A Happiness Project?

A couple weeks ago I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, and although it seems a bit vain to focus on my own happiness, I do like some of the ideas she has.



Rubin focuses on making tangible resolutions to - in essence - be a more pleasant person to be around. She also forces herself to accept her preferences without giving in to the need to feel legitimate (An example she gives is her love of children's literature.) and to make time for enjoyment.

After reading it, I'm feeling motivated to work on my own character.

I am a perpetual critic. Perhaps it's because I like to feel superior to others - no, wait, it definitely is because I like to feel superior to others. It's terrible. I hate it. I've been "working on it" for a while now.

Philippians 2:3 says "Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Knowing this, I despise my critical heart. I despise the part of my nature that insists on being self-important. But hating this part of me just isn't good enough. I realize that I need to make tangible efforts in "counting others more significant." Of course, praying for change is just as--if not more--important.

Enter Rubin's "Resolutions Chart," as mentioned in her book. The idea is to write down specific resolutions and measure how you are doing with each resolution every day. I think I will start doing this, and we'll see how it goes. I also like her idea of writing a novel in a month. I might just try that one, too.

My main goal won't be to become happier, per se, but rather to be more intentional in my pursuit of good character.

I'll let you know how it goes.

My Secret Garden Dream

Watching, and then reading The Secret Garden as a kid sparked a desire to create secret garden of my own once I grew up. I love flowers and enjoyed playing in our backyard growing up. I wanted the same experiences for my children. The problem with this desire is that I'm not very good with follow-through. I start things and have a hard time keeping up with them through completion.

I started a vegetable garden in our backyard this year in hopes of being able to live off of our small plot of land a bit. It's a 12x4 raised bed garden that I planted via the Square Foot Gardening method. Unfortunately some of my older seeds didn't take, so only about 75% of the garden yielded anything. I was pretty surprised with myself that after planning it out all winter I actually managed to build and plant it. That's exactly the sort of thing that I would start and give up before any real progress had been made.

My husband owned this house before I met him, and the yard wasn't exactly something he focused on. There's a raised garden bed lining the front and side of our house, and it was overgrown and a bit scary when I came around. I spent a year or two planning out what I'd do with the garden and weeded, trimmed, and planted it last year. We also started utilizing our yard last year, enjoying our make-shift fire pit and playing lawn games with friends.

The thing is, we have all this lawn (that's mostly weeds) that neither of us really like to mow, so (after reading two books) I've decided that I'm going to replace the entire front lawn with a cottage garden. But maintaining a garden is a lot of work. I barely have energy to maintain my vegetable garden. 

I read Eco-yards: Simple Steps to Earth-Friendly Landscapes earlier this year, and I'm sold. The author encourages people to use native plants in their landscapes to encourage healthy eco-systems and help the environment.



I also read The New Low-Maintenance Garden, in which the author argues that filling your yard with hardy plants and architectural elements will allow for more enjoyment and less upkeep.



I like the ideas that both authors present - I desire to have a positive impact on the environment without putting in too much effort. I found a few native plant nurseries in my area and hope to start working on this project in the next few years. Question is, is it an investment that I'm willing to make? We'll see.

My Minimalist Journey: Diet

I grew up on Hamburger Helper and On-Cor dinners with the occasional chicken and rice. I had the typical american diet of packaged foods and minimal vegetables. We weren't very well off, and for a time some of our food came from the church food pantry. My family loved our sweets. Ice cream, Little Debbies, and store-brand chocolate chip cookies filled our cabinets and freezer.

I was not off to the best start.

I believe my parents did their best to give us what they believed to be a well-rounded diet. The canned vegetables and applesauce are a testament to that. I was a picky eater, though.

I didn't know about whole grain bread or the existence of various fruits and vegetables until one time when my parents went away for a week and left my brother and I with a family friend. She stocked the kitchen with foods I'd never seen before, and I liked them. At that point I decided that I would try anything at least once before deciding whether I liked it or not.

Working at McDonald's every night limited my options for dinner in high school. I almost always had a side salad with grilled chicken (believe it or not, you could probably still order that even though it's never been on the menu) and two "pies." My sweet tooth was (and is) still very prevalent.

In college, I lived off of Ramen soup and PB&J.

When I got married, I decided that I would only make our dinners from scratch and that we'd have a salad for dinner at least once a week. I started going through my Pinterest food board that had filled up over four years with hundreds of recipes.

Planner that I am, I laid out every single meal in an excel spreadsheet covering the entire year. I based my grocery lists off of the spreadsheet and continued working through the recipes. I decided to cook three night a week since most recipes were 6 servings (4 for our family, hubby has a big appetite), and we eat dinner with his family every Monday night.

I quickly realized that I was wasting a lot of food. I found recipes that used a portion of what I could get from the store, and I had no idea what to do with the remnants. I also realized that I wouldn't be able to keep it up when we started having kids.

I watched a number of documentaries on Netflix (believe me, there are a TON) on our diet. I'll probably list them in a future post. Two stuck out: Fed Up was the first one I saw and it talked about the unhealthy amounts of sugar we consume, and Forks Over Knives discussed a plant-based diet based off The China Study.



Another documentary discussed the food industry's impact on farmers and how it exploits illegal immigrants (the only people willing to work for such low wages).

I realized that my diet can have a negative or positive impact on the environment and the people working to bring me my food. I decided to stop buying meat mostly to save money but also to force us to eat more vegetables. We still eat meat when it's served to us at our parents' homes or when we're out. I also chose to try to buy with the seasons, getting organic produce based off the dirty dozen list and buying frozen vegetables and fruit in off seasons.

I'm currently working on simplifying my meal plan. I'm starting to put meals on rotation rather than trying something new every night. I've made a broad theme for each night I cook to narrow down ideas and keep it interesting. (If you're wondering: Tuesday is Latin American, Thursday is Western European, and Saturday is Asian) I'm also looking at the ingredients and trying to have some overlap within the week. I'll probably explain my food choices more in-depth in a future post.

I still need to work on cutting out added sugars and wasting less. Since I started a vegetable garden, I started composting this year - that helps.

I have more energy (which those who know me know is a big deal), I don't really want meat much anymore, and I lost all the baby weight by eight months postpartum. It's also easier to feed the baby people food when I can grab almost anything from the cupboard and give it to him. I don't know if this is a permanent change, but I'm happy with it now.

My Minimalist Journey: Possessions

About a month ago, I helped my parents move for the first time in almost 30 years. It was a frustrating experience for me because 30 years of accumulation filled their house, and the new, smaller home would not fit all of their stuff. My father in particular did not want to get rid of anything even though he "did not want to trash the new house" like they had their previous one. I grew up in a hoarder's house, and I could barely think straight while living there.

I had my own problems, though. If anyone asked me what my favorite form of exercise was in high school, my answer would always be shopping.

I loved going to the mall, scanning clearance racks and sales for a good deal. It was the best high my little good-girl self could get.

My closet was relatively small, so I'd go through my stuff and donate a trash bag full of clothes at least twice a year, when switching out seasons.

I was a collector, though. My bedroom had more books than everything else combined. The best shopping sprees were the ones at Borders, Walden Books, or Barnes & Noble. I'm getting excited now just writing about those hauls. I was the proud owner of two copies of my favorite book, Pride & Prejudice, thank-you-very-much (although I lost one copy by lending it out to a friend). I was my friends' library, although I was never really any good at keeping track of who had what. I still took pride in my extensive collection.

My school would have an annual auction and flea market at the end of the year, and in the last hour of the flea market, they gave away bags of stuff for $1. I filled mine up with glassware and knickknacks for my future home. I was prepared for life on my own.

Although I held on loosely to my stuff, I still accumulated quite a bit. I was a retailer's dream consumer.

In college, I heard about human trafficking. It's a cause that I became very passionate about. I looked at my Slavery Footprint and was astounded that I was a part of the problem, but I didn't know what to do about it.

A few years passed, and I had my own place with my husband. We became pregnant with our first child, and I wanted to give him a fresh start. I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo this time last year and promptly got to work.



Kondo's method is pretty straightforward. Pick up everything in your possession (one at a time), and keep it if it brings you joy or discard it if it does not. Useful things, like tools or kitchen utensils can be kept if you actually use them. The joy is found in their practicality. She dives deeper into her method in Spark Joy, which I would highly recommend to anyone drowning in clutter.



I actually went through all of my possessions last year and got rid of quite a lot - donating and selling on craigslist. I read Spark Joy earlier this year and realized that I still had quite a bit that I needed to discard. We had a yard sale and donated what didn't sell.

Now, I think about future purchases for at least a month prior to making them. I don't go shopping for fun, but instead find entertainment in other things, like reading the shelves of books I still own and never got around to reading. When I do make a purchase, I research and try to buy ethically sourced, high quality goods where I can. I shop thrift stores for specific items and don't bring anything home unless I absolutely love it.

I have space to think, and I'm beginning to love my home. Plus, baby-proofing is a whole lot easier without clutter.

My Minimalist Journey: Finances

I've actually always been pretty good with my money. As soon as I got a job in high school, I set up a system where I saved half of my paychecks, tithed 10%, and lived off of 40%. Granted, I was living with my parents, so my only bill was my phone bill, and the only meals I took care of were the ones I had at work or out with friends. Still, I was in the good habit of living below my means.

I applied for a credit card as soon as I was old enough because I knew I needed to build good credit if I ever wanted to buy a house or car. I also got a Kohl's credit card, since I loved shopping and wanted to take advantage of the perks that offered me.

I didn't work my freshman year in college, and I blew through my savings account that first year. Snacks and clothes add up.

I got a job in the theatre on campus and started working at Kohl's to pay for this new spending habit. The employee discount meant that I could buy more.

It caught up to me, though.

Various other incidents took place that cost me money, and I started racking up debt. I remember realizing that I didn't have the money to pay my minimum payment of $30 on my credit card. I was distraught.

That same day I got a check in the mail for a few thousand dollars, one of those scams that have you deposit the check then send them a check for the same amount in order to get a larger check. I almost fell for it because I was so desperate for cash. Fortunately, I listened to those around me and ignored it (not like the scammers were going to get anything from my emptied bank account).

I broke down and asked my parents for money, and my pride took a hit.

That was enough of a wake-up call for me to take a look at my spending habits. I held off on superfluous purchases, and slowly began to pay off that debt.

A few years later, I got married, and I married my husband's debt, too.

He didn't have anything in savings, and he viewed credit differently than I did.

I was put in charge of our budget. He trusts me with our finances, and we discuss big purchases beforehand. We "snowballed" our debt, as Dave Ramsey calls it. In a couple days, we will be virtually debt-free, with our mortgage being the only debt left. We intend to pay it off early and maintain a 3 month emergency fund. Lord willing, we'll be able to accomplish these goals.

A great resource for financial freedom is Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover 



I recently read a book that I won 7 years ago at a conference. God's Economy challenged me to reevaluate at my financial goals. I've been planning and budgeting to save up for retirement and kids' colleges, but my main intention has always been to be more generous. It would be really awesome if we could give away over half of our income. These goals have been in direct conflict with each other.



God's Economy argues that it is possible to financially invest in eternity in the here and now. We need to recognize the power that money has on people in order to disrupt its hold. Rather than seeking after the American Dream, we should be seeking to meet the needs of those around us. I'm currently grappling with how to apply the principles laid out in this book to my life. It's an unpopular, radical idea, but there's no reason we can't try.

My Minimalist Journey: Time

If you've read any of my previous posts, you may have read mentions of my tendency toward busyness to the point of crashing. I would keep it up until breaking point, at which time I'd overcompensate with outright sloth. It's been a reoccurring problem for me. 

I never really went into any details, but I suppose now is as good a time as any to share since my time was the first thing I ever attempted to simplify.

Growing up, I was always involved in extracurriculars while maintaining good grades. Middle School was filled with Basketball, Volleyball, Choir, Bell Choir, and Theatre. I cut out Basketball and both Choirs in high school, but I added yearbook and class treasurer to my resumé. I also started working (under the table) when I was 14 and got a part-time job at McDonald's when I turned 15. My social life consisted of church and its youth group. I volunteered each Sunday, either running the projector or watching toddlers.  I believed that I could do it all, and I did. For the most part. 

 Every year around the same time - mid-February - I'd be overcome with the stress of it all and have a mental and emotional breakdown. I would  try to cut back on extra responsibilities only to get right back into the cycle of over-commitment and crashing.

 My relationships suffered because I treated my time with friends in the same manner.  Many times, unwilling to say no, I would schedule time with one friend and then make plans with someone else in the next hour, cutting time with both short.

 College wasn't much better. I was involved in the Bonner scholarship program, which required 140 volunteer hours a semester (and 280 volunteer hours a summer). I also had a Theatre scholarship that required me to be involved in each production. I did work study in the Theatre and worked part-time at Kohl's. On top of all that, I decided I wanted to graduate a semester early, so I took 18 credits each semester. 

I was always on the go, and my insomnia ensured that I was always running on empty.

After finishing school, I quickly filled up my time with various passion projects and work.

Like many westerners, I valued busyness. That is, I did until I read Crazy Busy by Kevin DeYoung a couple years ago. I started questioning my need for busyness and realized that it stemmed partly from my perfectionism and partly from my superhero complex. 

I began to yearn for simple.

Around the same time as reading Crazy Busy I had a discussion with a friend that prompted me to write out everything in my life that required time, from relationships to responsibilities. I circled those things that I wanted to prioritize and slowly withdrew myself from the extras.

I found I had more energy for what I valued most - my relationships with friends, family, and God. I realized that in trying to do everything, I was ineffective with what mattered to me. You cannot give anything your best, I discovered, when you're pulled in 20 different directions. Each relationship or responsibility suffers and you suffer.

Now, I write every appointment (social or professional) down on my phone calendar and let it alert me when it's time to go. Doing so frees up my mind to focus on the task at hand. I also make sure to have loads of blank space on the calendar. Scheduling every minute of my day only makes me want to rebel.

I'm still working on unplugging myself from technology - especially in others' presence. Single-tasking is the name of the game, and it's oddly freeing. I feel lighter and more focused.

It is possible to say "no" to things, and your life won't have any less meaning if you slow down. You may even find that it has more.

My Minimalist Journey: Introduction

Lately, I've been sharing a lot on social media - and eagerly discussing at every opportunity - my newfound love of minimalism. And why shouldn't I love it? It aligns so perfectly with all my values. Since minimalism is so counter-cultural, though, my friends and family don't quite share my enthusiasm.

I'm very passionate about sustainability, being a good steward of the earth God gave us, and fighting for equality throughout the world. Minimalism forces me to be a conscientious consumer - looking at the impact my purchases and habits have on the world around me.

I went from overwhelmed, over-booked, and retail-crazed to nearly debt-free and relaxed. Looking back, I realized that it's been a long journey to where I am now, and it's certainly not over. 

The next few posts will be about how I've simplified various parts of my life, including my time, my finances, my diet, and my possessions. I'll talk about the resources that inspired me and the impact simplifying has had. 

I may not convert you to minimalism, but I'll try.

Going Outside with Baby

With the nice weather, I've been taking my son outside to play in the backyard. As I laid out the blanket and slipped my shoes off, I was struck with this question: when did I become afraid of interacting with nature? 

I remember running around our yard barefoot as a child, despite my father's constant warnings to wear shoes (as he was a carpenter, there was a greater likelihood of loose nails & screws being found back there). I remember wading through creeks and climbing trees, petting bees and soaking up the rain. Now, I stay inside if it's raining and wear shoes if I'll be walking on grass. It's almost as if I'm afraid of interacting with nature. I'll go outside and observe it, shooting pictures or sitting on a blanket with my son, but heaven forbid I actually touch it. 

And I realized that I was hesitant to let my son touch it. Since he loves putting things in his mouth, I wouldn't want him eating grass or a bug or something poisonous.

But then I remembered. I remembered the adventure of wading up a creek I imagined to be the Amazon and I an explorer. I remembered the freedom of climbing our apple trees and feeling invincible. I remembered believing myself to be the lone benefactor of the ants I allowed to crawl over my skin. I want my children to have those and many more experiences. I want them to explore the jungle, unearth treasures, and care for little creatures. I shouldn't keep that from them.

My son stepped on the grass with his bare feet and had the cutest reaction. I would have missed that experience if I had protected him from it.

So what if he tastes a little grass? I ate dirt and lived to tell the tale.

Mom-ing It

So, I'm a mom. I've been a mom for nearly 8 months now, and I think I might be getting the hang of it. I mean, as much as a mom of an 8-month-old can.

I know that kids grow, situations morph, things change. So, I know that after I've gotten used to being a mother of an infant, I'll have to learn to get used to a new dynamic. That's how life works - it's an ever-evolving roller coaster ride.

I've learned to flow into the rhythm of mom-ing it.

We were spoiled with a really good sleeper until we moved our son to his own room a little over a month ago. Finally, after a terrible night of waking up every half hour to screams, I had had enough and frantically searched for sleep solutions. I had a frustrating week of sleep training that resulted in our son sleeping even better than he had when we thought we were spoiled. Our average of 8 hours straight turned into an average of 11 hours straight. That changed a lot of things for us.

Rather than just feeding him for an hour 'til he was in a deep sleep or trying to find just the right combination of bouncing with the right song to lull our baby to sleep - "an art" as my husband called it - we now have a routine. It frees us up to be able to go out without worrying whether grandparents are up to the task of putting him down.

This routine has also allowed me to have free time to myself during the day. He no longer has to nap attached to me, so I can get things done - clean the house, take showers, or nap. It's delightful. The added benefit? Getting my libido back. The constant physical attachment was a drain that made any extra attention from my husband unwelcome. This sleep scheduling thing really helped our marriage in the still-new parents chapter.

For those of you wondering if I ever bonded with baby, I did. It took time and patience, but I love that kid like I never loved anyone before. I'm not saying I love him more than anyone else, just different. Like, have-a-complete-emotional-and-mental-break-down-over-how-the-heck-am-I-going-to-protect-him-from-people-who'd-wish-him-harm different. Sorry, dad, for rolling my eyes every time you worried about me getting abducted. I get it now.

And with his ever-increasing mobility (hopefully crawling soon), and our consistent nap schedule, I am enjoying motherhood even more. I can spend his sleeping hours writing or watching mind-numbing TV, and when he's awake, I'm able to be fully present with him.

I'm learning to balance my desire to be the perfect mom/wife with the reality that some days I just don't have the energy to make a meal from scratch. I have to be okay with that. I'm no super mom, but I definitely earned the massage I got (as an early present) for Mother's Day.

Moms, wherever you are right now in your motherhood journey, I hope that you know you're doing an awesome job. Don't pressure yourself to be the perfect Pinterest-ing mom, just be the best you can be and leave the rest up to God.

(I need to remember that.)

The two books I read for sleep scheduling (the latter worked better for us, although it was really long):


On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep


Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, 4th Edition: A Step-by-Step Program for a Good Night's Sleep