Friday, August 03, 2012

Friday Five: 'Tis a Gift to Be Simple

Photo by my niece, Laura Nichols, the day I let her use my camera!
Today's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five is courtesy of kathrynzj who is coming off of a week of vacation and is interested in streamlining her life. She invites us to respond to this question:

What are 5 things you do or things you have bought that have made your life simpler or easier?

That's EASY!

1)  Kindle Touch -- Let me count the ways!

  • Easier to hold than a traditional book and easier on the eyes.
  • Less space to keep books. 
  • Lots of free and very very inexpensive books to have and others to borrow.
  • Can carry around a Bible (or more) and even simple liturgies for home Communions or hospital crises.
  • For sermons, it's the best -- simple & sleek!  (Ditto about funerals and weddings)  I like the leather case that my sister gave me. 

2) Google Drive (formerly Google Docs) -- I am trying to get all of my documents into two backup places and this is one of them. (The other is an external hard drive that I back up once a week.)  In Google Drive, I get 5 GB for free and I haven't used all of that.  After that, it will be $2.50 a month, which I think will still be worth the peace of mind.

3) Zen Habits blog -- Inspiration for gentleness and simplicity. Simplify and Savor Life or 72 Ideas to Simplify Your Life would be good places to find ideas for today's topic.

4) Be More With Less blog -- More good ideas and challenges for simplifying and downsizing. I think it would be great to try 50 Days with 100 Things.

5) Gluten Free (and now almost) Grain Free Eating: At first glance, this might sound more complicated and more trouble than it's worth. Aside from the health benefits (for me -- your mileage may vary), there are simplicity benefits. Think about it:  there are whole sections of the grocery store that I no longer need to mess with.  Searching a menu is easier.  I am "limited" to making choices of among things that are less processed and have fewer ingredients, which itself is probably healthier.   The Joy of Limitations may not appeal to everyone, but my INFP personality finds my life a whole lot simpler when I live within certain limitations.

BONUS: Something I wish I could manage better:  Right now I am trying to manage getting ready to move.  I am ready to downsize and I know what I want/need to get rid of. The challenge:  how to get rid of what I am ready to let go of.  Sell? (How?) Donate? (To whom?) I wish I could do it better and (please) a whole lot faster.

6 comments:

Terri said...

When we moved ourselves from Az back to IL we had to downsize significantly...thankfully there was a resale store in town and they got pretty much everything. They would even pick up for free! So, check that out as well as Purple Heart, and other pick up donation org. Some have restrictions on what they will take, others have only a few...It takes a bit more work to get stuff to these places but I felt better about it instead of just throwing it all away....

Elaine (aka...Purple) said...

I have a 2nd generation kindle and the buttons are clunky but I still use it for fun reading.

Downsizing...I did it when I went to seminary 10 years ago and I was astounded at how much "stuff" I had.

river song said...

I love the picture and these all are great ideas! thanks for playing!

Amy+ said...

I just bought one of the newer really small kindles bc i got rid of my second gen when i got the iPad. Then I discovered I do not like reading with backlight. Love the tiny kindle!

Unknown said...

I'm in the same process of wondering what to do with all the stuff. How many never-used-or-displayed sterling silver dishes of odd sizes does one person need? I'm thinking of shipping a box to St. Casserole. :-)

Jo Jo said...
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