Simplicity is Contagious

The great thing about the month of nothing is that you really focus on simplicity. And not only the simplicity of eating less crap and wasting less money on junk of various shapes and sizes. Somehow focusing on the simpler life in one thing carries over to other areas. The big bonus for me is the area’s simplicity has been leaking off on. Namely my other nemeses of clutter and weight control. So my updates on those areas are pretty good.

For the clutter, which I’m always working on, I took on a challenge issued to my sis Trenadoll at an eight week organization class she’s attending. She’s kindly posting the organizing challenges on her blog and I figured I’d try and attempt them as well. So week one was get rid of half your clothes. (WHAT?) Did I hear right? It figures, because I heard somewhere that we wear 10 or 20% of our clothes 80% of the time so why would you need the other clothes that you don’t wear. So guess what – I did it- 50%. BEFORE!

Good-bye clothes.

But you need to hear my twist. In addition to losing the things I just never wear I also purged my closet of some of my more comfortable, elastic waist-ed clothes. So what did I keep – a lot of my snuggies. The darling outfits that are a bit tight or show my bludges more than I’m comfortable with.

Why? I’m insane, or brave, or a little of both. And it’s extra incentive to keep losing the blasted fat. I can’t let people think I’m a hoochie mama who dresses in clothes two sizes too small on purpose. So you bet, I’m going to burn those calories and eat healthy so that I don’t bust seams, scare the neighbors, and embarrass the noodles out of my kids.

For the weight – I’m almost at my two week mark and I can’t tell you exactly how much I’ve lost. Smiley doesn’t want to know because the suspense of not knowing if you’re ahead or behind on our $100 challenge is another incentive to keep going strong. So, even though I won’t tell you my total weight loss, I will tell you I’m below 170 lbs. mark now. Wahoo!

So this week I’ve been working on some more canning.

Sadly, this is all I have to show for 3 days of off and on canning. I’m still proud of it because I’ve never canned peaches or pears before and they turned out pretty good. The bad thing is I’ve discovered the real reason behind my slow canning experience. Our stove only has two burners. When we bought it we thought it would be amazingly cool to have a grill on one side and burners on the other. WRONG! The grill is such a pain in the ________! It takes an hour to clean after each use. So we don’t use it and are left with half a stove top that works – well sort-of. The large burner on the working side has a electrical short in it and you have to put pans on it just so or it doesn’t heat at all. ( I know I'm tempting fate with a house fire because of it.) Once I got my water bath boiling and was setting the timer for the peaches. I probably accidently jostled the canner when I put the lid on and 25 minutes later when the timer rang I discovered that the stove was off and the water had cooled. Good thing my kids like peaches because we’ve been eating that batch all week – Cobbler… anyone?

So next month I’m pulling for some new burner inserts for the stove top. This time we’ll be getting the four burners and skip the grill.

I haven’t attempted the oil filter change yet because I don’t want to buy oil and a filter in our small, but expensive, town and I don’t have enough errands planned to make it to the big city yet. But when I do go, I’m seeing if the supplies to make the change are cheaper than Jiffy Lube. If they are cheaper by $5 then I’m going to attempt it. You know, just because I like to acquire mad mom skills and all.

Tomorrow –I need to de-stickify the kitchen. That aught to be fun.

Nothing but a WOW Week 1

Our first week of Nothing but Needs is over and how did we do? I think I can honestly say that we spent money on needs only.

Before we started, our average WEEKLY grocery bill (including eating out) was…

Beware it’s very, very scary. Not a pleasant amount. Enough to shock the socks off anyone…

But keep in mind we are a family of eight with three teenage sons, and sadly no garden of which to brag about this year. – NEXT YEAR it will be awesome.

Sorry for beating the bush leafless but back to the total.

$347.00 per week. Scary right? I’ve had weeks where it’s over $400.

So this week – our total was

Drum roll please:

$110.45

And of this $110 at least $28 was those canning supplies and another $16 was dog food for Itchy. Yes Itchy’s food comes out of our grocery budget. I figure that if the world ends and we eat through our food storage then we can always eat Itchy’s food – before we start consuming the bugs. Anyway it’s on our list.

So if you take those two off we spent $66.05 on actual food.

That my friends, is quite remarkable – for me at least.

I don’t think we will be down as low this coming week because I can see some things like laundry detergent, diapers and such that we will need to get next week.

I know we could probably go lower if we decided to eat purely from our food storage but I look at this whole month as a stepping stone to living a more needful, less materialistic overall life. So if I get a good sale to add to my food storage to replace something I used then, by golly, I’ll do it.

Other money I saved from getting sucked out of our account this week – Abner permitted me to cut his hair. Because I did it with scissors, don’t have any hair clippers anymore, it took a while. Probably a good hour fifteen minutes or at least we almost made it through the whole Napoleon Dynamite movie while I was feverously snipping. He was too mortified to have me take a picture (Not because it looked awful) but because he’s a teenager and that would be too embarrassing. And if he thought it was yuck he was kind enough not to tell me. I think it looks o.k. and I know several people at church said it looked good. I’m not comfortable cutting hair and it takes so long but I figure if I can round up some nice clippers and practice a bit then this could be a viable thing to do- permitting my boys keep allowing me to experiment.

This week I’m going to attempt something I’ve never in my life done before. I haven’t told Prince Erik about it yet because I don’t know if would scare the be-geebers out of him to know I was trying it. But I want to try it. May make a huge mess and wonder what in the blazes I was thinking but I’m going to give it the old college try and… get this… change the cruddy oil filter on the family tank. I think with it’s monster truck tires I should be able to wedge my rapidly shrinking body under it long enough to do the job.

The liquid sunshine is also supposed to hold off this week so I’m going to see if I can’t string up some line out back to hang dry some clothes as well. So wishing I had a clothesline still.

Right now I’m sure we are still in the honeymoon stage of seeing everything that we can do for ourselves. And I can see how making homemade bread can get tedious but until then I’m really beginning to enjoy seeing how little I can spend.

And if this month works well maybe I can encourage my kiddos’ to try it for yet another month and another, and just maybe we might be able to afford to take the Family to CA for a last big family trip to Disneyland before Abner leaves the nest.

King of the Hill

Prince Erik conquered his first ever Bogus Basin ride and beat his goal of doing it in under 2 hours. He thinks it was 1 hour 39 minutes and something, something seconds. Don’t know how he did compared to the pack but he did find Kirsten Armstrong after the race and she very graciously agreed to mug for our tiny cheap camera.



Can you believe how tiny she is?




Now, Lea has a great show-and-tell to take to school Monday. I’d skip school to see an Olympian in action. I’m still kicking myself for not going, but I couldn’t be happier that Prince Erik and Lea got to meet the only US Gold Medalist in Cycling during this last Olympics.

Tomorrow I’ll post my Month of Nothing week 1 results. Did I make goal? We’ll see.

Drooling with Envy

My little Lea just called to tell me Daddy has started his race. And guess who he's burning bike rubber with on the mountain today? 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist Kirsten Armstrong. Oh, My, HONK!!! I'm so wishing I now would have gone. I was hoping that she was there, being that she's an Idaho girl herself. But still.

Someone by the name of Lance Armstrong also entered the race but I have no idea if he is in fact THE Lance Armstrong.

I'm so enviously living the experiance vicariously right now through my 9 year old on the phone, it's making me dizzy.

Yesterday I spent $0 (A Big Fat ZERO)! I love this whole nothing thing.

As soon as I know Prince Erik has finished the race and not had a heart attack or made anyone famous crash and die I'll probably go pick some FREE blackberries and let my kids swim in a FREE lake. Until then I'm wearing out my phone with FREE Minutes to my kid.

Nothing but Pears and Hair.

Only nerves of steel kept me from my emotional eating rut yesterday. I could have really lost it. But no amount of emotional food pampering is worth that $100 bucks - Yet.

The only money I spent today after starting on our month of nothing was for rings and lids for my canning bottles and some Fruit Fresh. Why? Because I have two whole boxes of pears that were ripe and needed to be taken care of. It wasn’t much but it added up to $28 bucks. I’m sure the prices were jacked up because I bought them at our small town – high priced store. But I figured that if I had to travel to a cheaper location I’d spend the difference in gas.

So I purchased my goodies, came home, whipped out my rusty Hot Water Bath Canner and went to work. I had no idea I was such a slow and messy canner. I succeeded in making the kitchen a sticky hazard you can’t help but cringe as you walk through. It was too messy to take pictures of and I only made it through one box of pears. So when I finish destroying my kitchen on saturday I'll show you my first attempt at canning pears.

Hope managed to mess up the rest of the house as I was occupied with the fruits. Most of the time she was right with me… But - every now and then she would wander off and I would leave her be because my hands were covered in goo. But as soon as I found a minute to pause I’d herd her back into the rooms by me. I must have had my blinders on because I never really paid attention to what she was doing; I was so occupied with getting back to my sticky chore.

Long story short (when do I do anything quickly) Hope had found some scissors and no amount of curl spring could cover the fact that one side of her head of hair was a good 3-4 inches shorter than the other side. Sooo….

I decided it was time for Hope to have her first official hair-cut. Even though she’s had her bangs trimmed and she’s wacked at it some 20 odd times. Now I was going to do my best to even things out. My only problem was her hair is so curly it was really hard to straighten it to the point of even-ing it out, and I’m no hair dresser. My idea of hair management is a ponytail. But I tried and tried and tried some more and this is what she looks like now...

And the bathroom counter looks like…

Still a curly top but I’m really going to miss those long ringlets.

Everyone in the family is supporting the whole month of needs except for my O.D.D. child and he just likes to whine about everything anyway. But he’s been having a lot harder time the past few days. It could be that his school started as well and his girlfriend is going out with someone else. But it’s been a bear to deal with. I’m thinking about taking the rest of the kids on evening walks after he gets home from school just so we can get out of the house while he cools down.

Today, Prince Erik is leaving for ID so he can ride the Idiot Uphill, I mean Bogus Basin Bike Race. Lea is the lucky kid that get’s to join him. In fitting with our month of needs he is skipping the hotel and is going to sleep on an air mattress on Fancy’s parent’s floor. They kindly agreed to host total strangers. Wow! People can be so nice. It helps, I think, that Fancy’s Dad is a bike dude himself. Prince Erik’s also packing his own food so there will be no eating out. I so wish I was going with him but there is, as always, a lot going on here at home. Next year. And maybe I’ll shock him and beat him up the mountain.

Dream On - Accountability

Well we survived our first two days of nothing but needs and did pretty darn well. The only thing I did that I probably I could have done differently was maybe rode a bike around the neighborhood to look for the dog instead of taking the car. But my legs were in no shape to pedal(see why below) so I took the car.

So here are my accountability dreams in a rather large nutshell.

Nothing but Needs? – Good – Everything I did purchase over the past two days came from a list and were definitely needs.

Dream Make-Over? - Don’t tell Smiley but that $100 wager is all mine. Don’t hate me because I’m so awesome. You always lose the most weight the very first week your on a program. I’m tactically consuming between 1300 and 1500 calories per day. Meal tracking, well I didn’t miss a single meal. So all is good there.

And I was rocking the exercises too. Monday I attempted my bogus Bogus. Prince Erik and I went on a 30 plus mile bike ride...

through some gorgeous country and bike climbed a pretty good hill (the big-ish one in the background). So about 6 miles of the 30 was, for me, serious climbing on a bike, of course. This is me on the climb thinking about what a stupid thing it is to ride a bike uphill.

Even though I think I could complete the Bogus Basin Bike race this Saturday in ID (14.5 miles all uphill). I would rather wait until I’ve trained a bit more for it and am 25 lbs lighter. So I’ll do it next year when I’m super skinny and a real fast mama. Prince Erik is still going to go and do it though and I’m sure he’ll have a super speedy time.

And for the Dream-On Clutter crusade – well we made another go at the old laundry room.

We tried to tackle it last spring but never turned it into the mud room we wanted it to be. So Monday Prince Erik found the boards I bought last spring, cut them, splashed some stain on them and slapped them on the wall.

And Ta-Da! We have a mudroom folks. For the first time in the 12 years my kiddos have been going to school, their backpacks now have a home. It’s probably going to take some getting used to because those backpacks still have floor magnets attached to them. I had to remind the kids about four times that their backpacks now have a really swell spot to call home and they better find it fast. It may take a few days to become a habit but I’m excited. Of course I plan on adding more shelves but I’m good for now.

So my three dreams of losing weight, de-cluttering and needs only had a great couple of days.
And I did while dealing with Hope bringing home a new friend….

And we had to deal with Itchy taking a three day vacation from our family. That there almost drove me to my emotional eating self. But every time I spied a overly tempting candy bar I thought which would I rather have? That mouthful of comfort or $100? The money won.

Hope let Itchy out of the house over the weekend. Because it was the weekend there was no one to talk to at the local found pet shelters to see if she had been turned in. Here’s where my needs took a backseat as I drove around the neighborhood searching for the rascally mutt. Fortunately a Good Samaritan apprehended Itchy after seeing her play chicken with some cars on local busy road. They finally saw the flyers the girls and I smacked up around the neighborhood and gave us a ring.

So Itchy is back home and under house arrest. And I'm psyched about following my dreams.

Nothing but Needs

Well ,here we are at Day #1 of our Nothing but Needs, Back to the Basics, Simply Simple living month. Believe it or not I'm dang excited but scared silly all at the same time. The only thing is I'm a wee bit afraid of the whining I’m going to have to deal with when we tell the kids sorry but no McDonalds or snacks or DVD rentals or something they feel entitled to, but isn't really a need. We’ve sat down with them and explained the whole concept and they were fine with it until we got into details. So the devils in the details.

Even though I expect a little moaning from the munchkins I’m excited and very hopeful about the whole thing. But I’ve really been thinking about how many changes we are going to have to make that I've taken for granted.

For instance – my gym membership. Which my husband considers an investment but I am still going to try and go the month and work out totally at home and outside. Please pray it doesn’t rain everyday.

My husband is giving up driving his car to work for the entire month. On good days he will either ride his bicycle or his motorbike and on crummy weather days he will take his works free shuttle-bus.

The Kids are going to give up baths in our huge master bathtub. It’s large enough to be a swimming pool but I’ve made them promise to take quick showers.

Last night Evo-man told me that he needed a haircut. The boys are quite shaggy and I've been begging them all summer to get a trim. But no - wait until school starts and then ask. but guess what - I'm not taking them to the hair salon when I can cut it myself. When I told them this they were horrified. Mom... cut our hair... get out! Trouble is I haven't cut their hair for 10 years. I was tired of all the buzz clippers we killed because their hair is so freaking thick. So not only do I have to cut their hair but I have to do it with nothing but scissors. How's that for a back to basic. Maybe they will want to go shaggy for another month now.

There are so many other little details to living on needs only that I’m sure we will run into, and have to make decisions on, as we get started on this adventure. But I’m dang excited about the whole experience. We’ll see how I feel after a few days.

I know it seems like I've been commiting to doing a whole bunch of changes like over-coming the dreaded clutter monster, and losing weight. But this whole nothing but needs idea dovetails right into the other two. So I feel it' not going to be a strain to accomplish all three.

A few of you want to play along. I'll see if I can't then figure out about posting links to those people so you can see some of the different changes some other families are having to make. If you decide to join this challenge let me know and I'll add your link.