Day 17: A Way You Try to Exemplify Simplicity

Simplicity can be taken into every aspect of your life.  For me, there are a few distinct categories that simplicity is key: food, home, and time.

For food, I have really come to believe that the less processing a food has, the better it is for me.  This results in a lot of raw fruits and veggies, but also in simplified cooking.  I drink more water than any  other beverage, or sometimes tea because they are simply made and my body uses them effectively.  The more processing a food goes through, the farther it gets from the way nature made it, and that, in my opinion, is a very bad thing.  Nature knows what she is doing, always making food in the perfect proportions.

Keeping home simple has become so easy in the new house.  We live out in the country, where life is peaceful and nature is all around us.  I spend every morning watching the birds in our yard, or just enjoying their songs before I wake for the day.  Everyone who visits our place compliments us on the house (it is a beautiful house) but they almost always mention the serenity they feel when they are here.  Most may dismiss this as easy since we have no children to liven up the place.  It was interesting though, that recently we had 21 people here (including 5 kids) at the same time, and still there were comments about the peacefulness.  Some people may not see how this relates to simplicity, but for me, it is.

Time is something that can be very difficult to manage, and most tend to guard their time away from work.  The Captain and I don't like to over plan things.  It happens, mind you, like this weekend where we have many different demands on our time that all happen to fall at once.  But in general, we never plan more than one thing (besides work) a day.  This allows us to pay proper attention to the thing we have planned, but also usually gives us time to relax together in the evenings.  Again, some will say this is easily done without kids, but I have a feeling there is more to it than that.  Captain and I have spent 10 years developing our own lifestyle, and I think a child will fit well into that lifestyle, rather than it changing everything about how we do things.  Don't get me wrong, I know adjustments will have to be made, but I know people that were able to keep themselves while being parents so I feel it's possible for us to.  Remaining flexible is the key to it all.

For me, simplicity is appreciating nature in all its glory and not becoming so hurried that I miss the truly important things in life.  I won't just stop and smell the roses one time, I want to smell them each time I walk by.