Living Simply

You know that game you played when you are younger where you and your friends say what you would take if you were going to be stranded on a dessert island?  Packing to come here was exactly like that.  As it turns out  I would bring a lot of clothes that were whittled down to the bare necessities several times, my Cuisinart food processor and blender, cupcake pans, battery charger plus batteries, lots and lots of assorted over the counter medications and as much of the kids vitamins I could gather, toys for the kids and medical school supplies.  Everything else was donated to Goodwill, Salvation Army, ARC or the community Warehouse.  There were keepsakes that got distributed amongst my parents, brother and Carina's grandma.  I did not realize just how much stuff we had acquired in that house in the ten years I lived there. Going through everything in that home taught me a lot about what really matters.  I would recommend it to everyone, pretend you have limited space and examine everything in your home, does it have a function, have you used it reasonably recently and does it have a place?  If you cant answer yes to all the questions then consider letting it go.  I am not advising discarding things with honest to goodness sentimental value, I can't think of what function Carina's second lost tooth will every have but it made it's way into the"please mom and dad store this stuff for me" pile.  I more mean do you need a handbag to go with every pair of shoes?  Do you need pants that haven't fit you in 10 years?  Do you really need 4 T.V.'s?  I found that as I shed items from my house my life was less complicated I simply had less to clean and put back or find a place for.  A huge huge issue for me was toys, not mine but Carina's she had very literally a room full of toys when she really only reads books, plays on her computer or draws, all of the things she really used would fit in a 12 x 12 box.  But for a lot of reason's that I am not going to go into in this post I have piled toys on her.  More then she certainly could manage which meant I cleaned her room because she really couldn't.   I'd given her to much stuff to manage.  I also realized two days before my plan was set to leave Portland that I was way to attached to my clothes.  I made several edits in the clothes I packed over the 12 days we spent in Texas, enough to free an entire suitcase for toys for the kids.

Now living on this island I realize even more so what I can live without. We have no car, hot water only in the bathroom, no dishwasher, no clothes dryer, a propane stove and oven, just barely enough flat wear and dishes to eat a meal, and a couple of cutting boards and knives. It took a week of shopping to get enough food in the house that I am not in complete panic every time my kids look at me with hungry eyes.  Every time I think to complain I just remember, there are those who have less, our neighbor has no running water and no electricity.  He lives entirely off his land.  Because we have less it has given us the time to engage with each other rather then engage with our stuff in proximity to each other.