February Bread Challenge begins...

NOW

To paraphrase my favorite quote from The Matrix: We're gonna need flour. Lots of flour.

Choice Part IV

So to wrap up the choice thing, at least for now, here are some things that help me to feel a sense of abundance, happiness, and peace resulting from a purchase, rather than, say, guilt or anger.

1. feel good about my choice and not distracted by "missed opportunities"
2. feel like the amount I paid for it is in line with the need it fills or problem it solves AND how much I think it should cost; this last one pretty much always requires a coupon
3. use the item--not leave it sitting in the closet collecting dust because I either hate it or am trying to "save" it
4. feel like it serves me well and fulfills its expected purpose until my need of it runs out
5. use it up; wear it out: like my jeans that I've worn several days a week for 2 years now; I feel like I've gotten my money's worth vs. three different plastic pieces broke off our vaccuum in the first 2.5 years, so it doesn't really work like it's supposed to, but it sort of works, but it would cost more to fix than to get a new one; I have very uncharitable feelings toward the vacuum
6. if there's anything left of the item, I can pass it on to someone else who can use it

If I can use something up and get a lot of mileage out of something, I am actually excited to buy another (as long as they still make it, whatever it is!). No need to optimize a choice, and I have proven to myself that it won't sit unused.

Choice Part III

So. As I was saying.
Too many choices (in your closet, in your cabinet, at the store, on the playroom shelves) can result in

• second guessing
• focusing on missed opportunities 
• overlooking the positive aspects of the final decision
• less satisfaction with whatever we choose
• getting overwhelmed and making no choice at all (this can be good or bad, depending on the choice!)
• distraction from the goals behind the choice (and the pertinent criteria)
• stress
• overbuying (if I don't really know what I have and don't really feel like what I have is satisfying my needs)

And I feel that all these things really snuff out feelings of abundance. They make it difficult or impossible to appreciate and use what we have. To be satisfied with what we have, and to be grateful for what we have. To feel like we have what we need. To feel like we have enough.

Choice Part II: Satisficers vs. Optimizers

Apparently, there are different kinds of choosers. Satisficers and Optimizers. (The word Satisficer gets points not only for standing for a useful concept, but also for being a portmanteau of 2 other words.)

Satisficers have a set of criteria and will look at options until they find an option that meets their criteria. An optimizer, meanwhile, wants to explore every option before making a decision, no matter how many things they have to look at. 

My husband is a Satisficer. Say we are looking for a new TV. He is really good at taking a list of criteria and finding some options on, say, the Internet that fit these criteria, and then reading reviews to choose the best of the few options he has identified in order to choose something that will work well for us.

I, on the other hand, feel like I need to look at every single TV on the market, consider all variables equally, and then make the perfect decision, taking into account every feature, even ones we don't actually care about, like, maybe, 3D capability. The result? I drive myself insane and never make a choice. It's no way to live. (Although, I have noticed that if you go without something like a TV for long enough, someone will eventually offer you their cast-off and out-of-date TV, and I am pretty much always satisfied with hand-me-downs, which is ironic, because in that situation I get to choose none of the variables. Although maybe that's not ironic, given the Paradox of Choice.)

Here is a great post about Satisficers vs. Optimizers. The part I think applies here most:

There is a famous study looking at jam.  People bought more jam when they got to choose between 6 types of jam than when they had to choose between 24 types.  The theory is that when given too many choices, they became paralyzed and rather than optimizing, they made no choice at all. 

I love the saying, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." I talk about it all the time. Here is Gretchen Rubin's take on it. When it comes to choices, I definitely have to remember it, but it is so hard for me. My husband makes good choices. I make none. So my husband gets to drive the choosing, while I play an advisory role. He sums up the pertinent variables and finds a couple of good enough options, and I chime in along the way. It works really well, as long as I can keep my inner control freak under control.

Decluttering my kitchen

I started reading a book called Simplicity Parenting that, according to the Website,

offers a simple, orderly, and effective pathway to simplify four realms at home, which reduces stress on children and their parents, and allows room for connection, creativity, and relaxation.
These four realms for simplifying are:
Environment: De-cluttering too much stuff at home.
Rhythm: Increasing predictability by introducing rhythmic moments for connection and calm.
Scheduling: Soothing violent schedules brings moments for Being into all the Doing.
Unplugging: Reducing the influence of adult concerns, media and consumerism on children and families to increase resilience, social and emotional intelligence.

 In the book he talks about how having too many choices, for example, having a roomful of toys, causes stress for kids, and I think that is really true for me, too. (See my posts on clothing.) Our kitchen was "organized" quickly when we moved in (I was pregnant at the time, and just needed to get it all unpacked) and then re-organized along with way in response to the arrival of new gadgets and changing babyproofing requirements. I finally started to feel too much pressure from all the stuff in the kitchen, and today I went through and got stuff out. Some I will get rid of and some I will keep in the storage room downstairs, but at least I got out all the stuff that is clogging up my drawers and cabinets that I don't use, don't like, feel guilty about, etc. And now, just like with the clothes, I feel more like I know what I have and what I need that I don't have (very little, as it turns out). I happened to be in Bed, Bath, and Beyond today, and it was just like with clothes. I was more able to look at things and think, "Yeah, I don't need that." And I'll tell you, it feels great. I am ready to do it in every room in the house!

Choices

Once a number of years ago, I was talking to my mother-in-law about something we were planning. I adore my MIL. She is very independent, and, like the rest of my husband's family, likes to plan things that my family would consider too complicated to entertain. I find this fun, as long as I don't have to be one of the planners. I don't remember what it was we were planning, but I remember at some point in the planning, she said something the gist of which was: "Let's stop planning here; we have some good options, and we can decide later." We have some good options. She says this pretty often, and I usually see it as a good thing, but this was the first time I remember thinking: "What is she talking about!? I don't want some good options! I want one option! I want a clear path, and a plan!"

I think I will probably have a number of posts about choices, and The Paradox of Choice. Some people think that we (first-worlders who aren't in poverty, say) have too many choices in our lives. Too many drawer pulls at Lowe's; too many spaghetti sauces at the grocery store; too many classes in college; too many toys in the playroom. And all these options actually make us unhappy. From the same Wikipedia article:

when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs. Their options are evaluated in terms of missed opportunities instead of the opportunity's potential. Schwartz maintains that one of the downsides of making trade-offs is it alters how we feel about the decisions we face; afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision.

 From the same article:

when participants [in a study] were faced with a smaller rather than larger array of chocolates, they were actually more satisfied with their tasting.

It seems to me that too many choices can really snuff out feelings of abundance in many situations. I have noticed this in my closet, and I think it applies in many other areas as well. To be continued, I hope...

Crazy Idea?: February Bread Challenge

In The Happiness Project, the Gretchen Rubin occasionally gives herself a challenge, such as the Week of Extreme Nice. Here is her explanation:

What is “Extreme Nice”? It’s an extreme sport like bungee jumping or skydiving—pushing the envelope, exerting myself beyond my ordinary efforts, finding new depths in myself to meet the hardest challenges. And I can do it in my own home.

So this week I intend to be utterly nice to [my husband]. No criticism. No pestering. No bickering. Jumping up to do whatever he asks me to do, responding enthusiastically to his every suggestion.

Maybe I need a challenge like this? According to GR, being happier requires you to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. I have grown in many ways since becoming a mom 5 1/2 years ago, but these ways were largely chosen for me and out of necessity, by this or that Parenting Challenge. Now I finally feel like I can attempt a little growth for myself. I have a few areas of my life in mind that could use some attention, and this challenge would address a couple of them. Here's my idea: make bread every day for a month.

In order to get really good at something, in order to become an expert, you need to do it A LOT. Like, for 10,000 hours. I'm not proposing spending 20 hours/week for 10 years making bread. I don't need to do it that well. But it's certainly something I'd like to get better at, and I think a lot of baking for a few weeks would take me to the next level.

Gretchen Rubin also says that it's easier to do something EVERY DAY than to do it every other day or every few days. I have definitely noticed this with exercise. And with this blog.

But that would result in a lot of bread, especially considering that I am currently working on ways to increase efficiency by baking more than one loaf at a time and freezing the extra. Even though we have a pretty big freezer, 1 or 2 loaves a day for 29 days--or 21 days if I do only week days--or 25 days if I were to only take one day a week off--that would be a lot of bread. So there's another component to the Bread Challenge.

A friend from Cleveland, Emily, has been making pies (a. lot. of. pies.) since last summer, and blogging about it at her blog, Pie Eyed. A couple of months ago, she started giving away pie once a week to someone she encountered in her daily life who brightened her day: the oil-change guy; the lady at the convenience store; the guy who works as Subway. She calls it Pie It Forward. Maybe I could give away fresh-baked bread?

We have only lived in this area for 4 years, and the first couple I was either pregnant or taking care of a baby, and I don't tend to learn new areas very well, and I am not always one to jump in and meet someone new because I do a lot of second-guessing myself, and I always want to find ways to help the community but it can be a project to figure out where, say, Ronald McDonald House is and do they take used toys, or do they have a rule against it, etc.

So I think this would

1. Get me out in the community, meeting neighbors on our street as well as learning where a place like the Ronald McDonald House is;
2. Give me a chance to do something nice for other people, which will hopefully lift their spirits as well as my own;
3. Give me a chance to thank people who have helped me out in the past, like the Bunny Foster Home Lady who gave me a bucket of bunny poop for my garden and who works really hard helping bunnies find homes--gratitude is an important way to help you appreciate the Abundance in your life;
4. Get me chatting and connecting with new people--who knows? I may even make a friend, which would help me feel more Abundance; and
5. Help me to share what I have, which I believe is a big way to feel Abundance.

I don't know if or how I'm going to do it. If I do it, I will definitely post about it on my blog. I will leave you now with a quote I found on the Internet yesterday that probably doesn't really apply, but here it is anyway:

"Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one."  -- Nikolai Berdyaev

Bread

The wonder of taking flour, yeast, salt, and water and turning it into a beautiful, good-smelling, delicious, and nourishing loaf of bread is some kind of magic.

And I know that it seems like it will be hard and take a long time and could not possibly be worth the trouble. But I am a bread evangelist, a term I heard from my friend Jennifer, who is also a bread evangelist, and I am here to tell you that it is definitely worth doing. (Here is where I try really hard to convince you to try making bread, but with a modified recipe for sandwich bread, made a easy as I could possibly make it.) This recipe has no kneading or water-temperature-checking. The amount of time you will actually spend fiddling with the bread is maybe 15 minutes, spread out over 20 hours. And the bread you make will drive you mad with desire, and your guests will talk about it with longing long after they have gone home.

This is the recipe I currently follow to make a rustic boule:
No-Knead Bread: So Easy a Four-Year-Old Can Make It

Here is the original Mark Bittman recipe that the above is closely based on, but I think the above one is easier to follow.

And here is the video of Jim Lahey showing Mark Bittman how to do it.

Now. Go forth and bake bread!

More on clothes: less really is more

I talked about reducing clothes here. This is more on that subject.

1. My friend Tina said on FaceBook one Saturday a few months ago that she and her family had  folded and put away so much laundry that day that she couldn't believe they had so many clothes in their house. She was tempted to do like a friend of hers had done and make each person in the house choose three outfits and donate the rest.
2. I was always sorting clothes. Sorting more and more until I had separate loads for whites, synthetics, sheets, towels, rags, pants, shirts, and sweaters. It seemed like if every day I did a load or 2, I could catch up, but there were always huge piles of dirty laundry around waiting to be washed. And there were huge piles of clean laundry around waiting to be folded and jammed into too-full drawers. Then my friend Adam, who, along with his family, has very fresh-looking clothes, said he just washes everything together.
3. In the last year, when we travel to see relatives, which is usually why we travel, we bring clothes for 3 days (4 days for the kids, because they are still pretty young, and sometimes need to change during the day) and wash whatever we wear every day, and it works pretty well. 

So I thought about all this, and decided that we would go through all the drawers and closets. Here is what we did:

• Choose about 4 of each thing (sweaters, underpants, T-shirts, etc.) and put them in our drawers. 
• Look at the rest of the stuff. Is it worn out? Outdated? Does it make us feel queasy with guilt because we spent money on it but don't wear it or someone gave it to us and we don't like it? GET RID OF IT! Give it away, donate it, sell it, consign it, throw it away. I don't care. Just get it out of there.
• What's left? Is it just as good as the stuff in the drawers but maybe not our top 3 favorites? Stick it in a bin in the closet for those times when a) the things you have been wearing every 4th day wear out; or b) something like a cold or a vacation disrupts the usual order of things.
• Voila! You can easily see what you have to wear. It is easy to put things away because the drawers aren't jammed full. 
• I do one load of clothes every day, then, if necessary, a load of rags or sheets and towels. I can usually manage to put everything away every day, and, when I don't, we can just pull the clean, folded outfit from 2 days before out of the laundry basket and put it on. It is awesome.

My friend May wrote to me recently, "Having just moved into a compact little space, I feel that completely - I got rid of so many clothes I didn't wear, and now I'm really wearing what I have. My friend Walter talks about the 20%-80% rule of clothes. We wear 20% of our clothes 80% of the time. I like the idea of just slimming down what we have so that we're closer to owning just that 20 (or 25 - need some special things) percent!"

Abundance Measures, Part II

Continued from an earlier post. Continuing the list of things that can be ways to save money, but also create a greater feeling of plenty: Austerity Measures reframed as Abundance Measures.

• A garden. This one is sort of obvious, but, just think! With hard work, knowledge, and some luck, you can have so much zucchini you can eat it for dinner every night, share it with the neighbors, and still have to make loaves of zucchini bread to use it all up. I will try to post about my gardening adventures another time.
• Coupons. There are all these sites now that offer substantial deals on local or national products and services--even museum memberships! As with all shopping, one must be careful not to buy things one does not want or need just because it's half price. But I am always looking for ways to get to know our region, activities to do with kids, places to go on dates with my husband other than Home Depot, and new restaurants to try. We have gotten to try a lot of new things that have been really fun because of Groupon and LivingSocial. I also glance through those coupon magazines we get in the mail for new restaurants to try, and I have an old email account I use to get coupons from stores I go in often. 
• Memberships to local attractions if you have kids. Zoo, nature center, natural history museum. Even if the attractions in your area aren't world-class, if you have kids, they don't care. There's something so awesome about knowing you can go to the zoo FOR AN HOUR and not feel like you have to spend all day there to get your money's worth. And if you go often, the whole family starts to feel some familiarity and ownership of the place, and that, I think, is when you can really enjoy it. You know where the bathrooms are. You have a strategy for avoiding the giftshop. You know if there's a place you can eat a packed lunch. Plus, these kinds of things are great gifts to ask for from family who want to get you or your kids something but you feel like you already have more toys than you your kids can put away. 

Why it's a crime to say there's Not Enough Time

I always feel like and say there's "not enough time," but, really that's a) crazy, when you think about the age of the universe; and b) wasteful, when you think about the relatively infinitesimal span of a human life, or even of human existence.

If there's not enough time in my lifetime or in a day for all the things I'm trying to get done and check off my to-do list so that I can finally enjoy myself, where does that leave me at the end? It leaves me filling my life with racing around, focusing on the little things, while putting off being happy.

Another small victory in my struggle with Time (and how I feel there's not enough of it) Part II

Right. It's been a few days since I started this story. Here is Part I of this post.

So that morning, Tuesday it was, I had a haircut. And as part of an effort to be able to go to a wedding  and look nice, I had the woman who cuts my hair give me part two of a tutorial on how to do an updo, using the curlers I got for Christmas, hairspray, mousse, and bobby pins, none of which I have used for at least 20 years, if ever. So it was good, and I felt like I was working toward a goal, plus, I had a nice conversation with my haircutter, who is very different from me in a lot of ways (e.g., I have never in my life used hot curlers before), but I've been seeing her every few months for 3 years or so, and I feel like we are pals.

Then I did something that I am very proud of. Since I was already out, I had a long list of errands I could run: things that have been on the list for weeks that I could finally cross off, but weren't exactly urgent. So instead of doing the easiest ones, or the most fun ones, I looked at my list and thought about how much time I really had for errands if I wanted to be able to do my exercises and laundry and blog post and not be late for preschool pickup. I also thought about which things would actually improve my quality of life for the rest of the day or week or have long-term benefits if done sooner rather than later. Picking up the photos I ordered would be fun and easy, but might take a while, and could be done just as easily next week, while looking for a piece of 2-inch webbing to do my physical therapy exercises correctly would mean that I was able to start doing my exercises that morning. Picking up the base for the birdfeeder would mean getting to watch the birds out the kitchen window, but a quick trip to the grocery store would mean we had some staples we were running out of as well as something for dinner.

So I made my choices, and took the time to call around (even though I hate calling around) to figure out where I might find 2-inch webbing, and finally decided that the fabric store next to the grocery store that was on the way home would be my best chance, with an outdoor store across the parking lot as backup. Well. I went to the fabric store, asked at the front where to find the webbing, marched the the fabric counter, and found someone else who was buying some of the exact thing I needed! I chatted with her (which I really enjoyed) and then bought what I needed. I even thought to look for a coupon on my phone, and found one for 50% off! Then I looked at some craft things that I like that were on sale, but decided not to buy any. Lately, the thrill I get from deciding not to buy things is even bigger than the thrill I get from returning things I don't really need. Then I made a lightning-fast trip to the grocery, and made it home in time to exercise and write the first half of this blog post.

I felt really good about all these things. In the past, I would have been overly optimistic about how long things would take, and I would have tried to do all my errands, starting with the fun and easy ones rather than the important ones, and wouldn't have called around before shopping for the webbing, and probably wouldn't have found it or had time to exercise or blog.

So. When I stopped to put something in my kids' room on my way up to exercise, I saw the big basket of laundry to be put away. Normally, my mind would have immediately raced to my giant To Do list, and I would have had the world-falling-in-on-my-head feeling.

But this time I skipped that. I immediately thought of all the really valuable things I'd gotten done this morning, and actually felt really excited about the fact that I'd connected with people, gotten food to feed my family, enabled myself to effectively do my PT exercises, and learned how to put my hair up for dressy occasions, not to mention that I had been honest with myself about which errands could be put off and how much time I had this morning for errands. It felt like a big victory.

Abundance at the Mall (but not the kind you expect)

Today I was at the mall a few miles from our house, returning things (I get so much satisfaction from returning things; it's almost perverse). It's not the biggest mall in our smallish city, and when we first moved to the area, I found it depressing, because it seemed like a lot of stores had recently closed, and I couldn't imagine/believe that we had managed to move to a city that was more forlorn than Cleveland. The economy was going down the tubes, and what is sadder than an empty mall? Plus, there was a branch of the library at the mall, which depressed me even further. Shouldn't the library be in a grand old building in the town center? Apparently we had moved to a city with no soul, or, at least, no town center.

But little by little, over the past 3+ years, a whole wing of the mall has become something new. As I walked along today, I realized most of the spaces are now occupied, and lots of them seemed quite busy. Here is a partial list:

• Niki's Party Place: bounce houses
• Black Mamba (indoor) Skate Park: today they were having girls' beginning roller derby, as well as skateboarding and scootering
• Buff Body Works: kickboxing
• Central NY Chapter NRHS: huge model railroad display
• CNY Boxing
• CNY Triathalon
• CORE Fitness
• Home Run Softball: people were actually in there batting
• Pools Brook Driving: golf
• Rhythms of Syracuse: after school music lessons
• Salt City Improv Theatre: classes and $5 performances
• Syracuse Kung Fu
• Syracuse Martial Arts Academy
• Syracuse Musketeer's Fencing
• Syracuse Project 4 Our Teens (The SPOT)
• CNY Gym Center: huge gymnastics place
• Branch's driving school: cars; not golf
• CNY Artists.com

These are in addition to a children's play area, the library, and a movie theater. The mall has really become a busy place, with people taking classes, bringing their kids to classes, walking the mall, meeting people at Dunkin' Donuts, etc. I love how the mall now feels like a town center, and since it's Syracuse, its being indoors probably isn't a bad thing. It turns out the town does have a soul, it just happens to be at the mall.

The mall took an economic difficulty and turned it into something that makes me feel rich: so much to do so close to home, all in one place. Talk about turning austerity into abundance.

Another small victory in my struggle with Time (and how I feel there's not enough of it) Part I

Today I had an appointment for a haircut. When I first realized yesterday that I did not have a morning free of commitments other than my usual list of things like cleaning up the kitchen, laundry, exercise, blogging, etc., my first thought was Geeeeeez. Another day when I am NOT going to be able to mop the floor.

Now, don't get the wrong idea here. I have mopped the floor of this house once since we moved in three and a half years ago (now, again, don't get another wrong idea; until recently, we paid someone to come do a minimal cleaning once a month, which kept everything from being disgusting, if not actually clean, most of the time). It's not like I'm addicted to mopping. But now that I have 3 hours "free*" "every**" weekday, I feel like there's no reason I shouldn't be mopping my own floor at least once a month.

So now I am out of time, and all I've done is set this story up, but haven't gotten to the point. I will make this Part I and hope that tomorrow I remember what it was I wanted to say.

*free, except for 45 minutes of exercise, the cleaning of the kitchen, laundry, urgent errands, newly-prioritized attempts to lift my spirits by talking to friends on the phone or seeing friends in person, volunteering at school, prepping dinner, and, until recently, trying to get ready for Christmas, etc.


**every, except for when someone's home sick, or I have physical therapy, or I'm sick, or I have some other doctor's appointment, etc.

Things that foster an abundance mentality (and things that don't)

A partial list of things that may increase a feeling of plenty:

• a trip to CostCo
• giving/sharing
• using what you have (equipment like a food processor or tent or supplies like canned asparagus that's been in your pantry for 3 years or special soap)
• saying "yes"

A partial list of things that may stifle a feeling of plenty:

• TV (or other) commercials
• saving/hoarding
• dieting
• wasting
• saying "no"

The roots of my interest in Plenty

The first quote I remember reading that touched on this is from Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions: "...I wanted Sam to grow up with the sense that it's safe to fall, that there's enough of the important stuff in the world for him, including Band-Aids. I still secretly worry that there isn't enough love, or money, or acclaim, and I have to do all I can to make sure I get my fair share." I think a lot of people feel this way. That life is a zero-sum game in which something good happening to someone else means less good for me. This obviously does not lead to a feeling of Abundance.

I had an impression, in brushes with Europe and Europeans, that there was often a feeling of plenty growing out of small amounts of things: simple jewelry; small jars of preserved fruit.

I had a friend and roommate who seemed to cultivate a feeling of plenty in our house on the one day a week when she wasn't working her two jobs. She would shop and then cook a big meal on that one day, and even though it seems like much of it wouldn't get eaten, there was a feeling of abundance. There was also something about her kitchen, how it was designed and decorated, the appliances and utensils, in addition to the food, that reminded me of Under the Tuscan Sun, another example of European feelings of Abundance.

When I first started talking about getting an apartment with my then-future-husband, I was overcome by this idea that we would be able to finally live like grownups (I was 30 at the time), and I remember saying, thinking of the refrigerator, "We'll have juice in our house." I said it over and over, with different inflection, marveling at the possibilities and implications. Juice. In our house. Which is funny, because I don't usually drink juice because I think it is too sugary. The phrase is still powerful for me, even though I still don't quite understand why.

And lately, when I'm thinking about cooking for my husband and two kids, and am grasping for a model of family culinary abundance, I often think of the mother of a friend from elementary school. As I remember, a very dedicated stay-at-home mom with four sons. I remember hearing his friends talk about all the food there always was at their house. At this point, I have no idea how much detail was provided and how much I have filled in, but in my mind, on any given day, there is a big table with platters of spaghetti and meatballs, fried chicken, pots of soup, trays of lasagne, desserts, etc. Plenty for four athletic sons and any friends who might stop by. I spend a lot of time imagining this, and trying to work out the details and logistics of this kind of cooking.

Good But Not Perfect Home Baked Bread on Church Avenue Chomp

Here is a guest post I did for my great friend Meredith's blog last spring. It was the wrong time of year for bread, and it didn't inspire many comments, except for my cousin, who pretty much refuted the idea that it would work (the recipe she had used was, in fact, a different, but very similar, one). BUT, when I first started to write it, it seemed like it was going to be about how to get a feeling of Plenty in your life. Plus, it was a chance for me to think about just doing something, not waiting for the perfect time and the perfect bread, but just starting. Good bread that gets made is a helluva lot more tasty than perfect bread that never gets made.
Guest Post: Good But Not Perfect Home Baked Bread on Church Avenue Chomp

Abundance Measures, Part I

Last year at this time, due in part to the fact that we still own a house in a very depressed market in the city we moved from almost 4 years ago, we implemented Austerity Measures. It was actually a fun challenge. We (sort of) had a plan. We sounded like a European country. It was a Project, and we found that if we set our minds to it, we could buy very little other than food from week to week.

I should say that not buying things is something we're actually pretty good at, maybe too good at in some ways. At times we border on stingy. Spending money within one's means and mindfully is a beautiful thing. Indiscriminately not buying things that one can afford that would actually improve quality of life but not grossly negatively impact the world is just stingy, and does not bespeak an abundance mindset.

Well, after a few months, the particular crisis of a year ago passed, and gradually we let the project go to some extent. My husband and I are in agreement, however, that it would be in our best interest to spend less, to be more in line with our long-term financial goals.

I have decided, in light of my interest in Abundance, to reframe Austerity Measures, and instead call them Abundance Measures. In practical terms, these will be very similar. As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I think the two are different sides of the same coin in many ways. Here are some things that I think can be seen as both and why:

• Baking bread. I  started baking bread as a small way to save money, and it turns out that nothing says Abundance like freshly baked bread.
• Going to the library. I have a Masters in Library and Information Science, and have worked in a number of libraries. I hold libraries in very high esteem. I believe it is true that in hard economic times, libraries increase in use (if not in funding...). Not only can you get books there, but you can get music, movies, use of a computer, free children's programming like story hour, free classes for adults, etc. Your local library system allows access to more stuff than you could ever own, plus online catalogs can help you find what you want and have it sent directly to your branch. Talk about richness and abundance!
• Joining groups and seeing friends and family. It is my understanding that in difficult economic times, people find that spending time with other people is inexpensive but highly enriching.

Time to get the kid from preschool. That's it for now!

Abundance is the new Austerity

Or, maybe, Austerity is the new Abundance?

Reduce
I have been reading, and trying to put into practice, clutter clearing, such as getting rid of clothes I don't wear. It turns out once you get rid of stuff, maybe giving it to someone else who can use it, you are actually more able to use the stuff you do have. E.g., after clearing out your closet, you can see what's in your closet and actually wear it. You know everything fits you and is something you actually will wear, not something: you hope to fit into someday/someone gave you and you feel guilty about not liking/you wish you were the kind of person who would wear/etc. I have done this, and I actually do feel like I have more.

"Spend out"
Another prong of this Austerity/Abundance thing is using the things you have, not saving your good stuff for some "right" time to use it. Don't save the cloth napkins for a suitably fancy dinner party, or save the Le Creuset dutch oven until you are a better cook, or save the scented candles for the time when you finally have nothing on your To-Do list other than "take a leisurely bath" (haha!). Those times may never come.

Both of those things, reducing and "spending out" seem to me to be related to both Abundance and Austerity.

• You use what you have(letting it sit in your closet, unused, is wasting it).
• give away to someone else what you don't use (sharing abundance with other people), and then,
• having less, you actually have more (because you're actually using it all and can find it all).

This feels very incomplete. I'll try again another day. The first link above is to the Fly Lady, who I have found very helpful in getting ideas for approaching housework and clutter-clearing. The second is to Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project website. I just finished reading this book, and I got so much out of it. It is the most practical and interdisciplinary book I've found on the subject of happiness. GR and the FlyLady seem to be of the same mind re: clutter clearing and using what you have.

Patience vs Time

Getting the kids up and dressed and ready for school today, I continued to try to remain positive. And gentle. And loving and appreciative of the fact that them. There was some deep breathing. There was some "taking a moment." But there was also some stopping and looking and listening. Stopping myself from constantly trying to nudge them toward our goal of leaving the house. Looking at their beautiful faces and listening to their creative language and the tone of their voices. Listening to what they wanted to tell me (Maury is from Africa and likes to eat Panamanian soup, which is African, since Panama is in Africa while I was helping them get dressed). Looking at what they wanted to show me (a snowplow plowing a driveway on the next street over while we were supposed to be eating breakfast.

Because paying attention to them, for my own sake, is a priority for me. But so is getting to school on time. And because I want them to feel to feel that their home is a safe and happy place. Because I want them to remember me as  to be present in the moment.

The other day I started reading World Enough & Time, On Creativity and Slowing Down by Christian McEwan. I stopped because I was reading a sample on my Kindle app, and I think I might like to have the brick and mortar book better. One big thing I got from the first chapter or two was that many people have had an experience that slowing down, even just consciously doing things more slowly, can make it seem like there is more time, even to the point of getting more things checked off the old To-Do list on a Saturday that on a Saturday spent rushing around. This seems difficult to believe, but as I am desperate to feel a roominess in time, I am trying to slow down. I have a lot more to say about this, but will hopefully do that another day.

For today, what I want to say is this: on a practical level, when dealing with my 3- and 5-year-old, on this particular Tuesday morning, not only did I enjoy the morning more than I would have with constant nudging and trying to shut them down any time they strayed from the goal, the boys seemed more willing to move forward and less likely to dig in their heels or tune me out. In sum: I felt that my acting as if there were plenty of time actually resulted in greater efficiency in getting up and out the door.

UPDATE 4 jan 2012 (the next day) lest you get the wrong impression of me:  Another thing that helped me have such a patient morning yesterday was the fact that I got up at my husband's regular time (5:50) as I usually do, and the kids didn't get up until after 7 (very rare) so I actually had time to get myself dressed, empty the dishwasher, get breakfast going, etc. That makes a HUGE difference,  rather than, say, top use this morning as an example, one kid getting up at 5:50 and fussing at me for an hour to "pick me up!!!" while I'm trying to get dressed, gather the laundry, etc. I also feel I should add that I had a nice, calm morning yesterday, but after picking up my 3-y-o at school and eating lunch with him, I completely hit a wall (partly because I am getting over the worlds most lingering cold and partly because I always get tired after lunch) and found myself being very short and impatient and not interested in appreciating anything other than laying down on the couch with my eyes closed.

It is almost 9 am

Got back from dropping the kids off at school and taking a short walk, and I looked at the clock, and thought, Geez, it's almost 9 am, and I haven't gotten anything done. Then I decided to reframe:


It's not even 9 am, and I helped the kids get up, get dressed, eat a healthy breakfast, brush teeth, wash faces, and get to school on time, all with a largely positive attitude, little nagging, etc. Then I took a short walk. In addition, I have remembered to slow down a number of times, and have not given in entirely to a feeling that I am being suffocated by all the stuff that needs I would like to get done. I would say that those are some REALLY IMPORTANT things that you have done already today.

I also realized that at the same time that I obsess about whether it's right to send the kids to preschool, shortening the time I spend with them each day, and am I being selfish, etc., etc., I have a number of habits that lead to my not actually enjoying the time I do spend with them, because either I'm trying to get something else done (make dinner), or I am trying to get them to do something (get ready for school).