The Year of Less: September 2012

Friday, September 28, 2012

Day 69: Why the heck do I own so many vases?

So far on my 100 days of decluttering on facebook I have given away 8 vases. Eight. And you know what? A quick glance around my living room reveals at least 4 more. I had no idea that I had a thing for vases.

And the weird part is that I don't even know where most of them came from. Stuff just kinda shows up and moves in, right?

Before this journey began, I don't think I gave much thought to what I brought into my home. Sure, I discouraged my husband from bringing home mostly broken furniture he found at the dump, and I only bought things that I thought were sort of pretty (at the moment, anyways) but I didn't really think "Hey, Kelly, do you actually need 12 vases?" Nope, I don't remember ever asking myself that.

But I don't need 12 vases. In fact, truth be told, I don't really need any vases. I could put flowers in a pitcher or a mason jar. Mason jars are minimalist workhorses. They can hold flowers, or candles, or pens, or pickled beets....talk about a multitasker!

But I digress. My point, I suppose, is that I am realizing that I need to start asking more questions about the items I bring home. Like "Do I need this?" "Do I already own something that could fulfill this purpose?" "If I was moving across country and only had a couple days to pack, would I pack this item?"

"Is this item more valuable than the otherwise empty space it will take up?" Because space is beautiful and empty surfaces are a beckoning to play and create and share ourselves with one another.

And the big one: "Is there something more valuable my money could go towards?" Like, you know, food for the hungry? Or a card for a neighbour who needs to know I'm thinking of them? Or a couple Pumpkin Spice Lattes for me and a friend while the conversation oscillates casually between the trivial and the heart-cries in that way that can only happen over a hot drink with a good friend?

I'm actually going to keep a couple vases. There is nothing wrong with owning something pretty to plunk your flowers in. But I'm going to stop buying vases. And, more importantly, I'm going to ask a lot more questions of the stuff I bring home. I'm going to be a better curator of our possessions, because rooms with less stuff have more room for people and life and laughter.

And I'm going to treat a good friend to a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Announcing The October Challenge: Sermon on the Mount Month

Each month we encourage you to join us in our pursuit of radical simplicity by doing one small thing with us for a whole month.

The October challenge is to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5,6 & 7) every single day for 31 days.

Why? This summer our church studied the Sermon on the Mount. Our pastor encouraged us to read it every week all summer. Although, truth be told, I didn't actually read it every single week, I did read it a lot. And I was stuck by 2 things: First, that these passages are so very relevant to the journey that our family is on. If you want a manifesto for a simple, radical, authentic life you will find it in the Sermon on the Mount. And secondly, that it never gets old. There is so much in these chapters to change us and guide us and move our hearts that it never seems to get stale.

The timing is on purpose here. By the end of October most of us will be thinking about the holidays. Our pinterest boards will be filling up with ideas, our schedules will be filling up with events and parties and commitments, and what I want more than anything for our family this Christmas is that we would know what it is that Christ wants for his birthday. That we would seek to give these red letter words their rightful authority in our lives. That it would be more than advice or ancient wisdom, but the earth shattering truth of a God who was willing to love until it cost him everything this life can offer.

So, will you join me? Starting next Monday, will you find the time to read these three chapters of Matthew every day for 31 days?

If so, feel free to use this banner to share the challenge on your own blog. Just cut and paste the code below:

In unrelated news: Our family is currently fighting off an illness, catching up on laundry and life after having weekend guests, and preparing for 31 days to Savour the Season (my October blog series that starts on my other blog next week.) Plus, we have a new puppy! Soooo....all that to say that posts might be a wee bit sparse this week while we are busy juggling life in general. Please be patient, I promise I haven't gone anywhere!

Friday, September 21, 2012

Day 62: Vigilant Composting

The Task: To become zealous composters.

The Why: We've been composting for years. In fact, Luke loves compost. As in, he's been at peoples houses and noticed that they were about to throw out a bunch of rotten fruit and asked if he could take it home with him. Seriously, it's a little embarrassing. The idea that we can turn kitchen waste into black gold for our garden appeals to our trash-to-treasure hearts.

But honestly, in our own kitchen, we get kinda lazy about it sometimes. If we fill the compost bin in the middle of meal preparation, we just start throwing the rest of the compost in the garbage. I'm not the kind of avid composter who picks banana peels out of the garbage if my two year old gets confused about what bin it should go in. Or at least I wasn't, until today.

The Benefits of Composting:

It creates good, nutrient dense soil for the garden for free! Hooray!
Compost actually helps to detoxify the soil. That is something our world could use a little more of!
It diverts kitchen waste from landfills. (I used to wonder about this. Doesn't the compost just break down at the landfill? Does it matter where you put the things that will biodegrade anyways? But it does matter, because the landfill doesn't create the right conditions for composting. This site explains it far better than I can.)
It saves fuel. Twenty seven percent of the trash being trucked to landfills is food waste and yard scraps. Then that waste gets shoveled around at the landfill. Imagine what a difference it could make if everyone with a backyard started composting their vegetable scraps instead of throwing them in the trash?
It saves money. Where we live we pay a two dollar fee per bag to dispose of garbage. This is on top of the municipal taxes we pay that fund the garbage disposal site. Less garbage = more money in our pockets.

The How: So, as of today I am the kind of person who picks banana peels out of the trash. We toss all of our veggie and grain scraps (as well as things like dryer lint, facial tissues, tea bags and coffee grounds) into a pail under the kitchen sink. Each evening (and sometimes more often!) we take the compost out to the big 3 section compost bin I built a few years ago while Luke was at work and I was looking to overcome my fear of power tools.

We never ever compost meat or dairy or anything cooked in animal fat. I know many people do, but that just encourages a whole host of other issue, such as slower decomposition and maggots. Ick! I'm pretty sure that if there were maggots in my compost heap I would have to cry and/or vomit and/or move. Just kidding.... sort of.

We don't obsess over the ratio of nitrogen rich and carbon rich materials, we just put compost in the bin as it becomes available, give it a little turn with the pitchfork now and then, and it always breaks down beautifully. We periodically switch which section we throw our scraps in to give another section a chance to break down into happy soil.

The Verdict: I know that there is nothing glamourous about a heap of rotting produce, but I can't help but love our compost pile. I can't believe we've been so lackadaisical about it, it's such a beautiful thing!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

How is Eat Your Pantry Month Going?

We are two-thirds of the way through the month and two-thirds of the way through our Eat Your Pantry Challenge. If you're doing the challenge at your house, I'd love to know how it's going!

Today I thought I'd share some of the best, worse and funniest ways this month's challenge has affected our dinner hour.

Most kid-pleasing pantry recipe: Lentil and Brown Rice Tacos. I used to make these all the time but kinda forgot about them. I am so glad that this challenge reminded me of this dish, because my kids love it and I'm pretty sure it is the cheapest thing I could possibly feed them.

Most likely to convert me into a bean-eater: We tried this recipe. Oh. My. Goodness. Maybe it's the bacon, maybe it's the quarter cup of minced garlic in it, but this recipe made me temporarily forget that I hate beans. And my bacon-and-garlic-lovin' family devoured it.

Most awkward pantry moment: I invited guests over for Sesame Chicken so that I could use up the sesame seeds I had in the pantry. In all the last minute busyness to get dinner served I forgot to toast the sesame seeds and add them to the sesame chicken. So we had not-so-sesame chicken. And the sesame seeds are still in my pantry. I guess we'll have to try again....

Biggest Eat-Your-Pantry Month cheat: We used red kidney beans as bingo tokens. That might honestly be the only thing they are good for. Did I mention that I hate beans?...

How is Eat Your Pantry Month going at your house? Have you reached into the far corners of your dried goods and discovered some fabulous new recipes? Please share in the comments below!

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Day 59: A Simpler Approach to Seasonal Decorating

When it comes to simpler living, Ma Ingalls is my hero. I know she wasn't a minimalist on purpose, and that she is at least a little bit fictionalized, and that her life was oftentimes very difficult, but when my girls and I cuddle together on the couch to read from the Little House series we sigh and swoon at the beautiful simplicity of the life they lived.

My 4 year old would be thrilled to spend her days playing barefoot in plum creek with a homemade bonnet swaying on it's strings down her back.

So as silly as this may sound, sometimes along this journey to a simpler life, I ask myself what Ma Ingalls would have done. I've stood in my kitchen holding single task kitchen tools asking myself "Would Ma Ingalls own this?"

And lately I've been contemplating how Ma Ingalls celebrated the seasons. In fact, how anybody celebrated the seasons before pinterest, and magazines, and entire aisles in Walmart devoted to seasonal decor.

I live in a place that has four distinct, beautiful, humbling seasons. The notion that I would need to store boxes full of manufactured decorations in order to savour these seasons is starting to seem a little bit ridiculous to me. It seems especially odd as autumn approaches, a season marked by contentment and thankfulness.

The rhythmn of the year is a beautiful thing, and it is only natural that we would want our homes filled with the sights and smells and festivity of the seasons. But the fact is that there is nothing in those seasonal aisles at Walmart that will make the season more meaningful for our families. Nothing. There, I said it.

So instead of decorating for autumn this year, I am letting autumn permeate our home. The pumpkins waiting to be turned into pie, the sunflowers from the yard, the apple pie jam we will make and cool in jars on the counter top. The lovely braided garlic from the Farmer's Market that will be disappearing a little with each stew and pot pie we enjoy together.

I have a wire wreath form that I will be adorning with seasonal foliage, and I might splurge on a scented candle if I find I have a spot to enjoy it. But aside from a few small items, our goal is that most of our seasonal decorations would be consumable or compostable.

The Verdict: I feel like a weight has lifted. I don't need to craft a fall mantlescape or create a charming porch vignette. My seasonal decorating can happen organically, as I find a place to perch our winter squash until it is time to make soup or fill our house with the scent of autumn while I heat apple cider on the stove.

I like to think that Ma Ingalls would approve...

Monday, September 17, 2012

Day 58: Switching the Lightbulbs

The Task: To (finally) switch our incandescent light bulbs out for energy efficient Light Emitting Diode (LED) and Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFL)

The Why: It's kind of embarrassing that here we are on day fifty-eight of this journey doing the first thing most people do when they want to decrease their energy consumption.

When the CFLs first came out we did buy a box of them with a 50% off coupon and replaced three light bulbs in the house. That was about all we could afford that day, so we figured we'd switch the rest out over time and it just never happened.

Incandescent light bulbs are notoriously inefficient. I've read many times that they release 90% of the electricity consumed as heat and only 10% as light! Plus, they burn out more often, which means more manufacturing, more packaging to end up in landfills, and more fuel needed to ship them to our local stores.

So this weekend we had some light bulbs than needed replacing, a reasonably fresh paycheck still partially unspent, and great sale at a nearby hardware store. It seemed like a good time to upgrade.

The How: We replaced most of our lights with CFLs. There is one light above the bathtub that we leave on at night as a sort of nightlight (we live in the country and there are no street lights outside, so we would literally be walking into walls on our way to the bathroom if we didn't leave some sort of light on!) so we splurged and switched that one out for an LED that uses only 4 watts of electricity. Now I can feel so much better about leaving that light on all night!

There are two lights in the master bedroom that are on dimmers, and dimmable CFL's weren't on sale this week, and we aren't bazillionaires, so we're going to wait for the mega expensive dimmable CFL's to go on sale before making that last upgrade.

The Verdict: I added up the watts of our before bulbs and after bulbs. Before making the switch we had 1546 watts of light in our house. Now we have a total of 413 watts of light!

Plus, we did the math, and if these bulbs really last the 6 or 7 years they are supposed to, compared to the old lights that needed to be replaced approximately twice a year, we are actually spending less on light bulbs, albeit, all at once. So the situation feels kind of win-win.

Friday, September 14, 2012

Day 55: Decluttering the Clutter Busters {ha!}

The Task: To get rid of some of the racks, dividers, totes and baskets that are now useless because I'm no longer trying to cram as much stuff as I can into our space!

The Why: Today's task is as much a celebration as it is a chore. In the last 55 days of decluttering we have made a huge stack of empty totes, bins, and organizers in our basement.

Minimalism is turning all those storage solutions that we thought would fix our clutter problems into clutter!

The How: I am keeping a few favourite baskets until we are done decluttering/reorganizing because I may find that a certain basket is useful in a place I haven't dealt with just yet. I'm also keeping some large totes because they make for a great place to brood baby chickens (if you don't know what I'm talking about, that's okay) but for the most part, these things can go. I can't believe that just 2 months ago we had enough stuff to fill all of these baskets and totes and bags and bins!

I'm giving away some of these things to friends on facebook and I'm packing up our thrift store donations in reusable bins, the thrift store can either sell the bins or use them!

We talked about saving the bins until we move, but there isn't a move on our immediate horizon and free cardboard boxes are easy enough to come by.

The Verdict: This just makes me smile. It feels like a reason to celebrate. I no longer stroll through stores looking for clever ways to stash my stuff. Our closets have tons of room because they aren't filled with things that add nothing to our life. I am loving how much easier it is to keep our spaces tidy and organized with less stuff. Hooray!

Plus, I feel a little bit like we're "sticking it to the man", so to speak. We are solving our clutter problem without making a trip to a fancy home store or buying the latest clever storage solution. We're learning that the answer to a more peaceful, cozy, welcoming home is not about having the right stuff, but less stuff.

What about you guys? I know many of you are following along, radically minimizing your own belongings as well. Do you have a pile of totes and storage devices that are evidence of how far you've come? Are you finding your home easier to keep tidy and organized with less stuff around?

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Day 54: Choosing a Better Thrift Store

Not everything we're getting rid of is going to a thrift store. Some things are passed on to friends and family, some to people we know in our community who need them, some to shelters, pregnancy crisis centers and other charities. A few large items have been sold online (with the caveat that we must immediately give away or put the money we receive from it towards our debt!) But many of the things we are decluttering are going to the thrift store.

In the city near our home, there are a number of thrift stores.

There is one that is situated in the fancy, shiny, commercial part of town. It's a giant department store style thrift store that sells things for just a tiny bit less than they would be new. It's not uncommon for dollar store items to be priced at 99 cents or a pair of jeans to be seventeen bucks!

This store is really easy to donate to. They're located across from the mall, around the corner from our church. They are open long hours every day of the week and they have one of those bells that rings when you pull up to the donation centre so that a store person can come out and help you unload all of your junk.

Up until recently, we didn't give it much thought. We just took stuff to the convenient donation centre at the side of the great big fancy thrift store. Our motivation was to get the things out of our home, not to see them redistributed to those who need them.

In contrast, all over the city there are small not-for-profit thrift stores that are intentionally located in the parts of town where they are needed most. These places have a reputation for selling baby clothes for a quarter and giving deals to single moms with armloads of back to school clothes. Many of them use the proceeds from the thrift store to fund valuable community services such as food banks and shelters. They aren't as convenient to donate to, they have fewer hours of operation and no extra staff members to help you unload. But for us, once we thought about it, the decision was easy.

The word redistribution has been on my mind a lot lately. Some of us have way too much while many have too little. We are carefully choosing to take our unneeded items to a store that was designed to redistribute these things to those who need it, and it's desire is to serve and bless the community.

So that's today's task. To be more intentional about where our stuff goes. And to give things away with reckless abandon knowing that it will end up in the hands of somebody who needs it far more than I do.

By the way, this post was originally slated for yesterday. But then Luke's work crew, who was planning to be out of town on a job all week finished their work early and Luke came home unannounced 2 days early, surprising me with a few flowers and fancy truffles from a lovely little chocolate shop on route.

So I ate chocolate and snuggled my man instead.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Day 52: Sorting and Storing Kids' Clothes

The Task: To radically reduce the amount of kids clothes we have stored in the basement.

The Why: Our 6th baby (a girl!) is due in December, less than a week after my oldest child will turn 6. That means that we are approximately one week short of having six kids in six years. When you are perpetually pregnant, you acquire a lot of baby clothes.

It isn't uncommon for friends who are done having kids to give us big black garbage bags filled with clothes. We've also received clothing as baby gifts and I've been known to browse my local thrift store for great deals, especially when that pregnancy nesting urge causes me to swoon at the sight of anything itsy-bitsy.

My solution, up until now, has been to immediately donate any items I know for sure that I won't use and to store the rest in totes, sorted by size. This "solution" has resulted in us collecting hoards of children's clothing. It's like a Baby GAP outlet in our basement.

This is embarrassing...

Eeek! Insane, right? Yesterday I had to haul all of this up from the basement (in my pregnant, tired, grumpy state) tote by tote and sort through it all. I swear that the best way to become a minimalist real quick is to haul all of your crap a long enough distance from where it was hiding that you just don't want to haul it all back!

The How: My favourite decluttering technique that I've embraced on this journey of less is to set limits for our stuff. It allows us to keep only what we've decided we can reasonably use and store, and it discourages shopping because we have a limit on how much space our stuff can fill up.

So I set a limit of four bins of clothing for our kids to grow in to: one for the baby girl on the way, one for our twin girls, one for my little boy, and one for my two oldest girls (who are close enough in age and size that things get handed down without needing to be stored anywhere in between.)

I'm giving away all of the clothing items that I never particularly liked or that we have too many of. Very worn and ratty things are becoming rags.

Also, I'm giving away all of the boy stuff my son has grown out of.

*sniff*

I asked a good friend yesterday if she would like some of the baby boy clothes for her son and she responded by asking me the very thing I had been asking myself. You're getting rid of the baby boy clothes? But what if....?

What if we have another baby after this one? And what if it's a boy?

The math of the matter suggests that if we have another baby after this one (undecided) and it's a boy (turns out the whole "it must be a boy, since you have so many girls" thing is not actually scientifically sound), my son will be nearly 5 years old by then. That is a long time to be hoarding adorable little boy clothes, just in case.

It should be a crime to keep spiffy little outfits like this hoarded in the basement when some other little man could be wooing hearts in it. No?

The Verdict: I know I told you all a while back that I'm not very sentimental, but I'll confess; packing up the little boy clothes choked me up a little bit. I'll get over it.

I have 5 big blue recycling bags full of clothes to take to the thrift store, plus a box of girl stuff for a friend having her first baby girl this winter and a box of the best of the boy stuff for my friend's little man.

And I'm left with my 4 totes of clothing plus 3 smaller totes of winter gear such as snow suits and boots.

And my favourite part: because I got rid of so much stuff, I'm able to store everything I'm keeping in matching totes. Yes, that's the kind of thing that makes me giddy!

The Lessons We're Learning: Honestly, decluttering is a hassle. I don't want to do all this work and then keep collecting and consuming stuff and have to do it all again in another 5 years. We don't want to spend our lives moving our stuff around, and having yard sales, and finding versatile organizational solutions so that we can cram as much as possible into our storage areas.

We need to be more careful about what we bring into the home, pickier about how many hand-me-downs we accept (although we are certainly grateful for them!), and quicker to redistribute things we don't need.

Oh, and free stuff is never entirely free. It costs time, energy, space, and sometimes even a trip to the mall for a cute little cardigan to go with it.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Day 51: No More Answering Machine

Can I start by letting you all in on the embarrassing truth that every single conversation Luke and I have had, ever, about an answering machine has resulted in at least one of us breaking out in the chorus of this ridiculous song. It's actually been stuck in my head all morning. Now it's stuck in your head too. You're welcome.

The Task: Ditch the answering machine (and the double handset cordless phone it's attached to!)

The Why:

I'm home, like, 95% of the time. Seriously, it's kind of sad.
Pretty much every time that I don't answer the phone because I'm busy snuggling a baby to sleep or changing a diaper and I think to myself "I'll just let the machine get it", the caller doesn't leave a message. And then I'm mad at all of humanity for no good reason.
We really don't need to be accessible at all times. Do we?
If it's important, they'll call back.
Or they could call Luke's cell phone, or email me, or facebook us. Or drive to our house and leave a note on the door.
And if somebody isn't able to do any of those things to contact us they are probably just calling to sell us tickets to the circus, or invite us to take a short customer satisfaction survey.

The only reason we have an answering machine is because somebody gave us one for free and then it broke, so we replaced it. And when we replaced it we bought one that comes with two cordless phones because that's the kind of phones people have these days, right? But then we had to keep our cheap 7 dollar no-electricity-needed phone for the not uncommon occurrence that the power fails in our rural community.

So now we have three phones.

In a 1000 square foot house!

And the really funny part is that the cord on the cheap 7 dollar phone is so long that you can actually walk pretty much anywhere in the house with it, making the (two handset!) cordless phone purchase kinda, um, dumb. I don't know what we were thinking.

The How: We listed the cordless phones with answering machine for sale on kijiji, and plugged in our zero-electricity old-fashioned plain-jane wall phone. Although the energy savings from this switch won't make a noticeable difference on our electricity bill, I like that we aren't wasting electricity on a completely unnecessary device.

And imagine how much electricity we would save as a society if everybody ditched the electronics they could happily live without?

The Verdict: I can see why answering machines were a great thing when they were invented. There was a time when it was difficult to relay information to people. But with cell phones and email and facebook, I think we are far more likely to suffer from being too accessible than not accessible enough!

And if I'm snuggling a baby and the phone rings and I choose not to get it, I can be pretty sure that I'm not missing out on anything more important than the precious moment I'm enjoying.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Day 48: Wash Your Dish (Lessons in Mindfulness)

Sometimes I feel like my life is spent rushing from one task to another, never really able to complete anything. My life is so often dictated by the next emergency, the next urgent request, the next appointment we're running late for. And I'm tired.

It's been a busy week. And I can't even really do a "Yay, it's Friday" happy dance because there is an even busier week on the horizon.

But part of this lesson we're trying to learn, this life we're trying to live, this radical simplicity we claim to be growing towards is intentionality. It's about doing things on purpose, with purpose. It's about serving with joy instead of running around like a chicken with it's head cut off trying to cross as much as humanly possible off today's to-do list.

As I contemplated this I remembered posts I'd read, like this one and this one. Wash your bowl. I can do that.

So today's task isn't some grand project. I'm not emptying out any cupboards or packing stuff up for the thrift store. I'm not swearing off my dishwasher for good. I'm just washing my bowl. I'm mindfully completing one task before moving on to the next. I'm clearing my sink and my counter because physical clutter is distracting and exhausting, and then I'm moving on to the next task with that same mindfulness, intentionality, and thankfulness for this hectic, busy, beautiful life I've been given!

Have a fabulous weekend. And Happy Friday!

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Day 47: Reducing Energy Use While We Sleep!

The Task: To put our stereo, internet, and router on a power bar with a switch so that we can just turn it off at the end of the day or when we are not home!

The Why: Our hope is that by finding many little ways to reduce our electricity usage we will eventually see a small decrease in our overall consumption and our electric bill.

But it's also the principle of the matter. Why are we drawing energy for 8 hours at night for things that aren't being used? And why do we use energy to run a wireless internet even when we are away from the house for the entire day?

There are extra benefits to this simple switch too. The surge protector will protect our electronics in a power outage, which is especially convincing for us because our stereo is down to only one speaker after a recent momentary power outage blew the right speaker and left it smoking and emitting a putrid burnt rubber smell!

The Verdict: Flicking the switch takes about two seconds. It was easy enough to do while locking the doors and turning out the lights on our way to bed last night. And even if we never see any decrease in our electricity bill (I'm not holding my breath for that, this is a very small change!) it is a step towards being more intentional about the resources we use, which is a big part of what this year of less is all about.

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Day 45: Completing (and abandoning!) Projects

The Task: To collect all of the projects I have on the go and either complete them, make some progress on them, or abandon them along with all of their accompanying craft clutter.

The Why: I have a confession to make: I like to plan for and shop for a project more than I like to actually work on a project. My craft closet was stuffed to the brim with the makings of some great (and some not-so-great!) craft projects than never came to fruition.

Plus I occasionally put off mending a torn piece of clothing for so long that by the time I finally do mend it, it no longer fits the child it belonged to when I first said "oh, no big deal, mommy can just sew that...."

When we think of clutter we often think of knick-knacks and useless kitchen gadgets, but to me the absolute worst type of clutter is to-do list clutter. Projects that hang over my head undone stress me out and make me want to avoid working on projects at all!

The How: I unloaded the craft closet into my laundry room (I wish I'd thought to take a picture. It looked like the craft store went binge drinking with your grandmothers fabric stash and together they threw up all over my laundry room.) Then I went through each item and decided which projects I would complete and which ones should be abandoned.

I spent a couple hours today working on the projects I decided to keep and was able to mend a stack of clothing and make some real progress on a couple sewing projects I am excited about.

And I have a mostly full tote of craft supplies to give away.

The Verdict: I feel so liberated! All of those projects I had planned for and shopped for and then lost interest in are no longer hanging over my head! The only half done projects left in my craft stash are ones I am super excited about.

By completing some projects and abandoning others I was able to move most of my craft stuff to just the top shelf of the craft closet, making room to use it as an organized homeschool closet as well! Woohoo!

And it is so nice to be caught up on all the clothes mending. In fact, I just might like this feeling enough that next time I say "mommy can just sew that button back on..." I will actually do it, like,um, that day!

Monday, September 3, 2012

Day 44: Restaurant-less Date Night

This weekend we had dinner on the patio of the cutest little bistro around. Our own home.

We put the kids down to bed, and by some miraculous act of God, they all went straight to sleep.

A candle in a mason jar, a flower from the yard, our best linens and dishes, and Serena Ryder on the stereo. Sounds like date night to me.

We sat and talked and laughed together in the candlelight for hours until the mosquito chased us inside.

A simple, quiet, delightful evening on the porch. A fabulous restaurant-less date night.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Day 42: Eat Your Pantry Month

Today is the first day of September, and that means the first day of September's Eat Your Pantry Challenge!

The Task: To eat all the stuff that is in our pantry. (With the exception of almond, vanilla and coconut extracts, meringue powder, salt and corn starch...we don't have to finish those things!) We will be endeavoring to eat the beans that have been there for a year, the chickpeas and split peas of unknown vintage, pastas, barley, and specialty flours. Whether we like it or not, we are going to muster up the creativity and courage and turn them into dinner.

The Why: We are spoiled. I am guilty of standing with the pantry door open and exclaiming that there is nothing to eat for dinner. And what I really mean is that there is nothing that I want to eat. Or that I failed to plan ahead enough to make something great from scratch.

Even though the shelf life of some of these dry pantry items is supposedly as long as 6-8 years, at the rate we're eating them (which is pretty much not at all) they seriously run the risk of going bad in our pantry. So we are going to do what we should have done from the beginning: be thankful for a pantry full of (mostly) nutritious food instead of wishing we had something more delectable.

The How: You can create whatever ground rules you want for your own Pantry challenge. You could plan to eat from your pantry 3 nights a week, or to make a soup from scratch every weekend using what you can from your pantry and freezer.

For us, I've moved all of the pantry items so that there is one big empty shelf in my pantry. This is where any new things will go: a bag of flour I need to get, some fresh potatoes, that sort of thing. The rest of the shelves are the ones we need to eat up. And eat them we will!

There is no rule against buying new things. We will need to buy fresh veggies and dairy products and meats to go with our pantry adventures, we just need to make a point to eat what is in the pantry. And to be grateful for it.

So, what inspired pantry meal is kicking off this challenge in our household? Black bean soup? Enchiladas? Split pea and brown rice burgers? Errr....Um....well, actually we are grilling beef burgers with friends today! But I had to do something to commemorate the first day of eat your pantry month, so I'm simmering some chickpeas (and then roasting some garlic, YUM!) so that I can make some homemade hummus to go on the burgers.

Are you joining us? What are your rules to help you eat your pantry this month?

P.S. If you know of any recipes containing beans that are so yummy that even this avid bean-hater will like them, please leave a link in the comments below! And don't forget to get the button to share on your own blog if you're following along! Thanks!