Simplifying Life - Mark II

Cottage_Economy

Aha! I did wonder how to be notified about posts. I've got this on daily email now as well. So much simpler

I'm on annual leave next week and have planned decluttering and a spring clean up, a little bit of painting here and there, some gardening.

I'm going to spend the whole week with the windows open to let the fresh air blow through.

[Deleted User]

Just been catching up with the thread, it seems everyone is doing so well with simplifying. I am also making good progress. Someone recommended the 'down to earth' blog earlier- I can thoroughly recommend it, have spent the last month reading from the start better than any fictional bestseller!

Cottage_Economy

Hi goodlife - I go across to down to earth sometimes, especially the early posts. I love her veg garden and was fascinated by her aquaponics experiments a few years ago, but haven't got the room for something like that. Hubby is taking over the garden with his hobbies!

My plans for decluttering etc have been derailed somewhat this week. I had an ovarian cyst rupture at the back end of last week and made the mistake of trying to soldier on and made myself thoroughly unwell. Spent the last few days resting up and now waiting for an ultrasound and blood test appointments to see if there's anything else afoot.

So rather than do spring cleaning, I've settled on quietly stripping 60 years of chipped yellowing gloss paint off the doorframes in the house which has needed doing for the last seven years. It's quite a nice absorbing activity, and watching the paint come off in long sheets is very satisfying.

Cottage_Economy

I've been reading Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh this week and came upon this passage on simplification.

"I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily - like a hermit crab. But I do not. I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity. My husband and five children must make their way in the world. The life I have chosen as wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. It involves a house in the suburbs and either household drudgery or household help which wavers between scarcity and non-existence for most of us. It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills and making the ends meet in a thousand ways. It involves not only the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern "simplifications" (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dish-washer, radios, car and numerous other labor-saving devices) functioning properly. It involves health; doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, cod-liver oil, vitamins, trips to the drugstore. It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical; schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball, or orchestra practice, tutoring, camps, camp equipment and transportation."

"It involves clothes, shopping, laundry, cleaning, mending, letting skirts down and sewing buttons on, or finding someone else to do it. It involves friends, my husband's, my children's, my own, and endless arrangements to get together; letters, invitations, telephone calls and transportation hither and yon...."

"This is not a life of simplicity but the life of multiplicity that wise men warn us of. It leads not to unification but to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.

"Simplification of outward life is not enough. It is merely the outside. But I am starting with the outside. I am looking at the outside of a shell, the outside of my life - the shell. The complete answer is not to be found on the outside, in an outward mode of living. This is only a technique, a road to grace. The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer. One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one's shell".

Cottage_Economy

How's everyone been doing with practicing living simply?

All this warm weather has made me feel quite frisky and raring to go! I'm working from home this week so the windows are opening and the breeze flowing through the entire house.

Have instituted a new habit in the last 10 days - I take a carrier bag and walk round the house putting in things that are either not wanted/needed. Then I either put the contents in the bin outside if it's rubbish or the car to drop off at the charity shop.

Also started decluttering my winter fat stores. After my health scare, I've overhauled my diet and for the first time in my life sticking to a much simpler calorie-controlled diet and thinking about the nutritional content of what I put in my stomach. I'm also going for some nice walks as well to get some fresh air and exercise, and of course gawping over garden walls at everyone's lovely spring flowers. Have managed to lose 3lb in 10 days and felt nice and full and not the least bit deprived at all. I feel like my blood sugar is stabilising and I don't have great swings of hunger or cravings.

For the first time in months I feel quite happy!

Cottage_Economy

Went for a job interview today and the whole job hunting process has got me thinking.

For most of us our jobs are probably the biggest source of complexity in our lives. How do you simplify that apart from retiring or leaving? I know from past experience that giving up a complex job for what seemed like a simple life of writing and growing veggies etc turned complex because there was never quite enough money to make sure bills were paid on time etc. That's why I went back to work in the end.

So what is a simple life when it comes to work and jobs? What does it look like? Is it doing what you love and if so, what do you do when you don't know what you love?

stitching_witch

I'm part way there. My husband covers our rent and Council Tax which means I just work 3 days a week at a job I absolutely hate to pay the other bills and my CC debt. On another 3 days I run my own business doing something I love and still have time to do the allotment, garden, chickens and be a 'proper' housewife making bread, food from scratch etc. I allow myself a 'me day' too to visit friends, look after my DGD or just relax - not that anyone running a business ever really relaxes

Once the CC is paid off (about 2 years I think) I'll drop yet another day at work.

dreaming

Cottage_Economy wrote: »

Went for a job interview today and the whole job hunting process has got me thinking.

For most of us our jobs are probably the biggest source of complexity in our lives. How do you simplify that apart from retiring or leaving? I know from past experience that giving up a complex job for what seemed like a simple life of writing and growing veggies etc turned complex because there was never quite enough money to make sure bills were paid on time etc. That's why I went back to work in the end.

So what is a simple life when it comes to work and jobs? What does it look like? Is it doing what you love and if so, what do you do when you don't know what you love?

Well - 16 weeks tomorrow I will be leaving work through redundancy. I will be 58 (the day before I finish) and am hoping to treat it as early retirement. To those ends I have spent the last 12 months or so since we were told (it was a longnotice period) trying to get everything set up to "simplify" my life as much as possible.
Most people ask me what I will do in September? I keep wondering what the obsession is with "doing" and answer that I shall wake up each morning and decide what I want to do that day, rather than my life now which is planned around work, and trying to fit everything else around it. I am quite lucky in that I will get a good severance payout (enough to pay off mortgage and more), and can take my pension early. However I have increased my luck by thoroughly looking at my outgoings and making adjustments where I can-overpaying mortgage for last few months; setting up raised beds to increase veg.growing, and making sure house is in as good a condition as possible. I will also tuck some maintenance cash away for the future, and I know I will have to keep a tight rein on my budget, but I honestly can't wait.
However - having said all that I actually have enjoyed my job. I always said that if I had to work (and until recently I did) I would rather do this job than anything else. I think it is very hard to do a job that you hate just for cash - fine for the short term (I have done some awful jobs when necessary) but eventually something (probably peace of mind) will give.

Cottage_Economy

stitching_witch wrote: »

I'm part way there. My husband covers our rent and Council Tax which means I just work 3 days a week at a job I absolutely hate to pay the other bills and my CC debt. On another 3 days I run my own business doing something I love and still have time to do the allotment, garden, chickens and be a 'proper' housewife making bread, food from scratch etc. I allow myself a 'me day' too to visit friends, look after my DGD or just relax - not that anyone running a business ever really relaxes

Once the CC is paid off (about 2 years I think) I'll drop yet another day at work.

That sounds wonderful. What job do you do if you don't mind asking?

I realised today that the job i went for was too 'young' for me. That is, i need bags of energy and it's full-on big workload from the word go. The whole place was intense. I'm 40 and I just cannot rev myself up like that anymore and get that excited about working like a dog, no matter how lovely the people are or what the money is. I was sitting there answering rapid fire questions thinking "I feel old"

Unfortunately it means I'm going to spend the next 20 years being labelled as 'unambitious'.

Cottage_Economy

dreaming wrote: »

Well - 16 weeks tomorrow I will be leaving work through redundancy. I will be 58 (the day before I finish) and am hoping to treat it as early retirement. To those ends I have spent the last 12 months or so since we were told (it was a longnotice period) trying to get everything set up to "simplify" my life as much as possible.
Most people ask me what I will do in September? I keep wondering what the obsession is with "doing" and answer that I shall wake up each morning and decide what I want to do that day, rather than my life now which is planned around work, and trying to fit everything else around it. I am quite lucky in that I will get a good severance payout (enough to pay off mortgage and more), and can take my pension early. However I have increased my luck by thoroughly looking at my outgoings and making adjustments where I can-overpaying mortgage for last few months; setting up raised beds to increase veg.growing, and making sure house is in as good a condition as possible. I will also tuck some maintenance cash away for the future, and I know I will have to keep a tight rein on my budget, but I honestly can't wait.
However - having said all that I actually have enjoyed my job. I always said that if I had to work (and until recently I did) I would rather do this job than anything else. I think it is very hard to do a job that you hate just for cash - fine for the short term (I have done some awful jobs when necessary) but eventually something (probably peace of mind) will give.

That's a massive life-changing step :T:T - are you excited? Hubby and i are planning for him to go at 60 (he's 52) but if he gets the right voluntary redundancy package he'll go before then