Advent Gratitude, Day 2: Yes.

View of the houseboats
on the Bay Trail

It was a day of YES.

I heard Quentin squirming on the floor of my bedroom where he was camped for some reason, but instead of getting up with him as usual I said YES to more sleep and had the pleasure of waking up ninety minutes later to my husband delivering a fresh cup of coffee to my bedside table.

I'd made plans to see Breaking Dawn Part Two with a friend, and when she called to adjust them a bit, I was able to say YES to an early lunch and matinee. She chose the lunch location and so I got to enjoy a really delicious tomato soup and brussels sprout salad at a new restaurant that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. YUM and healthy too!

When I got home from my date my daughter asked if we could take an outing on the Bay Trail. YES meant I raced my kids and held my husband's hand for a few minutes, and got a little exercise which made us all more cheerful.

I could have said NO to any of these things. I could have acted JUST from responsibility, kept my eyes on my to-do list, gotten the laundry done and the sheets changed. But I said YES. I am so grateful.

What Is a Simple Life?

It's been quiet around here for a few weeks because I've been stumped.

A friend of mine recently posted a question on Facebook: "What is simple living?"

Well, don't I feel like a bonehead for not asking that question of myself in the first place.

Seven other people responded to her question. Some said simple living with kids was not possible. Some described what was essentially a peaceful afternoon. One said, no, who cares about a simple life? Embrace its craziness!

My response to her post went like this: For me it's a matter of making only the choices that are important to my quality of life, including commitments and belongings. It's not having to spend time taking care of things and having more time and mental space to do, think, create, and share.

I thought about her question a bit more and added: I think a simplified life requires constant vigilance because of the difficulty of saying no.

But now that I've had three weeks to stew about the question, and look around at different ways that people have tried to answer that question, I think I have at least something to throw out there. As a start. And I reserve the right to change my mind or expand on the ideas I'm kicking out here today.

The original impetus for simplifying came during a time when I felt totally overwhelmed with my life and unable to make time to do the things that were important to me.  I've already recounted how I discovered The Zero Waste Home and the impact Bea Johnson had on me. Johnson actually has two simultaneous endeavors going on at once in her household: zero waste living and also "simplifying," which when you read what she's actually doing sounds more like minimalism.

In one of her posts Bea Johnson said that Little House on the Prairie was her favorite TV show because of the simplicity of life that it portrayed. Ignoring the many anachronisms from that show (my personal favorite being how people drove their gigantic wagons pulled by gigantic horses around just like they were driving a station wagon... but I suppose I can laugh about that another time), I want to point out that if you actually look at the sets they are chock full of stuff, including lots of multiples -- something Johnson finds offensive in her own home life. Moreover, I don't know what's "simple" about, for example, rousing all your children, aged 5 and up, out of their warm beds at two or three in the morning to save the corn crop from an unseasonable snap freeze, as Laura Ingalls Wilder recounts in Farmer Boy. Or in eating the same meal over and over and over again for weeks at a time because there is absolutely no other food available. It's not simplified living if you can't choose where you simplify.

But I digress.

So what is simple living? I think it's focused living. I have some goals and some values.

• To live in a way that hurts as few people as possible
• To never stop learning or changing my mind about what I thought I knew
• To be kind and supportive of other people
• To be healthy for my entire adult life so that when I'm old I don't die infirm
• To be as good a writer as I can possibly be
• To be pretty (I know it's vain, but it's true)
• To make all the choices that reflect how rich and varied life can be that are consistent with the path I have set for myself

For my children, I want:

• Good health and an excellent sense of themselves
• Diligence in the presence of failure or uncertainty
• Habits that will make it easier for them to make the choices that will make them happy
• The time and leisure to do childish things
• The opportunity to find out what they love and what they are good at

For our entire family:

• Gratitude for all that blesses us

Anything that distracts me from these goals and values for myself or my family is complicating my life. This doesn't mean that the life I have laid out for myself is simple in itself; in many ways it's a lot more complicated than living unconsciously. Just the goal of being healthy, for instance, requires a lot of effort. I have to determine what kind of diet will best further that goal; I have to be conscious of what is actually going into the foods I bring home and prepare, or what I choose when we eat out. I have to make the effort to make exercise a part of my schedule, and figure out how to make it part of my kids' schedule as well, so that they will learn it as an ordinary and necessary part of life, like sleep. When I fall off the wagon (as I do regularly) I have to pay attention to what I let distract me from my goals and make the effort to rebuild in a way that won't set me up for failure again.

No, this kind of life is not simple, but it's a lot simpler than relying on (and paying for) ten prescriptions with all the complications (read: side effects) they bring. It's simpler than being miserable for being fat and not fitting my favorite clothes and thereby violating my goal of being pretty. It's simpler than trying to undo the consequences of not making the effort -- and that I know for sure, because I'm doing it now. It's simpler than wondering what life could have been if I had lived it according to my own desires.

Owning too much stuff also distracts from my goals and values. I can't be grateful for my blessings if I'm drowning in them. Not being able to find things is my biggest, biggest peeve ever. I resent and loathe the waste of every minute spent looking for things that are buried under things I don't care about. Downsizing from the Big House has been a great improvement on this problem -- there are only so many places any given thing can be in this little house -- but it still happens occasionally. I do not want to spend my life looking for things. That is so not simple.

Of course the lists above are only partial, but it probably would help me a lot to make a more thorough, personal list for my own use to keep me on track. As my children get older I'd like to distill it into a family motto that we could post in our home, something they have had a say in so that they have a stake in living it. I'm also finding that over-simplifying is not a good idea. Living in a little rental house in a walkable neighborhood is nice in many ways, but it precludes the vegetable garden I enjoyed, and the decorating possibilities that make me feel creative and capable. That's not simple, it's unnecessarily ascetic and unsustainable. Finding and maintaining a simple life is, I think, a constant work in progress.

If you want to explore all kinds of ways of adopting a simple life, here are some of the resources I looked at while I was stewing over this post:

Since I'm a Wikipedia junky I'll share the definition for simple living found there:

Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions or increasing self-sufficiency, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than want. Although asceticism generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury and indulgence, not all proponents of simple living are ascetics. Simple living is distinct from those living in forced poverty, as it is a voluntary lifestyle choice.  

Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality, health, increase in "quality time" for family and friends, work–life balance, personal taste, frugality, or reducing personal ecological footprint and stress. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism and conspicuous consumption. Some cite socio-political goals aligned with the anti-consumerist or anti-war movements, including conservation, degrowth, social justice, ethnic diversity, tax resistance and sustainable development.

The Year of Less and The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking (same mom runs both blogs)

Unclutterer 

Miss Minimalist and The Joy of Less, both by Francine Jay

Think Simple Now

Zen Habits 

The Simplicity Collective

Liberal Simplicity

Simple Mom

Omphaloskepsis, Part 1

After a lovely two-week vacation during which I gave myself permission to eat the potato chips (and pretty much everything else that crossed the threshold), it is time to return to ordinary life.  Including, alas, facing the fact that all of the pictures that were taken for our parents' Christmas cards are going to include me looking pretty saggy.

Good thing Christmas comes every year.  I have some time to do something about it, assuming the Mayans were wrong about 2012.

I did take the time to identify several habits that are contributing to the things about my figure that I find unsatisfactory.  And I should take a moment to point out that while I'm complaining about my appearance in the family portraits at the moment, what I am also unhappy about is my overall fitness.  I am not an athlete, but I have had periods in my life when I was very fit and pleased with what my body could do.  For several years I took yoga classes, which was awesome not only for my flexibility but also for my sense of calm and my feelings of connectedness in my spiritual life.  At several different times in my life I have been a fairly strenuous walker, at my best covering as much as 6 miles a day, three days a week.  When I trained for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day, I walked 6 miles a day during the week, and then 10-17 miles on Saturdays.

What has happened to me?

Here are a few habits I have fallen into that keep me from being the person I want to be:

1. Not exercising regularly.  This is bad for me not just because I'm not burning off the bad food choices I make, but because I'm depriving myself of the satisfaction that kept me from overeating in the first place.  I gradually gave it up when the house was on the market, after one too many notices that the house was going to be shown during the time I had designated for exercise.
2. Reading while I eat.  I definitely, definitely overeat when I'm not focusing on my food.  I noticed this one the most while I was on vacation; the thought of not reading while I munched my lunch, quietly, away from other people, was so uncomfortable that it almost sent me into a panic.  This is where I will begin applying what I've learned from The Power of Habit. 
3. Not having a plan for my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.  I have no problem with portion control at dinner time, but my earlier meals are sometimes a little haphazard.  Because of poor planning during those times of day, I often go too long between meals and then end up starving and shaking so badly that I feel like I have to stuff myself during the mid-afternoon.  I'm hoping that the measures I'm considering for Item #2 will help alleviate this problem.
4. Too much alcohol.  It's only a glass or two a night, but considering what sugar does to one's metabolism, and also the fact that I can't drink when I'm training for something because it makes me feel horrible, I probably should cut back.  A lot.  Although that might be a habit I tackle later, when I've worked out to do about the reading while I eat thing.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes a habit loop, whereby a cue triggers a behavior or routine, which, when completed, is rewarded by a kind of neuro-chemical shot.  The initial description of the loop is established by recounting an experiment in which a rat is placed behind a closed gate, which opens with a click.  The rat then makes its way down a very simple maze to find a bit of chocolate, which it then eats.  Over time, the chocolate becomes associated with the click, in what most people would describe as a Pavlovian response.  Duhigg illustrates it thusly:

In my case, the need to eat a meal when I am alone (or when I wish I were alone) is the cue or click.  Reading the book while eating is the routine.  I have identified that a sense of relaxation is the reward, and that when I am anxious or reluctant to take on a project (like the laundry) that is on my agenda, then I will stretch out the experience of relaxation by adding portions to my meal.  Sometimes, a lot of portions.  The challenge will be to figure out how to meet my need for relaxation (in spite of the difficulty I find in relaxing generally) without continuing the problematic behavior.

According to Duhigg, you can change a habit, but you can't kill it.  So I won't be able to simply stop reading while I eat and expect that to go well.  Neurologically, I need something to disrupt the routine part of the loop while retaining the reward.  To do this, I'm going to have to poke around a little bit.  

Duhigg also stresses the importance of having a plan for tackling a behavior.  I don't really have one.  But lucky me, some of the other ingredients for successfully altering habits are including a community and Belief.  You, lovely readers, are my community, and Belief... well, that is going to have to develop.  (In the book, Belief generally came about as a result of some sort of crisis.  I'm not sure unflattering family pictures are enough of a crisis to generate the belief necessary to make this happen, but here's hoping.)  

By tomorrow I will have a Plan A to share, as well as a few measurements to incite me to victory.  I will also share some highlights of going on vacation for 2 weeks (I flew with an underweight suitcase, hurray!!) and of coming home (I still love my baking soda and my reusable grocery bags!).  And later this week, I will be introducing a new tab to the blog... are you on the edge of your seats?

Thanks for being my community, friends!

Putting It Into Practice

So I found The Power of Habit to be pretty empowering.  Just how empowering, I'm ready to put into practice.   Here's the deal:  I'd like to lose eight pounds, and if I'm successful, then an additional eight pounds, for a total weight loss goal of sixteen pounds.  I know from the last few months that simply wishing the weight away doesn't work.  Unfortunately.  However, I think that this time I have a better understanding of what I need to do to succeed.