Monday, May 6, 2013

Things I don't Have That Many Others Do

Posted: 02 May 2013 07:18 PM PDT

After I wrote my last post, things I don’t have that many do, someone asked, “What do you have that most people don’t?”
It was a good question. I cut out a lot of what I found to be unnecessary (for me) to make room for what I find to be more important.
So what do I have instead? Honestly, what I have isn’t that uncommon, but here goes:

leisure time
space in my home
time to read, meditate, exercise
time to write every day
time for my beautiful family
time for close friends
time to walk places (instead of drive)
freedom from car maintenance, car breakdowns, traffic
time to cook simple, healthy meals
the luxury of not worrying what time it is most of the time
disconnectedness when I’m away from home
fewer distractions even when I’m connected
my health
less worry
a very light packing list
worry-free finances
a business I’m proud of
wonderful readers

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Why You Need to Simplify Your Life

Tuesday, April 02, 2013 simple living 9 comments

More and more people around the world strive to become sustainable in their lifestyle, mindset and emotions but feel entangled in deeply rooted old habits or get confused by too many contradicting advices.

If you have decided to simplify your life but you don't know how to start, this post is for you! If you have already set on the simplifying path - jump right on in, we love company!

Photo: kanelstrand

What is simple living?

Simple living is an attitude to life that will help you live more sustainably, more deliberately and more happily. Among other things, simple living includes:

Identifying what is most important for you and eliminating everything else.
Doing what inspires you and being with the people you love.
De-cluttering (be it your mind, your everyday life or your virtual life).
Single-tasking and learning to diminish stress.
Striving to live frugally by wanting less and buying only what is necessary.
Slowing down and being actively present in the moment.
Living a healthy life.
Striving to be green and sustainable as much as your surroundings allow.
Enjoying the simple pleasures of life.
Simplifying your goals, tasks and expectations.

Photo: kanelstrand

How to know when you need to simplify your life

You are way to deep in debt.
The clutter around you is overwhelming you and is keeping you away from taking the right decisions.
You have grown apart from your loved ones and even yourself.
You are stressed out.
You rarely do something for the fun of it.
The time you spend on the Internet is way too much and way too disorganized.
You are multitasking any time, anywhere.

I know all this may seem overwhelming but I assure you, there is nothing complicated in living a simple life. You don't need to withdraw from the world and seek a retreat to be able to achieve simplification. On the contrary, simple living is about engaging more fully in the world, but with a changed list of priorities. Simple living makes place for the really important things in your life and helps you appreciate more fully what you have and who you are.

The Simple Living Pledge

To help you re-evaluate your priorities in life, I invite you to take The Simple Living Pledge and participate in the discussions on Kanelstrand. Together we can grow much faster! I am looking forward to your insights, advice or your general thoughts on simplifying.

Friday, March 29, 2013

strawbale gardening for anyone,any place.

Monday, March 25, 2013

Trading in Consumption

Written by Courtney Carver - 16 Comments
Categories: money

Synonyms of consumption include burning, damage, decay, decrease, depletion, desolation, destruction, devastation, diminution, dispersion, dissipation, exhaustion, expenditure, loss, misuse, ruin, swallowing, using up, utilization, waste, wear and tear.
Now, maybe your trip to the mall last weekend didn’t feel destructive or devastating, but a few of the other words may sound familiar especially when we dissect our consumption habits over time. It’s not pretty. Especially not at the rate that we, as a society are consuming, devastating and using up whatever we can get our hands on.
The worst part is that the majority of our purchasing isn’t on things that we need or that add real value to our lives. Instead we are often after a feeling. We buy something because we hope it will make us feel productive, pretty, happy, loved, whole or just better than we feel now. And it does. For about five minutes.
It’s not bad to want to feel productive, pretty, happy, loved, or whole, but with a purchase, the emotions and feelings are not sustainable and we are left with debt, clutter and emptiness. There is a better way.

Trade in Consumption for …

Creativity
Instead of working your anxiety out at the mall, write something, draw something, improve your photography skills. Make something out of nothing. Creating will make you feel productive.
Collaboration
Get together with friends and talk about how to make something better. Put your creative energies together and do something good with it. Cook for each other or go for a hike. Some of the best ideas come from movement and conversation. Collaborating will make you feel loved.
Contribution
Give. Give. Give. Your time, talent and treasure is so much more valuable and meaningful when you give it away. Contributing will make you feel whole.
Connection
Meet new friends. Reach out to old friends. Start a Twitter account and connect with authors and artists that you admire. Join or start a meet up group. Connection will make you feel better.
Challenge
Replace your shopping habits with an unshopping challenge like minimalist fashion Project 333 or The 100 Thing Challenge.
Trading in consumption isn’t about spending nothing or not buying anything, but instead, paying attention to where your dollars and minutes go. Track your spending for a week or a month and acknowledge your spending habits. You might be spending more than you think. Maybe you don’t need to make as much as you do. Perhaps that debt free lifestyle is closer than you think.
Break the habit of shopping for sport, searching for happiness at the mall, or picking up extra, needless items while grocery shopping by shifting your focus from consumption and comparison to creativity, collaboration, contribution and connection.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to Be More with Less and connect with me.

Friday, March 15, 2013

12 Easy recipes for eating local and vegetarian in March

Jaymi Heimbuch
Living / Easy Vegetarian Recipes
March 14, 2013

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Readers loved the collection of Kelly's recipes from February, highlighting dishes that are seasonal and vegetarian. I've been hard at work in the kitchen with The Cooking Project whipping up recipes from our archives and focusing on what to eat in March. Here are 12 recipes I recommend to try this month for eating local, vegetarian and within the season (or at least mostly in season, depending on your location, of course).

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Lentil salad with roasted vegetables and lemon-rosemary vinaigrette
From the recipe: "You could use any roasted vegetable you like in this recipe, and it would still be delicious. Roasted cauliflower, broccoli, red peppers, kale, even little new potatoes would all work perfectly well. If you are lucky enough to have asparagus now, use that."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Simple and easy navy bean bread
From the recipe: "The process is very simple -- no intimidating steps or warnings that you'll ruin the whole thing if you don't knead properly or have it rising at the perfect temperature. Any newbie to breads can make this recipe successfully. Coming out of the oven, the bread had a thin, delicately crunchy crust, and the hot fluffy inside with its mild, yeasty flavor was pure heaven."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Mini quiche with caramelized onions, mushrooms and feta cheese
From the recipe: "When I took the first bite of one of the quiches hot out of the oven, I was floored. I cooked the onions extra slowly -- for about 30 minutes -- so they caramelized and were incredibly sweet, a perfect counter to the salty feta for a boosted the flavor. The richness of it was surprising."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Edamame salad with avocado and radishes
You might not be in a location where avocados can be found this early in the season. If so, leave the avocado out -- I promise you won't miss it with the other wonderful flavors.

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Fingerling potato salad with jalapeno-cilantro salsa
From the recipe: "It would still be delicious if you made it with parsley rather than cilantro. This dish is great picnic material. It's easy to make, it's really good at room temperature, and there is nothing in it to spoil if it's a hot day."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Braised coconut spinach with chickpeas and lemon
From the recipe: "This was such a lovely combination of flavours and we all really enjoyed it. The addition of the sun-dried tomatoes added a bit of a surprise undertone to the dish that would have been different if you had used regular canned tomatoes."

Photo: Kelly Rossiter/CC BY 2.0
Roasted Cauliflower Soup with Aged Cheddar
From the recipe: "Roasting the vegetable first adds a bit to the cooking time, but the reward is worth the little bit of extra effort. This is a very filling soup, and if you add a bit of crusty bread and a green salad, you would have a nice, light supper."

Pasta with Swiss Chard and Mushrooms
From the recipe: "If you want a thicker sauce for this, you could add some tomato paste. I like the fresher flavour of just using the juice from the jar, but you might want something that sticks to the pasta a bit better. Leave out the Parmesan cheese and you have a vegan dish."

Broccoli Rabe, Potato and Rosemary Pizza
From the recipe: " You can also make this on flatbreads, which works really well for customizing."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Vegan chocolate cupcakes with strawberry filling
Strawberries are coming into season in some parts of the country, but if you're in a colder clime, try using strawberry preserves for the filling instead of making a sauce with fresh strawberries.

Photo: Emma Alter/CC BY 2.0
Brownie Batter Pancakes
From the recipe: "You could go the traditional buttermilk pancake route if you like, but this is a little recipe that my daughter tried and really enjoyed. It only makes enough for one person, so adjust the ingredients accordingly."

© Jaymi Heimbuch
Baked Apple Stuffed with Candied Ginger and Almonds
From the recipe: "I created this baked apple recipe for ease in preparation but mostly for the aroma. There's a reason real estate agents use the scent of apple pie to sell homes! It's so comforting and warm. And this simple, yet flavorful, recipe is bound to become a family favorite."

Tags: Cooking | Recipes | The Cooking Project | Vegetarian

Monday, March 11, 2013

Anything you cannot relinquish when it has outlived its usefulness possesses you, and in this materialistic age a great many of us are possessed by our possessions.” – Peace Pilgrim

Making the connection to life

By joining the slow movement we have the opportunity to connect to life. What does connecting to life mean? To connect to life is to connect to every aspect of our lives. Most important of all is to connect to ourselves, and to our own movement within life. That is, to connect to our body and our mind, to connect to
Interconnectednessspirituality, to our stage in life, to connect to the natural rhythms that guide us, and to connect to death and dying – a natural part of life.
So many of us do not connect to life. We search for something not knowing what it is. We search for happiness and fulfillment. But we search in the outer world not realizing that we find these things by looking within.
When we look within we see that we are complete and our life is complete. We no longer have to strive to climb the employment ladder or to improve our social status. We see that we are part of an infinitely complex whole – the interdependence of all things.
The most difficult part of connecting to life is to slow our mind enough to even see what we need to do. Many people in the west are now recognizing they need to make connection and are searching for how to do this. These people are aware that it has to do with slowing down and moving back to basics – away from the hectic stress-filled life they are leading.
More and more people are downshifting or seeking a seachange. In different countries different physical environments are seen to epitomize a slow, fulfilling life. For example, in some countries it is the peaceful rural village or farm-life, whereas in others it is the sleepy seaside village. Perhaps in some countries it is living in the mountains.
Real connectionEach culture identifies with a certain topographic or geographic landscape as being the ‘best’ one. Australians have always been drawn to the surf. It is a nation of surfers or fisherfolks.
Some people choose not to move where they live in order to join the slow movement, but to stay and dramatically slow down and change their lives in order to connect to life. We can downshift or seachange no matter what our life circumstance or position.
Death and dying has become a bit of a taboo subject in our culture. We are so divorced from the process that it is all a bit scary – something we don’t want to discuss, especially when it is our death and dying that is the subject.
Why has this unnatural fear arisen? Mostly this fear exists because death is unknown. Because it is unknown people have developed one of three basic attitudes: one is to fear death to such as extent that we become a slave to our emotions. Some people ignore the possibility of death by becoming so engrossed in living that they do not have time to think about it. And lastly, some people accept the inevitability of death and make emotional and spiritual preparations for it.