Walking your city

I recently found an app that got me thinking. ’City Walk‘ divides your city into sectors, with your goal being to walk all the sectors in your city. There are fancy leaderboards and your progress is magically tracked by your phone and gremlins in the sky.

I think City Walk is a fun idea. I’ve lived in a Seattle suburb for 20+ years and City Walk got me thinking about walking my city. All of it. I can get a city map and walk different areas each week or month, marking off the completed areas.

Walking is a great way to learn an area. You might drive a route every day, but you see different things when you walk. You notice things that are overlooked when you’re speeding through life.

Walking has so many benefits…

Want to escape your busy life? Walk. Want to lose weight? Walk. Want to decrease stress? Walk. Want to solve problems? Walk. Want to reconnect with nature and your community? Walk.

It’s simple, free, and available to all. Walk your way to better health and well-being.

One street at a time.

How about you? Have you walked your city?

My photo blog post for today:

One year later…

I remember starting my blog last year on March 3 – my daughter’s birthday. At the time, I was six weeks into a surprise layoff and super stressed about being a single unemployed mom.

Not spending money became a game. How many days could I go without spending a thin dime?

Sometime in April I landed a writing gig (whew!) and money began to trickle into my accounts only again. However after months of not spending, I kept my belt tight so that my money muffin top (aka my emergency fund) could spill over my belt quite nicely.

One year later I still…

• Avoid shopping
• Take my lunch to work
• Repair things
• Make do with what I have
• Don’t hire things out 
• Cook meals from scratch
• Eat mostly vegetarian 
• Buy used clothes
• Eat whole foods
• Use the library
• Rarely eat out
• Compost
• Don’t have cable or broadcast TV
• Buy nothing on credit
• Air dry my clothes
• Avoid disposable products

Some of these things I do to save money and some I do to save resources. None of these things feel like a sacrafice to me. Instead, they just feel like my life.

How about you?

What do you do to save money or resources? 

Homemade banana bread

When I spy with my little eye something that begins with the letter O (overripe bananas), I think smoothie or banana bread. This morning I chose banana bread.

This loaf took 15 minutes to assemble and I think it was worth every minute. There’s nothing like homemade banana bread. Yum.

My Banana Bread Recipe (adaption of a Cooking Light recipe)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the following ingredients until well-blended: 

3 or so ripe bananas mashed
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup melted butter
splash of vanilla 
2 eggs

Now add the dry stuff:

2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Butter a loaf pan and pour in the banana bread mixture. Bake until the middle is firmish – 40 minutes at 350 degrees (my kids like banana bread a little doughy). Let the bread cool for 10 minutes before attempting to remove from the pan.

If 15 minutes seems too time consuming for a single loaf, double the recipe. Then pop the extra loaf into the freezer for another day.

Homemade banana bread: A simple tasty treat.

Start small; Declutter a cabinet

Decluttering your home can be overwhelming if you look at the BIG picture. So don’t. Instead take on a sliver of the big picture; a kitchen cabinet. Cabinet by cabinet, drawer by drawer, you can declutter your whole home. 

1. Target a cabinet

Pick a cabinet any cabinet. This kitchen cabinet suffers from randomness and too much stuff.

Before

2. Take everything out

Empty cabinet before cleaning

3. Clean the cabinet

This is a very rewarding step. Dust and dirt that you didn’t see before suddenly leap out at you. Wipe it away and start fresh.

4.  Purge

• Remove things that should be elsewhere  
• Make a pile of useful things you don’t use: the giveaway pile

My giveaway pile includes a few one-off glasses, a duplicate steamer, and a plastic measuring thing that I’ve never used. Be honest. Get rid of things you don’t use regardless of how you acquired it or how much you paid for it.

Giveaway pile

5. Group alike items

Next organize things into groups. Once grouped you can see what you have and purge a bit more. Do you really need two sets of measuring cups? Or maybe you have five mixing bowls, but you really only use three.  

Pyrex containers

6. Put things in the cabinet

What do you need in your cabinet? Before you put things back, think about how often you use things. Put the things you use most on the lowest shelf, and the things you use less often on the highest shelf.

My shelf breakout

1. Mixing and serving bowls
2. Pyrex food storage containers and colander
3. Wine glasses and a large serving plate

After

Ah, peace and order now reign where there was previously chaos. The whole process took maybe 15 minutes (plus the blogging time). Do one 15 minute project a day and your home will be decluttered in no time.

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

Start small; Declutter a drawer

Decluttering your home can be overwhelming if you look at the BIG picture. So don’t look at the big picture. Instead, start small. Focus your effort on a single drawer.

1.  Target a drawer

Pick a drawer any drawer. This drawer looks like a good candidate.

Bathroom drawer (the before picture)

I call this drawer my cosmetic junk yard (yes, I’m sheepishly taking ownership of this mess).

2.  Take everything out

This step is critical. Everything must go.

Keep removing stuff

Don’t be tempted to stop short. Remove everything from the drawer.

3.  Clean the drawer

<imagine my empty drawer – I forgot to take a picture>

Now that everything is out, clean the drawer. You’re starting over. Imagine that you’ve just moved into your home. 

4.  Purge

• Remove things that should be somewhere else 
• Throw away expired items and junk
• Make a pile of useful things you don’t use: the give-away pile

5.  Group alike items

Next organize things into groups, rather like organizing Halloween candy after trick or treating. For example, I made a pile of my teeth products, my lotion products, my deodorants, and my travel sized stuff.

Misc freebies from my dentist

6.   Put things in the drawer

But first, shut your eyes and imagine your drawer. How do you want your drawer to look? What do you need in your drawer? Once you know what you need and how you want it to look, open your eyes and make it happen.

When I shut my eyes, I imagined my bathroom drawer with the things I use daily. No duplicates or backup products.

My new drawer

Ah, much better. Everything I need is readily available. 

Peace and order now reign where there was previously chaos. I open my bathroom drawer and smile.

“Have nothing in your home that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.” – William Morris

Simple wallets

I’ve had the same wallet for a decade. It’s pretty much indestructible.

Recently I stumbled upon a duct tape wallet that caught my eye.

MethowTime.com

These duct tape wallets are handmade in Methow Valley Washington by Brian Drye. I like these wallets because they’re handmade, thin, simple and unique. And for vegan-minded folks, they’re not made from leather. If you have your own design in mind, you can send it to Brian and he’ll let you know if it’s doable. Don’t want a design? You can order a basic brown duct tape wallet. Here’s a blue one:

Inside view of duct tape wallet

Like to keep things simple? It doesn’t get any simpler than this wallet.

Money-band.com

This simple money-band lets you carry cash and cards, bundled together in your front pocket. If paying $5 for a strong perfectly sized rubber band seems outrageous, start looking for your own rubber band. My friend uses a regular ol’ rubber band that she wraps around her credit cards a couple times. It does the trick and costs nothing.

Any of these wallets should perform admirably and won’t bust your budget. To use these wallets, you will need to whittle down the cards you carry to the bare essentials.

Inside view of my metal wallet

Right now I carry 7 cards:

• Visa 
• Driver’s license
• Gym membership
• My insurance card
• Starbucks discount card (could leave in my car)
• ATM
• My kid’s insurance card 

That’s it.

Try it yourself. Whittle down the number of cards you carry. How low can you go?

Experimenting in life

My daughter was bubbling over with excitement when I picked her up from school one day. She was excited about an experiment. The catalyst was a handful of brightly colored tissue paper. Why so much excitement?

Earlier she observed that when colored tissue paper gets wet, the dye from the paper colors the water. Excited by this observation, she dreamed up an experiment involving rice. Her plan was to use the tissue to dye rice.

When we got home she got right to work. She put the tissue paper in a bowl, added water and waited. The waiting is the hardest part when you’re eight years old. Once the water was red, she added the rice and waited some more. Overnight, the water evaporated leaving red rice.

Red dyed rice mixed with regular rice

The experiment was complete. Her hypothesis was proven true. Colored tissue paper could be used to dye rice.

My daughter then played with the rice and inavertently made a mess in the bathroom. Her sister was mildly annoyed, since they share the same bathroom and rice stuck to her feet. Having my own bathroom, I was less annoyed and able to see the fun that rice and tissue paper provided. Sometimes the simplest things can be delightful.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

When was the last time you experimented? Have you tried something new? What were your results? Please share in a Comment.

New or used gift: Does it matter?

My daughter doesn’t differentiate between new and used. She’s 8 years old, and to her stuff is just stuff. Even in the case of a gift.

This story begins with a birthday party. I keep a stack of Barnes & Noble gift cards for kids’ birthday parties. I have the stack for a variety of reasons – the gift cards keep things simple, require little shopping, and I like to give books as gifts.

That said, my gift card stash was depleted and a birthday party was imminent. A Sunday morning bookstore dash was becoming likely, but I stayed silent. I wanted my daughter, who is an excellent problem solver, to come up with a solution. And she did.

Surprisingly and thankfully, my daughter didn’t mention going to a store. Instead, she started going through her stuff. Knowing that her friend loves Pokemon, she thumbed through her Pokemon movies. ”How about this?” She offered up a favorite, Lucario and the Mysteries of Mew. ”Sure,” I said gleefully.

There was a moment of silence. The gears in her head were spinning. “If I give this to Chaz, can we get another one?” Impressed that she was willing to give away a favorite, and excited about not going to a store, I said “sure.”

Gently used birthday gift with homemade card

What I appreciate about my daughter’s thought process is that she considered what she had, and not what the closest store had. She found a great gift and it didn’t matter that it was used.

I was thinking of popping out to buy something, but my daughter found a great gift amongst her things. In her mind, stuff is stuff. New or used, it’s all the same. And why not? A great gift is a thoughtful gift. It doesn’t matter if it’s used or new.

What about you? Do you give gently used gifts? Have you gotten a used gift? What did you think? Please share your thoughts in a Comment.

Postscript: We should be near the end of my daughter’s Pokemon phase. I’m hoping that if the dvd is replaced, it will be with something else – a different used dvd.

Postscript #2: I read this post to my daughter today and she thought I missed an important point. The dvd  was originally her birthday gift from me. She told her friend as much and he loved the gift.

Postscript #3: Enough with the postscripts. 

Quotes to keep eating simple

Eating doesn’t have to be complicated. Food product marketing drowns us in information about what we should be eating – omega this and enriched that. However, you can ignore this noise and use these quotes to keep eating simple.

“If you can’t say it, don’t eat it” - Michael Pollan

This quote helps me remember to eat real food with names that I can pronounce. Whole foods with names like potato, lettuce, and grapes. Whole foods: natural, unprocessed, and unrefined. If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s book “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” I recommend picking it up. Or if you’re short on time just remember this: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.“

“If you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it”

This quote might be obvious but, you can’t eat what you don’t buy. Want to stop eating Oreos? Stop buying them. I love breakfast cereal. A bit too much. So when I want to stop my cereal madness, I simply stop buying cereal. If I don’t have cereal, then I don’t have an opportunity to eat it.

“You don’t have to eat it all”

My parents taught me to finish everything on my plate and not waste food. As an adult I still finish everything on my plate. I may waste food in my fridge, but not on my plate! This is pretty silly if you think about it. Since I know that I’m a ‘plate cleaner,’ my strategy is to use a smaller plate. I fill up my small plate with food. If I’m still hungry after cleaning my plate, I add a little more.

When I dine out I have less control over the portions, so I either order something small (maybe an appetizer or a salad), or I split my entrée’ with somebody. If no one is interested in splitting, I split with myself by cutting my entrée’ in half and saving half for later.

“What would your grandma eat?”

This is another quote to keep you on the whole food path. When you consider eating something think, “would my grandma have eaten this as a child?” If you’re holding something in a box, then the answer is probably NO. But if you’re holding carrots, then the answer is probably YES. You can use this question when eating or buying food, to help steer you away from processed foods and towards whole foods.

Eating doesn’t have to be super complicated – you don’t need to be an expert in nutrition science. It’s a good idea to avoid food products that make health claims. Truly healthy products don’t come in packages and don’t need to make health claims. Keep these quotes in mind when eating and you’ll keep eating simple.

Do you have another quote? Please leave a Comment.

Spoofing the poem ‘This Is Just To Say’

One of the highlights of my week is listening to NPR’s This American Life podcast. Each week I’m moved, inspired, and intrigued. This week I laughed and was inspired by the power of simple everyday language. Part 2 of the show entitled Mistakes Were Made presents an original poem by William Carlos Williams. A poem which reads like a casual note tacked up on the fridge. A sort of non-apologizing apology.    

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

This simple poem, with its everyday language, has inspired many would-be poets to write similar poems. Spoofs. Here are a few.

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
by Kenneth Koch

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Sorry, But It Was Beautiful
by Andrew Vecchione (a 6th Grader)

This is just to say
sorry I took your money
and burned it.

But it looked
like the world falling apart
when it crackled and burned.

So I think it was worth it.
After all
you can’t see the world fall apart every day.

One seemingly simple poem inspired people to write poetry. I think this makes ’This Is Just To Say’ a remarkable poem.  

Want to read more? Search the web for ’this is just to say spoof’. The Somewhere in the Suburbs blog has some great spoofs. If you find one or feel inspired to write one, share them here as a Comment. Thanks!

The simple joys of poetry