I have a growing stack of seed catalogues on my nightstand. I’ve been flipping those babies as though they are steamy romance novels, drifting off to sleep with visions of purple carrots and asparagus crowns dancing in my head. It doesn’t matter that I awoke this morning to a thermometer that registered five-below zero; I’m readying myself for spring.
It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago I was a complete gardening novice. Now I can talk diatomaceous earth and spot a flea beetle like an old pro. Along the way, gardening has taught me a lot about life. Here’s a sampling of the life lessons I’ve learned from my garden.
Live in the moment. As a northern gardener, my time among the zucchini and zinnias is short. The work of weeding and watering can seem daunting, but I have to stay focused on the fact that the first frost is always nipping at my heels. Sitting among the plants, bringing in flowers for the table and eating sugar snap peas from the vine helps me to immerse myself in the bounty and keeps me focused on enjoying the here and now. Finding the goodness in my current circumstances might not always come naturally, but even if it takes work, I’m happier and more content if I can practice being in the moment.
It is possible to have too much of a good thing. By mid-June, I swear we’ll all turn green from eating so much lettuce. I bring bags of produce everywhere I go during the summer, peddling it at work, among friends, and even at the doctor’s office. I promise myself every year that I won’t over do it when I’m planting, but I usually end up throwing heaps of bolted lettuce into the compost pile. I’d rather have less and enjoy it more, with lettuce and everything else.
I need to find time and space for my passions. I’ve found that a wagon strewn with animal crackers is an indispensable tool when trying to get the garden chores done. Babies that can’t yet walk are content to sit and watch, and the ones that can move never stray too far from the food.
If I waited for the perfect moment to get out into the garden, it would never come. When there’s hoeing to do, I have to work within slivers of time and sometimes need to use cookies to distract my children. The lesson in gardening and in all of life is this: If I love something, I need to find a way to do it.
Bad things will happen, but they don’t have to ruin everything. I’ve done battle with pocket gophers that strike in the night and grasshoppers that have set up shop in the radicchio. Unfortunately, I can’t seal off my garden from trouble that might come. I can learn to be thankful for the little victories (finally getting a tomato to ripen on the vine) and wonders (the droves of ladybugs feasting on aphids) that I see. My garden will sometimes disappoint me, and so will life, but I don’t want disappointment to shape my attitude.
Getting out into the garden and sinking my hands into the warm, loamy dirt makes me feel fully alive. And I’m so very glad for the opportunity to be a student of that little plot of land outside my backdoor.
Carey Denman
Friday, February 26, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Look for Pleasure in the Little Things
Our two-year-old has a severe peanut allergy, so we’ve had to call a moratorium on that staple of childhood, the PB&J. This has sent my two oldest children into a peanut butter withdrawal, of sorts. Recently, as the allergic one was off to the emergency room to get staples in a head wound (which is another story entirely), the others literally jumped with joy when I announced that they could have a peanut butter sandwich for dinner.
My three year old wiped away tears of concern for his brother and enthusiastically declared, “Mom, I’ve been dreaming about peanut butter.” He then bellied up to the counter and devoured two and half sandwiches with as much delight as peanut butter could ever bring anybody. (He probably would have eaten more, but we ran out of bread.)
My children often remind me how much joy I can find in the simplest things. They get giddy over press-on tattoos and mixing their own chocolate milk. A stick of gum and flavored lip balm elicit equal excitement. As I watched the boy who loves peanut butter eat his sandwich, I wondered when I lost the capacity for innately relishing small things.
It’s a gradual process, of course, fueled in part by a growing awareness of the world and the pressures and expectations that surround us. It’s also a result of being immersed in a consumer culture that proclaims material wealth and all of its trappings are a benchmark for success. We tend to ratchet up our expectations as our income increases. And somewhere along the way, I think this makes us less able to appreciate the little things,
Just because it takes effort to find pleasure in small things doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work at it. Try ending every day with the question, “What went well today?” Keep track of your answers in a small notebook; your entries don’t have to be any longer than a sentence. And every once in a while, review your list.
Stuff an envelope with $20 worth of $5 bills. Each week, take out a five spot and buy something that you enjoy. For me, this would include things such as an Americano and a truffle, supermarket flowers, or a new bottle of nail polish. My husband’s simple indulgences might include a DIY magazine and the biggest breakfast burrito he can find.
When you become purposeful with the way you spend this small amount of money, you’ll learn to anticipate good things. Holding the cash in your hands and thinking about where you’ll spend it can also help you to become more adept at making conscious spending decisions.
Joy also comes in paying attention to the things around you. It might be the sunset, streaked pink and purple across the sky, or maybe it’s getting up before the house is abuzz and sipping a cup of coffee in the morning light. Or if you’re like our second born, it’s in being ready to lick every last bit of peanut butter from your plate. Here’s to finding joy in your own version of PB&J.
Carey Denman
My three year old wiped away tears of concern for his brother and enthusiastically declared, “Mom, I’ve been dreaming about peanut butter.” He then bellied up to the counter and devoured two and half sandwiches with as much delight as peanut butter could ever bring anybody. (He probably would have eaten more, but we ran out of bread.)
My children often remind me how much joy I can find in the simplest things. They get giddy over press-on tattoos and mixing their own chocolate milk. A stick of gum and flavored lip balm elicit equal excitement. As I watched the boy who loves peanut butter eat his sandwich, I wondered when I lost the capacity for innately relishing small things.
It’s a gradual process, of course, fueled in part by a growing awareness of the world and the pressures and expectations that surround us. It’s also a result of being immersed in a consumer culture that proclaims material wealth and all of its trappings are a benchmark for success. We tend to ratchet up our expectations as our income increases. And somewhere along the way, I think this makes us less able to appreciate the little things,
Just because it takes effort to find pleasure in small things doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work at it. Try ending every day with the question, “What went well today?” Keep track of your answers in a small notebook; your entries don’t have to be any longer than a sentence. And every once in a while, review your list.
Stuff an envelope with $20 worth of $5 bills. Each week, take out a five spot and buy something that you enjoy. For me, this would include things such as an Americano and a truffle, supermarket flowers, or a new bottle of nail polish. My husband’s simple indulgences might include a DIY magazine and the biggest breakfast burrito he can find.
When you become purposeful with the way you spend this small amount of money, you’ll learn to anticipate good things. Holding the cash in your hands and thinking about where you’ll spend it can also help you to become more adept at making conscious spending decisions.
Joy also comes in paying attention to the things around you. It might be the sunset, streaked pink and purple across the sky, or maybe it’s getting up before the house is abuzz and sipping a cup of coffee in the morning light. Or if you’re like our second born, it’s in being ready to lick every last bit of peanut butter from your plate. Here’s to finding joy in your own version of PB&J.
Carey Denman
Friday, February 12, 2010
Make Purchases Based on What Brings You Value
Upon hearing that we have no television reception, my friend politely (and a little incredulously) asked, “What do you do at night if you don’t watch television?” This isn’t an uncommon question when people learn that we don’t know the latest American Idol news or have no idea what The Mentalist is about.
While we do enjoy watching television on occasion, my husband and I agree that we don’t find enough value in television viewing to pay for it. (In the sticks, the only way to get any channels is to pay for satellite service.) The same is true for cell phone plans. We get no service at our home, so we’ve opted not to sign a contract, and we use the pay-as-we-go option instead. It costs us $.15 a minute to make phone calls, but this encourages us to be intentional with our phone use.
Perhaps the notion of life without television or unlimited cell minutes unsettles you. Maybe you find great value in them; they enhance your daily life and contribute to your happiness—then by all means keep paying for them. The simple act, however, of running potential purchases through a mental filter that asks, “Does this bring value to me and my family?” may change the way you spend some of your time and your money.
One of our family goals is to live more with the money we have. When we use this credo to decide where our money goes, we opt to do things like get movies from an online service for $5 a month, rather than paying the $40 it would take to get a slue of channels. This allows us to choose movie titles that sincerely interest us, and we look forward to evenings spent at home together with a bowl of popcorn. In this case, we’ve found that we ultimately get more value out of spending less.
You may be able to afford to have a gym membership or a speedboat, for example, but being able to afford something doesn’t necessarily mean that it brings your life value. It requires money to haul, store, and maintain a boat that you may use just a few times a year. Could you find more pleasure in renting a boat a couple of times during the summer and splitting the cost with a few friends? As for your gym membership, it isn’t bringing you any value if you aren’t using it regularly. In fact, it may be causing more guilt than pleasure if you aren’t in the habit of going. Could you try enlisting a friend to walk or run with you a few days a week instead?
You have to decide for yourself what has value, on items big and small. Good chocolate is important to me, so I buy the stuff that’s 85% cocoa. Because I clean up messes all day long, pricier paper towels are worth it for me. I don’t skimp on trash bags or plastic wrap either, because I don’t have time or energy for fiddling with busted trash bags or plastic wrap that sticks to itself and not to the bowl I’m trying to cover. On the other hand, I buy generic medicines and purchase much of our clothing at secondhand stores—a particular name on a medicine or new clothing aren’t significant to me.
I encourage you to take a closer look at the purchases you make and ask yourself if they are resulting in a happier, more joy-filled life. If they are, then carry on. If they aren’t, what are you willing to change?
Carey Denman
While we do enjoy watching television on occasion, my husband and I agree that we don’t find enough value in television viewing to pay for it. (In the sticks, the only way to get any channels is to pay for satellite service.) The same is true for cell phone plans. We get no service at our home, so we’ve opted not to sign a contract, and we use the pay-as-we-go option instead. It costs us $.15 a minute to make phone calls, but this encourages us to be intentional with our phone use.
Perhaps the notion of life without television or unlimited cell minutes unsettles you. Maybe you find great value in them; they enhance your daily life and contribute to your happiness—then by all means keep paying for them. The simple act, however, of running potential purchases through a mental filter that asks, “Does this bring value to me and my family?” may change the way you spend some of your time and your money.
One of our family goals is to live more with the money we have. When we use this credo to decide where our money goes, we opt to do things like get movies from an online service for $5 a month, rather than paying the $40 it would take to get a slue of channels. This allows us to choose movie titles that sincerely interest us, and we look forward to evenings spent at home together with a bowl of popcorn. In this case, we’ve found that we ultimately get more value out of spending less.
You may be able to afford to have a gym membership or a speedboat, for example, but being able to afford something doesn’t necessarily mean that it brings your life value. It requires money to haul, store, and maintain a boat that you may use just a few times a year. Could you find more pleasure in renting a boat a couple of times during the summer and splitting the cost with a few friends? As for your gym membership, it isn’t bringing you any value if you aren’t using it regularly. In fact, it may be causing more guilt than pleasure if you aren’t in the habit of going. Could you try enlisting a friend to walk or run with you a few days a week instead?
You have to decide for yourself what has value, on items big and small. Good chocolate is important to me, so I buy the stuff that’s 85% cocoa. Because I clean up messes all day long, pricier paper towels are worth it for me. I don’t skimp on trash bags or plastic wrap either, because I don’t have time or energy for fiddling with busted trash bags or plastic wrap that sticks to itself and not to the bowl I’m trying to cover. On the other hand, I buy generic medicines and purchase much of our clothing at secondhand stores—a particular name on a medicine or new clothing aren’t significant to me.
I encourage you to take a closer look at the purchases you make and ask yourself if they are resulting in a happier, more joy-filled life. If they are, then carry on. If they aren’t, what are you willing to change?
Carey Denman
Friday, February 5, 2010
Take Time to Learn New Skills for Greater Self-sufficiency
Stop by my home any given evening and you might find a two-year-old looking at web images of Volkswagen Beetles (the boy is obsessed) and two other children talking on their toy cell phones. It struck me the other night that so much has changed in a single generation that it’s almost mind-boggling.
I grew up in a rural home where we went to town just once a week when we weren’t in school. My parents had a large garden, and we hit u-pick fields to gather additional produce for canning. There was no such thing as pre-washed lettuce in bags, and I doubt we ever bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts in bulk. Home computers were still a luxury and cordless phones were all the rage.
In many ways, technology has made our lives better and more convenient, but it has also made us less self reliant. We’ve all become accustomed to getting things fast, and we often don’t mind paying a premium for it: think fast food and so-called “instant refunds,” for example. The unfortunate thing about this convenience is that it’s typically bad for our health and our wallets.
I’m not advocating for a back-to-the-land attitude about life, but I do think it’s significant that with each passing generation we’re losing a kind of wisdom in the name of progress. For years, I didn’t buy bone-in chicken breasts because I didn’t know how to remove the meat from the bone. In fact, the idea of dealing with a whole chicken breast kind of freaked me out. And forget about a whole fryer, where I would actually have to reach my hand inside the cavity of the bird to extract who knows what.
If you’re a generation ahead of me, you might be chuckling about my whole-bird phobia. The generation before that probably raised and slaughtered all their own chickens. As for my children, they tend to prefer chicken that comes in strips or nuggets.
The fact is that technology won’t stop changing, but you can if you want to. The pace of life isn’t apt to slow down, but you can. You don’t need to overhaul your life, but can you embrace a “slow approach” to some things? Or perhaps you can devote time to learning a new skill to help you become more self sufficient.
The slow approach for me means getting the beans out to soak overnight when I make soup. I make brown rice ahead of time and freeze it so that I don’t have to wait the agonizingly-long 45 minutes for it to cook when I need it. I plant and tend to a garden that gives me fresh produce well into the winter.
Technology and greater self sufficiency don’t have to be mutually exclusive, either. I recently watched a YouTube video to learn how to sharpen my knives. The slow cooker isn’t exactly a new invention, but it has revolutionized the way I prepare meals for my family. We just e-filed our taxes and are awaiting a direct-deposit into our savings account.
Next up, is finally getting our own chickens. There’s a brooder to arrange, breeds to pick, and a coop to build, all things which will require me to learn new things. I hope six months from now that I’ll be frying up my own farm fresh eggs. Don’t expect me to be frying up any of our own chickens, though.
Carey Denman
I grew up in a rural home where we went to town just once a week when we weren’t in school. My parents had a large garden, and we hit u-pick fields to gather additional produce for canning. There was no such thing as pre-washed lettuce in bags, and I doubt we ever bought boneless, skinless chicken breasts in bulk. Home computers were still a luxury and cordless phones were all the rage.
In many ways, technology has made our lives better and more convenient, but it has also made us less self reliant. We’ve all become accustomed to getting things fast, and we often don’t mind paying a premium for it: think fast food and so-called “instant refunds,” for example. The unfortunate thing about this convenience is that it’s typically bad for our health and our wallets.
I’m not advocating for a back-to-the-land attitude about life, but I do think it’s significant that with each passing generation we’re losing a kind of wisdom in the name of progress. For years, I didn’t buy bone-in chicken breasts because I didn’t know how to remove the meat from the bone. In fact, the idea of dealing with a whole chicken breast kind of freaked me out. And forget about a whole fryer, where I would actually have to reach my hand inside the cavity of the bird to extract who knows what.
If you’re a generation ahead of me, you might be chuckling about my whole-bird phobia. The generation before that probably raised and slaughtered all their own chickens. As for my children, they tend to prefer chicken that comes in strips or nuggets.
The fact is that technology won’t stop changing, but you can if you want to. The pace of life isn’t apt to slow down, but you can. You don’t need to overhaul your life, but can you embrace a “slow approach” to some things? Or perhaps you can devote time to learning a new skill to help you become more self sufficient.
The slow approach for me means getting the beans out to soak overnight when I make soup. I make brown rice ahead of time and freeze it so that I don’t have to wait the agonizingly-long 45 minutes for it to cook when I need it. I plant and tend to a garden that gives me fresh produce well into the winter.
Technology and greater self sufficiency don’t have to be mutually exclusive, either. I recently watched a YouTube video to learn how to sharpen my knives. The slow cooker isn’t exactly a new invention, but it has revolutionized the way I prepare meals for my family. We just e-filed our taxes and are awaiting a direct-deposit into our savings account.
Next up, is finally getting our own chickens. There’s a brooder to arrange, breeds to pick, and a coop to build, all things which will require me to learn new things. I hope six months from now that I’ll be frying up my own farm fresh eggs. Don’t expect me to be frying up any of our own chickens, though.
Carey Denman
Monday, February 1, 2010
Simple and Inexpensive Gifts are Often the Best
Our first Valentine’s Day together, my husband was clearly nervous about what he had gotten me. So as to lessen any discomfort he might be feeling, I announced that as long as he hadn’t bought me teal-green pajama pants, there would be no problem. He must have been dying inside. When I tore away the paper and pulled back a layer of tissue paper, I saw a pair of teal-green pajama pants with a coordinating tank top. (What are the chances, right?)
Needless to say, it was an awkward moment. What made matters even worse is that he told me how much he had spent on the pajama set. I had already said that the gift was precisely what I didn’t want, and for two kids still in college, $60 wasn’t exactly pocket change. It seemed then that the sensible thing to do was to return the gift.
Amazingly, our marriage survived, and we were able to laugh about what had happened. For all its awkwardness, the situation gave us an opportunity to discuss how we would handle gift-giving in the future. We agreed that we didn’t want to exchange gifts out of compulsion and that we would never go into debt to give a gift, no mattered how coveted the item.
Over the years, this has meant that we sometimes haven’t exchanged gifts, even on birthdays and at Christmas. When we do give gifts to one another, they tend to be simple and inexpensive.
Still, it isn’t that we don’t value gifts or their power to express affection. The first spring we moved into a new house, my husband presented me with a hoe and a spade, a nod to my passion for gardening. Another year, I gave him a box of Twinkies and a paperback copy of the Iliad, because I give him a bad time about his love for those little, golden cakes and because he once told me he wanted to read more classic literature. Most recently, he gave me a copy of a CD that I had only mentioned in passing. It was a $10 gift that confirmed that he “gets me” and that he’s listening to me. It honestly made my heart skip a beat.
My sister and her husband have made gift giving into a sort of game. For years, they have been giving gifts to each other that must cost $5 or less. For Christmas this year, they upped the limit to $8. The gifts I’ve seen them exchange have been silly and creative, personal and sentimental. Not only that, but I would venture to say that these gifts have strengthened their relationship. Not a bad return on an $8 investment.
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. You (or your significant other) might not share our philosophy of non-compulsory gift giving or be able to sign onto to an $8-or-less gift exchange. But do think about giving gifts that depend more on careful thought and planning than on how much you will spend.
Carey Denman
Needless to say, it was an awkward moment. What made matters even worse is that he told me how much he had spent on the pajama set. I had already said that the gift was precisely what I didn’t want, and for two kids still in college, $60 wasn’t exactly pocket change. It seemed then that the sensible thing to do was to return the gift.
Amazingly, our marriage survived, and we were able to laugh about what had happened. For all its awkwardness, the situation gave us an opportunity to discuss how we would handle gift-giving in the future. We agreed that we didn’t want to exchange gifts out of compulsion and that we would never go into debt to give a gift, no mattered how coveted the item.
Over the years, this has meant that we sometimes haven’t exchanged gifts, even on birthdays and at Christmas. When we do give gifts to one another, they tend to be simple and inexpensive.
Still, it isn’t that we don’t value gifts or their power to express affection. The first spring we moved into a new house, my husband presented me with a hoe and a spade, a nod to my passion for gardening. Another year, I gave him a box of Twinkies and a paperback copy of the Iliad, because I give him a bad time about his love for those little, golden cakes and because he once told me he wanted to read more classic literature. Most recently, he gave me a copy of a CD that I had only mentioned in passing. It was a $10 gift that confirmed that he “gets me” and that he’s listening to me. It honestly made my heart skip a beat.
My sister and her husband have made gift giving into a sort of game. For years, they have been giving gifts to each other that must cost $5 or less. For Christmas this year, they upped the limit to $8. The gifts I’ve seen them exchange have been silly and creative, personal and sentimental. Not only that, but I would venture to say that these gifts have strengthened their relationship. Not a bad return on an $8 investment.
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. You (or your significant other) might not share our philosophy of non-compulsory gift giving or be able to sign onto to an $8-or-less gift exchange. But do think about giving gifts that depend more on careful thought and planning than on how much you will spend.
Carey Denman
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