Living to Work

This past weekend one of my husband’s co-workers passed away.  He was in his 50’s, in seemingly good health and fit.  It made me think of all the professionals I know that spend 10 or more hours a day, not including their commute, in the prime of their lives (their 30’s) and the youth of [...]

Break the Christmas Craziness

I am not a religious person.  However, I watched this video and was moved by the message – spend less, give more of yourself, simplify Christmas, live simply so that others may simply live.
The Advent Conspiracy
According to this, it would cost $10 billion to provide safe drinking water to every person on the planet.  Yet [...]

The economy

There is no doubt, things are scary out in the world today. The entire first world is in trouble with issues that hearken back to 1929. Are we there yet? No. Will we get there? I don’t think so but then neither did the people who experienced the Great Depression.
One thing is certain, those that [...]

Simple living quote of the week

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. (Economy) Walden, Henry David Thoreau
Thoreau is talking about the race of men that are born into an ideal that one must work and toil the best parts of his life away in order obtain the trappings of success.  I think this is one of the most important [...]

The art of saying “No”

This lesson was hardest for me.  I hate saying no.  I am a doer, I get a charge out of helping people so when a call would come across for help, I would volunteer and then think “why did I do that?”.  Finally, my health forced me into a semi-recluse state.  In order to heal myself, [...]

Simplify Dinner

We need to eat but I hate cooking.  A connundrum is it not?  
I work from home and I have arranged my life around principles of simplicity by not taking on a lot of extra curricular activities so technically I have “more” time than many Americans.   But when you work from home, you have to be extra diligent [...]

All Son Sunday

Life gets busy, even when you try to live simply.  To counter-balance being working parents, we have a weekly standing date.   Because we aren’t religious, we reserve Sunday mornings to afternoons for all “son” Sunday.  This is time dedicated to spending time with our son.  We usually do something he likes to do like putt putt. 
This time is just for the [...]

Wow

This blog is not a political blog but I think this is an opportunity to stop and think about how far we have come and where we have yet to go.
What a momentous occasion – the United States, after a long history of slavery, Jim Crow, Separate but (un)Equal segregation laws, the civil rights fight in the [...]

Downsizing

Last week I caught up with several friends from high school, people I haven’t seen in almost twenty years! It is surreal to chat with someone whom, in your head, is still seventeen but, in reality, is a practicing attorney, an elected official, or a triage nurse at a children’s hospital. 
One friend in particular inspired me to think about my own [...]

Ask Santa for concert tickets or a trip to the museum

I have always believed you get more from an experience than you do from an object.  Turns out a study published in 2003 supports my theory.
Assistant professor of psychology Leaf Van Boven at the University of Colorado at Boulder concluded from a series of experiments and surveys over the course of several years that people receive more pleasure and satisfaction from an experience.  [...]