Dandelions and Daydreams

Our sleeping bags are airing out on the back porch.  The sun has come up, and I’m off to an early start for the day.  After sleeping out under the stars last night, I feel grounded and connected.  Sometimes we have this mis-perception that camping out requires extensive planning, a long trip to a state park, and lots of extra hassles.  In the summer time, Brenton and I like to sleep out at least once a week.  Usually we decide to do this at about 9 o’clock at night.  As I am getting ready for bed, I pull the sleeping pads out of the closet and unroll the sleeping bags.  Everything gets laid out on the back deck and we fall asleep wondering, again, what is so fascinating about looking at the stars.

This morning the day peeked through and I woke up at 5 a.m.  I think I would sleep a more appropriate amount of time if I didn’t have such a comfortable mattress.  I read somewhere that sleeping 6-7 hours seems to be optimal for long life.  Sleeping 4 hours or less can mess with glucose metabolism, and sleeping more than 8 hours just makes me tired.  When I woke up at 5 a.m. I was ready to go after just 7 hours of sleep.  I was awake enough that I couldn’t sleep again with just a sleeping bag and a camp mat underneath me.   Now, it’s only 2 1/2 hours later and I’ve finished my housework for the day.  If I could be this productive every day, I think I could take over the world.

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This week has been one of the busiest of the summer.  We found a neighbor who has a cherry tree, and she wasn’t going to harvest the cherries.  So far we have picked almost 18 lbs of cherries from her tree.  We are also working on another (smaller) sour cherry tree.  This same neighbor has enough fruit to keep Brenton and me busy for a long time.  As the summer progresses, we will be harvesting plums, apricots, pears, apples, and raspberries from her yard.

While we are on the subject of raspberries, I have to tell you about our latest apartment find.  I think the most exciting thing about living in a duplex or a rental house is that you never know what you are going to find in the yard planted by past tenents.  Brenton was out moving the hammock stand in preparation for the owner to come mow the grass and he found a small raspberry bush growing at the edge of the yard.  It looks like it has come over from the neighbor’s yard.  There is a small patch just on the other side of the backyard fence.  I think raspberries taste like sunshine.

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Today turned into one of those days when I feel empty and stretched.  My heart feels lonely and sad like someone scraped it over with sandpaper.  It’s the kind of day where what I want to do is inhale copious amounts of chocolate in an effort to soothe my restless soul.  I find myself in front of the refrigerator often.  I keep coming back looking for something that will make me feel better.  I’m lucky that we don’t keep many sweets in the house and leftover beans and rice just doesn’t work as a salve quite the same as chocolate cake.

Then I open the refrigerator again and with that cool burst of air comes a bit of clarity.  I’m not trying to fill a physical hunger and food won’t fill a soul hunger.  The good feelings that I get from chocolate might help for a short while, but when the chocolate is gone the ache will still be there.

I turn away from the fridge and find my journal.  I open it to a blank page and pour out my heart to the Father.  I make a cup of coffee and read my Bible.  While I am fellowshipping with my God who is Love, I find the ache disappearing and being replaced with a peace and trust.  Everything will be okay.

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I’ve read that for everything we become as adults, the seeds were planted in our childhood.  If that really is the case, I’m trying to figure out where the seed was planted that grew into this obsession with decluttering and simplifying.

As a teenager, my parents referred to my room as “the center of gravity.”  When something went missing in the house, you could most likely find it in my room (especially scissors and hairbrushes).  In the last 2 years, I have turned decluttering into a hobby.  This past weekend, I realized my need for beauty is as strong as my need for simplicity.

For a while now, I have been following the Flylady organization system.  One of the key components of the system is the Control Journal.  The control journal is basically a notebook where you write down your routines so that on those down days you can look and know what you need to do without having to make a decision.

I have tried to make a control journal at least 5 or 6 times, but I never actually used it.  The notebook I had the stuff written down in would end up sitting on my counter until it got covered over with a pile of mail.  I tried to follow the rules and not get perfectionistic about it.  I tried to write the routines down in pencil or use a post it note, but those things always ended up looking junky to me.

This weekend I found a stand up photo album at a garage sale.  I typed up my routines to fit on a 4 X 6 post card.  In the extra space to the right of my routines, I included digital images of Monet paintings.  My morning routine card has Impression: Sunrise, which is the painting that started the impressionist movement.  Each card has a different picture on it.  All of the pictures are Monet paintings because Monet is probably my favorite landscape artist.  My control journal is now a beautiful work of art.  I smile whenever I see it rather than being irritated with the messy look of my hand writing or by the fact that post-its won’t stay in place more than 5 minutes so I am continually picking them up off the floor.

I think the next step in my life is learning to balance functionality, simplicity, and beauty.  That makes me smile.

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My last post was a bit of a hot-headed rant.  I do that sometimes, but I’ve been thinking about the whole recycling/going green thing a lot lately.  Yesterday, Melissa at The Living Proof Ministries Blog wrote an article about Christianity and going green.   Check over there to read the whole post, but her three main points were:

1. God reveals himself through creation, so in a way we are surpressing the glory of God when we trash the Earth.
2. God gave man the job to care for the Earth, and everything we do should be for the glory of God.
3. The Earth will eventually burn up and be recreated.  Nothing we can do can end the groaning of the earth, but when we work to protect the earth, we are joining God in a work that He will eventually perfect with a new Heaven and a new Earth.

As a Christian, I have to be cautious to worship the Creator rather than the created, but I would be foolish to say that I cannot care for the created.  If I were to ignore the created because I was worried about failing to worship the Creator, then I would also have to ignore my own body.  I would neglect to care for all the earthly blessings that the Lord has given to me.  I would be so Heavenly minded as to be of no use to this earth.  I would be rendered ineffective as a light because my focus would be on worshiping the Creator and ignoring the created.  The ultimate purpose of a human is to bring glory to God, but we have to do that in the context of where God has put us to live.

On the flip side, if we choose not to be a good steward of our life, we will have to live with the consequences of that choice.  I’m not talking about losing salvation here, I’m talking about natural consequences.  If I go out and spend our family deeply into debt, we will have to live with the stress and burden of that debt.  If I create excess waste and turn the whole world into a landfill to satisfy my own consumer needs, then I (or my children) will have to live on a trashed planet; I will be guilty of neglecting and ignoring the blessings of the Lord.

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I’m mad.  I’m steaming.  Today I thought I would do something that would be earth-friendly and figure out where to get a replacement recycling bin.  Our apartment didn’t have a bin when we moved in, and I thought I would start trying to recycle.  I googled in “Where can I get a recycling bin in [city name]”  I came across an article from the local newspaper that explained where our recycled goods go after the truck empties those green bins.

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

CHINA

You read that right.  All those cargo ships that are coming in to our ports filled with cheap Made-In-China plastic are leaving our ports with plastic, paper, and metals that we have diligently recycled.

Oh, I know that they are paying to haul off our goods, and they return the favor by making more cheap plastic for us to buy and then recycle and ship back to them.  That almost makes me feel better.  Not really.

Since there is no market for recycled glass our county was stockpiling it.  Public outcry has forced the county to begin shipping it to Washington and paying $70 per ton for someone in Washington to stockpile it there.  Wonder who will be laughing when there actually is a market for recycled glass.

Where does our trash go?  Well all the non-recycled stuff gets hauled to Oregon to go into the landfill there.  Seriously, this is ridiculous.  There has to be a better answer.

While I’m pondering on that answer, I’m going to go sew some cloth bags and build a compost bin.

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Welcome to the July 2008 edition of Carnival of Christian Women  This is a short carnival, and I have decided to go back to just one edition per month because of personal time limitations.  The next edition will be posted sometime in early August.

Devotionals

Claudia Riley presents Hilo Farmer’s Market and Prayer Post posted at Standing Straight, saying, “A trip to the Farmer’s Market inspired a reflection on temptation and why we need to have prayer times.”

God Moments

Julie Heath - More4kids Inc. presents Living Green - Dominion and Stewardship of God’s Creation posted at More4kids.

GP presents Viva Simplicity posted at Innside Montana-Your Home at the Range, saying, “The joys of summer time simplicity”

Overcoming hardship

Hopeful Spirit presents Breaking Back into the Light posted at On the Horizon.

Parenting

Leticia Velasquez presents Disabled teach us about the Eucharist posted at causa nostrae laetitiae.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of christian women using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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In the last year, Brenton and I have moved twice.  We were in a 2 bedroom apartment (with a garaged), and we decided to downsize to a 1 bedroom, 300 sq ft. hobbit hole.  The decision came after realizing that we were spending about $300 for the luxury of having a bedroom and a garage used for junk storage.

During the move, we donated about a third of the stuff we owned.  From what was left, about 1/3 went into storage because it was loved, but not stuff we needed daily.  Of the stuff that we moved into our new little home, amazingly, we continued to declutter.  We had a box to donate about once a month.

That living situation lasted 8 months, and we found out that we are expecting our first baby.  The time had come for us to move back up to that 2 bedroom apartment.  After we emptied the small apartment, the house was full.  We had tripled our space, and the house was full before we even emptied the storage unit!

We settled in to the house by unpacking the necessities:  Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom.  Everything else stayed in boxes and got put into the spare bedroom.  I closed the door behind me and didn’t look back in for a month.  With just the necessities unpacked, my house has never stayed clean so…effortlessly!  I found myself dreading unpacking the spare room for fear of creating an explosion of chaos once again.

During that month, I slowly came to an incredible realization.  I feel just so unAmerican saying it.  I am so much more satisfied with my life–content–when I have less stuff to maintain and care for.  Could the advertisers be wrong?  Have I been sold a lie all of my life?

In my minimalist house, I found that:

• The house stayed clean with little effort
• I felt relaxed and at home
• Home wasn’t a place to avoid, rather it embraced me and inspired me to create
• Peace ruled this place
• There was “no place like home.”

Less stuff equals more satisfaction.  I don’t think it’s just about less maintenance though.  I think that ultimately, stuff can never make us happy.  More stuff leads to craving even more stuff still, and those cravings push out space for the things that are really important in life.

I took that time to plant a vegetable garden and go to the farmers market on the weekends, and slowly begin to redefine my life.  I’ve opened the door on the spare bedroom because I have a self-imposed deadline of August 27 (3 months before baby is due).  As I unpack, nothing comes out of there unless I can find a home for it.  We have dropped another box off for donations and posted a few things on freecycle.  We took two big boxes of books to the library as donations and even threw away some college textbooks.  I’ve started releasing projects that I don’t think I will ever really finish, and started thinking about which hobbies I really want to keep in this new life.

I feel like a tree going through pruning, so that my life can be more fruitful in this next season.  I feel like I am breathign fresh air again.

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Today I stumbled across Laylitas recipe for Rhubarb and strawberry empanadas.  I wasn’t fortunate enough to grow up with the delights of rhubarb pie or rhubarb cobbler (too hot to grow rhubarb in Georgia), but I am definitely liking the looks of this recipe.  I wonder if it is too late to get rhubarb from the farmer’s market.

Photo credit goes to Laylita from Laylita’s recipes.  Go check out this blog.

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I keep having all these crazy cravings for food that I thought I hated.  Most notably, Avocados and Tomatoes.

I thought I hated avocados, but I think my love affair started at a Cinco De Mayo party this year.  It was the bean dip, the only thing I could eat at the party without feeling sick.  I haven’t been able to get enough avocado since then.  I buy them every time I go shopping.  I have avocado chunks in every salad I make.  Avocado on a turkey(real turkey meat, not deli meat) and tomato sandwich is heavenly.

Which brings me to my next point.  Why did I start craving tomatoes after (and only after) the salmonella scare?  I was holding off until I was certain the store tomatoes are save (mostly shipped from California).  Now that California tomatoes are cleared as safe, I may have to give in to my cherry tomato craving.  I don’t like tomatoes.  I have never liked tomatoes.  The things I am doing for this baby.

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