Changes towards Simplicity

There are a lot of little changes that are going on in my life right now. The good sort. We've spent quite a few years just trying to "get through" pretty much since we left Durango, but now we have found a place we would like to call home and finally all the ideas of someday are becoming today. For years after we first met we talked and lived very simply, but grad school and moving has complicated life a lot. Often it was easier to let the simple lifestyle get away from us because of time and money constraints... well mainly the time and stress.

But lately I've been feeling (and we did both come to this thought quite separately the conversation was so connecting) that really we need to go back to all those ideas that we have put to some day. So often it feels easier to take what is handed to you prepackaged or prearranged when actually once you start the habits of simplicity they take so much less effort. It is the starting that take the most psychological effort. 

So as this year winds down and I look towards the return of the sun I want to welcome it inspired to return to simplicity. I have visions of peacefulness washing over our household by midsummer.  Even now as I begin the process of simplifying I can see this difference, more gets done, communication is smoother, creativity returns. But this is just a start there is so many facets to living simply that we have to return to that the process is almost like building a home, thankfully we already have the foundation built.

Longing

For the last few days I have been longing for snow. Usually I am excited for autumn and I am happy that it is here but something in me wants winter with it's long dark nights and white days. Mainly though I have been dreaming of the smell of snow how it smells like water but without the humid after tones. After a year filled with bright colors and shades of pink and orange I want the restfulness of whites and grays.... Or maybe it is the silence I crave, the year has been filled with noise and I am ready again to retreat into my head and empty out a little, spend more time making than planning. In winter I am less inclined to run all over the place and I need this pause.

There is a photo my father took years ago of cattails in the snow. The reeds are black against a white of late afternoon winter sun, that is what I want my world to look like. I want it to taste the way it tastes when I suck the water out of a fist full of snow and I want it to smell like fires and water and cold all at once.

Rather than being frustrated by my longing it invigorates me. It is the action verb winter not the noun.

Sketching

I haven't been able to get into my studio to make anything in weeks. Actually it's half in boxes and the rest is strewn everywhere. So I decided to take my creative energy and start sketching again. I haven't had a sketch book since before Alder was born. The nice thing about a sketchbook is that I can take it along. So while A is in the sandbox I can draw (I'm not exactly a playground socialite).








On the cost cutting front so far we've baked one loaf of bread and the only food purchased out was a cup of coffee and a brownie (I was working at a late night fair downtown last night)

Cutting Costs

Like everyone else out there we have been struggling with the rise in cost of oil. Both directly with our gas tank and indirect with food. We have decided to use the next month to cut our spending as much as possible. In fact we have challenged ourselves in a few different areas of our life to see how the changes affect our bank account. I admit that while a lot of these changes are ones that we have been wanting to make for a long time our reasons for changing them now are initiated by our personal need to spend less money.

We've already reduced the amount of extra driving trips from our life, this has been especially tough for me who is a wanderer by nature so I have had to get used to having my wings clipped. I am starting to discover more nearby and really appreciate the times that I do get to go for longer drives. But driving is still a big part of our life (at least for the next few weeks) since Kevin is now commuting four days a week out of town.

The changes that we are making are as follows:

1) Eating out only once a week. Other than books, which we have already cut way down on this is really our only extra expenditure.

2) Move to the town where Kevin is working, in walking distance of his job. This is a big one, right now we have an almost 500 dollar a month gas bill. It will also cut down on driving because there is a lot for Alder and I to do in this town that is either walking distance or very short drives.

3) We are moving into a much smaller apartment that is all on one floor. This is more important for the winter when we won't have as much to heat. Plus it has a fenced in yard and is a few blocks from a playground.

4) We are going to get back into baking all of our bread products. Another bonus of our new apartment is that it has a great kitchen. Right now we're stuck with barely any counter space.

5) Air dry most of our laundry, this one is still going to take some persuading of Kevin but I'm determined.

I'm going to use this blog to help me keep track of our progress. In theory the eating out ban is only for a month but we hope that we'll just get into the habit.

Any other ideas on cost cutting is welcome.

OSL Week 2

One Local Summer week 2 (I'm behind by a week, at some point here there will be two, if I can mange to get to a computer that often) note that this meal was made away from home so the milage is from both our house and the place that we had the meal. The two houses are 40 miles apart.

Rosemary Bread Quiche

1 loaf of Rosemary Bread 4 miles Olde Creamery, Cummington MA
komatsuna (collard greens like veggie) 4 miles Mighty Food Farm , Pownal VT
eggs 3 miles, Hawley MA
milk, regional Western Massachusetts Cooperative Dairy
goat cheese impasta, Guilford VT, 50 miles (but 18 from where Kevin works)
salt, not local.

Sauteed Kolrabi

kolrabi 4 miles Mighty Food Farm, Pownal VT
garlic, not local
salt, not local
chives, 0 miles kitchen garden.

Strawberry Shortcake

strawberries 2 miles, The Apple Barn, Bennington VT
cream 22 miles, Hadley MA
flour 70 miles aprox, King Aurthur Flour.
butter, regional, Cabot creamery (VT coop)
salt, not local
baking powder, not local
baking soda, not local

The World Made By Hand- a Book Review and Tangents

Our little part of Vermont sits in the corner butting up against Berkshire county in Massachusetts and Washington and Rensselaer Counties in New York. So, when I picked up James Kunstler's World Made By Hand I knew the setting intimately. Kunstler, who is more known for his nonfiction books takes draws on the ideas from much of his other writing, including the Long Emergency.

The idea behind the novel is that oil has run out, the United States has been ed in Washington DC and Los Angeles, and there has been two epidemics that have wiped out 1/3 of the population. But that is just the background. The story focuses on one small town in upstate New York and what life is like there. Told through the eyes of Robert who is a carpenter (at least at this point of his life) we see how, in a time when there is no power, no cars, and no centralized government, how the world of this small town evolves. While the plot of the story is driven by various conflicts and adventures Kunstler spends most of his time describing how, in a world without all of the modern "necessities" people get things done.

After reading the first third of the book one night I had to put it down for an entire week. I would get up in the middle of the night and think about the best way to use the land the family cabin is on, I made a list of all the skills I need to learn, I even figured out details about what strengths different family members had how they would be useful. I had to put the book down so that I could refocus myself. After a few days I went from the stressful 'Oh my god this is going to happen tomorrow' attitude to seeing that this isn't immediate but it is possible one.

Last night I picked up the book again last night and finished it. The stress of the week before had subsided and I was excited to find out about the characters. While it isn't a complex emotional story Kunstler does manage to make a reasonable transition from nonfiction to fiction with this novel. I've reviews that criticize his white only setting of the novel but I think it makes sense, he wanted to focus on how things would work, the only diversity is religious. But every book can't be everything, it is just one story so I forgive him the limits he put on the story. It would have been a different book if there were cultural differences that had to be addressed. This is a work of fiction it doesn't have to all things for all people.

The stress that World Made by Hand has left me with has transformed into an excitement that I haven't felt since childhood. While I know none of this is going to happen tomorrow or next month I get a thrill from imagining what exactly life would be like. As a kid I would spend hours imagining so many different realities for myself. What if I was a medieval knight on the road what would I bring? What would it be like to live in "olden days" (Little House on the Prairie)? These questions would fill my mind for hours, including much of my school days. But now I understand that it isn't just if these events happen to prepare for them but that some of these skills and approaches to life might actually be better for me.

All you hear about lately is local food and going green, change for saving our planet has been co-opted by fashion and popularity. What so much of the discussion about these changes forgets is how it affects us as people, right now. We've started making all of our bread products (with a few exceptions) this means that I spend up to an hour a week kneading dough. Not a big deal, except for me it is one of the best parts of my day, sure I could use the mixer to do it but there is something balancing about it, I look forward to it. A lot of these changes involve slowing down and taking more time to focus on ourselves, our families and communities, something that hasn't been important for decades. We live in a country where fame and excessive wealth is considered the apex of achievement. Children are spend more time with nannies and tutors than their own families so that everyone can spend their time 'getting ahead'.


Personally I'd like to slow down a little and spend more time focusing on being a family and enjoying our lives. Of course, that involves financial security but I am not willing to give up our happiness for a financial number that grows inversely to the amount of time we spend together or at least doing things we love.

Hopes and Dreams

I sat at work today and had lots of ideas about what I wanted to say here. It was a cold day and not a lot of people were out on the street so there was a lot of time to think and do things like sort through another tin of buttons and knit half a hat. But walking home I realized that most of what I wanted to do was complain, except for one thought. So I decided that I want to share with you my secret dream for my future.

This is not necessarily a pragmatic dream but it is where I want to be five or six years from now. It is also something that I have wanted to do in some form for years. I want to live on a small farm where part of the facility is a retreat center. Where we can host health wellness and creativity retreats. I don't mean that we would be constantly assaulted with groups but maybe six weekends a year there could be a group staying with us who would focus on one of those areas. Nothing too new age-y just good for you pauses in life that people don't get very often.

Part of this plan will happen sooner when we open an online version of Seven Mountain (not the acupuncture part). The idea is that we might be making enough money between the three parts of the business that we could afford to hire someone to be at the shop five days a week, leaving me to do the online orders and be with Alder at home on this someday farm.

A lot of this is rooted back in the reasons that I started CITY (creative independent teaching for youth) back in Denver. I don't want to be a teacher, but I want to help connected people, and kids especially, with creativity in a non school setting. I would never want to host classes from city schools or anything like that but I would love to have families from these same schools come together for these weekends.

Of course when Kevin and I talk about this we joke that we would end up renting space out for weddings by default (no I do not want to have destination weddings in my back yard, unless they are willing to get married on the compost pile). But when we talk about our future there is always an aspect of being integrated in the community. I could see renting out the space for very reasonable rates for local groups to use and to donate the space for nonprofits to use.

This is all integrated into our whole life dream that includes educating Alder ourselves in a very rich environment. Rather than searching out bits and pieces of the community of learners I would rather start cultivating it now. Of course it would be nice if I could have a moments rest where I could sit down and introduce him to play-dough (that's on the table for tomorrow).

All of these dreams are starting though, we are going to use some of the walls at Seven Mountain as a gallery sometimes and we are having our first artists show in January, Patti Williams and her 50 paintings. Like a garden this dream needs a lot of gentle tending.

I hope you all out there have your own dreams to nurture.

warmly,
Stacey

Answering a Couple Questions

The machine is a Wards Signature, from the 50's or 60's I think since it does have some plastic on the plug but it's the older very hard sort, back when they looked at plastic as a fancy alternative not a throw-away, like now.

Kevin and I have shared space in a few past places but one of us ends up moving out after a while (usually him) and camping out in the dinning room. The worst was one place where there was only the dinning room for projects. Now we're in a house that has a lot of small spaces. While we say we have divided the space by use the reality is each of us has our own space. The studio is for all sewing and art making projects, but Kevin doesn't do as many as I do (although he used to do all the sewing). Alder has a place space, a sort of room/ alcove between the kitchen and dinning room that houses his clothes and toys (there is a little floor bed for relaxing on but we all sleep together). There is a library, that used to be Kevin's office until he moved his space to the shop. It isn't a library for any lofty reason only that we were sick of reshelving books that Alder constantly pulled off the shelves when they were in the dinning room. That's where Kevin does his creative stuff, although he practices his Tai Chi in Alder's room.

My father jokes that when we finally do have our own home it won't be a spacious as this place. The thing is we only have 1700 feet (plus a dirt floor basement) it is just split up really well. They really knew how to use space well a hundred years ago.

The real test of the space will be this winter when we aren't going outside as much... although we'll be in the shop a lot... it's warmer there.

My Studio

There has been some talk about how simple living and having a space of your own do not fit together. I have to disagree, simple living, when it comes to homes has to do with useful space. I have my own space because if I used shared space to work on projects the house would be a sea of fabric and paint. Instead I have a room where I work on my projects where they don't have to be put away for meals, and Alder isn't running off with spools of thread in the middle of my using them.

I try to spend some time in my studio every night, it's my personal sanctuary. Sometimes I'm working on stuff but other times I'm just sifting through old pictures or reading my book. I end up staying up late when I get going on projects but somehow losing a few hours of sleep to be creative balances out.

The room itself is a work in progress, it gets to new levels of organization and chaos depending on the day. Today we are having guests who haven't seen the place since it was still in boxes so they will want a tour, so I spent last night cleaning. I took this opportunity to take pictures and I thought I'd put them here to remind me what is under the piles when I get frustrated.

Simplifying in Action

It seems inevitable that every time we move we end up taking things to the thrift store on both ends of the journey. Our most recent trip included a very large box of toys and board book and a very large box of clothing. Clothing I have absolutely no problem getting rid of. I get most of it at the thrift store to begin with so if it isn't really love I am not loosing sleep over the money issue.

Toys have presented a different problem, I was having a hard time getting rid of presents people had given Alder. Sure if they were broken or missing parts they quickly made it out, but each gift was chosen for him. The thing is we were starting to have lots of toys. Then I went and visited a family with four children last week and their communal toy bin had only a little more than Alders. This got me thinking, first of all he hardly uses most of the toys, some because he isn't old enough for them others because he has too many variations on a theme, others because they just are not things he likes. So we pared down the toys, keeping the loved ones, the ones that he'll grow into and the ones that will grow with him. Now rather than five small buckets of toys there are three. One for soft blocks, one for random toys, and one for wooden toys. As for the book shelf I was liberal with my editing, I got rid of anything I couldn't stand to read. Stuffed animals were the hardest, I grew up with an entire zoo of animals on the shelves, but really at 1 he shouldn't already have a zoo. So we kept the important ones (no aunt Amanda the monkey has not been sent packing) and the simple ones and the ones we just plain liked.

I know in the future when Alder starts to have his own opinions this process will be one of negotiation but for now I'll make my own judgments.

This trend towards simplicity has been a long time in coming. Before Kevin started grad school we had a fairly simply led life. But with lack of time and other constraints we fell into the lazy habits: eating out often, getting things instead of doing things, etc. Now with creating our lives anew with a business and a family it is the right time for us to create a foundation of simplicity in our lives that can become the norm again. Not only because it makes a dollar go further but also because it becomes a life lived more fully and with more balance.

Simplicity for us isn't only about saving money, it's about the freedom not spending a lot of money creates more importantly it is about focusing on doing and experiencing more than having. Making time to create things whether it's bread or a new print is more important than a iPod (which we still do not own) or a jaunt to the mall. While we are living in a rental a large garden is out of the question, but plants in pots and CSA's are not, neither are farm stands. All of these are just little pieces of the picture. The point of living simply is magnified by having Alder around and the values we want him to see us living by. But even deeper and more selfishly the simple life is the more balanced and freer I feel and that is worth a trillion times any money I save.

So as we learn to deprocess ourselves back to a live of action and creation rather than consumption you may hear me struggling here occasionally, it isn't me whining merely working things through.

5 Days Simplicity...returning to

If I am up at 3 am you know that life is stressful right now. Of course we are only in the middle of moving across the country to start a business in a town where we know no one. So instead of getting some much needed sleep I am sitting here on the computer (actually in front of it, I would smush it if I sat on it).

Yes there is a lot of unknowns coming up soon so I am trying to focus on the things that I actually know. This means I have spent and inordinate amount of time collecting paint chips anytime I am at or in the neighborhood of a store that sells paint. Even if our landlord doesn't let us paint we will be able to do the fabric wall thing. Either way thinking about colors has been a good stress reliever lately.

This brings me to what I look forward to the most when we move, a return to simplicity. The last few years have been chaotic between Kevin's school and having a baby we haven't had much time or mental space for it. But now that school is over we are going to go back to our old ways. I am so excited.

This world we live in is complicated, there are so many things going on that we can't simplify (have you looked at the news paper lately?). the one thing any person can control is their own life. That is why we chose simplicity. Before you get any pictures of a Japanese inspired home with no furniture and no entertainment let me explain how we do simplicity.

To us it means our Friday night date involves cooking dinner together and dancing in the kitchen to Rosemary Clooney or Sam Bush. It means creating a home where curling up on the couch with a book is the fought after and then pile on location. It means being out on the trail before seven, just because. It means reading out loud to each other in the car. It also means that we are going to get organized.

The organization thing is the tough one for us. We are fairly good at organizing, it's the staying organized that is difficult. We get complacent and things pile up, then the piles become enemies and we fight dealing with them. But we are determined to start fresh begin with new systems for getting things done, keeping things neat, going out less to eat, and most importantly spending more time together. It sounds linear, I know, but there needs to be an underlying structure that allows for the creative, spontaneous, and random to occur.

here are some resources I found on getting organized:
I think this list is about where I am, a beginner.

This site has some good ideas, doesn't seem as Zen as the title though.

I like the 90% rules Emme has here.

This is the website of the New Road Map Foundation, Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez is the book which their ideas are based, it is a good look at how to become financially independent.

And of course there is the book that I found in a used books store seven years ago: The Simple Living Guide by Janet Lours Amazon doesn't have a copy but you can find it at Abebooks used.

The saddest part of looking up all these sites was the amount of sites that were about things you should by to help you organize. I'm not talking bookshelves and file folders but lots of crap.

I suppose I should attempt to get some sleep.

A Day of Rest

I have been reading lately about Sabbaths and days of rest. In the book "To Life" by Harold Kushner he points out that on a Sabbath day one not only should leave work but also the problems and issues that fill your mind. Not only is it out of respect (for the earth, god, goddess, or whatever) but it is a way to be more useful and whole (my word) for the other six days of the week.

Whether or not observing the Sabbath is a religious activity isn't really the point for me. The idea of stopping and putting aside what fills your mind for the other six days to spend it with family or solo is what I find so natural.

While we strive to create a life that is focused on spending time as a family, not rushed, the realities of Kevin's school and having a baby do not work in a Sabbath's favor. Yet the days we do take the time to leave the rest of our worries and books behind are the ones that strengthen us as a family. It isn't a sacrifice for us to spend a day hiking together because afterwards we are all rejuvenated and ready to get on with the important things.

Sabbath II 1983 by Wendell Berry
The year relent, and free
Of work, I climb again
To where the old tree waits,
Time out of mind. I hear
Traffic down the road,
Engines high overhead.
And then a quiet comes,
A cleft in time, silence
Of metal moved by fire;
The air holds little voices,
Titmice and chickadees,
Feeding through the treetops
Among the new small leaves,
Calling again to mind
The grace of circumstance,
Sabbath economy
In which all thought is song,
All labor is a dance.
The world is made at rest,
In ease of gravity.
I hear the ancient theme
In low world-shaping song
Sung by the falling stream.
Here where a rotting log
Has slowed the flow: a shelf
Of dark soil, level laid
Above the tumbled stone.
Roots fasten it in place.
It will be here a while;
What holds it here decays.
A richness from above,
Brought down, is held, and holds
A little while in flow.
Stem and leaf grow from it.
At cost of death, it has
A life, Thus falling founds,
Unmaking makes the world.

Just a Note on This Day

I haven' written much about our business here or the process we are going through to start it. That's mainly because so much of it is in a theoretical stage right now. Kevin is studying for his NCCAOM exams (Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine boards) as well as continuing with his classes and working in the student clinic three days a week. Since he is still in school most of the planning is left to me which is fine except that we still don't know what state we are moving to or what town. We have narrowed it to Southern Vermont, Albany New York, Saratoga Springs New York, and Pittsfield Massachusetts but the diversity of the regions makes it difficult for many specifics.

Currently I am writing our first business plan. I made an appointment next week with a SCORE volunteer to discuss particulars about small practices and moving to new communities. My experience with CITY (Creative Independent Teaching for Youth) is useful but not all of it translates into the world of privately owned health care businesses. This is why we're trying to find advisers to talk with.

The difficult thing lately has been for us to separate ourselves from our parents. Because of many of the choices we've made in the last years they have occasionally helped us out here and there. Now that we are about to try to start our own business and move some place new they all are having some difficulty with understanding this. Kevin's parents still aren't sure what to make of acupuncture as a whole and really are disappointed that we are moving so far away. My parents have no faith that we will be able to do any of this, including figuring out how to rent a house. My father, especially, has taken to trying to instruct my in some archaic basics that are no longer reality because of the Internet.

Part of me thinks that their problems with what we are doing have two pieces. First they have little confidence in our abilities in running a business. Second in both families we are still seen as young and needing guidance, although we are in our thirties. It seems lately that anytime we are talking with them about things (like Alder or life or business) they feel that we should instructed in how things are really done. Since they all have had children (except Pat) and all have started their own businesses (except Mary) they feel that know more than us. I know that they do have more experience, I only wish that they would not spend so much time telling us how we have to do things and wait until we ask for their advice.

We aspire towards simple living not one that is caught up in the material trappings that most families have. We want to be successful at our business not to have a second car or a maid but so that we can feel comfortable having savings and occasionally have a nice dinner or travel somewhere. In their minds we should be aspiring to make lots of money and have lots of things. Somewhere in there there is the correlation that simple living is either lazy or an excuse not to work hard. That working hard is the hallmark of a good life.

When I have mentioned to my father that our happiness is one of our main goals in life. He looked at me confused, then said "I've never really considered my own happiness as important as others is it the same?" What a sad thought. Of course helping others is a big part of creating a full life but personal happiness is deeper (read not external). Along these same lines when we have mentioned that we are 'thinking' of homeschooling (we haven't said are or unschooling yet) his wondered why we would want to waist our time. Adding that if we wanted to do a little teaching we could always teach Alder on the weekends. Again we are coming up against philosophical differences.

All of this makes me sad and frustrated because I want to share my happiness and excitement with our families but they are not interested in hearing it because they have too much of their own agenda in their heads about our lives.