The Big Rocks, Part IV: the Point!

I wrote this in my first post, where it was already 9 am and I "hadn't even gotten anything done," but 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...I would say that those are some REALLY IMPORTANT things that you have done already today.

Well, when I look back at my day at the end of each day, I tend to see Important Things from the To Do List that I didn't do, like organize the office or update my will. And then I see lots of sand and pebbles that I used to fill up my jar. Little, urgent things, like cleaning the kitchen and doing the laundry and making dinner, that couldn't possibly count as Big Rocks. And I feel like once again, I have failed. I have let the big rocks slide and have only wet sand to show for it. 

So I am taking a stab at reframing this. Taking Gretchen Rubin's idea of a chart where I can compare how I did today, but replace resolutions with, I don't know what to call them. Goals? Big rocks?

Is this possible? Can I stop to reframe at the end of each day, and maybe see that all this sand really builds up into these hugely important rocks?

I made a draft of a list of Big Rocks so that at the end of the day, or maybe even throughout the day,  I can go over my day and say, this thing that I did that seemed like an inconvenience and a distraction? This was part of a huge rock. Instead to going down a list of resolutions and checking off things I did, and seeing where I've failed, I'll go through my day and see how the little things were actually part of bigger things.

The list needs work. But here are a few Big Rocks that I think may help me see things differently:

• Look for opportunities to create a network of local friends. Example: The phone rang just before I was about to start my exercises, and I answered it, even though I had just enough time to exercise before preschool pickup. Mistake? No! I was able to talk to my neighbor about keeping an eye on her house while she's out of town, and she also asked me over for coffee another day. I took an opportunity to create a network of local friends, and that is very important!
• Take care of my physical, mental, and emotional needs. Example: I was feeling like I was catching a cold, so I didn't do all my exercises, and I didn't walk. Giant failure? No! I was taking care of my physical needs.
• Help the kids learn how to take care of their toys and books/themselves/their home. Example: I spent 10 minutes working with the boys to clean up a plant they knocked over. Waste of time? Inconvenience? No! I was helping them learn how to take care of their home, and that's very important!

I tried this last night, and it sort of worked, but I think my list of Big Rocks needs work. I'll let you know how it goes. Feel free to comment and let me know what you think. And, boy, am I relieved to finally finish this train of thought!

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!

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!"

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.