Today, for lunch, I brought clam chowder that my lovely upstairs neighbor (and landlord) made and offered generously. It was delicious.
Today, after lunch, I thought about just shoving the dirty tupperware into my lunch bag and going back to my office to read. But instead, I made the deliberate choice to simplify my life by washing the tupperware now. Why is this more simple? Because it SAVES TIME LATER, and because, for goodness' sake, I HAVE THE TIME NOW. I have way less to do at lunchtime at work than I do at home in the evening.
There, one thing checked off the to-do list. See how easy living simply is?
This, by the way, is an example of one of my goals, which is "pick up things as you use them."
Monday, October 10, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Some thoughts on simple living
Living simply is not about simply living. Simply living is what everyone else is doing. Simply living is going through the motions without thought or meaning.
Living simply is living deliberately. It's about thinking things through. It's about making choices about your own life instead of having society choose for you.
Ironically, simply living involves doing a lot more, but living passively. Living deliberately is about doing less, but living actively.
Living deliberately is much more difficult because it involves questioning, being confused, going against social norms, and requires much more self-confidence. But like most things in life, things that require more effort are often much more rewarding.
Living simply is living deliberately. It's about thinking things through. It's about making choices about your own life instead of having society choose for you.
Ironically, simply living involves doing a lot more, but living passively. Living deliberately is about doing less, but living actively.
Living deliberately is much more difficult because it involves questioning, being confused, going against social norms, and requires much more self-confidence. But like most things in life, things that require more effort are often much more rewarding.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Slow food: Pumpkin Roasting
I'm sure this exists elsewhere, but here in Vermont where all the tree-hugging hippies live, there's this concept called slow food. It's supposed to be an opposition to fast food, and includes several different facets, including organic food, localvore eating, farmer's markets, urban homesteading, farming, and generally just being in touch with where your food comes from. Want more info? Try this: Slow Food USA.
In any case, I imagine some people are thinking, "I don't have time for that." I totally get that. I'm a busy girl, too, and frankly, I love me some Pop Tarts and Campbell's Tomato Soup. Not necessarily together. Also, although I try not to eat it much, I also like good old traditional fast food. Taco Bell is my friend. That said, I appreciate the idea of, well, appreciating the origin of our food. I also appreciate that, in some cases, it's more economical to do things the slow food way (as long as you ignore the tenet that time is money). In that spirit, I present to you: The Homemade Pumpkin Roasting Extravaganza.
I love pumpkin. Seasonally, I do a pumpkin chocolate chip cranberry muffin for breakfast that is awesome. Pumpkin is so autumnal! And delicious! So last week, when I went to buy a can of pumpkin to do the muffin bake, I was horrified that it cost $2.50. Not that that's necessarily a lot, but for goodness sake, canned corn only costs $.50!
So I decided to use part of my afternoon off on Friday, and do the slow food thing. Pumpkin style.
In any case, I imagine some people are thinking, "I don't have time for that." I totally get that. I'm a busy girl, too, and frankly, I love me some Pop Tarts and Campbell's Tomato Soup. Not necessarily together. Also, although I try not to eat it much, I also like good old traditional fast food. Taco Bell is my friend. That said, I appreciate the idea of, well, appreciating the origin of our food. I also appreciate that, in some cases, it's more economical to do things the slow food way (as long as you ignore the tenet that time is money). In that spirit, I present to you: The Homemade Pumpkin Roasting Extravaganza.
I love pumpkin. Seasonally, I do a pumpkin chocolate chip cranberry muffin for breakfast that is awesome. Pumpkin is so autumnal! And delicious! So last week, when I went to buy a can of pumpkin to do the muffin bake, I was horrified that it cost $2.50. Not that that's necessarily a lot, but for goodness sake, canned corn only costs $.50!
So I decided to use part of my afternoon off on Friday, and do the slow food thing. Pumpkin style.
Gettin' all cleaned up in the sink.
Prepped for surgery
Surgery
Pumpkin guts! All ready to scoop out the stringy bits and separate out the seeds.
Then, you just cover the top with foil, and pop it in the over at 375 for an hour or so (it was about an hour and a half for this guy, since he was hugenormous). There's enough water content in the pumpkin to generate steam under the foil, which softens the sucker right up.
When the inside is the consistency of basked potato, it's time to SCOOP! I used a big metal serving spoon, and put all the soft mushy pumpkin insides into a bowl. These are the decimated shells.
Mmmm! Giant bowl of PUMPKIN!
Pumpkin carcass.
After a little blender puree action and some oven seed roasting, the total yield for this pumpkin was the equivalent of 4 cans of the store-bought stuff, and a delicious bowl of salty roasted pumpkin seeds. All for $6.00. Boo-yah! Slow food rules!
Saturday, October 1, 2011
De-cluttering the Closet
I promised pictures of the newly decluttered closet, which I shall now deliver on:
It's not minimalism by any stretch of the imagination...but it IS an improvement, and one I'm quite pleased with.
Old
New!
Look, only a SINGLE LAYER of clothing high!
This actually looks about the same, but I've switched the sweaters
onto the shelves for fall.
My drawers are openable! And not stuffed to the gills! Hooray!
It's not minimalism by any stretch of the imagination...but it IS an improvement, and one I'm quite pleased with.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Making Time to Do Nothing
One of my goals for simplifying was to begin meditating. I've been working on that this week, and chose to tackle it in the morning when I get to work. I'm an early bird--don't get me wrong, I love when it's the weekend and I can sleep til 10, but during the work week, I'd just as soon get up and get going. In the morning, I get up and go running, and get in to work at the college by 8:00. No one else is in that early, so I have a bit of quiet time to myself, which is part of the reason I make a point to come in; I value the quiet, the time to wrap my head around my day, pull my files, drink my coffee, check the weather. So I folded my meditation time into that routine.
I like to sit on the floor. I tried my chair, but almost fell asleep. I set the alarm on my cell phone, close my eyes, and walk through a process of progressive relaxation from head to toe, and then focused meditation on a "mantra." Nothing fancy here: my meditation word is "still." It's a reminder to be quiet, to be calm, to cultivate an inner stillness when so much goes on outside.
As I mentioned before, a monk at the retreat I attended this spring gave me a brief tutorial on this type of meditation, and he told me a couple things that I feel are especially important. First, your brain takes time to get used to meditating, and it will become clear when it starts to move out of a meditative state. Sometimes, that happens before my alarm goes off, and I do a mental check to see if we can go back. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. The second thing he told me is to be kind to myself about the meditation. It's not about judgment. Some days, especially now at the beginning, I'm not able to do it for very long. 10 minutes and I'm just done. But that's 10 minutes I carve out for me and for nothing else, and that's valuable. I've been trying to add a minute here and there this past week, and today I did 14 minutes no problem--could have gone longer. So it's about practice.
Meditation is good for me. I am horrible about letting myself take breaks in my life, and this gives me a structured time to just be with myself. So far, a success.
I like to sit on the floor. I tried my chair, but almost fell asleep. I set the alarm on my cell phone, close my eyes, and walk through a process of progressive relaxation from head to toe, and then focused meditation on a "mantra." Nothing fancy here: my meditation word is "still." It's a reminder to be quiet, to be calm, to cultivate an inner stillness when so much goes on outside.
As I mentioned before, a monk at the retreat I attended this spring gave me a brief tutorial on this type of meditation, and he told me a couple things that I feel are especially important. First, your brain takes time to get used to meditating, and it will become clear when it starts to move out of a meditative state. Sometimes, that happens before my alarm goes off, and I do a mental check to see if we can go back. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. The second thing he told me is to be kind to myself about the meditation. It's not about judgment. Some days, especially now at the beginning, I'm not able to do it for very long. 10 minutes and I'm just done. But that's 10 minutes I carve out for me and for nothing else, and that's valuable. I've been trying to add a minute here and there this past week, and today I did 14 minutes no problem--could have gone longer. So it's about practice.
Meditation is good for me. I am horrible about letting myself take breaks in my life, and this gives me a structured time to just be with myself. So far, a success.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
No Time or Not Making Time?
So I realize it's been awhile since I've last posted. I never actually posted my last day. I feel like I have a good excuse. I've been busy. I haven't had time. And to be honest, no, I haven't had time. But that's because I'm not making time. I'm so tired of being busy. I'm so tired of not having time. What am I doing in my life that is leading me to not have time to do what I enjoy? What kind of a person lives a life they don't like? Why is it so much easier to continue living a life I don't like than to make changes so I enjoy my life? Why is change so difficult?
Unfortunately, I do not have the answers to these questions. But I feel slightly better knowing I made time in my schedule to find five minutes to type these questions.
Unfortunately, I do not have the answers to these questions. But I feel slightly better knowing I made time in my schedule to find five minutes to type these questions.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Simplifying My Mind: Mental Chaos and Changing the Voice Inside My Head.
My quest for simplification stems from the internal voice that is always in my head. I'm kind of an overachiever. I'm also kind of hard on myself. I get ideas into my head about what I should do, and then I stick to them or feel guilty. I also have a tendency to goGoGO and try to do a million things at once. This makes me incredibly productive, but also makes me incredibly mentally stressed out. At night, when I am packing my gym back, packing my lunch, helping with dinner clean up, checking my e-mail, brushing my teeth, cleaning off the table, gathering up my library books to return, feeding the cat...well, I forget to breathe. All I want to do is sit and relax because my days are long, but I literally CANNOT STOP. Every time I sit to enjoy Community (or whatever), I'm up at every commercial because I feel compelled to DO the thing I remembered I needed (wanted?) to do. The thinking goes like this: "Well, if I just get up and get it done, then it'll all be done and I can relax." But I'm never relaxed because there's always something else to do and hell, this is life. It's never all done!
So, one of my goals for simplification? Do one thing at a time, and change the words the voice is saying. Instead of "Don't forget this and this and this...Get this done, you're not done yet, can't relax til you finish everything!" I want the voice to say, "Dude, relax. You can brush your teeth later. Enjoy the show right now...and only the show."
So, back to the issue of being hard on myself. This morning, I went for a run. I do this a few days a week on my way to work, which I've mentioned before. I have no passion for running (I don't get a "runner's high" or go to that Zen place where my legs just move and my mind empties and I can fly), but I like to feel healthy and I recognize that I am naturally someone who enjoys being at rest, so I overcome my natural state and pound the pavement a few mornings a week. But this morning, I just felt slow. I shoot for 4 miles in the morning, but this morning, I decided to do 3.5 instead. You might be thinking, "Well, no biggie..." but when you have a tendency toward rigid thinking, 3.5 is VERY DIFFERENT from 4. It's not really quantitative. I had to do with my expectations for myself.
Today, though, I decided to give myself a break. "Cool," I said to my body. "You're having kind of a hard time getting started. Just do 3.5. That's legit." My body thanked me. It also told me that it wanted to walk a bit today. My automatic thinking went like this, "But if you walk, it's not really a run, now, is it?" Today, we examined that a little and I gave myself a second break. "Walk if you walk, body. Thanks for moving me around this morning. You did some good running. Interval training is helpful, too!" So we took walk breaks.
This might sound like I'm a little obsessive (I am). I also fear that it sounds lazy. But hey, my exercise is about me, and not about what something thinks of me. So I'm trying to be kind to myself and just get over it.
Tiny steps, huh?
So, one of my goals for simplification? Do one thing at a time, and change the words the voice is saying. Instead of "Don't forget this and this and this...Get this done, you're not done yet, can't relax til you finish everything!" I want the voice to say, "Dude, relax. You can brush your teeth later. Enjoy the show right now...and only the show."
So, back to the issue of being hard on myself. This morning, I went for a run. I do this a few days a week on my way to work, which I've mentioned before. I have no passion for running (I don't get a "runner's high" or go to that Zen place where my legs just move and my mind empties and I can fly), but I like to feel healthy and I recognize that I am naturally someone who enjoys being at rest, so I overcome my natural state and pound the pavement a few mornings a week. But this morning, I just felt slow. I shoot for 4 miles in the morning, but this morning, I decided to do 3.5 instead. You might be thinking, "Well, no biggie..." but when you have a tendency toward rigid thinking, 3.5 is VERY DIFFERENT from 4. It's not really quantitative. I had to do with my expectations for myself.
Today, though, I decided to give myself a break. "Cool," I said to my body. "You're having kind of a hard time getting started. Just do 3.5. That's legit." My body thanked me. It also told me that it wanted to walk a bit today. My automatic thinking went like this, "But if you walk, it's not really a run, now, is it?" Today, we examined that a little and I gave myself a second break. "Walk if you walk, body. Thanks for moving me around this morning. You did some good running. Interval training is helpful, too!" So we took walk breaks.
This might sound like I'm a little obsessive (I am). I also fear that it sounds lazy. But hey, my exercise is about me, and not about what something thinks of me. So I'm trying to be kind to myself and just get over it.
Tiny steps, huh?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)