ZipCar

With the car gone to Oregon, and bike commuting not always practical, I joined ZipCar. I figured there would be occasions when I need to go further than my legs are willing to pedal, or carry more than will fit in the Burley. Today was one of those days. We completed our first ZipCar reservation. It was fabulous.

I have to say it was a little weird just using someone's car without ever speaking to them. I reserved a car about half a mile from home, which meant a 15 minute hike from the house. We loaded up the car seats in the little red wagon, donned our rain gear (with garbage bag 'raincoat' for the car seats), and hiked on over. The kids were troopers. Once at the car I installed the car seats, installed the kids, stowed the wagon in the trunk and we were off. We went to church, we went to lunch, we did the weekly grocery shopping, brought it home and then drove the car back to its parking space. Loaded the car seats back into the wagon and trooped on home in a rainstorm. Along the way we stopped to float leaf boats down a rushing river of water running along the curb, stomped our way through a couple of good sized puddles, and generally enjoyed the foul weather. Nothing like youngsters to help you see the joy in any situation. Once home, after sliding out of our wet clothes, we capped our outing with hot chocolate & marshmallows and another screening of Polar Express. 'Tis the season!

I have to say renting a car by the hour, for just the few hours you need it, and not having to worry about gas, tolls, etc. is fabulous. They make it really easy too - get to it, unlock it, get in, and go! Way to go. Thank you ZipCar!

Another step

And now we are a bike-commuting family. We were proud of ourselves a few years ago when we sold the second car. We've been managing pretty much without issue ever since, having just a single motor vehicle. Every once in a while the logistics get a little hairy, but generally we do ok and don't miss that second car. Since our move closer to work last year I've been suggesting that we could now eliminate the remaining automobile. My partner has been pretty resistant to that idea, and the car has remained. But today the car left the state and now I get to make good on my assertion that we don't need a car in the city.

This morning was day one. I attached the new-to-us Burley double bike trailer to the back of my bike, affixed helmets on both munchkins and myself, and we were off. My poor bike has been locked up for over a year, so the muscles that move it forward were a bit surprised to be called out of retirement, but that's a change for the better. It was pretty much a non-event to be commuting to school and then work on the bike. I was pretty delighted to discover the "trunk" behind the seats in the Burley - plenty of room for my purse, book bag, and the kids stuff. Too cool.

In addition to the simplified, human powered transportation, we simplified the cable TV subscription this week - eliminating a pretty hefty chunk of that monthly bill (and the premium channels that went with it). We'd considered quitting completely, cold turkey, but ended up taking a less drastic first step in that area. Ah well, the good news is we're headed in the right direction.

A Simple Holiday

The holiday season is upon us and once again I find myself struggling with how to celebrate the season of gift giving while maintaining our minimalist objectives. How do I give gifts that celebrate the season without buying into the buying that has defined the holidays? Earlier this year I set upon a plan to knit a pair of warm and comfy socks for everyone on my gift list. I made a little progress at that, knitting four pairs of socks between March and October. But then I reached the end of my rope and just needed a break from sock knitting. Now I'm debating with myself - if I don't have a pair for everyone, should anyone get one? If I don't wrap these socks, what will I wrap? How do we celebrate simply without looking cheap?

I wish I could say I've got great answers to this question, but I'm stumped. I know we can reuse and recycle and that will help. But I also want the gift to be meaningful and useful to the recipient. I don't want to be just turning my 'stuff' into their 'stuff'. So once I again I find myself stressing about making this all work. I'd love to hear your ideas!

Taking a tip from Feng Shui and Maria Montessori

Where does inspiration come from for you? What motivates you to consider changing long standing habits? For me, motivation comes from an endless hunger to learn more about every and anything. And as I learn I am motivated to incorporate a little of what I've learned into my life.

Among other things (like lack of money), living intentionally with fewer physical possessions was encouraged, for me, by things I learned about the principles behind Feng Shui and the Montessori method of education.

Feng Shui teaches that chi (energy) needs room to move or it becomes stagnant and drags you down. It needs gentle movement or becomes forceful and knocks you over. So strategically aligning the things you have - and having not too many things - is very important. Stuff under the bed? Invites dust (bad for chi) and blocks the movement of chi. Lots of furniture in the living room? Blocks the chi, draining your energy. Using dishes with little chips in them? Bad chi. As I looked around my home with an eye toward the movement of energy through my space, I discovered opportunities to open up the flow of energy by eliminating that which blocked chi. Living with less opened up the spaces we are inhabiting, making them more comfortable to be in. That's the beauty of chi.


Like Feng Shui, Maria Montessori teaches that too much stuff overwhelms the young child, blocking their ability to do the important work of making sense of the world around them. One of the guiding principles of the Montessori method is The Prepared Environment. Montessori teaches that children learn best in a prepared environment, a place in which children can do things for themselves. In the prepared environment learning materials and experiences are available to children in an orderly format. Each object has its own place on a child sized shelf, and none compete with any others for space. The open shelving makes all the materials visible and accessible, attracting the attention of the young child and sparking their innate desire to learn by working with whatever has attracted their attention. Learning about the Montessori method has encouraged me to consider what is available to my young children and to make sure that there are a few, well made of natural materials, things for them to work with when they want to. We are big readers and have lots and lots of books, but we put no more than a dozen on the book shelves at a time. Every so often I rotate them out, putting new ones in their place. This lets us enjoy all our many books, without overwhelming our limited amount of shelf space.

I'd love to hear where your inspiration came from! Please comment and share!

Poverty vs Austerity

So our new place is bereft of counter space, having 18 inches to the right side of the stove and 36 inches to the left. And that is all. For more than a year the latte/coffee maker took up a good portion of that 36 inches. My daughter and her husband brew their coffee directly into their cups, sitting the filter basket atop the cup and pouring water from the tea kettle over the freshly ground coffee.

I recently decided to take back the counter space consumed by the coffee maker. I donated it to my neighbor and we started brewing coffee by pouring boiling water over grounds atop the coffee cup. One day during the first week of this new approach, DH turned to our three year old and declared "this is what poverty looks like."

He was joking - sort of. But it got me to wondering. When you are intentional about doing without something, isn't that austerity, not poverty?

Unpacking

I am a really good packer. Maybe it comes from enjoying puzzle solving. But I can organize a closet like nobody's business. I've always seen that as a positive personality trait. But as we settled into our smaller digs, there was a downside to being spatially adept. I was way too good at cramming way too much stuff into a single small space. Too much stuff in a small space was leaving us feeling cramped and confined. Within a couple of months I realized that not having every nook and cranny filled would not only look better, it would also feel better. I have found that every couple of months I need to sweep through the house, eliminating the unnecessary and freeing us all from the oppression of the stuff that finds its way onto every flat or empty surface. It was a surprise to me that getting rid of stuff is something that needs to be done regularly when you live in a small space.

Benefit #1 - Fostering Imagination

Just after we moved (to our 825 square foot duplex) a friend sent around an email. Someone she knew was giving away their train table. Knowing that our young one loved, loved, loved trains she passed this fabulous news along to me. Oh I so wanted one of these two years ago!!! I had visions of the delight such a place could hold for DS2. But God's timing was impeccable. I had just worked my way away from three-quarters of the things I used to have. I was still in de-acquisition mode, not acquisition mode. As I thought about it, I realized that lacking the table, with it's defined layout for a train track, DS2 had been 'making do' with the floor. He’s done some amazingly complex bridges across his entire bedroom floor. He's run them out of one room and into the next. He's done so much more on the floor than he ever could on a train table. In fact, by the time the opportunity of the train table was offered, I discovered he'd probably feel confined by the table.

A side benefit of no room for stuff – more room for imagination! And without a table taking up space permanently, when the track is put away, the floor is wide open space for other imaginative play.

How many other one purpose possessions are taking up space? Do we really need them?

Downsizing - step one

The first thing we did as we committed ourselves to a smaller footprint was to start looking at all the stuff we had accumulated. We began sorting it into one of four categories:

1. need it and want it
2. need it but don't want it
3. don't need it but want it
4. don't need it and don't want it

We immediately started posting things in that last category on Craigslist and preparing for a yard sale. The things in the first category - those things we both needed and wanted (clothing, beds, our bicycles) we prepared to take with us when we moved. We went through every drawer, every closet, every shelf and with each thing we encountered we asked ourselves if we needed it. In the kitchen we decided we did not need service for 12, and reduced the number of dishes and glasses to less than half. In our new house we have no more than four of anything. Four large plates, four lunch plates, three cereal bowls (the fourth broke!), four juice glasses....you get the picture. The four of us are living in 825 square feet. There's not alot of room to store things we aren't using every day. (And no, we aren't doing alot of entertaining at the moment. But since I have four of three different sizes, my total plate quantity is 12...entertaining would still be possible. )

If you are not quite ready to start deaccessioning your belongings, there are some great resources available to help you start thinking about the benefits of less stuff. The Northwest Earth Institute has put together a fabulous workbook for their Voluntary Simplicity course. Designed to be used in a discussion group, it is also a great way for individuals to learn more about being intentional about simplifying your lifestyle. The workbook is a collection of essays and questions to promote thoughtful consideration of the ideas presented. I'll be assembling a resource list shortly. This one is at the top of my list.

How?

In April, 2009, DH left his job to stay home with our newly adopted daughter (details about that at And Baby Makes Eight). We brought her home in September, 2008 and I was on leave until December. DH was on leave until March. We put her in daycare for a month. But we both wanted her home with us. We did the math and acknowledged that the second income wasn't doing much more than paying for childcare. It just didn't make sense.

But before it started paying for childcare, the second income was paying the mortgage. So something had to change. We decided we needed to sell our house and commit ourselves to a more frugal life. One that our single income could support. We moved closer to my office, into a small two-bedroom rental. To get there we had to downsize in a BIG way. We were leaving a fabulous 4-bedroom house in the suburbs, complete with double car garage, swimming pool, and gardens and fruit trees out back. It was a dream house. And we loved it. But we didn't love the monthly housing expense, which had always consumed a greater portion of our income than housing ever should have.

Summer of 2009 was spent freeing ourselves from the house and the things we had filled it with. We held multiple yard sales. Craigslist became my new best friend. And things went to the Goodwill. Some days it felt like we were never going to be finished giving things away. We started by selling and giving away all those things that we no longer wanted. That part was easy. The second yardsale was a little bit harder. It included things I really liked having - power tools, garden equipment, canning jars. But they were also things I knew I wasn't going to be needing at our new (tiny, urban) place. And my resolve was still strong. So I said goodbye to these things with a 'fare thee well', knowing I would miss them but happy they were off to a new and happy home. Then we were down to the things I didn't want to part with. They were still things we didn't need, but things I wanted none the less. The last yard sale included things that hurt to give up. Intellectually, I knew they were just things and it was still just stuff. But emotionally it felt like pieces of me being pushed out the door. It was hard. I grieved, but I let them go. I knew I wouldn't miss them in the long run. (And honestly, I can't tell you today what those things were!) It was hard, but we did it.

By September our new life was in full swing. I was (and still am) walking to work and back each day. DH and our littlest blessing were home together all day, and #2 son was settled in to a new Montessori school. We had a roof over our head and a new adventure in simplified urban living ahead of us. And the best part? We were finally truly living within our means.

Why?

Simplified living has been a part of my vocabulary for three decades, from the time I was the young mother of a rapidly growing family working to make ends meet as a stay-at-home mom. My first introduction to the concept was the classic, Living More with Less. I paged through that book over and over, seeking ways to stretch the dollars we had, without ever considering the philosophical aspects of 'the simple life.'

Now I find myself not quite so young, but still mothering young children, and once again seeking to live more with less. Not just for the economic benefits that simplified living offers, but also as my contribution to sustainability.

Herein I hope to share the struggles and successes my family and I are having with intentionally opting-out of a consumer-based culture. The writing will be therapeutic for me. Maybe it'll inspire others.