simplicity

Simplicity: Meal Planning

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Wanna know a secret? I suck at meal planning. I’ve never been awesome at it, but I used to be better than I am now. About two years ago, we (Will and I) devised a system in which I would grocery shop each day for that day’s food – kind of like the European model. (What I know of the European model, anyway. I’ve never been to Europe, so my knowledge is limited to what I learned in high school French class.) We decided to take this “route” because at the time, we lived in a small town. Really small. As in no street lights and the only “grocery store” (and I use that term very loosely) carried almost nothing fresh (a few bananas and moldy peaches/strawberries/bell peppers was the extent of the produce department) and charged double what a regular store would for the packaged stuff. The other option in town was a mini-mart whose owners bought their stock from Wal-Mart and marked them up from the already-retail price. So we decided, that as a way for me to make sure to get out of the apartment each day, I should take the car to the bigger town seven miles away and get groceries from a real store.

Since we moved to a bigger town half an hour away in December 2012 (the one I grew up in, actually), we’ve kept up with the daily shopping, just because it was we’d grown accustomed to. But now, I’m starting to feel like it’s becoming cumbersome. I want to spend my time hanging out with my boys, teaching them, playing with them. Not grocery shopping.

Which is going to require a fundamental change in the way I think about our food.

But change is good, right? 🙂

So here’s my plan. I’m going to make a weekly meal plan (inspired by this one from Confessions of a Homeschooler) and buy everything we need for the whole week (possibly excluding highly perishable produce – some things really are better to buy more frequently… although I might just buy that stuff too, and chop it all up and freeze it until it’s needed… we’ll see). The meal plan will include Breakfast, Lunch, Snack, and Dinner. For every single day. (My kids will be happy about the “snack” part – we never have snacks on hand.) I will then turn that meal plan into a grocery list, and on Tuesdays, I will go to the grocery store, just me (and probably Small Fry most weeks). Why Tuesdays? I thought about this a lot, and that’s the day that’s going to work best. Will typically works out of the house on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday each week (it can vary week to week, but that’s the schedule I can count on). Sundays are a Sabbath, so no shopping then. Mondays … well, I could shop on Mondays, but this week, Wednesday worked best (he’s working from home all this week), and I didn’t want my shopping trips to be only five days apart this time.

So there you go.

How do you keep mealtime/grocery shopping simple? Help a girl out and share your tips!

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: One Base Baseball

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Spring is here! It’s been so sunny and warm here on the west coast the past week or so. (Although I hear it’s supposed to rain starting tomorrow, so don’t be too jealous.) In our family, warmer weather means playing outside. The kids have been doing this all winter long, of course – we have pretty mild winters here – but now it’s not too cold for Mom and Dad to join in! Since our family isn’t huge, we’ve had to make up games to play together; we can’t just start up a game of basketball, for instance. The game I’m going to share with you today is one of those modifications. Will made it up about three years ago, and we’ve played it every year since then.

The game is very simple. All you need is a ball (we use a tee-ball, not a true baseball – it’s a little softer) and two markers to use as “bases.” If you have baseball mitts, they’re a nice addition, but not required.

How to Play

The parents are essentially playing “Catch.” The kids’ goal is to make it from the place where the first parent is to the outer base and back before the ball moves from Parent A to Parent B and back. I realize this sounds a little confusing, so allow me to try to make it clearer using specific examples from our family.

I start with the ball. Munchkin stands next to me, ready to run.

I say, “Ready?”

He replies, “Yes!”

“Go!!”

After the kids have taken 3 or 4 steps, I throw the ball to Will, who is across the field, somewhere near the base. He catches the ball (usually) and throws it back to me. I catch the ball (slightly less often than Will) and touch the base with my foot. If Munchkin has reached the base before I do with the ball, he gets a “run.” If I get there first, he gets an “out.” The children are allowed 3 runs or 3 outs, whichever comes first. Then it’s their brother’s turn.

It’s so simple, and yet so fun. The kids absolutely love this game. It’s become a staple in our summer activity list (along with our Bocce ball set and our Frisbee). I hope you give it try with your little ones!

What’s your favorite spring/summer activity?

Blessings,

Wendy

 

 

Simplicity: Going Back in Time

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tea ball

We recently acquired this tea infuser from my mom. My husband had a hankering for hot tea, but he didn’t want to use tea bags (even though we have them on hand all. the. time – we’re iced tea drinkers twelve months a year). He wanted to try out loose leaf tea. At Fred Meyer, where we do most of our grocery shopping, they have a bulk section with lots of varieties of loose tea. Neither of us had ever “done” loose leaf tea before, so we decided to give it a shot. Together with the kids, we chose a variety (Irish Breakfast) and then went off in search of a tea infuser. We had one criteria for the infuser we were willing to buy: it had to be made of steel. No plastic.

They didn’t have anything like that in the entire store. They had a couple of different infusers, but all we mostly plastic.

It so happened that Seahawk had a basketball game the next day, so while we were there, we told my mom about our woes (she came to every single one of his games). She said that she thought she had a steel tea ball that she’d never used. If she could find it, she would let us have it. Score!

She called later that day with the good news: the tea ball had been found and she would bring it over.

Because it had been over 24 hours at this point, Will wasn’t in the mood for hot tea anymore. Of course, right? But we were glad to have acquired the equipment we would need when the mood hit. It hit the week before last. We were all suffering from allergies. The whole nine yards: sneezing, watery eyes, runny noses, coughing … you get the picture. Even though it was allergies and not a cold, we decided that hot tea was just what we needed. So we pulled down our tea infuser and loose leaf tea and tried it out.

It was pretty cool.

I knew in my mind that it would work just like a tea bag, but it was still really cool to see it in action. It felt almost like a trip back in time (hence the title of this post). It took us back to a time when things weren’t so “packaged.” Tea bags weren’t an option. Plastic doohickeys weren’t an option. Loose leaf tea and steel tea infusers were the norm. Life was simpler then (or so I imagine … I’m not that old!).

I long for times like that – when things were slower and simpler.

I often wish I’d been born 50 years earlier.

But for now, loose leaf tea will have to do.

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: The Lenten Season

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Let me state first that we’re not Catholic. We don’t do Ash Wednesday. But the idea of Lent is a good one for Christians of all denominations anyway. Christ gave up his very life for us. Surely we can give up something of ourselves for him for these six weeks a year.

This year, we’re giving up processed sugar as a family. It might sound silly, but we like our sweets, so it’s a sacrifice for us. I know we can do it though. I know because we’ve done it before. When I was pregnant with Small Fry, I had gestational diabetes (I wasn’t allowed any processed sugar or fruit juice of any kind). In a show of support, my husband decided the rest of them would go off the sweets, too. It was probably the healthiest time of our lives. Hubby lost 20 pounds, I kept my weight steady, despite being pregnant (which means that I was losing weight as SF was gaining weight in utero).

It a simple thing that will bring us closer to God – every time we want a sweet treat, we’ll remember Christ’s sacrifice for us. I know, I know… The idea of giving up candy and cookies and brownies is nothing compared to what Jesus went through on the cross. Absolutely nothing. But it’s still a reminder of our faith and a way to help bring us closer to Christ.

Other ways giving up processed sugar will help us:

We’ll be healthier. Again. Hopefully we’ll lose some more weight. We’ll at least go through a detox of sorts, cleaning out our systems of all the junk we’ve allowed to be put into it.

We’ll save money. Fruit is more expensive than a candy bar, but it’s less expensive than 5 candy bars (one for each member of the family).

It will bring us closer as a family. Our kids have never really done Lent properly. I’m looking forward to expanding our Bible study with them as the season progresses, and helping them understand why we’re doing this. (They’re pretty copacetic about it now, but we’re only half a week in; I imagine in another week or so, they’ll need reminding as to why we’ve chosen this path. And that will be a glorious thing to explain to them even more about our Savior and why we’re celebrating – yes, celebrating – our lack of sugar for Him.)

Do you celebrate Lent? If so, what have you given up?

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: Visiting Friends

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We spent some time this week visiting old friends. They are like grandparents to us, especially since none of our “real” grandparents live nearby. My husband met this woman while he was selling books one day about four years ago, and she and her husband have become very dear to us since then. It’s hard to sit here and write about the relationship we share with them; it’s not fancy or intense. It just is. They are about the sweetest couple in the world, and they absolutely adore our children. The wife, PJ, is a self published children’s book author (visit her at storiesbypj.com), and in between visits, she sends the boys her newest book. Sometimes books. On our recent visit, they gifted Seahawk and Munchkin with an RC car and Small Fry with a child size rocking chair. The gifts have nothing to do with the relationship, of course, but it just expresses the love they have for my boys.

We spent a little over an hour with them, and the time just flew by. I love simple little things like that. Blessing people with the gift of time is one of the many upsides to simplicity.

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: DIY Liquid Laundry Detergent

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Laundry detergent is one of those things that, until about a year ago, I thought just “existed.” It never occurred to me to make my own. Then I started reading blogs, and one of them was talking about how much cheaper it was to make your own laundry soap. I was intrigued. We were just barely into our simplicity lifestyle, had just moved into our current house, and the time seemed ripe for me to try something like this.

Before I get to the “recipe” and how-to, let me explore for a minute why I think homemade detergent fits into a simplicity lifestyle.

First off, it is way cheaper than buying the commercial stuff. (I’ll give a price breakdown later on in this post.) Think about this. Every time you buy something, you’re trading your life (or your husband’s, if you’re a stay at home mom) for that item. You (or he) had to work – spend the time – for that money. Now you’re trading the money for the thing. Therefore, it takes life to buy stuff. So why wouldn’t you be a conscious consumer? Now, I get that making laundry detergent takes more time than just running to the store and buying some. But not that long. Definitely not as long as it would take to earn the money to buy said detergent.

Secondly, this stuff is pretty much all natural. I haven’t done the research on Borax beyond what it says on the box, but it claims to be natural. And I’ve read other bloggers who have done the research and come to the conclusion that the Borax company isn’t lying about that. Washing soda is another natural substance. Besides those, the only other ingredients are soap and water. Water is about as natural as you can get, and based on your preferences, you can use whatever kind of bar soap you like for this recipe. The first time I made it, we used an unscented, organic bar, but now I just use Fels Naptha (it’s about a third the price of that organic bar). Since no one in my family has overly sensitive skin, the Fels Naptha is just fine for us.

Finally, it’s kinda fun. And that is, after all, the point of living a simple lifestyle – to have more time for fun. Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not as fun as going to an art museum or riding a roller coaster, but it’s more fun than going to the store, I promise you that.

So, here we go.

First thing you need to do is gather your ingredients. You’ll need 1 bar of Fels Naptha (or your choice of bar soap), one cup of Borax, and one cup of Washing Soda (not to be confused with baking soda, although I’ll have another trick for you on that in a second). Besides those three ingredients, all you need is tap water. You can find all the ingredients you need for making your own laundry detergent on the laundry aisle of your regular store. (So, yes, the first time you make this, you’re not getting out of going to the store. But the boxes of borax and washing soda will last a long time, so if you buy more than one bar of soap, you can avoid it next time!)

laundry 1

Start a big pot of water to boil (you’ll need roughly 4 quarts of water in your pot). While you’re waiting for the water to boil, grate your soap. When I first made this, I was a little leery of using my cheese grater on soap, but then I realized that it’s just soap. Every time you wash it, what do you put on it? Soap. So yeah. No big deal.

laundry 3

Once your water is boiling, add one cup each of washing soda and borax as well as your pile of soap shavings. Stir this until the powders dissolve and the soap melts. Then set the timer for five minutes and let it keep going, just to be sure everything’s all combined.

After the five minutes are up, remove your pot from the stove and carefully (remember, this was just boiling!) pour it into a five-gallon bucket. Fill the bucket the rest of the way with hot tap water. Let your bucket sit for 24 hours to cool. Be sure to either put the lid on tight or keep the bucket out of reach of little ones.

Here’s the price breakdown that I promised you.

Borax: $4.39 for a 4-pound box, which has 9 1/2 cups in it. Each cup therefore costs $0.46.

Washing Soda: Here’s the trick I mentioned earlier… You can either buy washing soda from the laundry aisle, or you can make it by cooking your baking soda at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour. This is what I did. So, one box of baking soda costs $0.62 at my store; therefore one cup of homemade washing soda costs $0.31.

Fels Naptha Soap: This costs $1.33 a bar at my store.

Tap Water: The water in my town is really expensive. It’s $3.79 per ccf. A ccf is 7.48 gallons. Therefore my tap water costs $0.50 a gallon.

So, doing the math. 46 cents for borax, 31 cents for washing soda, $1.33 for soap, and $2.50 for water. Grand total: $4.60. And believe me, 5 gallons of laundry soap will last a long time. I make it about once every 4 months is all.

You do have to take into account the price of the electricity to heat the water and the price of the bucket if you don’t already have one, I suppose. I paid $5 for my bucket, but that was a one-time expense. Now I just use the same one every time. And I’m not savvy enough to be able to calculate the price of electricity to heat the water, so if you are, let me know! Even so, making your own laundry is very rewarding.

A few closing thoughts on this detergent. It’s not completely smooth like the stuff you buy at the store. During the cooling process, the soap congeals a little. But it’s not a big deal. Just stir the detergent before you scoop it into your washer, and it’s fine. Also, this will not get all sudsy like the commercial detergents. But as I’ve learned over the past year, suds do not equal clean. I typically use between half a cup and one cup per load of laundry. It depends on the size of the load and how dirty your clothes are.

Finally, do not under any circumstances use this for cloth diapers. I did, and that was the only time Small Fry has ever had diaper rash. And it was a doozy of a rash. It took almost a month and a prescription cream to clear it up. Save your little one the pain my little one went through and use a specific cloth diaper friendly detergent.

Have you ever made your own? How did it go?

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: All About Valentines

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You might recall that Friday was Valentine’s Day. Because it was a Friday, it was one of the days that my husband works out of the house, rather than from home, so we didn’t have much opportunity to do much. (His “work away from home days” are long – he’s out selling books from around 10 in the morning until 8 or 9 at night.) Just because we couldn’t really spend the day – or evening – together doesn’t mean we didn’t do something, though. Well, he did something for me (and the boys)…

He woke up early and wrote little notes to each of us. The kids’ were left in envelopes on the coffee table with their names on them. For me, he hid six notes all over the house for me to find throughout the day. He hid them in places he knew I’d come into contact with at various points during the day – the silverware drawer, the pots and pans cupboard, my sewing machine, my Bible, etc.

valentines

Just because it’s a holiday, that doesn’t mean we had to ditch everything we stand for. The thought behind the notes, and the fact that he took the time to hide them all over the house, was way more sentimental than a purchased card.

Because of the work schedule, we celebrated Valentine’s Day on Sunday the 16th instead. But that, too, was a super simple thing. The point of the holiday is to spend time with the ones you love, not to spend loads of money, so we just went for a drive out in the country roads near our town after church. We explored roads we’d never been on before (despite having lived in the area our entire lives…) and simply enjoyed being together.

How did you celebrate the Day of Love?

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity: Appreciating Your Circumstances

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I mentioned on Friday that we’ve had a crazy amount of snow. Of course, here in the Pacific Northwest, any amount of snow can be classified as “crazy,” but honestly, we’ve broken records for February snow in Oregon this weekend. In our front yard, we measured 9 3/4 inches. That’s a lot of snow! While the children love it (even ours, who didn’t get a single snow day completely off from school), it’s a bit harder for adults.

My husband works about half the time from home, half away. His main gig is selling comic books (ones that he writes), but he also does book layouts for up and coming self published authors (that’s fancy talk for “combining words and illustrations to prepare books for the printer”). The selling of the books is what takes him away from the house for work, while the layouts are done from his home office. He was scheduled to sell books last week from Wednesday through Saturday, but when the snow hit on Thursday morning, he had to come home early and cancel the Friday/Saturday event. Right now, we’re just waiting for the snow to melt so life can get back to normal.

You can’t always control the situations taking place around you, so it doesn’t do any good to dwell over them or stress about them. We could have freaked out when the book selling wasn’t able to happen, but we didn’t. Hubby focused on getting some of the layout projects done, and then took the rest of the unplanned long weekend off. We played with the kids in the snow. It was Small Fry’s first time experiencing it.

snow baby pic monkey

Without our focus on keeping our lives simple, we wouldn’t have taken the time to appreciate the beauty of the landscape around us. We would’ve been stressed out and angry at being put a whole week behind on our book-selling goals. Instead, we remembered our values and why we feel the way we do. We enjoyed the unusual weather, and allowed our children to do the same.

Life was very good.

Blessings,

Wendy

What Simplicity Means to Me: Week 5 {with homemade dishwasher soap recipe}

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So. It’s not Monday. For two weeks in a row.

Maybe it’s better if I promise a simplicity post as my first of the week, whatever day it happens to be, rather than on Mondays. You guys copacetic with that?? Cool.

One aspect of simplicity that I really love is the fact that it’s drastically reduced the amount of stress in my life. Things are much calmer and more relaxed around here, partly due to the fact that through our exploration of simplicity (the becoming self-reliant part), we’ve started making our own detergents in addition to foods we used to buy processed. It’s very freeing knowing that when I run out of laundry soap or dishwasher detergent, I’m only minutes away from a huge batch that will last me a really long time. Especially in the case of the laundry soap. A single batch of that makes 5 gallons, which lasts our family about 4 months, and costs less than $5. You can’t get commercial detergent for that price, and the homemade stuff works just as well.

Similar story with dishwasher detergent. Using products I always have on hand anyway, I can make a nice big batch of it that will last 2-3 weeks (and we run the dishwasher a lot – at least once a day, sometimes twice). I love never having to worry about a) scrubbing my dishes with chemicals, and b) running out of dishwasher detergent and not being able to get more quickly enough. By making my own, it’s always a no-stress situation. And the method couldn’t be simpler.

Homemade Dishwasher  Detergent

1 box baking soda (2 cups)
2 cups borax
1 cup salt
Lemon juice

There are two ways to make this. The first way is to mix your dry ingredients, then stir in about 4 tablespoons of lemon juice. The chemical reaction will cause quite a fizz, so make sure you’re working in a big bowl. When all the ingredients are well combined, divvy the mixture up into an old ice cube tray and leave it somewhere to dry for about 24 hours. Pop the cubes out and use them like you would the dishwasher tabs you buy from the grocery store. If they don’t fit in your detergent cup, just put one on the bottom of your dishwasher with each load.

The second option, and the one I use, is to combine the dry ingredients in a bowl with an airtight lid. When you run the dishwasher, put a small scoop (1-2 tablespoons) of the dry stuff into your detergent cup, add a few drops of lemon juice (you’ll still get that fizzing action), close your trap door, and run as usual. You go through more lemon juice this way, but I like it better anyway, because you don’t have to wait for the cubes to harden and the powder is easier to store than the cubes.

Blessings,

Wendy

Simplicity is Not… {Part 3}

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Welcome back to my What Simplicity Means to Me series. I know I usually post these on Mondays, but our computer was out of commission for a few days, so I’m just able to get back on here today.

Today is my last post on what simplicity is not. Next week, I’ll dive in to what simplicity is.

Simplicity is not necessary for a fulfilling life. But I think it definitely helps. Remember that Scripture from Matthew that I shared last week? Here’s my paraphrased version, just for a refresher: Do the work of God, do not collect wages for doing so. Trust God to provide for you, and provide for you He will. How can you do God’s work without needing to collect wages? Live simply.

Easier said than done, I know. Especially in America (and other first world countries). We’re blessed – or cursed, depending on your point of view – with being affluent. Even the poorest among us is remarkably affluent in the grand scheme of the world. And the more money you earn, the easier it is to turn your back on simplicity. Especially (and I speak from experience here) if you spent any amount of time (as an adult) being “poor,” and now are better off. The “five years ago, I couldn’t buy anything, so now I’m going to buy whatever I want” trap is easy to fall into. But it’s important to keep Jesus’ commands in mind when we’re busy buying all that stuff. We must be willing – and more importantly, able – to leave at the drop of hat if when he calls us.

What about the non-material aspects of simplicity? There might be some of you reading this who thrive in the busy-ness of life. Sometimes I do. It’s nice to be needed. By your spouse. By your kids. By your neighbors. Maybe even by your siblings or your parents. As humans, we like to feel important, appreciated. But in all that busy-ness, do you ever feel stressed, even if you like the constant activity? Of course you do. It’s important (but not required) to take some time to slow down sometimes. Enjoy the simpler things in life. Take half an hour to play with your baby. Allow one-on-one time with each of your children. Make something. Go for a drive. Just slow down and enjoy life.

This week’s challenge: Take five minutes to just relax. Go for a walk, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. Turn off your cell phone. Meditate. Whatever you want. But make time to just appreciate the quiet, simple things in your life.

Blessings,

Wendy