Living Simply

This blog used to be called Crunchy in the 'Burbs. When I first started writing this a couple of years ago, that was my main focus. It was really important for my family to live a 'crunchy' lifestyle (organic foods, to live with a light environmental step, as consciously as possible).

Which is wonderful ... but over the course of the past two years, life here in the CrunchyBurbs home has seen some significant changes, namely two new little ones, our twins Baby Girl and My Little Boy.

Life went from busy to just flat out crazed with occasional dips into merely hectic.

Our focus slowly, slowly went from living as organically as possible to just living.  And then, I found that for our little family, the key to our success was to live as Simply as possible.

For us that means letting go of stuff, both physical and emotional, slowing down, more love, less drama.

So, we turned off the television, gave away a lot of stuff (toys and clutter), we take more walks, and do more craft projects. We bake and cook more, and heat and eat less. We go to fewer kid's classes, but spend more time poking around in the garden.  We spend less time in the car, and more time just hanging out.

My days are still busy, but I'm more likely to be worn out from building playsilk forts than chasing little ones around the mall.

So here we are, Simply ... in the 'Burbs!

So much ...

If I had to list my roles I would have to start out with

1. mama, and
2. wife

Then there would be

3. work-at-home-mama
4. homemaker (cook, cleaner, bottle-washer!)

But, somewhere in my list of roles, I would have to add

8. Ridder-of-stuff

We live pretty frugally and I don't buy a lot of 'stuff'. Gone are the days when we would go to our local Target store just to see what was there, and invariably come home with bags of stuff that we never knew we needed!

These days we are a cozy family of five living in a pretty small house, and there are times that I feel we are just drowning in 'stuff'. Despite my best intentions, and the nearly constant flow of things leaving the house (whether it be through selling items, giving them away or freecycling), we just have so much 'stuff' left to live with.

I'm rather envious of friend's homes that are less cluttered than mine. Did they collect less? Give more away?

Or do they just have better storage than me?!

For now though, I'll just continue with my role, as the family's Ridder-of-stuff.

What are your favorite ways to find new homes for your no-longer-needed stuff?