Simple Mom

by Tiffany Larson on April 26, 2013 • 18 Comments Gardening Your Home

What gardening is teaching me about raising kids, patience, and faith

This spring when it was still snowing in our little mountain town and the flower blooms were just beginning to show, I began to save egg cartons and comb seed catalogs for veggies we might grow this year.

Because our growing season is short and it’s less expensive than buying starter plants, we grow seeds indoors and enjoy a little green despite the cold weather for several weeks.We’ve been a bit nomadic for the last two years so most of our recent gardening has been in containers. It’s nice to know that we don’t have to leave our cucumbers behind when we move again.

On an uncommonly warm day, my 3-year old son and I searched the garage for my worn garden gloves and tools, in hiding since last fall. He proudly pulled out his red wheelbarrow and we filled it with rich soil. I longed for my compost bin, a casualty of our last move.

In the warmth of the sun, we poked small holes in the egg cartons and added water to the soil. There’s something about putting your hands in soft, warm dirt that is therapeutic. After a tough month, I believe it was just the kind of therapy I needed.
[Read more...]

Poem: What it is is Beautiful

Don’t we all ask ourselves: How can I be more present? How can I find more enjoyment in these days, right now? How can I appreciate what I have, before trying to rush on to the next stage of life?

I wrestle with these questions all the time. I want everything in my life to line up with my ideals, so I tend to attack each day as if it were a project to manage. But isn’t life supposed to be a feast of experiences to taste and savor, instead?

Having kids has reminded me that imagination is transformative. Everything doesn’t have to be as we think it is. We can see the trappings of our lives differently.

This, for me, is the point of all poetry. It’s a small and seemingly insignificant thing — but in that concision, it can deliver a potent shot of perspective.

The following poem is the title poem from my book (newly-released on Amazon, for the price of a greeting card). Its title is a reference to a LEGO ad from the 1980s. I chose it because it’s the perfect reminder: It doesn’t matter what type of chaos we’re looking at — we can choose to see this life with new eyes.
[Read more...]

by Jeannett on April 24, 2013 • 28 Comments Shopping Well Spending Wisely Your Family

One bite at a time together: join a CSA (project 43)

Slowly but surely, I’m working through Tsh’s ebook One Bite at a Time and chronicling my adventures here. As you can see from this month’s installment, we are an average American family who needs to fine tune and tweak ever so gradually, or else we’ll give up entirely.

Several months ago, I decided to take advantage of the agriculturally rich area we live in, and shop the local Farmer’s Market. My kids got used to heading out on Wednesday afternoons and indulging in a churro and all the sweet strawberries and orange slices they were allowed to sample from the farmers.

Although I was enjoying this exercise in eating locally, I was always still reaching for the familiar.I saw tables covered with a rainbow of produce, but I just wasn’t brave enough to buy it. After all, I wasn’t even sure what it was called, much less how to cook with it.

Fast forward a few months when one of the (fairly large) local farms started a CSA (that’s Community Supported Agriculture). It seemed like everyone I knew was doing it. But I was scared.

You see, we aren’t big veggie eaters. I mean, sure, I can steam a head of broccoli and we can grill a mean ear of corn…but a leek? I don’t even know what a leek looks like…but it certainly doesn’t sound very good. And I was pretty sure there would be leeks in our CSA box. Also, beets terrified me. I didn’t want beets in my house.

After a couple of months of hemming and hawing, I finally took the plunge and joined, and I’m SO GLAD we did. Here are my top five reasons for joining a CSA (and why you should consider joining one too!):
[Read more...]

by Tsh on April 23, 2013 • 25 Comments Organizing Your Home

Project Simplify: piles

This past week has been a push and pull of moving things around the house, feeling productive as the spring air peeks through the still-wintery clouds—and having to stop and rest my knee even though the rest of me is eager to move forward. I’ve been looking forward to this week’s hot spot with Project Simplify all month, but my body just wasn’t as cooperative as I liked.

(In case you didn’t know, I tore my ACL a few months ago, had surgery a little over a month ago, and am in full-on recovery mode, with physical therapy twice a week.)

But I did what I could, because our biggest clutter culprit since moving to our fixer-upper last summer is piles. Piles of cardboard, piles of linens on top of the dryer until we build a linen closet, piles of clothes lining the hallway to sort through, piles of old house parts from our remodeling work… You name it, there’s been piles of stuff in almost every part of our home.

Just keeping it real here.

I know it takes at least a year to fully move in somewhere new; even longer when that “somewhere new” is a partially-done remodel that still requires your elbow grease. So I wasn’t feeling like we were behind—I’ve just been ready to have it done.

I’m all about less being more and having plenty of space. Most of you well know one of my favorite quotes from 19th century architect William Morris: “Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.” Well, it was time to purge some of the non-useful and non-beautiful.

So here’s what we accomplished this weekend in the piles department.

[Read more...]

by Tsh on April 22, 2013 • 17 Comments Love Where You Live Your Home

When less is more

As you start this week, may you strive for less instead of more. May you crave the beauty of just one flower or one shell on the beach or one perfectly-placed photo. And when the noise gets loud, may you remember to close out all the tabs in your Internet browser to read only the one thing that’s meaningful to you in that moment. And may you find courage to turn your phone on silent.

And may these old words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s ring timeless in your ears this week:

“One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few. One moon shell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky. One double-sunrise is an event; six are a succession, like a week of schooldays. …For it is only framed in space that beauty blooms. …A tree has significance if one sees it against the empty face of sky. A note in music gains significance from the silences on either side. A candle flowers in the space of night. Even small and casual things take on significance if they are washed in space.”

A good reminder as we tackle our piles in this week’s hot spot. May we be brave and let go of the things that simply take up space.