Finding Simplicity and Balance

I have been on a quest lately. Mostly in my mind, and probably a bit more passively than actively, but none the less on a quest. I have been thinking about it a lot lately, and have had a few conversations with my husband as well, but reading a couple of blogs this morning only reiterates my need and desire to become more active than just thinking. This blog article is pretty long, but I find much of what he is saying in "The Difference: Living Well vs. Doing Well" reflects a lot of how I feel with wanting to simplify. And then another one talks about "Balance and Well-being" and my life is not to the extreme of hers and my blog not taking up as much time, but the principles in general that she shares really reflect how I am feeling.
There are things in my life I feel take up too much time and attention and I have worked to make these areas simpler. For example, picking out meals for the week/month can be time-consuming, but I find that using Evernote helps me to have all recipes in one spot, lets me tag them and find what I want quickly and easily, lets me quickly paste pages and recipes I find on the internet, and lets me continually update with my changes and alterations. This has cut the time I spend on this task greatly. But then there are other areas of my life that I haven't found the best solution for. Like finding time for keeping my house clean, grocery shopping, doing laundry, doing home improvement, spending quality time with my kids, working part time, coaching volleyball, blogging about life and other issues, all the while trying to be a wife and mom and friend...
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed at what seems impossible, and sometimes I feel highly motivated and can find the time and desire to get an immense amount of stuff done in a day. And I do love checking things off of a to-do list, but I do not want my life to become one big to-do list! I want to enjoy the process of living, to enjoy all that God has created for me to enjoy!
Some small steps I am taking to work on balance and simplicity:
I am planning a yard sale and I am excited for how much I hope to sell, for how much I hope to get out of our house and feel like we don't have so much stuff around that we don't need.
I am working to create structure in my day, but with flexibility so that, again, I am not bound by a life of to-do's.
I am trying to make sure I make it a priority to work out on a daily basis because I know how good this makes me feel, physically and emotionally.
I am trying to find times and places for my toddler to interact with others his age so he can grow socially and so that I can try to meet other moms possibly in similar life stages.
I am also trying to be more inviting about having others over for a meal, or making it a point to get out of the house and interact with other people and families. It's good for all of us! Relationships can be hard but they are so good!
I am trying to use small amounts of time to clean/cook/do housework instead of getting overwhelmed at all that needs to be done and the time that needs to be involved and not doing anything as a result.
I am trying to make sure I take a little time for myself each day, even if it is just a little extra time in the shower, I know I need it and I know I feel better after it.
How do you simplify? How do you find balance? I'd love to hear about it. And I'd love to keep you involved in my process as well, as I hopefully begin to see how my small changes make big impacts.

More Food For My Freezer-Peaches!

I love it when I have a seemingly tedious task to do and I find an amazingly simple way to do it!
We have a couple of peach trees in our back yard. They do not get real big, but they are very sweet and delicious. Last year they all came in within about a 2 week span, just before we were leaving for a week! Bummer! We ate as many as we could and then gave a bunch away before we left. I was happy to give them to people who would eat them, but I would have loved to have figured out something to do with them so we could enjoy them for a lot longer (without canning them, I am just not into canning yet!).

Well, now that we have a deep freezer, this is my first though on just about any food...eat some now, store some for later. The part about these peaches I was not looking forward to was their size. They are small. This means a lot of peeling for just a little fruit on the inside. It is good fruit, and it is worth it to get to the middle, but I had been putting it off for a while.

Until I found this info about freezing peaches. Hooray! This made the process SO simple! And now I can enjoy these peaches so much longer this year!

How to Get Started-Part 5- Simple and Practical

I know I took a break from this "series" for a while. I fully enjoyed Memorial Day weekend and I have also been a little busier with work and with making baby food!! Excuses, excuses!

If you need to catch up on this series, you can find the previous posts here:
Start Small
Start Reading
Start Researching
Start Finding Coupons
Let Others Work For You

I think this is a good time in the series, and also in my endeavors of being a good shopper, to talk about how to be simple and how to be practical when learning to save. Fitting, huh?

Simplicity. Finding the most basic and efficient way to do something. If you keep it simple, it will be much easier. We try to teach babies how to crawl before they walk, how to swallow before they chew, how to swim before they jump in. And shouldn't it be the same with saving? If you feel like you need to buy a bigger home because your stockpile has gotten too big, maybe you need to deplete your stockpile. If you are buying lots of food products that are on sale, but can't eat them because none of them can go together in a meal, maybe you need to rethink your purchases. Keep it simple. Buy things your family will use or you can gift. You may save $50, but if you still spend $100 that you wouldn't have spent this month, is it worth it? Is it just going to clutter your home or cause you to go over budget? Is it going to cause stress?
Keep it simple.

Practicality. This goes along with keeping it simple...keep it reasonable, realistic and doable. If you don't own a cat, don't stock up on cat food just because it is such a good deal. I talk a little bit in this post about why I chose to buy the things I did on a recent trip to CVS. It was cheap, and I had a coupon, and I knew I would use it! That's it. Be practical with your purchases.
Keep it practical.

That's what I'm all about here. Trying to keep things simple and practical.

Halfway Thru No-Spending May

We are halfway through the month and it is going great! I love not spending money. I mean, I love finding deals and using coupons and spending as little as possible, but I am really loving NOT spending as much as we possibly can!!!
So here is an update on how we are doing, and what we are doing to try and spend as little as possible:

• I love that I have gotten really good at finding the deals at Target and the drugstores, but I can often go a little overboard at these stores as well. I have limited myself to spending less than $5 a week at Target, Walgreens and CVS, combined, as I wrote about here. Week 1 I spent $.90 and week 2 I spent $3.16. Doing great so far!
  

• We (I say we, but really it is just my husband) have been working on planting the garden, including tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and cucumbers, and our peach tree is starting to produce fruit. I am so excited for the money we will save on all this produce this summer!

• We got our second shipment of Boca Java coffee. We got 4 1/2 lb bags for only $4.95, and the coffee is really good. We (again, this is mostly my husband since he is more the one at fault here) decided that we should not be making coffee (a full pot I might add) twice a day! This will help our coffee last longer.

• We also just did another deal with Gevalia yesterday, which means we spend $10 we didn't need to this week but also means we will get 2 more bags of coffee. And a coffee maker. And a carafe. And a travel mug. That's a lot for $10!

• I made a menu plan for the whole month so that I could make sure I was making enough, but not too many meals, for us. And also so I could watch for deals better at stores, knowing what meals were coming up soon.

• We decided we were not going to eat out at all this month. Not at all! Not $1, not the dollar menu, nothing. And we have stuck to this. Also helps that I had the menu plan and have stuck to it, so we have had plenty to eat in the house at all times.

• I have put every receipt into a spreadsheet I have (for all spending I do, to track spending and saving) right when I get home. This helps me because I know exactly what I have spent this month and it is making me really thing hard about each item that I buy.

• As much as I love coupons and love saving money, I have spent extra time at the grocery store in order to spend less money. Gotta spend more time to make sure that I am getting the best deal, even if that means not using a coupon because the store brand is still cheaper.

• There are many other things we (again, husband here) have thought about buying this month. I told him it seems like now that we are NOT spending money he is coming up with everything we need. But ultimately, we are both trying REALLY hard to not spend any unneeded money this month, and from here on out, to make this more of a lifestyle. Our simple lifestyle.

I know there is more, but this is a good update, and I feel good about how we are doing. Stay tuned for more the come. This is FUN!

Thursday's Simple Tip

There has been a lot in the news recently about the swine flu.
I am not here to talk about it.
Not here to discuss vaccinations and whether or not to get them.
Not here to debate whether schools should close or not.
I am just feeling a strong urge to remind you all of a very simple step you can take to help prevent getting this or any other diseases.

WASH YOUR HANDS

Yep. That's it. That's all I really have to say. It's just that simple.

Wash your hands.

I mean really scrub them. The fast action rubbing back and forth of the palms, enough so they get warm while you are doing it. Now that's a good scrub. You don't know what you've touched, or what has previously touched what you just touched, so treat yourself to a good scrub.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not an overly obsessive type in this area of my life. I am not OCD. I do not carry sanitizer everywhere I go. Well, actually now that I have a baby I do. But it stays in my bag mostly. Just so that I have it if I need it.

So, wash your hands. I definitely think it is worth the 30 seconds or so that it takes to do it.

Simplifying

I have been on a journey to really try to simplify things in our family's life. Last week we had company, thus we took a good bit of our evenings to clean the house. But not just wiping and vacuuming and such, I mean really cleaning. Going through junk and bagging up lots of trash, recyclables and things to give away. It felt good to get rid of stuff. It felt good to be really clean (though we had 3 guys visiting so it didn't last for long!).
Well, today I decided it was time to do more. Time to go through my clothes and simplify that area of my life. I just found out recently that my church is beginning to collect clothes to give away soon and thus, even more motive to go deep in my closets.
It felt great to do it, feels great that it is done and I feel more organized in my closet (now singular) and it feels great to know my clothes will soon go to worthy and needy homes! Here is some (not all) of what I collected. Please note this is just my clothes, not my husband or son's. Feels good!

WFMW- How to simplify

I am learning to simplify in life, and although I am new at this, and definitely by no means a pro, I can tell you one thing that is working for me right now.

I am not as organized as I used to be (since having a child) and don't have as good a memory as I used to. These things considered, I feel like I lose stuff a LOT more than I ever used to. Because of this I have realized just how much stuff we have around the house. Things that we need surrounded by things we don't, buried underneath the clutter, under the pile of clothes that have been washed but not folded, beside the 10 candles on top of the entertainment center, etc. Get the point? There is so much stuff around-whether needed or not-that I can't find things when I need them anymore, like keys and phone and pacifier...I once spent 6 months in New Zealand with pretty much everything I needed in 2 suitcases. 2 suitcases!! If I could do it for 6 months, why can't I do it for a year, or 2 years, or as a lifestyle? Why do I have SO MUCH STUFF?

So I have decided to try and simplify things, slowly making my way through the house, but starting with a small goal of the kitchen. See, I think if I can start with what's inside of the cabinets, then maybe I won't have so much junk around on the counters but instead can make room behind closed doors for better organization.

I am starting with drinks. I have had a cabinet full of different flavors of drink mixes and teas. Mixes for pitchers and for smaller water bottles, as well as over a dozen different flavors of tea! I've decided I shouldn't need this many choices. I should be able to have just a couple of drink mixes, and a couple of choices when I want tea (especially since right now I drink a lot more coffee than tea anyway!). It's kind of like going on a spending fast, but just in this area, that way I can start small, not get overwhelmed, and I can see results quickly in one area, thus motivating me to move on to the next, gradually creating this way of living that comes naturally for our family.

So far, it's working for me to take it one baby step at a time. What about you? Do you have ways for simplifying your life? Do you have something else that works for you that we can all learn from? Go over here and let us know.