6 Week Update

This week was Week 6 of our move. The simpler things have started to take grip and my stress level is at 50% from two months ago. My to-do list is getting more difficult to create because I don’t have much to put on it. Meaningless duties have disappeared. I’ve had time to wake up in the morning and think. I can refresh my mind rather than jump into work and task lists. This week I took time to combine several of the “simplify” blogs we have been reading into an organized spreadsheet. Each idea is categorized into one of my six Life Balance Wheel areas: Physical Environment, Financial, Fun, Health, Social and Spiritual.

We’ve made a lot of improvements in our physical environment by de-cluttering when we moved (still more to come) and our health over the past year by changing our diet. The two areas that still remain unbalanced are financial and spiritual. I am going to put financial aside for the next few months because it will get worked out during the next year. If not completely, we will be in a much better situation because we moved away from our $2,000 mortgage to a $600 rental. The main area that I need to rebalance is Spiritual. I need to realign my mind and attitude to be the best person I can be for me, my wife and my kids. I know that I currently do better than most men. But better is never good enough for me. I always want to improve. If not, might as well be dying, right?

No Need For "Toys"

As we evolve our thinking and embrace the simpler life, I am struck by how children are entertained by the simplest of things. True there are a million toys out there and video games and TV, but children ( at least my three) are completely content with tons of fresh air and their own ideas to devise entertainment. This afternoon we hung around the yard until dinner. . . this is a list of the activities I observed them doing:

• Fill a bucket with shells and water
• Fill a bucket with mud and water- dump, refill, poke the mud with a stick
• Find rocks and "build" various things
• Weave sticks together with twine to make a door for a fort
• Cut branches from fort area
• Dig in the dirt
• Fill the wagon with grass to feed the neighbor's horses
• Push a bucket of water in the tire swing
• Move sticks around the yard

These are such simple activities but they all had a purpose to them. There were so many thought processes and discusses going on during these activities, it was amazing. And I have to drag them inside for dinner. 

This is an everyday occurrence.