Contentment

Girl time

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I had the opportunity to spend the afternoon with just my girl recently.  Since my son was out and about for special time with my husband, I offered to take her out and about for a snack; anywhere she wanted to go.  Where would she like to go for a treat?  Her choice.

Her choice?  “Starbucks.”

(Gah!!  I’ve completely corrupted my child!!  She’s only six, for crying out loud!)

So….to Starbucks we went.  It’s right around the corner from our house (wait….can’t pretty much everyone say that?) and as we pulled into the parking lot she asked if we could go to the girly-girl store that was in the strip mall behind the coffeeshop.  I bargained:  a trip to the home-stuff store for me, and I’d take her to her store.

Deal.

After thoroughly enjoying her raspberry truffle cake pop (“Mommy!  This is the best food I have ever eaten in my entire life!!”) we went to look at “her” store, one of those tween shops that’s really too old for her, with cute (expensive) clothes and a gazillion (pricey) accessories.  As we pulled up, she announced that “just looking in the window makes me happy.”  My stomach turned….am I raising some materialistic little brat?  “Why does that store make you happy?”

“Because it’s all pink and purple!  It’s just happy colors!”

Whew…

We strolled the store, and she looked at everything, her enthusiasm unbounded.  Not once did she ask for anything.  Not once did she request, beseech, inquire, suggest, or demand.  She was beyond happy just to look, to see all the fun stuff, and then, when we were done, to walk out empty-handed; chattering away about her favorite finds.

I’m still in awe of her attitude.  Her willingness to deeply enjoy everything around her (especially the food), and her willingness to walk away from all of it with a smile on her face:  she’d enjoyed it, and she’d have lovely memories of it, and now she was done.  No greed, no ugliness in her heart; just a sincere joy in everything we did together.

Joyful gratefulness?  Grateful joyfulness?  I don’t know what to call it, but I want it.

Why we will not downsize (probably)

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I’ve been reading minimalist blogs for a while, and it seems to have been a very trendy topic for young singles or young marrieds.  I often found myself rolling my eyes and muttering but wait until you have kids.

Well, now I’m being challenged by a new discovery:  blogs written by families, with children (sometimes lots of children), and their stories of simplifying and downsizing (sometimes really downsizing).  Finding out a family of four can thrive in a one-bedroom apartment is a bit of a shock to the system.  All my blathering on about decluttering loses something when I face the fact that we still have a stinkin’ big house.  I’ve wondered often in the past if the size of our home made those who knew me gag:  what a hypocrite!  what kind of simple living is she talking about?

[Full disclosure:  our home is, according to 2010 numbers (all I’m finding at this point), a totally American average 2300 square feet, with its finished basement.  I think it’s huge, but the homes 2 1/2 times the size of ours to our immediate east tend to put a different perspective on things.]

I’ve thought a lot lately about our home, about moving, about really downsizing and what that would look like.  Some things I’m mulling over:

First of all, there’s the very basic cost analysis.  The work we would need to do to sell this house, for what we would get for the house, to then buy (nope, not renting, sorry–there’s another reason I’ll never be a “true” minimalist) another house….the math doesn’t add up.  And I’m selfish:  even though I like the idea of downsizing, I tend to look at home prices and say “but our house is so much nicer for the price!”  Paying more for less house (a very real possibility in our location, especially with what we have left on the mortgage) doesn’t really appeal to me.  Paying less for less house seems to mean copious amounts of renovation…. defeating the purpose of paying less in the first place.

Secondly, I’m incredibly blessed to have the space we have, and am reminded of it each and every time we go on vacation.  Any time we stay in a hotel, I spend 95% of my time there in high-stress mode, constantly reminding the kids to be quiet:  there are people next door; there are people downstairs; there are people sleeping…. I turn into monster-mommy, trying to clamp a lid on my little ones normal noise level.  The same thing happens at home, too, on Saturday mornings:  shhh… Daddy’s still sleeping.  But wait:  at home, on those Saturday mornings, I get to say go to the basement; you can be as loud as you want down there.  Stress level:  zero.  That, for me, is a wonderful blessing.

Also:  we host.  A lot.  Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthdays….our families rotate hosting duties, and we have people over, often.  Having that space to spread out after a holiday meal is wonderful.  Even on Saturdays, if my family comes over, we spread out:  my dad might be reading in the relative quiet of the front room, my mom and sister and I chat in the kitchen while my son plays with Legos at the kitchen table, my daughter “does gymnastics” in the living room, and baby cousin bounces in her seat in the living room/kitchen doorway.  We have room to host, in a comfortable way.  And if all the people get to be too much for someone, they can hide upstairs or in the basement when needed.

Which brings me to my last point; my most important point.  We are currently planning to adopt from the foster care system.  Having that space–that ability to be away from someone–is something that I want to hold on to at all costs.  When and if we have more siblings in this house, I want to be able to have the kids separate when necessary:  Sweet boy, head to the basement for awhile; you need some time alone.  I know that there will probably be shared bedrooms in our future, which makes having extra space all that more precious.  I think of our front room our “away room,” an idea from The Not So Big House, and I joke that the big blue chair in the corner is the “alone chair,” where you go when you want to be alone.  So far I’m the only one in this house that uses it (haha), but I think that idea is going to be important when we start meshing who-knows-how-many new personalities into this home.

I know, absolutely, that my intentions of not moving don’t really matter.  We’ve “moved for the last time” three times now, and I fully recognize that my plans are not always God’s plans.  A job loss, a fire, a tornado….all sorts of things could happen to force my hand.  And I’ll take that as it comes.  But right now, I’m going to focus on simplifying and decluttering, and continue being content and incredibly grateful……but not downsizing.

What’s next?

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It’s a strange feeling to look outside right now.  The grass is browning.  Some leaves are actually falling; there’s a carpet of brown leaves lying under the maple tree right outside our kitchen window.  If I let myself, I can almost pretend it’s fall, since this is essentially what our yard should look like in late September or early October.  But it’s not fall; it’s July.  Which makes the view that much more surreal.

I wish it was fall….day after day of 100+ degrees and drought is wearing thin.  I discovered advertisers are quite ready to grant my wish:  a catalog arrived in the mail recently with a “Christmas preview,” and I admit I looked through each and every page; not actually wanting to buy anything, just wanting to be reminded that it wouldn’t always be miserably hot; that fall and winter were right around the corner.

Stores and advertisers are always happy to help us move on, aren’t they?  They spin it as letting us “plan” and “prepare.”  My most recent example was trying to buy a lawn chair the day before the Fourth of July….but the lawn and garden section had already turned into the lawn and garden aisle, and employees were unloading school supplies in the empty space left behind.  It happened to me last Christmas, too:  finally on break, finally ready to find a craft for the kids to do as gifts, and aisle upon aisle of Christmas craziness had turned to just two; with no projects my children had any interest in doing.  I’ve tried to explain to my kids that stores don’t carry snow boots in January, or swimsuits in August; but it really does seem a little ridiculous, doesn’t it?

Right about the time we get settled in to enjoy, when we can finally really get into a season, advertisers take off:  on to the next big thing!  It’s always the next celebration or season we need to prepare for; it’s always what’s coming up, what’s approaching, what’s next, leaving us no time to enjoy where we are.  No room for contentment and gratefulness for the now.  No peacefulness in our present.

Our family has less than three weeks until school starts again.  We have swimming lessons and vacation days still in front of us.  I plan on enjoying–to the best of my “I hate heat” ability–these last few days of summer break.  I’m going to sit right in the middle of it, to make sure we do as many summer things as we possibly can, to savor (to use my kids’ favorite word) every last minute of it.  I know I will have to take a moment to acknowledge the future and buy school supplies….but outside of that shopping trip, I’m choosing to live in the present.  Even if it is presently 103 degrees.

All-American Girl

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Back in April or May, I got an e-mail notifying me that the studio where my daughter used to take dance lessons was offering a special:  half-off on their summer camps.  She decided it might be fun; it had been a year since she’d been to dance and apparently she was missing it.  I looked over the age-appropriate options and asked if she’d rather go to the morning or afternoon class; after much thought, morning was her final verdict.  I then told my daughter about the theme:  by choosing the morning session, “American Girl” was the topic, which meant that all the girls could bring their dolls and take their dance lessons together.  Ever since that moment July 9th couldn’t get here fast enough for her.

I really do think the camp was a sweet idea, but I have to admit that “American Girl” dolls bother me.  There’s something disconcerting–to say the least–about dolls that come with more possessions than many people in the world own.  (One of my favorite “Arthur” episodes on PBS is all about “World Girl” dolls, and one of the characters is surprised to learn that her favorite doll is no longer being made.  “She’s from Tibet,” explains the saleslady.  “It’s a Buddhist country….it didn’t generate enough accessories.”)  Clothes, bedroom sets, pets…..That doesn’t even get into the prices, of both the dolls and all their “stuff.”  And, of course, there’s always more; now there’s a “girl of the year” each year, with her own interests and “stuff.”  And I haven’t even talked about the books.

So while I was excited to see how excited my daughter was, I admit I was a little concerned about how the actual week would go over.  Would there be a lot of they all have the real thing and I don’t?  They had a different doll every day and I only had one?  They had matching outfits for each day of the week and I didn’t? 

Nope.  We just finished day three, and I’m so pleased with how it’s gone.  She came home the first day telling me “who” each of her new friends had, without bitterness or complaint; not only that, but she wasn’t the only girl without “a real one.”  Each day she tells me about a new friend she’s made.  I’ve heard a total of one whole comment about a girl who dressed to match her doll, and it was stated in eagerness, not in jealousy.  Four of them huddled around an American Girl catalog this morning, before class started, and I caught a bit of her part of the conversation:  “I don’t have many clothes to match my doll.  But we do have matching ‘Kit’ pajamas!”  Way to focus on the positive, kiddo.

I wish I could bottle her attitude; keep it for a time in the future when she gets caught up in what others have and she doesn’t.  So far, she seems to have been gifted with an amazingly grateful heart.  I hope that doesn’t change too much.

A break from summer

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Usually, at some point in July or August, all the news in our area turns to the weather:  Record-breaking heat!  Summer scorcher!  Another day of high temps!  And I roll my eyes, every year, and think of course it’s hot; it’s the end of July, for crying out loud!  How is this news!?

This year it’s different….this year it started in June.  It was 99 degrees on June 24th, and it hasn’t particularly let up at all.  (106 degrees on June 28th!)  Honestly, once you cross about 93, it’s all the same to me.  The poor azaleas I planted in our front bed this spring are barely hanging on; it’s just too hot and dry for anything to be happy.  In spite of all the giant shade trees we have in our yard (so different from our last house, perched on a hill, surrounded by baby trees and baking in the sun), it’s still hot; at some point everyday the a/c kicks on and just doesn’t kick off.  We’ve had all the upstairs blinds closed, and the insulated curtains pulled, to keep in the cool; I’ve been very stingy with the blinds and curtains downstairs, too.  It’s making me crazy; I feel like we’re living in a cave.  So I decided it was time for a break.

Every summer (admittedly, usually a little later in the summer) I get on the library’s website and put holds on nothing but snow and winter books for the kids.  There comes a point, in the middle of the 100 degree days, where you just want to remember that it isn’t always going to be like this.  The kids are at great ages:  I can check out good picture books and they’ll still enjoy them; in another couple of years my son is going to think this is a ridiculous idea.  Right now, though, we can all snuggle in together on the sofa in the afternoon, with the blinds closed, in the cool dark, and read books about snow…snow days….winter winds.  And look at beautiful, soothing, snowy illustrations.  And know that it’s not going to be 100 degrees forever….and I know that I won’t be snuggling and reading with my little ones forever, either; so I plan on enjoying it while I can.  Even in spite of the summer heat.

Summer routines

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The summer rule at our house is “no screen time until after noon.”  It’s been that way for a few years, when I realized that once the TV went on, it didn’t turn off easily.  It’s not so hard keeping the kids from starting it…..it can be quite difficult getting them to stop.  So we solved the problem by slapping down the rule, which also covers the computer and time on the Wii, and we really haven’t met with too much resistance.  I truly don’t mind the kids watching TV in the afternoon, especially in July when it’s one hundred nasty, sticky degrees outside.  Flopping down on the floor of an air-conditioned house sounds pretty appealing to me, too; and with the DVR we can watch when they want, and skip the ads.

That leaves the morning for errand running and playing outside, before it gets too hot out.  Then we tend to hibernate for the rest of the day (though not necessarily in front of a screen).

What I didn’t expect was my reaction to our rule this summer.  I was a little shocked at how much I felt the pull to get on the computer; I was really angry with myself, for awhile, for how difficult it was for me to give up my own “screen time.”  But then it hit me:  it was messing with my routine.

For an entire school year I’ve dropped the kids off at school, come home, grabbed my coffee, and hit the computer.  I’d balance the checkbook first thing, and then move on to checking e-mail and other assorted tasks.  That’s nine months of establishing a habit that I was suddenly forced to break.  It’s not so much that I’m addicted to the computer or screen time or e-mail or any one of those things; it’s simply this is what I do next.

That realization was a great comfort to me.  Instead of getting angry with myself for being so drawn to the computer, I can simply remind myself gently that it’s hard to change a habit.  Our summer schedule is so much simpler:  I’m loving my time with my kiddos, our extra snuggle time in the mornings, and not having to be out the door at 8:00AM sharp….if I can enjoy all these other changed-for-summer routines, surely I can get over any lack of computer time.

Summertime…

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Summer is my least favorite season.  Just as I’m not a “beach person,” like everyone else around me seems to be, I’m also not a “summer person.”  I know that makes me weird, and I’m okay with that.  But I’ve been really irritated with myself lately for dreading summer’s arrival, when there’s actually only one thing I really dislike about it:  the heat.  (Which, yes, can be completely unreasonable at times….but I’m putting that thought away for right now.)

The thing is, there are lots of things I truly like about summer, and I am determined to focus on those this year; to focus on the present and the now and to “fill my summer with summer things.”  (Many thanks to the “My Men and Me” blog for this final bit of inspiration: http://mymenandme.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/not-enough-picnics/ )

Summer blessings:

Quiet, no-rush mornings where we don’t have to scramble to get out the door on time.

Mornings spent in our glider swing:  two kids, one mom, books.

Grilling for dinner.  (Double points for this, since that means my husband is doing the cooking.)

Sitting in the shade chatting with friends at playgroup while the kids run wild…and coming home from playgroup, with sweaty, rosy-cheeked kids, walking into the sweet relief of air-conditioning.

Leaving the library with piles of books.  Often.

Waking up in the sunlight instead of the dark.

Kids running through the sprinkler.

Sidewalk chalk.

The birds enjoying the bounty of our mulberry tree.

Visits to Sylas & Maddy’s ice cream parlor.

Not having to set my daughter’s alarm clock.

Staying home on scorching afternoons with the lights off and the blinds opened just enough to let in some light.  (The kids asked to keep the lights off recently:  “It just feels cooler.”)

Art projects with the kids.

Watching parent birds feeding baby birds, seemingly in every tree in our backyard.

I have until the start of school on August 15th to enjoy these things as much as possible.  I plan on it.

Back to Basics

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After my post about “How far we’ve come,” I was asked about how I was going to get “back to basics,” what I was going to do to move in the direction of a simpler home.  I could think, immediately, of a few things, but the more I thought about it the more I thought of….so here are some ideas.

First, there’s the obvious:  those moments where I decide that “today I’m going to tackle that drawer…..”  or shelf, or cabinet, etc.  Not an entire closet; just a bite at a time, to make sure I finish what I start.  I’ll go through each item, decide if it’s something we use or if it’s better off blessing someone else, and box or bag up what needs to leave the house.  But that’s only a bit part of the whole.  For lack of a better word, I’m going to call this a “lifestyle adjustment.”  (That sounds really snooty, doesn’t it?  I just mean that there seems to be a need to change how we think about stuff before we can conquer it.)

I also keep brown-paper grocery bags stowed away around the house.  There’s one in our closet, so the minute I try on a shirt I haven’t worn in a while and realize why I haven’t worn it in a while, I can change immediately into something different and add the shirt to the bag.  I keep one in the laundry room closet, so that once I’ve told one of the kids, “Last wearing on those shorts!” (or shirt, or whatever), I can add the item of clothing to the bag the minute it comes out of the wash.  I also have a nice basket on one of the shelves in that closet (about 9×13, and deep), where I put things destined for the thrift store.  This is, admittedly, where fast food toys go to die; but it also holds lots of other things that are preparing to move out the door.

The idea of “one-in-one-out” is gaining ground with the kids; they’ve realized that we’ll take a trip to the used book store if they have a stack of books ready to sell.  This is actually better than one in/one out, since the ratio usually ends up being something like one in/five out; but since they come home with cash they still think they’ve got the better end of the deal.  It’s also become easier with clothing:  we bought you those shoes to replace your worn out ones seems to make a lot of sense to them, and out the trashed ones go.

Finally, though….this is where the “lifestyle adjustment” begins.  I had a friend call recently from a store she was at, offering to pick up water bottles for my kids.  Stainless steel, with the kids’ names on them, on sale for 99 cents.  (99 cents!!)  And I said….no.  Because I know we already have two stainless steel water bottles, one for each kid, plus a Hello Kitty water bottle my daughter kept at school, plus two nice plastic water bottles….you get the idea.  I know we don’t need any more water bottles; regardless of how cool or how cheap (or how thoughtful my friend was).  The reality is, we don’t need a lot of things.  But I have to change my lifestyle; my mindset; my heart about what is a “need” and what is a “want”…..and maybe, at some point, admit where purchasing a “want” might be okay.  I have to change our buying habits; and we weren’t big spenders to begin with.

That’s the hardest part of the process:  the heart change that has to take place to say, “Thank you, Lord, for the abundant blessings you have given me, and now I will be content with that.”  Even better, to say “Thank you, Lord….what would you like me to give away today?  May I be content with less.”

How far we’ve come…..

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I’ve made all my snobby pronouncements about how people waste time on the internet:  too much Facebook, too much Twitter, too much Angry Birds, etc.  I can sit on my high horse and make those comments because I’m rarely spending time on them.  Checking in on Facebook once a day hardly takes over my life, and I’m not on Twitter at all.  I’ve even (gasp!!) never actually played Angry Birds.  Maybe if I did I’d really like it…..but I haven’t bothered to try it yet.

So now I’ll ‘fess up to how I waste my time online.  (And I can really, really waste some time with this.)

I look at houses.

It started out of necessity:  every time we’d move and be, literally, house shopping, I’d hop online and look at houses; sorting which might be a possibility and which we could rule out.  Even after a move, though, and even now when we’re done moving (knock on wood), I love to look at houses.  When I’m driving the kids to school, or coming home from the grocery store, seeing a new “For Sale” sign in a yard prompts an immediate thought of Oh!  I’ll have to look that one up!  The Realtor.com app on my phone should be disabled, and instead I downloaded another local real estate app.  (Because some listings have more photos, that’s why.)  I can spend an embarrassingly long time scrolling through “Nearby Homes For Sale.”  When it was a hundred degrees last summer, I humored myself by looking at houses in Maine.

I have absolutely no pangs of discontent as I look; I’m not dealing with envy or jealousy, or frustration with our own home.  (I like this house so much that my response might be something like, that’s a cool house, but I’d rather have mine.)  I’m not desiring “more” or “better.”  I just like to look at houses.

What’s fun, on occasion, is to pull the map over to where our first home was; to zoom in on our old neighborhood and click to see homes for sale.  Looking through those photos, all those little identical ranch homes…it really does take me back to where we were, years ago.  And I’m torn about the change in our standard of living.

Our first house had three bedrooms and one bath, which would have provided our (then non-existent) kids with their own bedrooms; though I suppose one bath could have made for some occasional discomfort.  It had a living room and a nice-sized eat-in kitchen and a one-car garage.  Laundry hook-ups were in the kitchen.  What more, really, even now, do we need?  Admittedly, jobs dictated moves, but I wonder if we’d stayed in that town how long we could have lasted in that home; how long we could have made do with what we had and made it work–probably pretty well, actually.  At what point would we have been crowded and uncomfortable, with two kids in that little house?  Would we have just sent them outside more often?  At what point would I have been completely frustrated with a one-car garage?  When would I have decided that huddling in a hallway listening to tornado sirens wasn’t enough, and I wanted a basement, now?  I truly don’t think we would have stayed there forever.

My husband actually mentioned our first home recently (commenting that we would have had that house paid off by now), and I asked him if he thought we would have stayed put, if jobs hadn’t interfered.  He smiled and pointed out that I would have found some classic Craftsman bungalow closer to “downtown” and we would have ended up there instead.  (Sigh.  So true.)

I look around three moves later, though, to see the accumulation of the fourteen years of stuff after that first house, stuff that has grown and expanded to fill the space offered, and I do wonder how to get back to what we need.  To peel back the layers of excess and get down to the basic needs of running a home.  Not a bare, spartan home, but not an extravagant home, either:  a comfortable, peaceful home, where people have what they need and aren’t buried by any more.

Our legacy

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I realized mid-May that I was doing a lot of writing about my kids and their “stuff.”  I attribute it to the end of the school year:  I’m thinking more about them because I realize I’m about to spend almost three full months with them, 24/7, and I’m trying to get to a point where I’m anticipating that, instead of dreading it.  (I’m finally there–just in time.  As I write this, my daughter is done and my son’s last day is tomorrow.)

I want to stop a minute, though, and really think about my kids–all our kids, I guess.  I wonder what they’re learning from us, as they grow up in this country where we’re so blessed and where we take so much for granted.  I wonder what I’m teaching them, as I raise them in this home; in this city and this county of copious conspicuous consumption.  I wonder what kind of an example I’m setting in my daily life, through the choices I make; both big and small.  I wonder what kind of a legacy I’m leaving my little ones (who aren’t really so little anymore).

Am I signaling a constant desire for more?  Am I showing that we never quite have enough?  Are my kids learning that if you don’t like something, pitch it, because you can always buy another?  Am I raising a generation dependent on “disposable” junk?  What would my kids say I value most, people or “stuff”?

I still remember one afternoon when the kids were running around the house in big circles:  hall, living room, kitchen, dining room, repeat.  Over and over, until one of them somehow knocked out a shelf in the bookcase in the dining room.  It’s a low bookcase, with four shelves displaying my collection of white pitchers.  Down the shelf went, along with the pitchers, along with my daughter.  She lay on the floor, howling dramatically, and I ran to check on her, and when I surveyed the scene I had a fleeting, laughing thought:  okay, now is the time to make a good choice, or she will forever remember this moment as the time I checked to see if any of my “stuff” was broken before I found out if she was hurt.  Do I want my kids to remember me as someone who thought “stuff” was more important than people?  That moment I chose wisely.  🙂

But not too long ago, I have to admit, I heard my dog gagging on my “brand new” rug, and I freaked out so badly trying to get him outside that my son called down from upstairs asking what was the matter.  (The rug owns me, that’s what’s the matter.)  That moment I chose….poorly.  I truly hope that my good choices outweigh the bad.  I hope that my kids realize that “stuff” is just “stuff,” nothing more, and that there are things much more important in life.

What do I want to strive for?  What do I want them to learn from me?   What legacy do I want to be leaving them?

“Freely you have received, freely give.”  (Matthew 10:8)

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.  Share with God’s people who are in need.”  (Romans 12:12-13)

“Godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it….pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”  (I Timothy 6:6-7; 11)

“Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18)

I know I don’t always hit the mark.  But if I can encourage them even a little towards any of these things, if this can be the example I set for my children (and for their friends), then I will have created the legacy I want to leave behind.  If I can continue to hold all these things on this earth with open hands, ready to give and share with others, I have lived as an example that I would be proud of my children to follow.