We've got enough to stress about these days. None of these choices are hard to make. (Well, maybe getting outside to walk in the snow.)  :)
​

• 07 :: Keeping warm from the inside out with a warm drink kept warm longer in my insulated thermos...allowing for less rewarming in the microwave + for me to withstand a little bit lower thermostat temperature in our house.  
• 08 :: Drinking local water enhances our ability to value this resource for ourselves + others too. Bottled water is often taken from drought ridden areas, packaged in plastic + trucked across the country. Let's preserve that resource for those who truly need it.
• 09 :: The bulk bins are out of commission these pandemic days, but we're still choosing loose fruits + veg in order to avoid packaging waste.
• 10 :: Choosing a compostable toothbrush has never been easier. The American Dental Association says that one billion toothbrushes are discarded every year in the USA, resulting in 50 million pounds of waste.
• 11 :: Using up all of the product still in the cabinets before purchasing an "ethical" version is the more zero-waste option.
• 12 :: Making a notepad out of one sided paper before recycling. Reuse what we cannot avoid...recycle after reusing.
• 13 :: Washing our clothing less saves water + power. I've worn these jeans every day for two weeks. No shame. 
• 14 :: Using loose tea rather than teabags (many of which contain plastic). Loose tea eliminates the barrier between me + seeing the lovely tea too.
• 15 :: Getting outside no matter how cold it is. Connecting with nature, feeling the seasons shift + noticing climate change certainly fuels my desire to fight climate change.
• 16 :: Going paperless allows less paper to be made, delivered + discarded. 

Hope you are keeping warm, northern hemisphere friends!  :)

Love,
Jane

Practice is an essential reset button that we must push many times
before we can experience any genuine newness.
Whether we're aware of it or not,
we are practicing all the time.
When we operate by our habituated patterns,
we strengthen certain neural pathways,
which makes us, as the saying goes, "set in our ways."
​
But when we stop using old neural grooves,
these pathways actually die off!
Practice can literally create new responses.
~Richard Rohr

I try to keep the amount of furniture in our home minimal. I like simplicity + we've moved enough to know the benefits of "less" intimately.  :) A lot of consideration goes into adding anything to our collection of things. Is it necessary? Will it be useful? Is it lovely? Is it multi-functional?

My partner + I felt that it would be useful + lovely for each of us to have a spot to set a drink in the morning or evening next to our bed. We had an idea of what I might like our bedside tables to look like, but was having a hard time finding something similar. 

Last weekend we decided to try making our own bedside tables. Tackling a project together sounded like a really nice way to spend part of our day off...and it was. These dark, winter, pandemic days can seem monotonous + uneventful. The motivation for this project was not only to create useful furniture, but also to create a memory together.

We had the home improvement store cut the boards for us and then sanded, glued + nailed the pieces together in the living room. It was a simple project that was so much less expensive than any other option we considered...and...we actually really like the way our tables turned out! It feels pretty luxurious to have our drinks within reach.  :)

These bedside tables are lovely + functional + have a story built in too. 

Love,
Jane

I've debated sharing this here, but I'm hoping it might provide some encouragement where it's needed. We paid off our mortgage in 2021.

Oh boy, my mind races with all the caveats I need to acknowledge. We are incredibly privileged. We have had no major health issues. We are college-educated. We were able to obtain a home loan. We did not suffer a gap in employment at any point during the pandemic. We are incredibly grateful.

At the same time, I want to acknowledge some of the pressures we dealt with on the way to achieving this goal. We lost all the equity we'd built up with the economic downturn of 2008. We moved overseas in 2008, and paid our mortgage in New Mexico for a full year (with the help of a few sporadic renters) before accepting an offer that would cover what we owed on that house. A couple of years later, we moved back to the states with $5000. We bought a car on a credit card + put that $5000 down on a house.

Our income totaled $40,000 per year. Since our downpayment was so low, we had to pay $125 for mortgage insurance every month. This payment would terminate when we'd paid off 20% of the mortgage, so we sent every extra penny to the mortgage. When we were no longer paying for mortgage insurance, I kept paying the same amount every month in order to pay down our principle faster.

With time our income soared to $50,000 per year. We are a family of four. We eat a lot of organic food, took our daughters to ballet classes and found ways to take a few vacations. Our older daughter lived at home + worked her way through community college + university. She now has her master's degree...and all with no debt. Our younger daughter is on the same path now.

So many of the concepts that can be found sprinkled throughout the pages here were the same ones that helped us become debt-free. I try to keep our expenses low, while appreciating all the good we have. We found concepts like these so helpful:

• learning to recognize + appreciating "enough"
• replacements only
• maintain a buffer
• budgeting for simple luxuries now + then (things as extravagant as bathroom renovations to things as simple as tea + candles)
• planting some of our own food (prioritizing the most expensive things like tomatoes + strawberries)
• appreciating simple pleasures
• not letting our things define us (a shabby car that runs is better than crippling car payments or no car at all)
• freedom is better than being a slave to debt
• we are rich in proportion to the number of things we can afford to leave alone (H.D. Thoreau)

Ten and a half years after we bought this house, we own it. It was not easy, but it is possible. 

Love,
Jane

We chose fear to be our leader 
when we forgot:
we are fractals
​of one collective being.
~adrienne maree brown

It's not uncommon to have a conversation mentioning climate change, during which a person attempts to end the conversation with a rhetorical, "But what can we do about it?" Well...how much time do you have?  ;)

It hit me the other day how many choices I make in a day based on what's best not just for me, but for all of us...humans, plants, animals + planet. Surely, I could think of one for every day of 2022...right?  Yikes...here goes trying.  :)

1. using a compostable bandaid (when necessary).
2. imagining possibility. setting intention.
3. air drying all of our clothing.
4. mending.
5. taking shorter showers.
6. bundling up indoors, when it's frigid outside + turning down the heat.

One choice at a time.

Love,
​Jane

​​The beginning of a new year...a blank slate...an empty page...a time as good as any to reimagine our lives...set intention...and design a pathway forward. 

Some questions I find useful:

• What do I value most? 
• What would I love for the heart of my life to look like?
• What is my work? (Not my job.) What is my purpose here?
• What might my life look like if what I value most was most prioritized?
• What supports my values + purpose?
• What does not support my values + purpose?
• Am I willing to let the things that don't support my values right now fall away?
• How do I want to spend my time?
• How do I design my life to honor my values?

It makes sense to me to approach this designing in the same way that I approach simplifying my home, wardrobe or calendar. Start with a clean sheet of paper + decide what belongs. The temptation is to look at each item we have + consider whether we want to let it go or not. If we look at each tchotchke, sweater + commitment this way, it is difficult to decide to let go. We may simply consider our attachment rather than its value to our lives. Many of the things we love, both physical + otherwise, can actually hinder our intentions rather than enhance them.

If we instead look at our space + decide how we need it to function (yes, beauty is a function too) + what items support these functions...then we can better understand how to move forward + to shop our own belongings. We can decide to place an extra object (or five) in place(s) of honor...but we may realize that we have many superfluous objects too.

When we design our lives around our highest values, we may find that some things we thought we couldn't give up just aren't serving what we value most. We might decide to say, "no thank you" to an offered promotion...decide to sit out a traditional vacation this year...or remove the pursuit of prestige from a hobby.

I want to intentionally prioritize what I want in my life (love + my primary relationships, for example). I don't want to just squeeze them in around the edges. We know that we cannot eat every good thing at one meal. We do not need to own every good thing. Likewise, I cannot do every good thing at once...and that is just fine. Creating some space around the things I value most allows me to treasure them appropriately. The same thing happens in my home, my wardrobe + my calendar.

Define values often...let the imagination soar...be ready to respond accordingly...live!

Love,
​Jane

You are your choices.
​~Seneca

For about a month now, my partner + I have been challenging ourselves to take shorter showers. We want to use less water + know that our showers are a great place to work toward this goal.

We decided to embark on this experiment all at once + on a day that neither of us was working. We each stated the time we wanted to stay under + timed each other's showers. With a lot of hustling on my part + less "standing around" on his, we were each able to stay under our chosen times. (I have hair + he doesn't, so we have different goals.)  :)
​
Once I tasted that success, I was motivated to shift the way I take showers toward using even less water + was eventually able to drop my time down to a 1 1/2 minutes below my original goal. That was pretty exciting! He was able to knock 30 more seconds off of his time. Now every day, we're chasing that new "possible".

That is one of the most significant take-aways from this experiment in shifting our habits toward shorter showers: Change creates momentum + desire toward even greater change! 

We've been focused on taking shorter showers for about a month now + are still timing our showers almost every day. We haven't exceeded our goal times all month!

A few thoughts + observations I've had along the way with this experiment:

• do it together :: My partner asks most mornings if I want him to time me. It's early, so I often need this reminder to hustle. We're holding each other accountable + encouraging each other too.
• keep it playful :: This challenge has been a lot of fun for us. We rev each other up + share the excitement, when we hit new low times. A little element of friendly competition never hurts either.  :)
• interrupt the norm :: Autopilot was my greatest enemy. I would get in the shower with the intention of being quick. Somehow autopilot would take over repeatedly + I'd have to "wake up" to remembering that I was trying to hurry several times during my shower. Moving the soap dish or switching the side the shower curtain opens on helps create an interruption to autopilot.
• begin :: We'll never shift our habits, if we never begin to try. We can't just think about doing better...or intend to start tomorrow. When the thought came, we didn't plan to start...we got up + started.

Part way through this challenge I heard a news story about a town in California experiencing water restrictions due to drought. I felt a sort of solidarity (in some tiny way) with the people livng there that I may not have otherwise. Water is such a precious resource, and we are not guaranteed a never-ending supply. We have so much more work to do, but this experiment has created the momentum + desire to work toward using less + less water every day.

Love,
Jane

How are you feeling, friends?

I hope you are feeling well + rested + content in so many ways...but also...this year has been traumatic. The pandemic continues to take lives. We learned that the window of opportunity to have a significant impact toward slowing climate change is closing faster than many scientists had previously believed. These two factors combined have left me feeling pretty discouraged, powerless + paralyzed at times.

Bulk items are less readily available at the supermarket. We have less access to our go-to experience-based gifts + entertainment. Even the farmer's market felt too crowded to venture into this summer. The nagging feeling that our climate-conscious efforts are too small to make a meaningful impact can threaten our desire to tackle these obstacles. 

And yet, why would we choose to enable climate change rather than to fight it in any small way that we could? Why wouldn't we want to share with our friends + family that climate-conscious choices also promote our contentment...boost our health...save us money...and come from a place of compassion toward others? 

So...I am, again, thinking through ways that I can act anyway. The new year is a great time to take stock + create new plans with new resolve.

Here are a few things I can do...even now: ​

• Eat less meat. 
• Drive less.
• Eat more vegetables + fruits (as local + unpackaged as possible).
• Quit plastic (as much as possible). 
• Choose simplicity.
• Choose less stuff, a smaller home, a smaller wardrobe.
• Use less water + gas + electricity.
• Embrace "enough".
• Practice gratitude.
• Repair, mend.
• Do without for a while.
• Frame these choices in a positive light. When people notice our choices, they also notice how we talk about them. Share the positive aspects! 

In the short term, I want to be more alert to the impact of my decisions. I also want to tackle each of these things on a deeper level...conduct some experiments...and challenge my habits + assumptions. Sounds like fun to me.  :)

Love,
Jane