I was lamenting fruit flies on Twitter several years ago, and
Teacher Tom stepped in to save me.
Seattle had decreed that all food and yard waste needed to go in the compost bin rather than the garbage. This was a change I could get behind as an eco-friendly ideal.
But the small kitchen waste bin the city handed out for collecting our kitchen scraps had two distinct problems: The smell of rotting food seeped out into our kitchen, and fruit flies gathered to feast. It didn't seem to matter how often we emptied the little container, and we even bought a
fancier one with a locking lid and filter, with no accompanying improvement.
When we moved into our
996-square-foot home, I was elated to finally, finally have my own washer and dryer — but I faced a dilemma:
Where do the laundry baskets go?
Our appliances are stacked into a closet that's just barely big enough for them and for socks to fall down the crack between them and the wall. The hallway the closet's in is narrow enough that with the bifold door open, there's barely room to scootch by. There's room on top of the closed washer to fold some clothes but not to fit a basket. Our two bedrooms are petite for a family of five, containing just the requisite furniture without a lot of spare floor space and with minimal closets. Our bathroom is laughably teensy, with room for just a toilet and tub and no extra floor space whatsoever. Yes, even the sink is elsewhere.
Long story short, we got rid of our laundry baskets and our hamper once we realized they fit nowhere and were just being tripped over.
But what to do instead?
Do you hate wandering aimlessly through the aisles, trying to remember
which one has the salad dressing, peering at a hastily scribbled list and trying to decipher if that addition by a family member says
beef or beer? Do you hate getting home, only to realize you
forgot five things you needed for the week's meals?
I recently came up with an incredibly easy shopping list hack that I want to share with you. It's an
ongoing shopping list that's targeted to our family and that
matches the order of the aisles in our local grocery store.
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| Ta-da! |
Allow me to elucidate.
I wanted this list to have five salient features:
- Offline: My husband doesn't believe in new technology. His phone cannot handle a fancy app that syncs with mine. In any case, I actually do prefer to have a physical list on the fridge, because that's where we're thinking about what food we need.
- Tracking all our regular purchases: We wanted to see at a glance what foods we normally buy so we could run down the list before a shopping trip as we checked our stock of essentials.
- In aisle order: I wanted to walk from one end of our usual store(s) to the other, gathering our groceries in an efficient manner as I went.
- Easy to mark: I needed this list to work well from a practical standpoint. It needed to be easy to see what we wanted to buy, what we'd already gotten, and any notes or additions we had.
- One page: This isn't a manifesto, people! It's a shopping list!
Have you ever tried to
pare down your belongings when you have no money?
It takes a steady hand and a brave heart, that's for sure.
I came across
Marie Kondo's book,
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, a little over a year ago, when Karsten was still quite small. I started implementing some of the techniques — picking up objects and determining whether they sparked joy, and even
folding my socks the KonMari way — and immediately enjoyed the increased serenity that came with less clutter, less crowding, less need to organize and cram and put away. I am a declutter-o-phile and reforming packrat, and the
KonMari options clicked with me.
Some examples:
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| How I redid the kids' drawers. I love how visible everything is. |
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My mismatched socks before. I'm NOT KIDDING. These are all SINGLE SOCKS with no mate.
HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? These all went bye-bye. |
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| My sweet little socks and undies afterward, with socks organized and separated by color family. |
But … it was around this same time that we realized
how little money we had coming in. Sam and I work for ourselves, which means our "paychecks" are unpredictable, so things can sometimes coast for a bit before we realize there's been an income swing. We've always had a dip like this when we've had a new baby, but this one was perhaps deeper because the pregnancy itself was hard as well and we have — count 'em — three children now to care for and homeschool. I don't worry about telling you this, because I trust I've been honest that being self-employed is only for those who can handle some degree of risk, and we are such people. Our income has always been cyclical, so we tightened our belts while we devoted what energy we could to earning more money, and we have pared way, way, way down on spending.
And this is where
the KonMari giddiness took a nosedive.
I've been thinking about this for a while and have come to the inescapable conclusion that
there is no such thing as exercise. The very concept is a modern invention, born of people gradually and very recently, anthropologically speaking, becoming richer and more stable and therefore more sedentary for most of their waking moments.
As humans, as living creatures, we've always moved our bodies, but
not until relatively recently have we moved them in prescribed repetitive motions for a short period of time per day and decreed that as "healthy."
Imagine our ancient ancestress, hanging out with her tribemates. She covers miles a day searching out roots, then bending to pull them. She walks slowly, not setting any landspeed records here, because she's got the pace of kids and older folks to match and, anyhow, where's the hurry? She carries the food she gathers as well as her nursing toddler, and when they settle in to camp for the night, she walks to a nearby stream to carry back heavy water skins. She squats and then stands throughout the day: to gather, to rest, while preparing food, while braiding a daughter's hair, while peeing.
All day long, she's working her muscles but doesn't call it weight training. She's working her heart and lungs but doesn't call it cardio.
Welcome to the January 2015 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Household Chores
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories, tips, and tricks on tackling household chores. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tidy up easily, because everything had a dedicated place to stow neatly away?
This is the dream we have for
our small space, and it's one we're slowly (slooowly) achieving. As a consequence, this post is still somewhat in the "do as I say, not as I do" category, so fair warning. But we're getting there!
If you don't have a lot of space (like us), or if you have a lot of stuff (like we have had), or if you just plain have more stuff than room for it (like many) — and assuming acquiring substantially more space isn't a viable option at the moment — you'll breathe more easily if you reconfigure your stuff to fit your space.
Save your energy
Having a place for everything means — hard truth here —
having less stuff than absolutely fits. In other words, don't cram your space; get rid of things instead.
Back when feng shui was "in," I read a bit about it. I know, I know — ancient Chinese wisdom as a fad! My heartfelt apologies to anyone who's an expert and a believer. But it was quite popular a few years back in Western home decorating, so I was
curious what feng shui was all about. I didn't embrace the concept of energy as a mystic force, but I did take away a huge lesson in psychology. To wit: Clutter steals energy.
Welcome to the December 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Greatest Gifts
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have suggested go-to gifts and gifting experiences for the holiday season for all your loved ones.
I couldn't resist when the topic was gifts this month — my mind turned to my
sweet new baby, and I felt the itch to make a list of all the gifts we
haven't gotten him.
See, the grandparents have been asking us what they can give Karsten. They asked when he was born in late October, and now they're asking as Christmas looms. And we keep answering them truthfully:
We have everything.
This is the third baby,
and the third boy. We're set!
But that means I've been around the block a time or two, and
I know now what sort of natural-parenting baby registry I would make if we weren't living in Hand-Me-Down City and needed to start from scratch. My btdt experience can be to your profit! Just copy this list of must-haves and would-love-to-haves on over to your own baby registry or holiday wish list, and outfit your natural nursery
like a boss.
Note that, since I'm
constantly nak-ing a newborn, I'm going to veer toward minimalist (my preference for
our small space) rather than comprehensive and crunchy, as is my family's wont. So this list will be the
essentials we needed for breastfeeding, babywearing, cosleeping, cloth diapering, and other attachment parenting choices. If you made different parenting choices (and that's valid!), you might need to add and subtract to this list, but it can still be a good starting point as you consider your options.
Cloth diapering: Keep things super simple, and ask gift givers to pre-load gift certificates to a
diaper service. Not an option where you live? Keep things still pretty dang simple, and go with
prefolds and
wool diaper covers, plus some
wool wash and
lanolin. If you're buying supplies yourself, eBay is a good spot to look for
high-quality but reduced-price diapers and covers.
You'll want at least six covers in small or newborn size and at least 18-24 of the small prefolds. Then you can move up (probably relatively quickly) to medium and park there for awhile, so don't blow your whole budget on the smallest sizes. The good news is cloth diapers have a good resale value! Throw in some
wipes, use a
small daypack as a just-right diaper bag (reasonable size and easy to sling on your back to have hands free for baby), and store your dipes at home, both clean and dirty, in a
wet-dry hanging bag. I thought we'd need a diaper-changing pad or table, and I was wrong. You can (and will) change diapers any-old-where. If you want to throw in some elimination communication, add a
little potty — it'll come in handy eventually either way.
Babywearing: My hands-down (hands-free, ha ha!) favorite carrier is my
handmade mei tai (
tutorial here if you sew, and tutorial for a
no-sew option if you don't!). If you want something available for purchase, other magnificent options are commercial mei tais and soft structured carriers like the
Babyhawk,
Infantino Wrap and Tie (frugal option),
Ergo, and
Boba. Any of these will work well for little babies on up through toddlers, so despite the initial price tag, buying one is a thrifty choice. And might I recommend my book,
The Natural Parent's Guide to Babywearing? It will help you learn to wear your baby with confidence and ease.
Yesterday was the
Carnival of Natural Parenting, and we all gave a little home tour. Only …
my home tour turned into a loooong home tour (despite our small space — how is that possible?), so I'm posting the second half, the upstairs part, today.
Turning upstairs now! This was one of the safety fixes we had to make to the place when we moved in: making these dowel openings smaller so a baby head couldn't squeeze through. We've considered covering the stair treads with one of those
wood retrofitting kits, but maybe it's just gentler on our clumsy kids for now to have them be carpeted.
We're slowly making a gallery along the stairwell of vintage postcards, maps, and photographs. 1920s, ahoy!
Top of the stairs. That clock is cracked because it's such an antique. That's a joke. It's from Pier 1.
And, yes, we routinely drag home odd pieces of driftwood.
Turning the corner, you can see our linen closet. Yeah, we don't actually have one of those. This will do for towels.
I had this idea that the upstairs could be an amalgam of beach-cottage style with a more formal but still livable Swedish Gustavian-modern look. Hence my Pinterest boards:
Hobo Cottage and
Gustavian Modern, Hobo Style. We've been concentrating on the downstairs for now, so not much has been done, design-wise, upstairs yet.
Welcome to the September 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Home Tour
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have opened up their doors and given us a photo-rich glimpse into how they arrange their living spaces.
Hello, and welcome to our beach house!
And by "beach house," I mean 1980s condo near the beach. While most people try to upgrade and modernize, we're trying to antique-ify. We love the look of 1920s beach bungalows but the upkeep and lower price tag of a 1980s condo, so we're trying to meld!
Our entryway, with redone tile floors. It took us
so much effort to find someone who could do black & white tile the way we wanted. Apparently we're weird?
When entering, the downstairs half-bathroom is on your left, the galley kitchen on your right, and the living space straight ahead, past the stairs leading up to the second floor.
All told, we have 990-ish square feet of living space, and two bedrooms, with
soon to be five occupants. Because we're smart about family planning that way.
Le kitchen de galley. (That's the French for galley kitchen.) (It totally is.) (Don't question it.)
If you're eagle-eyed, you'll spot the things we've done … and the things still undone.
There is
so much still undone!
We've lived in this place for five years now (wow! time flies!), and it continually astonishes me how much time each renovation project takes, even now that we have some people we hire to help us with all the stuff we're too clumsy and helpless to manage.
Welcome to the April 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Family Pastimes
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared stories and wisdom about family pastimes.
We all need time as families to reconnect. Many of our families have parents who are working opposite schedules, or with one out on the job and the other at home. Many of us have kids in school or activities that keep us separated many days of the week.
Our family decided to become intentional about having
one day a week we spend solely on each other: Family Day. Does your household have a Family Day?
Sam and I have an unusual lifestyle in that
we're both self-employed, and we both unschool (homeschool) our two (
soon to be three!) kids. To make that balance, we each need dedicated time to work as well as plenty of opportunity to spend time with our children.
We've decided on this schedule, and it's been working for us for awhile now: Sam takes care of the kids Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday while I work. I take the kids Monday, Thursday, and Saturday while he works. (Sometimes the person working leaves the house for a different location, and sometimes the person taking the kids does, and sometimes the person working just hides upstairs!) This does mean our work days can sometimes be quite long since we get only three of them a week, but it's working out well at this point, and I love that we have this flexibility.
That leaves Wednesday as the best day of the week: Family Day!
I realize for a lot of people, it's probably a weekend day (or days) that ends up being Family Day, but we're happy that most things are open but not crowded mid-week. Might as well take advantage of our unique situation, right?
Are you the parent of a young baby? I hereby pass along to you my holiday gift: the
permission and suggestion to slow down and take care of yourself, too.
I've been through
four Christmases with a younger nursling. My kids are currently 6 and a half and 2 and a half years old, and I learned a thing or two from their Christmases at around six months and around 18 months on how to take the holidays easy.
Now, there's what worked for me, but then there are the choices
you will make, and it's totally possible and probable that you will have a different set of criteria and priorities when it comes to holiday celebrations. So take my advice as just a series of gentle suggestions. Sometimes people need permission to let go of the pressures of the holidays and of visits to distant relatives, and if that's you, I want to grant it!
It's your holiday celebration, too, so try to slow down and enjoy it.
Cut down on travel, or plan ahead
We traveled by plane with Mikko when he was four months old, and then again when he was seven months old. After those two experiences, we swore off plane trips for the next several years at least. We then, warily, tried
a road trip when he was 20 months old...which made us rethink future road trips. We've now traveled twice with Alrik,
once by car and once by plane, and while neither was awful, neither was a walk in the park.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
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These two handsome and independent young men were my companions yesterday.
They sat by themselves on the bus, but we all played together on the beach and at the toy store. |
Links for you!
Your three-year-old wants to build a rocket that really flies — one that he can sit in.
Your six-year-old wants to build a three-story treehouse with a fireman’s pole.
Your nine-year-old wants to write a novel that will be published by a real publisher — or a screenplay that will be produced by a real movie studio.
How can we help kids tackle their big, ambitious, seemingly unachievable goals?
Even if a relative is offended when a child does not want to kiss or hug them, this is an important time to keep in mind the bottom line—kids need to learn from an early age that touch or play for affection and fun should be the choice of BOTH people, safe, allowed by the adults in charge, and not a secret.
Respectful script here, too, for what to say in situations when relatives demand or expect hugs and kisses.
via Amy Phoenix
Very helpful article on helping kids let go of stuff, the perfect article in response to my own swirling questions about minimalism & kids & the stuff stuff stuff that’s invaded our kids’ lives.
Welcome to the July edition of the Simply Living Blog Carnival - With Kids cohosted by Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at Fine and Fair. This month, we write about keeping things simple with our kids. Please check out the links to posts by our other participants at the end of this post.
These are our experiences and tips on how our family lives more simply. Some of our experiences are a little fringe, so I don't expect everyone to be able to apply them — but maybe it will give you some food for thought!
How to simplify childcare
Sam and I both are self-employed, so we trade off taking care of our kids and working. I don't think that's all too common, but it's working well for us — we both get lots of family time but also time to earn money and pursue our passions.
How to simplify food
We eat the same things over and over — and like it! Hey, if you know what you like, you know what you like. I've never gotten frustrated by eating something yummy repeatedly. Sometimes I think, Oh, no, that must mean I'm so boring. But when I can reframe it by saying, "We're living in simplicity," suddenly it's something that came out of a gauzy magazine with soft-focus photographs of flowers and a delicious, oft-repeated meal on white plates in the foreground. And then it's in style! What we tend to do is pick meals and snacks we like, then eat them to death for weeks and months. Once we've gotten bored of one or two, we've usually glommed onto another favorite that we then eat and eat until we can rotate back to an earlier one. Easy-peasy! We don't have to menu plan, and we always have the ingredients we need or know what to buy when we're at the store.
How to simplify socializing
We don't do much of it. We're all, so far (Alrik's an unknown), introverts. We need a lot of time to decompress after being social. So we just … don't see other friends all that much. I don't want any snarky questions about how, then, my homeschoolers socialize. We do, and they're not feral, thankyouverymuch, but we limit it to what works for our peace of mind: about one or two playdates or other social outings per week.
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
But first, random adora-pictures:
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| Safety first! |
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| Splash! |
I've needed to take a little time off, but I have some good links to share!
I recently outed myself on facebook, saying that my husband and I are wanting to add an addition to our family and will soon begin trying to conceive. I have been telling people for months that I want another child, and overwhelmingly, peoples first response is “WHY???”
I’m a little confused when I am asked this. You’d think I had just expressed my deepest desire to undergo an unmedicated root canal - or contract a sexually transmitted disease.
It’s one of the most difficult parts of parenting - shedding that rough sweater of negative childhood experience in order that you don’t pass that insufferable legacy along to your kids.
Welcome to the first day of the Six Ingredient Challenge! We're spending six weeks buying foods with six ingredients or fewer. To make your transition easier, Amy of Anktangle and I are offering some recipes for simple homemade versions of (often highly processed) store-bought foods.
Today Amy is sharing a
simple chicken stock recipe and a helpful tutorial for how to make it over at Anktangle. She has photographs and detailed instructions on how to prepare this hearty staple, as well as a few options for preserving stock for later use.
Read more at Anktangle »
Welcome to the
Simply Living Blog Carnival cohosted by Mandy at
Living Peacefully with Children, Laura at
Authentic Parenting, Jennifer at
True Confessions of a Real Mommy, and Joella at
Fine and Fair. Continue your reading read on at the bottom of this post by clicking the links to the other participants' posts.
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| You don't have to be a superhero to be happy. |
There are a lot of things that simple living means to me, but that's not very simple. So I'll go with one aspect that's occurred to me recently:
I'm happy being happy.
I used to feel a driving need to be great, to
make something of my life … and I've downscaled my own expectations. And you know what? It's fine.
All my life, I've had this inkling
I should be somebody. Maybe because I was really smart as a child, I felt bad that I wasn't in fact a child prodigy. I felt sheepish thinking about Mozart (the overachiever!) or even fictional protagonists like Doogie Howser (a doctor at age 14! how can I compete?). I remember watching Jennifer Capriati play tennis at 16 or so and finding out this teen phenom was my age and hearing my parents josh that I hadn't accomplished anything so epic — and taking it to heart, even though I stank at tennis.
I was awarded all sorts of minor scholarships and honors when I graduated high school, but one that stood out to me was a music scholarship. Out of all the highly talented seniors in my musical groups, why had
I gotten the music scholarship? I wasn't even planning on a career in music;
was I worthy of such a prize? (Clearly no.)
Then there were the teachers and professors (and my mom!) telling me over and over again that I had it in me to be a writer, that I shouldn't let that gift go to waste. So as birthday after birthday passed without a novel on Oprah's list or a multi-million-dollar movie deal, I felt disappointed in my own stagnation.
It was all a sort of
megalomania without a purpose: a lot of narcissism without much sticktoitedness.
We've been inspired to create an
action-based Advent calendar this year to count down the days to Christmas. I've made a list of (at least) 24 activities that would be fun little activities throughout the season, and Mikko will get to open one each day to find out what today's adventure is.
Choosing simple and fun connection activities each day has many benefits that more traditional calendars don't always possess:
- Counting down "sleeps" to an important day like Christmas helps little ones manage the wait — and even learn numbers!
- Choosing an activity can be a healthier treat for young kids than something sugary, and it doesn't clutter up your home the way 24 days of small toys or gifts would.
- You can customize your activity calendar to match your family's preferences and schedules, including parties and events you already have planned.
- Kids don't need the activity to be anything fancy: Snuggling with you to read a special book or toasting marshmallows over the fireplace can be just as special as a trip to meet Santa or going ice skating.
- You can adapt the activities to fit particular ages and multiple kids.
The calendar
First your kids need
something to open each day. There are so many options for calendars!
For the discount DIYers among you, you don't need to get super fancy. You could use a
wide-mouthed jar filled with 24 scraps of paper; your kids reach in each day, pull out an activity, and hey presto! This does mean the activities will be sorted randomly, however, and I wanted to make sure some events fell on specific days, and that I could
rearrange activities to suit my energy level, without Mikko cottoning on. You could even just have a simple
stack of notecards that your kids turn over each day, or
place each one inside a little envelope sealed with a holiday sticker.
Other options are
24 small gift boxes (perhaps even festively wrapped!), 24
little bags (paper lunch bags, thrift shop bags, plastic baggies, whatever you've got), or 24
other teensy containers. You could set up a display and number them, or do the randomizing thing by setting them all in a box or basket to be pulled out one by one.
You can also buy or make something much fancier and longer-lasting.
If you want to decorate, you can buy an
unfinished wood Advent tree with 24 doors, a
cardboard calendar with drawers, or an
MDF Advent calendar
with a wide middle section for creating a scene.
If you want
something ready-made or further craft inspiration, I was considering these options at Etsy, for instance
(I've chosen to link to my pins in case the listings are removed so you can hopefully still see the images; the pins do link to the current listings):
magnetic tins (love these!) to stick to the fridge or a baking sheet,
mini cardboard boxes labeled with the days and hung as a set,
clothespin tree for clipping notecards or envelopes,
decorative cotton or
simple muslin bags clipped onto clothespins and strung on a jute line across the mantel or shelf,
decorated paper bags, or a
wall hanging with pockets for each day.
But here's what we did, because we're like that. We
went to Target and got this adorableness:
Fair Isle Wooden Advent Calendar
Welcome to the Sunday Surf, a tour of the
best blogposts I've read throughout the week.
We're on a road trip right now, visiting bucketloads of extended family in California. I'm really tempted to find someplace with a roller coaster soon… And tomorrow we should finally get to visit San Francisco, or as Mikko calls it, Scan Ferskisko.
Rest stop!
For now, I can offer links to read:
I thought this exchange between a Romani author and the producers of the US show was quite illuminating.
However, a show like this can harm a group of people already under scrutiny, people who also have families to watch over. Being a Romani isn’t a way of life or a cult. We aren’t Gypsy by choice or calling. No one can decide to become a Gypsy one day. We are a race of close to 10 million, with a culture that spans centuries and across continents. It is one thing to present a willing group of people in a negative light, but quite another to represent an entire race of people as a niche stereotype. This is particularly dangerous since people know so little about us and yet think they know so much.
…
The Romani always remember their roots, but that doesn’t mean they don’t break out and try to find bigger ways to express who they are. THIS diversity is who we are. Although some Romani live more traditionally, there’s an overwhelming number who have accomplished great things while still holding on to their identity. These people make up the majority of Romani, but are rarely talked about. Maybe if they’re shown, their stories told, the audience can relate in more profound ways than ever.
When trying to minimize, how do you convey your diminished need for “stuff” to extended family?
Bwahaha!
Anyway I wanted to thank you for changing my pajamas and throwing that towel down on my pee pee sheets. I noticed you didn’t open your eyes once (weird). It’s also OK that you didn’t actually change my sheets. I find the faint smell of ammonia comforting. Love means doing things halfway.
(via Emily B.)
Carnival news:
I came across Marie Kondo's book, 
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
