Maximum Gratitude, Minimal Stuff

What is a weed?  Something that grows where we don't want it.  In a garden of roses, for example, a sunflower is a weed. My childhood lawn at was dotted with dandelions, much to my mother's chagrin.  (I don't think Daddy cared for them either.)  But I loved them.  There's something amiable about their sunshine-colored, many-rayed faces.  And who hasn't wished on the tufted head of a mature dandelion, believing the wish would be granted if all the seeds could be sent sailing with one puff of breath? And let's not forget their hidden virtues: The dandelion is self-propagating, not relying on pollinators to spread.  Before the invention of lawns, gardeners loved how easy it was to cultivate this useful plant. Every part of the plant is edible.  The leaves are even more nutritious than spinach and kale, rich in iron and vitamins A, C, and K.  The flowers are slightly sweet, and can be distilled into wine or jelly, and make delicious fritters ....

What would happen if we could slow down and focus?  What i f we could invest ourselves 100%? In the (fantastic) movie Green Book ,* Viggo Mortensen's character Tony "Lip" Vallelonga shares this advice: My father used to say, "Whatever you do, do it a hundred percent.  When you work, work.  When you laugh, laugh.  When you eat, eat like it's your last meal." But for most of us, that would be a different way to operate.  We're so used to multi-tasking and splitting our attention numerous ways.  Even when we think we're concentrating, we may still have music or the TV in the background, we may be distracted by phone calls and email notifications, or we may be giving ourselves a "break" every ten or fifteen minutes to check social media or eat a snack.  We're always rushing ahead to the next thing, and we rarely give ourselves completely to any task. What might happen if we did? * This blog is reader-supported.  If you buy through my links,...

My husband Jon and I are both teachers.  In fact, he just retired this June after teaching 6th grade for 42 years.  We've lived by the school calendar since we started kindergarten more than 60 years ago.  So this year it's quite different.  In our house, no one's going back to school. That doesn't mean we're immune to the changes taking place around us.  It's still blazingly hot and bone dry here in the Sacramento Valley, but harvests are happening – peaches first, and then plums.  Home gardens are bursting with tomatoes, zucchini, and melons. So, yes, changes in nature make us long for changes everywhere else.  And getting reoriented to the school routine has us wanting to get organized and cleaned up in our homes and offices, too. And that might lead us to the store. New clothes.  New shoes.  New décor.  New organizing solutions.  New tech.  New tools.  And all of those end-of-summer sales!  The doors are open, and...

My husband just retired after teaching 6th graders for 42 years.  Congratulations, Jon!  We're retiring on his pension and an IRA I contributed to for almost 15 years.  Plus about $350 per month I'm getting from Social Security, which is what happens when you  teach for two years homeschool your kids conduct church choirs become a freelance classical singer work as a bookkeeper for a non-profit organization tutor adult English language-learners at a community college Small income, small benefits. Today, we're being told we need between $1 and $2 million to retire comfortably.  And maybe that's true if we keep living like middle-class people do now. But here's what I keep coming back to:  In the 1990s, most of us weren't living luxurious lives.  At least not what would be considered luxurious by today's way of thinking.  We were just paying our bills. Full disclosure:  In the 1990s, I had a problem with constantly buying new stuff for my house...

It's fairly easy to appear to live simply.  I just need a tidy home, a small wardrobe, a well-planned schedule, and a balanced budget.  Right? But I've had weeks where everything looks fine on the surface, and yet I'm exhausted underneath.  I'm overscheduled, juggling bills, and hiding clutter in a drawer or behind a door.  Or I'm emotionally overwhelmed – lonely, angry, worried, stressed.  Running on fumes.  Can you relate? True simplicity Here's the truth:  Simplicity is not a look.   It's not a home that both Martha Stewart and Marie Kondo would love.  It's not an Instagrammable pantry or a neatly written, bullet-pointed to-do list. No, simplicity is a feeling.  It's the feeling of having space – in your room, in your day, in your mind, and in your chest when you breathe. If your house looks super-neat on the outside, but you're still having to find places for way too many things, still organizing and reorganizing to optimize space, ...

Downsizing isn't about organizing.  It's not even about your stuff.  It's about control. When your house is crammed full of stuff you don't need, don't use, and can barely keep track of – when it's hard to clean, hard to get around, and hard to keep up with everything – what you need is control. If you don't take control of your house and make it look manageable, acceptable, and safe, then at some point your children will decide they need to do it for you.  And then you'll spend the rest of your life in a place that smells like disinfectant, without enough privacy. What no one tells you about getting older I'm not quite 66, so I'm not yet "old."  But I've seen my parents, my parents-in-law, aunts, uncles, and older friends go through this.  Things get harder, yes, but that's not my main point.  People start watching and evaluating you, looking for signs that you can no longer cope, that they need to step in and start making your...