When I checked out the Our Tiny House which was linked in Day 3′s post, I pretty much spent about an hour looking through pictures and reading through their FAQ’s.  Then I checked out their main blog, let me tell you, they are some cool people over there and it is totally worth subscribing to; especially for anyone interested in simple living.

Today was actually a guest post from American Family Now and it was totally inspiring hearing her story.

So many people in the U.S. are experiencing the difficulties associated with downsizing, but I think that convincing ourselves that the life of “bigger and better” isn’t necessarily… better.  Even if you aren’t in a situation to jump into a more compact living situation, you can still learn so much from these families and their journey’s and how they have completely changed their lives.

Do you know any great blogs about families who have downsized in some way?

Meeting my minimum is actually something I’ve been working on for a while, luckily.  I went through the list provided and was actually pleasantly surprised by how many steps I’ve already taken.

We still have some stragglers, but most of our cleaning products including soaps and shampoos are either natural or homemade cleaners.  We use baking soda for toothpaste and ACV with the baking soda in place of shampoo, and I will tell you about this more another day, but it is totally worth it.

There are a lot of things that I would like to change still to be living as frugally and responsibly as possible.

• Reduce water usage.  This is a hard one for me.  I enjoy my dishwasher and when I do take a shower I tend to like them steamy hot and quite a long time.

o    Water Conservation

o    Greywater Recycling

o    How do you reduce your water usage?

• Stop buying shaving cream.  To be quite honest with all of you, I am not the biggest fan of shaving in general.  I just find it rather unnecessary and the hippie-feminist in me thinks it’s just a desire rooted in patriarchy and societal pressure for women to be perfect beings and someone somewhere along the lines of history decided that in our culture, shaving for smooth hairless skin was absolutely necessary.  So I go through phases where I don’t shave for sometimes months at a time, mostly in the winter and when I’m pregnant, and then other times when I shave quite a bit.  So now I’m really interested in this idea of making my own shaving cream.

o    Have any of you made your own shaving cream or lotion?

• Buy in bulk.  I haven’t quite gotten this one down.  We use dried goods, but I’ve just never really gotten into bulk bins that often.  I’ll confess this is rooted in the fact that I still find myself chronically addicted to shopping at those giant multi-purpose stores that shall remain unnamed where they don’t sell things in bulk.  My goal is to start buying in bulk at local stores; in the long run it saves me money, challenges my creativity in the kitchen, and supports local businesses.   To be candid, this is the scariest and most difficult task to complete.
• Turn down the thermostat.  I like to be snuggly.  I don’t mind the cold.  I just really, really like to be snuggly in the winter.  This is just a matter of snuggling up in clothes instead of turning up the thermostat!

o    Home Heating Tips

Oh, the most difficult part of typing this was walking over to my thermostat and bumping it down to 65 degrees.

I’m hoping that through the next 21 days, I will begin to experience how it feels to start grasping for the minimum that will give me something to go off of.

I have this thought in my head that maybe I’ve got everything wrong.  I manage to apply this liberally in almost all aspects of my life, often times to my detriment.  Frugality makes sense to me, at least on paper.  Putting it into action in my life though, that is where the trouble comes in.  I have everything I need currently to be frugal.  Somehow though, I convinced myself that I am doing it all wrong and that is where I have trouble.

We are looking to downsize all of our possessions, part of our regular need to purge before moving.  So this all is coming in at the perfect time to start conquering this before we have to move out with a hundred boxes packed full of things that we don’t actually need and which serves little to no purpose.

Okay, maybe not a hundred boxes but you totally get my point, right?

The biggest misconception that I need to overcome in this challenge is the one that tells me frugality is extremely complicated and therefore I may as well abandon my goals before I even begin.  If I can’t do it perfect, why do it at all?

Clearly I have some mental impediments that I need to conquer!

Materialism is a bitter foe of mine and our relationship is full of ebbs and flows.  After losing 100 pounds, trust me, that new pair of blue jeans that fits like a glove doesn’t have a bit of negative emotion attached to it!  It is all love.  However, the closet I have full of clothes that fit from size 24 to size 18 and yet do not even begin to stay on my body; the clothes that I can’t seem to convince myself to get rid of… and for what?

Fear.

I have followed the battles of people for years with their journey to escape materialism and so I know I’m not alone.  I’m tired of this though, and by what is so obviously bondage.  I never thought to look at it like that though, as a form of personal bondage.

Do you have any challenges or misconceptions about being frugal?  Have you made any improvements in your life regarding materialism?

Growing up, my mom did a good thing by teaching us to say sorry and to mean it, by no fault of her own though, I took it to mean that sorry fixed things. It repaired broken situation, broken people, and so I began associating many situations with the phrase “I’m sorry.”

Also, I interjected wretched feelings into every type of situation. I forced many regrets and hard feelings down people throat when after I graduates high school I wrote a long apology letter for being so gloomy and basically obnoxiously hating everyone and everything in life. I will admit right here that yeah, at the time I thought I was incredibly mature for my age.

I just laughed at myself and I’m not sorry.

I’ve spent more time apologizing for things I’ve done, not done, and had no involvement in than probably any other actually productive thing at all. I am totally that person who forcibly tries to remove everyone else’s burden and carry it on my shoulders.

I’m the epitome of the girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

So this word is getting a revamp. It is no longer as obtuse as I had defined it in my head. It is limited for only events when I have done something wrong. No more apologizing just to make myself feel better.

I don’t want my sorry’s to lose anymore meaning than they already have.

Anyone else confess to being a hyper-apologetic? Do you apologize for every little and big thing known to man that isn’t your fault? Share below in the comments, or share a blog link about it.

This morning me and Aedan slept in, until 11:00AM! We both woke up pretty happy after our very late New Year’s Eve celebrations. During nap time, he gave me some peace to work through my New Year 2012 Goals.

Firstly, I’m working through a great book to help me stay on top of my normally disorganized home.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=FFFFFF&fc1=000000&lc1=0000FF&t=aswegrgr-20&o=1&p=8&l=as4&m=amazon&f=ifr&ref=ss_til&asins=1600940560

Right now, I’m just learning more about time management and working on our kitchen. Regina Leeds is very helpful and doesn’t just give a how-to on how to organize, but helps you figure out and troubleshoot WHY you are disorganized to begin with.

Next, I started a new budget notebook!

Oh nerves! This is one of those things that can sometimes really freak people out. It is very important though and can really be helpful to being organized.

Now a few things on my general goals list for this year are really exciting!!!

• Learn how to weld. My husband welds, but I’d really like to learn myself.
• Make soap. I want to make my own bars of soap.
• Make candles. I’m excited about this project because I live candles.
• Learn to sew basic items.
• DIY. DIY. DIY.
• Eat more whole foods.
• Plant a garden that yields food. I am pretty stoked about blogging about this.
• Did I mention DIY?
• Blog more! I have always wanted an active blog, but had a hard time following through, I’m really going for it this year!

Generally speaking, I really want to work on my “follow-through.”

What are YOUR goals and resolutions for 2012? . Post in the comments or link me to your blog post about them. Happy New Years!!

• Last year at around this time I was anxiously pregnant.  We were waiting to make it to the 28 week mark, which was when we lost our daughter.
• We were living with my wonderful sister-in-law and her family until finally we found a place of our own.
• We moved into an incredibly large apartment that we probably didn’t need so much for practical reasons, but which really provided a nice starting point for our growing family.
• On April 26th, Aedan Joseph was born; beautiful and happy.
  
• We experienced the joy of Aedan’s first camping trip to Lake Michigan, which was a first for all of us.  It was breathtaking.
  
• Andrew and I celebrated our fourth anniversary on September 15th.
• Aedan experienced many first’s, including his first Nut Club Fall Festival, his first Halloween, his first Thanksgiving, and his first Christmas.

So there you have it, well, the extremely condensed version.

It took me four years to figure out how to cook a simple loaf of bread. Something about yeast, it makes bread so yummy and fluffy. Something about yeast, it confounded me! So two weeks ago my mother showed me the error of my ways. I was too afraid of using hot water and had never had the patience to wait for the bread to rise.

So silly, two things like fear and impatience kept me from succeeding! I’d mastered it, well, maybe not mastered… but surely I made great strides and the last four loaves were not only edible; they were delicious.

Feeling confident I bought two bags of flour to make bread for the holidays. Somehow in the confusion of my day though I managed to leave the flour somewhere.

So silly.

And yet…

My instinct was to panic. I ended up hanging up on my own mom.

Deep breathes.

If I can spend so much time making bread, I could handle this.

And after my awesome husband stepped up to go buy more I stood prepping my kitchen and dwelling on the whole seemingly silly thing.

We celebrate the birth of Jesus, but I forget about how important patience can be in the scheme of things, and not panicking.

The long wait for a Savior.
The fear Mary experienced waiting those long 9 months.
The way everyone watched in wonder as Jesus grew.
Jesus knowing what had to happen and still waiting.
The seemingly slow going resurrection.

And now we still wait, ever so patiently for His return. Patience really comes with the territory of being a follower of Jesus.

So breath in.
Breath out.
We have a lot to be thankful for.

Tuesday
B: Oats + flax; L: tuna + salad + croutons; D: pasta + sauce + homemade garlic bread

Wednesday
B: oats + flax; L: bean soup; D: sweet potato + rabbit + spinach

Thursday
B: oats + flax; L: peanut butter + jelly + homemade bread; D: Mom’s for supper

Friday
B: oats + flax; L: cabbage + beans and corn salsa; D: salmon tacos + salsa

Saturday
Christmas Eve
B: Cereal;

Lunch and dinner with family; I’m taking au gratin potatoes and sugar cookies.

Sunday
MERRY CHRISTMAS
All our meals are with family on this day, so I’m taking more sugar cookies.

Monday
Today is leftover day, who knows what we’ll have! I sure don’t!

Snacking this week will consist in some kale and banana smoothies. I’m trying to keep our meals fairly light during this week so that we don’t get too bogged down in all the junk.

Thursday Shopping List

• low fat cheese
• rice milk
• tuna packs
• tomato soup low sodium
• sugar
• flour
• vanilla
• cabbage
• onion
• potatoes
• bananas
• kale

I notice that sometimes it is all too easy to just express myself when I am angry or sad or discontent with my life.  For the first time in a long while though, I’ve started to really feel satisfied.  Even the rough patches that I’ve experienced have seemed to fizzle out.  I am happy.

Ecclesiastes 7:14 ESV In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other,so that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

It is so hard sometimes to understand why we have sadness.  I’ve recently been going through a lot of changes regarding what the author of Ecclesiastes 7:14 says.  Even as recent as about a month ago, I can accurately recall dismissing someone’s feelings about a sad subject.

Sometimes we want to just be happy, constantly and we get so wrapped up in it that we don’t process when we face adversity.  Why should we ignore our adversity though?  My most recent epiphany though has revealed to me the importance of recognizing when I experience anything less than wonderful.

I’ve been feeling good.  I’ve been feeling content and satisfied with my life.  None of those things rely solely on my being happy with every little thing happening around me though.  I’m content because I have understanding and I know what to expect in my life.

Some days I will find myself “in the day of prosperity” and other days I will find myself “in the day of adversity“, but all the time I am in the day of the Lord and that is what keeps me going through both.

Monday
Spaghetti squash, tomato sauce, and some oven roasted kale w/ homemade garlic bread.

Tuesday
Roasted rabbit, sweet potato, and spinach.

Wednesday
Pasta, tomato sauce, and homemade garlic bread

Thursday
Salmon, sweet potato, and more roasted kale.

Friday
Dinner out

Saturday
Dinner out

Sunday
Fish tacos w/ all the fixens’

This is new for me! It is definitely a challenge taking on a more organized way of life but day-by-day I am making steps in that direction.

What are you cooking up this week??