just about requisite 3 out of 5 days a week.

Obviously we all need clothes to wear, and I'm not advocating for sackcloth and ashes. I also do not think that it is an ethical affront to look cute. I could actually use some more lovely in my life. I am usually loathe to spend big money on clothes, but I'm beginning to realize that disposable trends aren't as much fun as they used to be. The standard fashion mag refrain is to buy "the essential 10" (or 15, or 20) items in classic, flattering cuts and then care for them meticulously so they last for years. I'm down with that, but how do I start? Buy one piece per year for the next ten years? That's not a terrible idea, actually. As least I can be classically fashionable by the time I'm 45.

So what do I do with all the other stuff? And how many items of clothes do I really need? "Purge the Closet and Dresser" has been on my To-Do list for several weeks now. I was dreading it at first, but then I read this post  from Jamie The Very Worst Missionary and I got some mojo going for PURGE THE JUNK! I'm interested to see what is left after I donate anything that doesn't fit, doesn't flatter, or is just plain ready to be demoted to "fabric".

Ok, really this whole post has been my round-about way of trying to process whether or not I should consider doing something I swore several years ago that I would NEVER do: Should I FINALLY buy a classic, well-made leather  bag that I will just use and use and use and use rather then the "please please make it one more season" pleather or canvas bags that I keep burning through like birthday candles? I love me some purses. I used to have a lot more energy for wearing them like accessories, but the reality is that I pretty much use the same bag every day. Until it crumbles and shreds into sad little vinyl chunks. I'm researching recycled leather bag companies, which I feel sort of OK about, but I just cannot bring myself to purchase new, fresh-off-the-cow leather. Even though those Frye boots are a testament to the longevity of a well-made and virtually timeless slab of hide.

I have leather shoes, even other leather boots. And I do own a couple of small leather purses that have been gifted to me over the years. But now I struggle to put my cash into leather, or to wear it as if to say "Yeah! I'm totally cool with this!".

So if you have a vintage leather bag that you never use, or a suggestion for a great place to get some repurposed leather goods, or can help me with this clash of values (animal-free vs. durability and fewer disposable faux-leather accessories), shoot me a note. I'm gonna head over to Etsy and Ebay and see what I can find.

More With Less Part 1: Reflecting on an over-stuffed fridge, stomach, and life

I came to the big revelation this week that the Food-focus month is going to take more than a month.

It might take us a month just to get our act together enough to START overhauling our consumption. For one thing, unlike steering clear of Target for a month which one can do with little more than a pang of stuff-lust, we eat every single day. Every darn day! And yes, I guess I could have started this new chapter off with a fast so I could really drill down prayerfully and thoughtfully, but I didn't do that. We're still eating while we figure out a new way to eat.

But I did get the More-with-Less Cookbook from the Library this week, and have been reading through the introductory chapters about WHY it matters (to more than just our waistlines and wallets) what we eat. Good, challenging stuff.

The Library only had the 1976 edition and I know there is an updated version available, but I'm pretty confident that the basic theological information and premise are the same: our North American overeating, overspending, and insatiable consumerism DO impact the world. And stand in sharp contrast to how Jesus told us to live. Our appetites drive the depletion of global resources and a sustainable environment, and keep unjust and inhumane systems chugging along.

When I first started reading the book, I thought "Ugh! A life without fancy food sounds pretty joyless and painful to me." It is always a bit painful to focus on giving up something you love (food!). The More-with-Less authors remind us that even on a simpler, more mindful diet, food can be a joy:

Around the world people who must live on monotonous diets still manage an occasional celebration. Undoubtedly their celebrations bring enjoyment in proportion to how much they vary from the daily routine. 

The four Gospels show Jesus entering wholeheartedly into times of joy and feasting...But the fact that in North America we tend to feast nonstop can dull our festive joy...More with less means affirming faith and relationships as the basis for celebrating, and letting food play a complementary role.

I look around our kitchen, and I recognize that on any given day it may appear to someone from another culture that we are in the throes of preparing for a feast. We have enough food on hand to sate a small army:

Jam-packed, albeit a euro-size fridge

Tons of dry goods and jars.

Potatoes, apples, onions, and other things that don't fit into the  fridge or cupboards.

Yep, that's even more food on TOP of the fridge.

I felt that twinge of embarrassment that pinches you when you arrive at a friend's house to crash for one night and your stuff and extra shoes and bag full of hair appliances make it look like you are staying for a month. We don't need this much food. We're not in a food crisis here in NC. In fact, we stock up on so many different things at once that a shocking percentage of it goes bad before we can eat it. Our eyes and our appetites are bigger than our stomachs. And stronger, it would seem, than our commitment to a life of faithful simplicity.

But change doesn't happen over night. Or maybe it does?

Confession: Les and I ate so much last night that I went to sleep uncomfortably full. We got up this morning and started talking about a steady change. We talked about the More with Less book, and other books that I've been reading for this month's challenge (more on those later). We're toddling towards major lifestyle changes here. We both LOVE food and LOVE to cook, so this will involve some cognitive retraining to get into a groove of not buying one or more of everything that looks delicious every time we go to the grocery store.

That would definitely help our food budget as well.

So here we are at the very beginning of this food-change journey, and it's already Aug. 12. And I can already foresee that the More-with-Less cookbook may not be a great fit for my Grain-free (or at least very grain-light) health needs. But the book is a great step in beginning to change the way we THINK about food and the impact our choices have on the big picture. That'll be Part 2. Stay tuned.

No-Buy July: Some Parameters

We're 4 days in to this year's No-Buy July, and so far so good. That might not sound like much of a feat to you, but I've already kicked down the impulse to buy several things that I would have otherwise tossed in my  actual or virtual cart.

I'm excited to see that a couple of you are up for joining us on this adventure, and we've already had some questions about the boundaries. Where is the line between "need" and "want"? What's the difference between buying something this month versus buying it on August 1? What if something I've wanted for a long time goes on sale? What about yoga/tennis/knitting/basket weaving lessons that I pay for every month?

First let me go on record with a disclaimer: I'm not a financial expert, I've never seen your family budget, and I don't know where the line between need and want will be for you. The line is wobbly, and I for one can rationalize just about anything.

This ability starts young. At my previous job, I helped arrange for volunteers to participate in a program called Junior Achievement. JA teaches grade school kids about money, the economy, and job skills. Adult volunteers to go into classrooms with visual aids and fun activities and help kids think and talk about the hard skills and soft skills of financial responsibility. I've accompanied volunteers on some of these classroom visits, and one 1st grade classroom exercise stands out in my memory as a TERRIFIC example of how early we start to recognize that the line between need and want is a blurry one.

The volunteer holds up a big card with a picture on it, and the kids are supposed to vote "NEED" or "WANT" with their own little cards. Some of the cards are straight forward, like a plate of food. But others can start up some pretty complex cultural debates, even among the Crayola set. For example, the picture of a car may be an obvious need to a suburbanite child, but inevitably in Chicago Public Schools, lots of kids will recognize a car as a WANT. They and their parents are getting along just fine without one. A home is a need, but the standard line drawing of a single family house with a fence and a yard is, in reality, more of a luxury than a need, especially to a city kid. Then you get into some rationalization. The picture of a Dog, for example. An adult can pretty easily talk a kid into recognizing that a dog is a "Want", but every stinkin' time I have seen this exercise, kids will come up with all kinds of reasonable arguments for Dog as Necessity:

• A guard dog keeps us safe.
• Some people need seeing-eye dogs to get around.
• Our dog makes our family happy. We need her.

And of course, now that we have Auggie, I put a pup into the "Need" category. But you see where I'm going with this. I can't really tell you where the line will be for you.

That said, Les and I have talked a bit about what we will and won't buy this month. For one thing, we're teetering on brokesville, so there are practical limitations. But this month is also supposed to be challenging, and reign in our impulse control. Here's the simplest way I can illustrate the parameters we are going to try to keep this month:

Things we need to pay for/spend money on this month:

• Fixed expenses: rent, car insurance, student loans, cell phone bill, internet, donations, etc.
• Food: a pared-down, realistic, well-thought-out menu of food we will cook at home, with a few limited but inevitable restaurant meals. No more than one "out" meal per week.
• Personal care necessities: we'll replace tooth paste, shampoo, dental floss, etc if we run out.
• Limited personal habit cash: I have my $15 Starbucks card, Les has a limited budget for wine and beer. Because we really weren't prepared to go cold-turkey on these liquids.

Things we will forgo:

• Stuff: new clothes, books, magazine, iTunes, notebooks, kitchen gadgets, craft supplies, garden stuff, pretty much anything one would buy at Target.
• Tennis Lessons: we had planned to sign up for the next round of classes, but we straight up can't afford it, AND I'm a bit wary of committing to twice/week classes for the next 6 weeks of inferno heat. If we budget for it, we'll sign up for the fall session.
• Food that we just "want" but is not on the meal list. No ice cream, random snacks, etc.
• Eating out more than once per week.

That's just where we are right now. If I were, say, taking zumba classes every month, I probably wouldn't skip a month if I felt that the classes were essential to my well-being and physical/mental health. But even if tennis classes were cheaper, I could probably still talk myself into a break from formal teaching and just try to commit to playing with Les twice a week. Still good exercise, and keeping up our newly-learned skills for free. But you'll have to look at your own lists and make the necessary tweaks.

If I learned one thing from trying this last year, it's that I buy WAY MORE CRAP than I ever realized. It honestly did not occur to me how often I let myself just buy things until I feel like my checking account has dwindled past the comfort zone. That's not a great way to live, and certainly not simple, green, or really even within my values.

So, there you have it. The beginning of some boundaries. Let me know what you think, how you're doing, and if you have any advice. Only something like 4 weeks to go :)

Mid-Year Do-Over Declared!

I hereby declare July 1 the start of our family's new fiscal year.

Like my money clip art? I'm not totally clear on the legal rules for  using google images on your blog, so I figured I should stick to the generic clippy art!

We have, ahem, been spending like mad this year. When I go manically through our online bank statements to figure out exactly HOW we have gotten where we are, I see only a couple of big, unplanned-for purchases: new tires on my car (Ouch. But crucial when tires are precariously worn.) and a vet visit for AugDog for some annual blood work that we should have budgeted for but did not.

We haven't been out buying lots of stuff (some stuff, admittedly, but not loads). The tale of woe that you can glean from our bank statements is that we spend $10 here and there (lunch, bottle of wine, fig tree, Starbucks, blah blah) and a whole WHOLE lot of money on food. Food we cook and food we grab on the go. Like, a staggering amount.

In reality, our spending troubles boil down to two main personal glitches: failure to plan and poor impulse control.


We have all these great ideas for healthy food to cook and we go to Whole Foods, the Farmer's Market, and Trader Joe's with Good Intentions Goggles on or something. We THINK we will totally make all 6 recipes for which we just gathered ingredients. We are SURE we will go through an entire bag of organic spinach. No matter how many times we toss out a slimy bag of half-eaten greens or scoop underwhelming leftovers into the trash, we still think we can and should shop to our ideals rather than our reality.

That, and we buy a lot of wine and beer. Summer nights on the back porch have ratcheted up our alcohol consumption.

Anyway, this accidental spending spree lifestyle is not gonna work. "No Buy July" was a great exercise last year, I'm going to do it again this year and rope Les into it as well. We've gotta get it together, people. We're regrouping. We're looking at our family budget as the moral document that it is: I spend money on things that I value. If I value generosity, simplicity, and debt-free lightness, then I gotta put my money where my mouth is. Oh, and "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also". I don't want my treasure or my heart to be in my closet or my fridge.

No Buy July will be a good entry point for reworking our finances and enacting some of the other principles from 7. We're not going to bring home any non-essentials this month. No magazines, no books, no clothes, no random cosmetics or hair junk or cool pens or house-prettying stuff. AND we're going to force our brains to figure out the actual amount of food we can cook and eat per week and not buy any more than that. Period.*

If you've never tried a month-long life experiment, I encourage you to give it a shot. I know it is kind of lame, but going for one whole month without ANY pop was kind of empowering, and it encouraged me through tiny impulse control successes that I really can make better choices. All those little decisions ramp me up for Bigger and Better choices. It's a start, anyway.

* Coffee is considered an essential in our house. However, Les bought me a $15 Starbucks gift card last week which we decided is a reasonable monthly latte budget. But other than that card, I gotta make home-made coffee work.

7 : A book Review with a warning label

I just finished the book 7: an experimental mutiny against excess by Jen Hatmaker.

I'm pretty sure that this is the first time I have ever prefaced a book recommendation with a warning:

If you like the clothes in your closet and the food that you eat and the way you spend your time and money or the way you interact with media, don't read this book.

I first heard about this book via the Flowerpatch Farmgirl blog, which I linked to via my friend Roxanne's blog. You know, one of those "Let's see what's new on the interwebs" ramblings that accidentally changes your life.

Jen Hatmaker lives in Austin, Texas, where she and her husband planted a funky little church in 2008. She has written a number of Bible study books and a couple of other books about their life of faith. I had never heard of her until I wandered through the Flower Patch Farmgirl blog a few months ago and read her review of the book, but as soon as I finished reading the review, I emailed co-conspirator Jackie and told her we should read the book ourselves.

And I did, and now I can't sleep. Thanks, Jen Hatmaker!

Each month, Jen focused on one theme (clothes, shopping, waste, food, possessions, media, and stress) and did crazy stuff like eat only 7 different foods for a month or wore only 7 articles of clothing for a month. It sounded a little gimmicky to me at first, but I resonated with the idea that she was trying to explore. She wanted to get a better handle on how all the excess in her life was distracting her from the Lord, and to see if by cutting away the junk to get back to core necessities she might make space to hear Him, and for His work in her life.

I laughed and cried and prayed and got really really marvelously uncomfortable reading this book. Because even though I could lounge back and say "I've made good progress on the green stuff! I'm buying less junk!" Blah blah, the truth is, I have a long way to go. Especially on the Grace part of this G3 experiment. If I'm just buying less stuff to feel better and lighter and to have more space in my apartment or more money for something else, but my heart hasn't changed, then what good is it?

I'm going to be lazy and use the same excerpt that Flower Patch Farmgirl used in her review, because it really sums up the heart of the book and why it shook me so deeply:

7 will be a tangible way to bow low and repent of greed, ungratefulness, ruined opportunities, and irresponsibility. It's time to admit I'm trapped in the machine, held by my own selfishness. It's time to face our spending and call it what it is: a travesty. I'm weary of justifying it. - 7 Jen Hatmaker

Yes. Weary. This book gave hope to my weariness. The months of simplicity and fasting were all challenging and energizing, but the chapter that really smacked me hardest was the chapter on Stress. I wasn't sure how she would approach it through the 7 theme - if I tried to set a limit that I would only engage in 7 stressful things per day, I wouldn't get past 10am at work. But her Stress month was beautiful and dazzling in its simplicity: she practiced a weekly Sabbath and the Seven Sacred Pauses, also called things like the Prayer of the Hours or Liturgy of the Hours. Pausing seven times per day to pray:

The Night Watch

The Awakening Hour

The Blessing Hour

The Hour of Illumination

The Wisdom Hour

The Twilight Hour
The Great Silence

I honestly think I might print out the whole chapter and re-read it every day. It felt like a stack of heavy boxes sitting on my chest as I tried to squirm around in this chapter last night. I cried at least twice. Because I have been wondering what happened to prayer in my life lately, and it was one of those joyful/angsty moments when you sit up and realize that your prayer for a way to get back into prayer has been answered. With a set of prayers written right out for you. And a list of times to pray them.

You want to get in shape? This chapter on stress actually swooped into my life like a hand-delivered meal plan and exercise schedule for my flabby faith. I couldn't sleep last night because I wanted to get started. With prayer.

Now that I've read this book and Radical, I'm a little afraid of what might happen. Les is going to start 7 next if I ever let him have the book. Even now that I've finished it, I want to carry it around and read it again. Beware, friends, what could happen when you read books that scramble your lazy brain and slam you into reading the Bible and praying. Crazy shit could go down.

I'll keep you posted.

Trial and Error

So guess what? It's July 5 and Les and I have already spent over half of our newly-winnowed grocery budget, and have gone $11 over our monthly "food not cooked at home" budget! Whoo-hoo! It's gonna be a fun month.

It's so weird. When I was in grad school, I honestly and truly ate saltines and peanut butter some weeks because I ran out of money. Friends were sending me Trader Joe's gift cards in the mail because they suspected I was broker than broke. Les lived on a grad school budget for EIGHT YEARS. So how did we go from penny pinching rock stars to overspending freakos in just a few short years?

I guess you could also ask how I went from marathon runner to never-runner in just 2 years.

The answer, I think, is the same for both. Slacking off on the discipline that makes certain things in one's life run smoothly and naturally. When I committed to the marathon, I committed to early morning runs. I committed to not wearing high heels for 6 months, to eating and not eating foods that fit my training. I knew I would not be able to go out with my friends every time I wanted to, or stay out late before a long run. But it was OK, because everyone knew I had my Eye on the Prize. And that eventually your life would go back to normal.

Same with budgeting and living well with less. When you're in grad school, you have this goal of finishing up your degree and then getting on with your life. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. A goal. And everyone knows about it. You can put up with ramen and sly gifts of pantry staples from friends because you know that in a couple of years you'll be able to buy our own darn pasta, thank you very much....

So how do you define what you hope will be a New Normal? Hopefully this blog will help some with the accountability. But we're really going to have to re-learn how we eat, shop, and spend quality time with our friends. Because we ate out 4 times this long weekend (ONE WEEKEND!) and there went our whole pot of money for the month. There are other ways to hang out with people you love, so I've just got to bit the bullet and suggest a walk, or an ice cream cone rather than dinner and drinks. The point is the "together", not the spending, right?

Yeah, well, that's the update so far on this month of trial-and-error as we try to put our money where our "live well and spend less" mouths are.