My days are sweet and simple. I’ve currently shifted living space from a four bedroom lakehouse to a 12 by 60 mobile home, and I’ve never been happier. I’ve committed to living more closely in harmony with my values, caring for my mind/body/spirit, and creating moments that fill my soul with peace, with gratitude, and with delight.
I’m loving the creativity involved in living beautifully while living beneath my means. I’m feeling good about the fact that on the rare occasion that I take myself on a shopping spree, I’m supporting non-profits like the Salvation Army, Goodwill, and my local hospice and humane society rather than contributing to the crazy consumerism that is devastating the planet. Today I purchased a bra, a pair of brown pants, a bathing suit, two really lovely coffee cups, a shirt that I love, the book, “Pebbles in the Pond: Transforming the World One Person at a Time” and the audiobook “The Girls with the Grandmother Faces” all for a total of $19.00 ( I rounded up at the Goodwill).
I love how four of my seven days begin each week. I wake up, do a brief meditation, write an entry in my journal, slip into my bathing suit, hop on my bicycle, and ride to the pool where I do a few laps and then join a number of delightful women to do water aerobics.
“To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich;
To study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart;
To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never.
To let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is to be my symphony.”
William Henry Channing
In wanting less I have gained so very much more…
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