Making A Home And Family

These past few weeks, as DH and I are preparing our house to welcome a baby into it I have just been really grateful for all the simple and little things he has done that have made my life more pleasant.  Those gestures make me realize how lucky I am to have such a wonderful husband who takes care of me and my baby.

As I mentioned before, we have started taking the time to sit down and have a nice dinner together each night and then he helps me do the dishes as we chat.  He has even taken on the task of cooking one night a week, and last night was his first.  He grilled us mushroom swiss burgers and they were fabulous.  Even more fabulous since I didn’t have to cook them.   He has been helping me clean the house, and I am not talking small cleaning jobs.  One day we stripped our entire bedroom and moved everything out, deep cleaned everything, made sure the co-sleeper had room to slip in when the time came, and he didn’t whine about it all at.  In fact, he told me to stop vacuuming so he could do it instead.  Not to mention, him telling me I am beautiful, giving me kisses or backrubs, and seeing him kiss my belly and pat it telling Sprout sweet things. <3

And just for fun – I typed in Simple Love in Google and this is what I found.  It was too beautiful not to share.

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James and I have both become increasingly frustrated with our dishwasher.  I don’t know what is wrong with it, I don’t want to fix it, and I certainly don’t want to spend money on getting a new one.  So finally, after weeks and weeks of complaining about soap streaks on our plates or spotty, icky things on our glasses – we decided to stop letting the dishwasher get to us.

We stopped using the dishwasher!  We’ve gone back to plain and simply doing our dishes by hand, and it has been amazing what it has done to our evening routine.  We eat around the same time, we sit down at the table, then we clean up together.  Normally, while I am washing dishes, James will feed the dogs, take out the trash, and pack up the leftovers.  Then when he is done with those things, he is ready to start drying the dishes.

Not only is it rewarding to have a clean table and a clean kitchen at the end of the night.  It’s nice to spend that time with him.  We discuss things going on in our lives, we watch the news and contemplate the world, and all of this has taken place because we do a chore together.  Stepping Lightly isn’t always about getting through a task quickly, but it’s about being present in the moment – even if that moment is some type of work.

I look forward to that routine in the evenings now.

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 I believe that our holidays have been spent pretty simply around here.  For Christmas, we had one exchange present for the adults on my side of the family and of course we bought for all of the kids.  On DH’s side, we just bought for the one child.  DH and I came home pretty empty-handed from the gift giving exchanges.  I received Sex & the City The Movie and Britney Spears new cd, along with a fuzzy robe (that I needed for my upcoming hospital stay), and a beautiful sterling silver locket of a mother holding a baby.  James came home with goodies, but as per his request of a donation in his name instead he received cash for baby Sprout’s first bank account.  We talked about it afterwards how it was kind of sad to not come home with a new gadget like an iPod, a camera with more features, or a flat screen tv but that soon faded because those are not things we needed.  What we needed for the holidays we had – warm homes to go to, friends and family to be with, good food, good laughs, and love.  Lots and lots of love.  That’s the important stuff.  That’s the reason for the season anyway.

Did I mention how easy it was to put away the gifts from under the tree?

The New Year celebration was just as simple. DH and I stayed in, had a big dinner together, watched 2 movies on our projector in the family room, and then we rang in 2009 watching the ball drop on the tv and toasting with sparkling grape juice.  It was perfect and simple!  Just the two of us!

I hope the New Year is a blessed year for all of you!  I hope you may find the joys in the simple things in life as you step lightly across this Earth we have been given.

Happy New Year!

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 Living simply and stepping lightly has been put on the back burner it seems.  I even missed my post last week, which I am very sorry about by the way.  I struggle with it now because of the holidays, because of the baby arriving soon, because of the wonderful birth of my niece on Tuesday, because of 4H, because of cheerleading….things just pile up.

 I have had some great reminders in my mailbox that life is more about the things that are going on, but also about taking the time to realize who I share all of these wonderful events with in my life.  I have been receiving gifts for Sprout and I from the Dingo Clan.  The Dingos are a group of ladies from Mothering.com that are wonderful role models of attached parenting, strong women who battle the daily events with husbands, jobs, babysitters, finding time for themselves, but we all have one thing in common – the love of running.  Running waxes and wanes, but our friendship is a bond beyond compare.  The amazing thing is – most of us haven’t even met face to face.  They even accepted me under their wings before I was pregnant (long before!)  Now they are my mentors to this pregnancy, the birth of my babe, and they are going to be my village to help raise her with the principals of attachment.

As if their words of encouragement, their friendship, and their love I can feel all the way from around the world wasn’t enough to simply  shower me in this time of waiting for my new bundle of joy.  They have been sending me gifts in the mail!  Books of all kinds – parenting, board books, story books, oh my!  And every package has included a bead.  A special unique bead that I will string and wear around my neck during my labor, so their strength, support, and birthing wisdom can be there *right* with me.

These simple gestures that create a friendship that can’t be explained in words… the little things that add up… they make life special.  They are the things worthy of slowing down so we have time to *enjoy* rather than to *rush.*

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As Christmas fast approaches, DH and I have had many conversations about how to change our Christmas to a more simple one.  With my family, we always choose names and only have to buy for one other adult and then we buy for the kids.  His family was our concern this year.  We usually buy for everyone, and we spend a lot of money.  But it wasn’t just a money issue for us, it was the fact that we were making our wishlists of things that would be nice to have but they weren’t necessities (and if we really wanted/needed them we could buy them ourselves).

Our favorite memories of Christmas are those special gifts.  The one and only gift we could have gotten all Christmas and it would’ve made our day because we cherished them.  The others were just that – others.  They were fill-ins.  Why fill in when you get the one thing that makes you gleam with Christmas cheer?  We have really tried to focus on gifts that will do that.

Not only do we have memories of gifts though – even as children we loved setting out the cookies and milk for Santa, watching Christmas movies on TV (Frosty, Prancer, Charlie Brown Christmas…), setting up the Christmas tree while dad struggled with the base, decorating and putting the angel on top of the tree, and sitting in a dark living room being calmed by the glow of the rainbow lights on the tree.  Those are the simple and special things of Christmas.  Those are things we wanted to focus on this year.

Of course, we still bought gifts but we tried to make wise choices and have the presents have more meaning.  Hopefully they will be considered thoughtful and bring a smile to someone’s face.  In the back of our mind, we kept manifesting a lighter, simpler Christmas though.

We got our wish!  His family has asked what we wanted to do for their side.  Choose names, one last splurge, etc.  DH piped up and said, “How about we spend the whole day together?  Each couple will be in charge of a meal throughout the day and we’ll watch Christmas movies and comedies all day?”  Now *that* sounds like fun and like a wonderful tradition for Sprout to be a part of.

Enjoy the moments of this Christmas season.  Happy Holidays!

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Do you have those days?  And I don’t mean one of those days when the world seriously decides to collapse around you.  I just mean one of those days where the world appears to collapse all around you – because it’s all based on your perception of things.  And sometimes, our perceptions just get a little skewed?  I’ll admit, I’ve kind of been in one of those moods today *ahem* this week.

Finding something simple and light to write about this week just seemed like a chore.  Why?  Because my mind wasn’t in the right place to see all the simple things happening around me.  This week has been filled with basketball games (in which my cheerleaders challenged my patience), very early mornings so DH could go out hunting (which wore me thin on sleep and cut my non-existent patience in half again).  Do you see what I mean?  I was negative on patience – why?  Because I guess I chose to be.  Because getting up early means that I should be crabby.  Doing something nice for another person, like waking up with DH to go to my parent’s house, was just such a burden.  Bologna, Jennifer!  Wake up!

Step Lightly!  Don’t carry the burden of this stuff with you!  Leave it right here and live!

I was blessed this week with many simple pleasures.  I was given the responsibility of having a cheerleading squad of young junior high girls.  Who are just that – young junior high girls.  They are a little loud and little dramatic, but they have a work ethic that is amazing.  They strive to be the best, and to see the little girls in the crowd mimic their jumps or moves it makes my heart leap.

I was also blessed to be waking up before dawn to hear the wind changing from fall gusts to winter howls, seeing the sunrise on the country fields from the warmth of my parent’s house,  and spending time with DH in the vehicle each morning to talk about Sprout, or our business, or what may be awaiting him in the woods that morning.  Or just offering a listening ear when there was nothing for him to see in the woods – yet again.

There are simple and wonderful things in the mundane (or the burdensome if you so label it that), but take the time to re-evaluate.  You may just see how you can step a little lighter and enjoy those moments.  Will you do that today?

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 On our quest of stepping lightly, we have come to quite a few conclusions.  We want less things, we want to make wise choices for our family and the Earth, and most importantly we just want to learn what works for us.

This week, we have started along a new journey.  A journey in our kitchen without a microwave.  I know – the horror of it!   We remembered that we still had a wedding present sitting in the upstairs of my parents house that had never been used and was still boxed.  6 years it’s been sitting there folks!  Even though it wasn’t taking up space in our house, we needed to do something with it.  Use it, sell it, donate it.. whatever it may be, but it needed a home before it no longer worked.

So as an experiment, we unplugged the toaster and the microwave and put them in the basement and plugged in the toaster oven in it’s place.  I have ran across a few times when I could’ve used a microwave out of convenience – melting butter for a recipe, warming up leftovers, and heating up a mug of water for tea.  I have found there are alternatives.  As the oven was warming for the bread, I melted the butter in it.  I warmed the leftovers on the stove top or in the oven, and I used the coffee pot to make hot water.  Not such a big deal.  I even used the toaster oven to make some killer meatball subs!

On the topic of microwaves, you may want to think about having them in your home.  Microwaving can change the molecular structure of your food and microwaving can turn some food into carcinogens.  But like I said, it’s a family decision and we still haven’t made up our minds yet.  We’ll re-evaluate and discuss it come Monday.

Until next week, take a light step on the Earth this week.  Just one.  She’ll thank you.

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“Money is something we trade our life-time for.  Thinking of money as something we trade our life-time for – not as something in itself but as the symbol of a trade we have made – helps us stay tuned to the question of exactly what we may be giving up in exchange for money.”  Stepping Lightly

Sometimes Stepping Lightly means taking a giant leap to make your dreams a reality.  I did this in May 2007 when my husband asked me if I wanted to move from IL, where I had just graduated college and where he had an amazing paying job, to move back to MI near family and take on a new job.  A job where we would work little hours, work from home, and set our own schedules and still make a good living.  Little did I know that this was the start of our journey to living simply.

We moved back to MI and made our way on our new venture.  Many days I fought the running of ideas and society and norms through my head, “But my degree!”  “I don’t feel like I’m doing enough.”  “What the heck am I supposed to do with all of my time?”   Still, after a year and a half I’m still filling in those blanks.

“‘Normal’ is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for, in order to get tot he job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, car, and the house that you leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.”  Stepping Lightly

I have a degree in education so I can educate my children, and if we need extra money I can do an in-home daycare/homeschooling/tutoring.  I do enough.  I take care of my home, my husband, my new baby on the way, I coach a cheer squad, and I volunteer my time with 4-H.  I even take time to enjoy the little things in life and have time to spend with family and friends.  I find plenty of good ways to spend my time – reading books aloud to Sprout, going for a walk to the gas station at 9:17am (like this morning to buy a newspaper), scheduling a pedicure that I have a gift certificate for without worrying about work times, and snuggling with my DH before he wakes up in the morning without rushing.

I am blessed to live a lifestyle like this, and I completely understand that.  It was a giant leap that we made as a couple and as a business, and it worked in our favor.  I understand at some point, this lifestyle could drastically change and that is why I have learned to treasure it so much right now.

Have you ever thought of how you could get on the path to financial freedom?  To have money coming in while you’re not working or clocked in?  Did you ever think of trying to work from home one day a week to save on gas, and put in your time wisely so you don’t need to spend 8 whole hours in the office?  Are there ways you could simplify your living, so work wouldn’t consume so much of your time?  I’d love to hear what you think about simplifying your work schedule to create more time for the things you love… please do share.

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