Mad Dogs and Englishmen

We can all agree that plastic bags are evil, right? They are not biodegradable and can remain in landfills for hundreds if not thousands of years. They litter our landscapes.  They find their way into our oceans and are swallowed by animals such as turtles who die a slow and painful death as it prevents them from eating. But there is a solution, right?

BYOB. Bring your own bag. Simple as that. You can have a string bag or a heavy duty bag for life from your local shop or a jute bag or a beautiful bag up-cycled from a pair of old curtains (my personal favourite) --the point is JUST BRING A BAG.

How about charging 5p per plastic bag as an incentive to bring your own?

I am proud to say that Wales was the first country in the UK to do so. We have been charging 5p per plastic bag since 2011, thank you very much.  And what was the result? a 71% drop in plastic bag usage in the first year alone.

Northern Ireland and Scotland followed suit in 2013 and 2014, respectively. And what happened? The same as Wales. They saw a significant drop in plastic bag usage.

So what in the hell has happened to the people of England?

They've gone mad, the lot of them.

A month ago I was working in the shop when a holiday-maker from England regaled me of her outrage that a shop dared to try and swindle her out of 5p for a bag. When I asked if she would like a bag for her purchase she said:

Her: Are you going to charge me for it?"
Me:  We use environmentally friendly paper bags and so we don't need to charge.
Her: Well I was just at Debenhams and I was buying a pair of shoes for £45 and they had the *nerve* to expect me to pay 5p for a bag. (by now she was practically foaming at the mouth like a mad dog and shouting much to her husband's embarrassment) I told them that I wasn't going to pay 5p on top of £45 so they could get stuffed. I wanted a refund immediately for the shoes. 
Me: So you didn't buy the shoes?
Her: Hell no! They weren't going to swindle me out of 5p. How dare they! 
Me: (thinking) Don't go mad--whoops, too late.

I tried to explain that it was the law here, but she was having none of it. I thought it was a one-off crazy reaction, but apparently not.

October saw the 5p plastic bag charge hit England and the shit hit the fan. People went mental. They didn't care that the number of plastic bags at the 7 major supermarkets rose by 200 million in 2014 exceeding the previous year's unbelievable figure of  7.6 billion bags. This is equal to 140 bags per person  or 61,000 tonnes of waste. 

They didn't care. They just weren't going to part with their 5p.

Now instead of making people outraged about the 5p charge and spurring it on to bring their own, it had the opposite effect.

People stole trolleys.
People got banned from shops for effing and blinding and swearing over paying for a bag.
People were stealing bags by the handful and now some shops have had to electronically tag their plastic bags and trolleys.
People got into a fist fight with shop security in a car park when trying to make off with a trolley.

www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/11926042/Eight-incidents-that-prove-the-English-public-have-lost-their-minds-over-the-carrier-bag-charge.html

Seriously? This is England? Losing their mind over 5p? You would spend more than that on a lottery ticket and a packet of fags (cigarettes to my American peeps) but you won't spend 5p on a bag because you can't be arsed to bring your own bag.

I am *so* glad I live in Wales where things are more civilized.

Grow up England and stop being such a  titty-baby.

How do you measure a year?

Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty five thousand moments, so dear
Five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets
In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife
In five hundred twenty five thousand six hundred minutes
How do you measure, a year in the life?

How about love?
How about love?
How about love?
Measure in love.
--from Seasons of Love by Jonathan Larson from the musical Rent.

Well, my friends. It has been a year since we left England and moved to Cymru. Can you believe it? It has been a rollercoaster of a year with many ups and downs. Many things did not turn out the way we had planned and many things are better than our wildest dreams.

I am still not permanently employed, after a year of searching and applying for all sorts of jobs. Interviews--oh I've had 'em. Feedback? Well it was awesome. Aparently I am passionate and fascinating--just not what they were looking for.  For a while (a rather long while) this was incredibly hard. I was homesick. We were worried about money. I had nothing to do with my time. The winter was cold and we were trying to save on heating bills. I was home alone, cold and bored, frustrated and angry, sad and confused. It was only when i realised that I needed to stop fighting and give in that I began to relax. Maybe what was required of me was rest.  Maybe what was required of me was faith. Maybe what was required of me was trust in the belief that it would all be ok.

Then things started to get better.

My friend Priya who owns a two clothing boutiques in town needed some part time help. It wasn't regular, but it was work. I found that I really enjoyed it and it felt good to have something to do again. But not too much to do.

Then recently some friends asked me if I would be willing to tutor their two children as they were taking them out of mainstream school and were planning to homeschool them. Their children are (nearly) 7 and (almost) 9 and for one day a week i will go to their house from 10:00-2:00 and teach them literacy and maths. It is another part time paid job doing something I like and may lead to other opportunities. Or it may not.

And I am cool with that. Because this year has taught me that I don't need as much money as I thought to make me happy. We need a food and shelter and i need to be able to buy some craft supplies here and there and maybe a day out every once in a while, but mostly what I need to make me happy is friends. 

This was the part of my life that I was the most concerned with. I make friends really slowly. We lived in England for 11 years and took me most of that time to go from being a friendly aquaintence with people to a "Come over for dinner or let's go somewhere together"  sort of thing. It was only in the last few years of out time in England where i felt a sense of belonging and feeling like I was forging real, deep friendships. I had become very active in our local Quaker Meeting and had finally begun to find the sort of friendship I had dreamed of and now we were moving away. How was I going to cope far away with no friends and no job and nothing to do with my time?

This is where our lives have become more than I could have ever imagined. On our second week here we met Kathryn and Peter who were running a vegan information stall in town. They were so friendly and welcoming and the following Saturday we were at the Waverly cafe meeting other vegans, eating delicious food and chatting like we'd known each other forever. Straightaway we were invited to go on some day trips with the offer of a lift from Priya and we spent the day in the great outdoors hiking and picnicking--first to Caldey Island and then to Llansteffan where we picnicked in the shadows of a ruined castle by the sea.

The rest is history. Nearly every weekend we have something fun to do with friends. Outdoors if the good weather and indoors when the weather is too wet. We eat, drink, laugh and talk about serious subjects. We sing and dance and run a vegan outreach with free food 4 times a year. We discuss deep subjects like spirituality and then make corny jokes and groan.  We spread the vegan message by being healthy, happy people.

Last week a big group of us hiked from Stepaside to Saundersfoot.  You walk in the green of the woods then through some old rail tunnels that were dark and scary out to the glorious view of the sea.

It's a good life.

We are happy living here. We may not have what we expected to have but we have everything we could wish for.

We have each other and we have love.

The circle of peanut butter

Growing up I was a JIF peanut butter girl all the way. After all the adverts said “Choosy mothers choose Jif.” My dad and I were big PB eaters. My mum not so much. He and I liked to eat the Elvis sandwich--peanut butter, bananas and greasy microwave bacon (I know….but it was the 80s before we knew better) and he loved to eat peanut butter, mayonnaise and pickle a.k.a. the PPM (Peter, Paul and Mary)

Yeah, I drew the line on that one. Blech.

But we *always* ate Jif.

In 1990, when Spiderman and I went on the life changing LC/MC overseas experience where we were exchange students we ate a bought lunch every day (often McDonalds I am sad to say, but it was cheap) and then had PB&J sandwiches and a piece of fruit and a chocolate bar for our evening meal. The only kind of peanut butter we could find was “natural” where the oil separated to the top. Every bloomin’ night we had to stir that oil back in and every night I cursed and swore and cried out for the comforts of Jif where it was smooth and creamy and never oily on the top. This natural PB was all gritty and did not spread like Jif.

I *hated* it.

I went home from that trip and resumed my old ways. I never bothered to look at the ingredients as I didn’t care much about nutrition back then. I only cared about if it tasted good.

Fast forward to 2004. We immigrated to the UK and were new vegetarians. I was just beginning to notice the effects of healthy foods on my body. I was overweight and had lots of health issues like fatigue and joint pain. Nutritional eating was helping me to lose weight and I could feel aches and pains that I had all my life going away. Living in the UK you couldn’t buy many American brands back then so we started buying more natural PB.

And you know what? I liked it. We started buying  brands that were “whole peanuts roasted in their skins” and it gave a real depth of flavour, a richness to the peanut butter. Then we became concerned about the devastating effects of palm oil production on the habitats of Orang-utans and we stopped buying brands with palm oil.

We started buying Meridian brand PB which has one ingredient--peanuts. Seriously that is it. Yes, it has oil on top but if you leave it upside down a few days before you open it it is *much* easier to re-mix the oil. It tastes really good and I buy 1kg at a time for £5.99 and when Holland and Barrett has a buy-one-get-one-half-price sale, we stock up. I also just read that it is made in North Wales--woohoo! 

Recently, when our friends came to stay at Easter they brought some Jif so we could make PB&J sammiches for our picnics and I was shocked at the ingredients. Sugar is the second ingredient and it is two kinds of fully hydrogenated oil. I know fully hydrogenated oil is better than partially hydrogenated oil, but just the word hydrogenated gives me the shivers. At least it didn’t have High Fructose Corn Syrup.

But we tried it as it was open from making sammiches and I can’t bear food to go to waste. It is technically vegan so we are determined to finish it. But the weird thing is….I kinda like it.

It is sooooooo smooth and creamy and spreadable and it doesn’t feel oily despite the fully hydrogenated oil. But it lacks a depth a depth of flavour. It is like eating peanut flavoured Crisco (Or Trex to my British peeps) and I am surprised how much I still like it.

I won’t buy anymore after the jar is finished as I think nutritionally speaking and taste wise the natural PB is miles better.

But I think I will miss not having to stir in all that oil every time. 

Go Go Gola

I think we all know by now I am not a fashion queen. I don’t give a fig about brand named clothing and I wouldn’t recognise a pair of Jimmy Choo’s if someone kicked me up the arse whilst wearing them.

I am more about comfort the older I get. Living in the UK for the last eleven years without a car we have done a lot of walking. You need good supportive comfortable shoes to do that. I pretty much live in trainers (or sneakers for those in the northern part of the US and tennis shoes for those in south--I called them that all my life despite never once playing tennis in them) and a dress making me look a bit like those Pentecostal girls of the 80s or a business woman power walking to work except I don’t bring a change of shoes.

Trainers give me better support than “cute” shoes which tend to have the cumulative effect of making my heels hurt which makes my ankle twinge which in turn bothers my knee which then puts my hip out of joint and finally misaligns my coccyx and I am all out of whack.

About the second or third week after we arrived it was raining rather heavily (no surprise there, it is Wales after all) and I discovered that my trainers had a hole in them letting in copious amounts of water and drenching my sock and making me all squelch-y. Not nice.

But what to do? We found a local sport shop that was going out of business and I found a pair of £40 trainers for half price. £20 seemed like an excellent bargain especially for brand named shoes even if I had never heard of the brand.

I didn’t choose them because of the name. I chose them because they were black, not made of leather and came in my size and were £20. The brand was called Gola Active --ever heard of it? No me neither. But wearing them was a revelation.

Gola are great. I cannot say how much I love them. They are super comfortable and supportive. They are made of breathable synthetic fabric. They have these “balance domes” (a bit like Sketchers) to create slight instability which stimulates key muscles and can result in the following benefits:

*overall improved health and well being

* stronger leg and gluteal muscles

*reduced pressure on joints

*improved blood circulation

*enhanced core strength

*a strengthened back

I bloody love them. I love them so much when my black pair that I have faithfully worn every day for the past six months --walking 2-5 miles a day in them--finally developed a small hole that was letting water in I wanted to get another pair of Gola Active. I have never been brand loyal but I wanted to replace like for like.

But where to get them? The shop where we bought the original pair had long since gone out of business. We didn’t have £40 to pay for a full price pair so what could I do?

I did a tentative amazon search and lo and behold--I found a company selling them for £8.50 a pair. £8.50 plus £3.50 shipping making a total of £12 a pair. They only had sizes three and four left and luckily I am a size four and so I did a little happy dance. They only came in graphite and coral as opposed to black and pink but hey-ho. For that price for the brand I wanted I was not going to quibble. They only had two left in stock so we decided to buy them both and put one away for when these wear out. So for less than £24 I got two pairs of shoes. Woohoo!!!

The black ones still have some wear in them and I am working on a way to plug up the small hole with superglue or some such and turn them into my muddy shoes--shoes for hikes or woodsy walks where you wouldn’t want to get your good shoes all mucky. It won’t matter if they have a big glob of glue plugging up a hole as they are for messy outdoor fun.

But the grey ones can be my every day ones. 

I bought the first pair impulsively but returned with purpose for the second (and third) pairs. Gola is a British company and having looked at their website I really appreciate their values. I will Go Go Gola as long as they make shoes.

Amontillado the Upcycled bookshelves

Despite our vow of simplicity and giving away 365 unwanted items last year we seem to be in dire need of bookshelves. How does this happen? Probably because books are a close second to art when it comes to possessions that feed the soul. But we are also chronically short of cash and don’t feel right about buying something cheap made of plastic just because we need more shelf space.

 

Sometimes in this life it just takes the guts to ask. You might be told NO, but you don’t know until you ask.

 

I saw these wooden wine boxes at school in the basement. They were lovely, unfinished wood with interesting names of the types of wines burned into the sides. But what were they doing in the basement? A quick word with our caretaker Steve (the only person at my school to have more tattoos than me) told me they were earmarked for the skip. That’s the dumpster to all my American peeps. You can’t keep flammable wooden boxes in the boiler room, can you? Health and safety and all that jazz. So I asked our head teacher if we could have them instead of Steve destroying them  He said yes and Spiderman was round there the next day to help me carry 7 lovely wooden wine boxes back home.

 

The six that were the same size we stacked to make a cracking set of shelves.

Aren’t they gorgeous?

 

The one slightly larger one I turned into a box for organising my music stuff. So Tallulah, my sheet music and instruction book on how to play the ukulele are all together in a neat place, not lying on the floor.

 

If you look carefully in the last picture you can see my hat shaped like a giant piece of poo. Because everyone needs a poo shaped hat. It’s so I can dress up like the Little Mole.

Obviously.

 

But how did you come up with the name, Spidergrrl? I hear you cry. It was the Amazing Spiderman who thought it up. We were standing in the checkout queue at Waitrose discussing names. I was musing as we stood by the wine display maybe we should call it something like Pinot grigot when Spiderman said, For the love of God, Montresor! And I laughed and replied, Yes, for the love of God.

 

If you do not catch that literary reference, please do not trouble yourself. It is from the short story by Edgar Allan Poe called The Cask of Amontillado where one man lures another to the catacombs on the promise of some fine amontillado stored down below and then walls him up alive in there. Hence the pleading at the end.

 

Before you launch into me and say that amontillado is technically a sherry, we knew that. But it is alcohol nonetheless and literary alcohol at that. What other name would befit bookshelves made from discarded wine boxes?

 

So Amontillado is the name of the new shelves. You have to name your shelves so you know where to search. Is it on Ozma? Lizzie? Mama bear? Papa bear? Baby bear? How can you give someone directions on where to find a book without getting off your lazy arse on the sofa if shelves don’t have names?

 

 

I am the song

My class of year 4s (think third grade to my American peeps) read this poem by Charles Causley

I am the Song

I am the song that sings the bird.
I am the leaf that grows the land.
I am the tide that moves the moon.
I am the stream that halts the sand.
I am the cloud that drives the storm.
I am the earth that lights the sun.
I am the fire that strikes the stone.
I am the clay that shapes the hand.
I am the word that speaks the man

 

and we were inspired to write our own version. It really makes you think in a different way. I was so proud of them because they also performed it at the school carol concert on Wednesday.  It was beautifully and simply recited and a refreshing change from the many soppy poems recited in unison in a sing-song voice.

 

Well done Spain class.

 

I am the Song

 

I am the song that caries the angel

I am the angel that caries the song

 

I am the wood that lights the fire

I am the fire that lights the wood

 

I am the excitement that holds the night

I am the night that holds the excitement

 

I am the tree that protects the man

I am the man that protects the tree

 

I am the joy that comes with a child

I am the child that comes with joy

 

I am the king that follows the star

I am the star that follows the king

 

I am the cradle that warms the baby

I am the baby that warms the cradle

 

I am the choir that sings in the church

I am the church that sings in the choir

 

I am the child that lights the candle

I am the candle that lights the child

 

I am the song that gives us light

I am the light that gives us song

 

I am the peace that comes with the baby

I am the baby that comes with peace

 

I am the boy who believes in Christmas

I am the Christmas who believes in the boy

 

Isn’t that beautiful? We also sang a rousing, but slightly out of tune version of Band Aid’s charity single in aid of the Africa Famine from the 80’s Do they know it’s Christmas? You recall it--with that extremely catchy bit at the end where everyone sings

Feed the world

Let them know

it’s Christmas time

 

As a teenager in the 1980's I had it on 45 record. I told my class this was the way it was originally produced (not the CD backing track we were using)  and all but one said, “What’s a record, Miss? Is it like a CD?“ which made me feel really old. The only one who knew what a record was said, “My granddad has a turntable and records at his house but he’s ancient.” Then I felt even older. Ha ha

 All in all it was a magical, but exhausting night getting 200+ children to the church on time (literally and metaphorically) but it was worth it.

Have spoon, will travel

Spiderman and I eat a considerable amount of pack lunches. It’s one of the ways we can have more fun. We buy cheap tickets to do something fun in London, then buy train tickets (which often cost more than the fun tickets) then if you added in the cost of buying food there isn’t any money left. Bringing food and water with us saves us from buying expensive food that is often not very healthy. £3 packet of crisps, anyone?

 

Plus it is more environmentally friendly as most of the stuff you buy for pack lunches on the go is made of plastic and comes with a plastic fork and some paper napkins all of which you throw away.

 

So I’ve been working on a better way. We used to pack sandwiches but since my tummy has rebelled against wheat we tend to go for other things these days. Sometimes I make my own or sometimes we spend £1.50 each on M&S meal pots which are basically a grain, some beans, lots of veg and a dressing. Buying them ahead of time means I can rehouse them into washable containers, therefore recycling the containers they come in (as opposed to eating them on the road and having to throw away the plastic container).

 

But what about utensils? And napkins? I wanted to come up with a carrier so we could bring our own and be even more green. So I made this out of some old curtains someone gave me. I only had to spend 20p for the button as I had everything else.

 

Here it is rolled up in its travel form.

Here it is open so you can see the pockets. I made a flap as the first one I made the stuff kept falling out the top into the bag. Very annoying.

Here it is from the back so you can see the fabric.

Here it is with cloth napkins and spoons in it.

 

I would always prefer to use real spoons rather than plastic but some places we go like the BBC for telly and radio recordings have a metal detector and frown on metal spoons. For these trips we have been washing a reusing a couple of plastic forks, but I really want to forgo plastic if I can so we hit on the brilliant idea of wooden utensils.

 

At first I wanted to get some beautiful handmade wooden ones that were very pretty. But what if for some odd reason they were confiscated by a security guard (which has happened to us. When they take your stuff, you have to fill out a form and then queue after the recording to get it back and it is a pain). So we decided on disposable wooden ones. You can get a bag of 500 wooden spoons for under a tenner and we can reuse a few times and then compost. Genius.

 

We’ve even had a go at bring our own utensils and napkins to our favourite healthy fast food restaurant LEON in London. Spiderman and I both can have a delicious chickpea and vegetable curry in a creamy coconut milk sauce over brown rice plus a drink for around £12. Sometimes we splurge and go there if the event we are going to is free. I love LEON because your food comes in a recycled cardboard box, but they give you masses of plastic utensils (a fork, spoon and knife each) plus a big wodge of paper napkins. The last time we were there I just said very quickly when I saw her reaching for them, “No thank you---we don’t need any. We brought our own.” I wasn’t quick enough to avoid the plastic straw, so that’s my goal for next time.

 

How do you reduce your plastic consumption and save money?

Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin

There is hair and then there is hair.

I enjoy being a hairy fairy. I love not shaving my legs, my armpits or my bikini area. I love the natural look. I adore the feel of the wind blowing my leg hairs.

I don't even pluck my eyebrows any more. I do use a bit of aloe vera gel on them each day to keep them neat. But they are a nice shape, so why bother working hard to make them a different shape?

I do not, however, want to have a beard.

I struggle from time to time with whiskers. I have three moles on my face that seem to sprout witchy hairs if I'm not careful so I do a bit of tweezering every now and then.

Last year I notices a hair that sprouted under my chin on the RIGHT side. This little whisker was noticed one day when I was doing that "thinking face" where you stroke your chin and look pensive. I have regularly checked for it and pulled the bugger out when I felt it starting to poke out of my chin.

However, the other day I did the "thinking face" again and somehow caught a feel of a very whiskery patch under my chin on the LEFT side.

I rushed to the bathroom and had a look in the mirror and lo and behold--there were THREE rather long whiskers just a-growing under my chin.

Oh my!

How long had they been there?

Why  have I never noticed them until today?

Then I looked more closely and two were black and one was grey! Oh the indignity!

I was at school at the time and so could not get to some tweezers until I got home. But as soon as I walked in the front door, I annihilated the buggers.

I don't mind a bit of body hair, but I draw the line at my chin. I am not sure why. Every other hairy part of me seems feminine and lovely, but somehow having a goaty little beard makes me feel masculine. I am thankful I only have to contend with a few hairs. I have a friend with PCOS who could actually grow a beard if she wanted to. She's joked about it, but her partner put the kibosh on that idea. She said if she wanted someone with a beard she'd have married a man.

So in this house Spiderman is the only one with a beard.

When it comes to hair removal my motto is that of the Three Pigs-- not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin.

Just don't huff and puff and blow my house in because of it.

The Planet of 100 People

This comes from a book I checked out at the public library called Soulution by William Bloom. I forgot to see when it was published so a few statistics may be slightly out of date (this is the sort of thing my dad would have instantly known --how I wish he were here to tell me) but you can still get the feel for what it is trying to say.

The Planet of 100 People

If we could shrink the earth to a village with a population of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, there would be:

57 Asians--21 Europeans--8 Africans--14 from the Western hemisphere (both North and South)

52 would be female--48 would be male

70 would be non white--30 would be white

70 would be non Christian--30 would be Christian

89 would be heterosexual--11 would be homosexual

6 would possess 59% of the entire world’s wealth and would be from the United States

80 would live in sub-standard housing

70 would be unable to read

50 would suffer from malnutrition

1 would have a college education

1 would own a computer

If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture or the pangs of starvation the you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet and a spare change dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy. 

100 Things Challenge

There is this challenge on  http://zenhabits.net/ to pare down your belongings to a specified number. It could be 100 or 50 or 42 for fans of Douglas Adams. Or it could be more if you have lots of stuff like my mum. I thought it was interesting and worth pondering to make you consider every item you own and ask yourself do you love it, I mean really love it or can it be taken to a charity shop/ sold on ebay/ freecycled? William Morris the great leader of the Arts and Crafts movement once famously said: Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.

Why go through the challenge?
A few reasons:

1.   To help you declutter your home.

2.   To make you realize what’s necessary, and what you love, and what you don’t need.

3.   To free yourself of the burden of possessions.

4.   For fun. (Spiderman would say Hmph to this)

      5.   To force you to stick to the limit, even if you get new things.

It got me thinking about numbers and counting in the OCD way I like to do. How many of this, how many of that do we own, etc. It is driving Spiderman round the twist. The challenge has very vague and fluid rules (I suspect this is at the heart of what is annoying my beloved) in that you decide about how to count. If books are counted separately then we are definitely over 500 possessions, but if collections count as one then we are still okey-dokey. Look here for official guidelines: http://zenhabits.net/minimalist-fun-the-100-things-challenge/

Just on the thought of furniture:  Presently we own 17 pieces of furniture (sofa, table, chairs, 2 small tables, wardrobe, dresser, clothes rack, beds, desk and 2 sets of chest of drawers) but in the old country (back in Louisiana) we had 6 pieces of furniture just in the living room alone--and that included 3 decorative tables that were just used to pile junk on. We also currently own  9 sets of bookshelves, but to be fair one holds spiders, one holds cooking things like appliances and baking pans (my kitchen is teeny tiny) and 2 hold ongoing projects and craft materials. But that still leaves 5 holding books.

Think about what you have and what you need to be happy. Can you get by with less? Will you take the 100 Things Challenge?  We already are pretty low but I am examining every item and my heart to see if there is anything we can get rid of. Beautiful or useful, that is my mantra.

PS When Gandhi died, he had less than ten possessions including a watch, spectacles, sandals and eating bowl. Now that is simplicity!

Zen and the Art of Simplicity (and motorcycle maintenance)

I find the website http://zenhabits.net/ to be incredibly helpful. There are lots of good articles about decluttering and living simply. It has to do with time and outlook on life as well as stuff.

I found the articles about possessions really intriguing. When we moved to the UK we had to really prioritise what we thought was worth keeping. What books make the cut? What trinkets and ornaments? What stuff? I think we got everything we thought that was worth it into something like 11 boxes. This included our children’s books (both the books themselves and ones about the authors/illustrators), reference books (like Masterplots), books about the Pre-Raphaelites, my Oz collection, a few theatre books, fairy tales, books about Star Trek and The Prisoner (those were Spiderman’s), books about spiders (obviously)  plus a handful of fiction that we turn to again and again like Watership Down or the short stories of Jack Finney. We had lots of mini collections but we narrowed it down to hedgehogs, rocks and minerals, spiders and Oz (as far as having lots of items under one theme) as well as autographs. Oh and glass bottles. We  like to collect old unusual shaped bottles with glass stoppers and fill them with coloured water. They really brighten up a room. But the rest of it--gone. There was no way I was giving up my Oz Barbie Dolls. Have I ever mentioned that I own Oz Barbie dolls???? Well I do. Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion and Glinda plus 3 munchkins. And Dorothy’s ruby slippers light up and says “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more!” and “There’s no place like home!” These are possessions I treasure and would never part with.

Since we’ve moved here we’ve added here and there to collections. And books. We’ve bought more books. Hundreds of books--but all within the above guidelines. Not just any book. Any book that looks interesting is borrowed through the library or from a friend to try it out first and the rule is “As long as there is shelf space it can be bought. When the space runs out, the choice is to get rid of something else to make room or do without it.” In the past we would have just bought another bookshelf. The same goes for CDs and DVDs. When the storage containers are full--they are full. When you want something, it is time to get rid of something you don’t need to make room. Simple.

I find 99% of the time we really only buy what we need. My first question is always “Do we actually need it?” If the answer is yes then I ask “Can I make it myself?” This has worked when I need a backpack and a new key chain and when both Spiderman and I needed new wallets. This also works if I need new clothes.  Then I try to look second hand first to see if I can find it that way. I’ve found all sorts of useful containers for less than £1. We are working hard to have a place for everything and everything in its place. If it doesn’t have a place, then it doesn’t belong. We have just bought 2 more sets of shelves--one each--to be for storage for ongoing projects and craft materials. 

How cluttered are you? Are you weighed down with stuff? We have been conditioned to believe that luxuries are a necessity, that we need things that most of the world doesn’t even dream of having. They’d be happy with clean water, shelter, some food. How much do we really need to be happy? See my next post about the 100 things challenge!  

T’is a Gift to be Simple

The Quaker Testimony of Simplicity is the one I strive towards the most. When we lived in Louisiana we were wasteful, living a huge house (Oh, it was a lovely house!) with lots of things (ah, they were lovely things!) and lots of stuff that just was there taking up space because we had the space to keep it. And there was stuff that had no space and was stacked on the floor. Stuff. We never seemed to throw any thing away. We used to save back the jam jars to use as drinking glasses. I think we got up to 27 glasses for 2 people! And we always let all 27 get dirty before we washed. Why? Like Mt Everest--because they were there.  We also used to buy any old thing that took our fancy. And then brought it home where it sat collecting dust. Nowadays, we just show it to the other person in the shop, say Awwww and walk away.

Advices and Queries 41 says:

Try to live simply. A simple lifestyle freely chosen is a source of strength. Do not be persuaded into buying what you do not need or cannot afford. Do you keep yourself informed about the effects your style of living is having on the global economy and environment?

Quakers are concerned about the excesses and unfairness of our consumer society, and the unsustainable use of natural resources. We try to live simply and to give space for the things that really matter: the people around us, the natural world, our experience of God. (from the leaflet: Living What We Believe- Quaker testimonies: a way of living faithfully)

This is one of the main reasons that plain clothes work for me--not being fussed about what I wear as it is the same every day--dress, apron, shawl, mob cap--leaves me infinite room to serve my fellow travellers who tread upon this earth with me, drink in the glory of the natural world and spend time in the warm Light that is God’s love.