Category: parenting

Simple Living Goals for October

Simple Living Goals for October

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 10 Comments

I’ve been reading a new book…

…which I LOVE.

Slow: Simple Living for a Frantic World by Brooke McAlary

Even though I’ve already come across, wrestled with, and thought through most of the information in the book already, I find the author’s journey to be similar to mine in the sense that we both knew what we were looking for but didn’t really know how to get there and so went on a long journey to figure it out. She is much further along on her journey than I am, which gives me hope and inspires me to continue.

I haven’t come across a single thing in the book that doesn’t make me want to stand up and yell “Preach it, Sister!”

Brooke [can I call her Brooke? Because I feel like we are friends even though she had no idea who I am…] has inspired me to start living the simple life right now. I’ve been so busy trying to get there – trying to simplify my life, to declutter my home, to reduce my waste, to be a conscious consumer, to bake my own bread for crying out loud – that I think I may have missed out on actually enjoying the simple life, which was the whole point in the first place.

For me, this journey has been about creating a life of making memories and savoring moments and spending time with loved ones and pouring myself into my kids and caring for the world around me and enjoying all of it. That’s the whole reason I started on all this zero waste, minimalist and hyggelit stuff anyway.

So, to refocus and help myself prioritize the type of life I’m wanting to live, I’m making a few goals for the month:

1. Spend time with my kids outdoors for an hour every day. After last week, I am looking forward to spending more time outside with my kids. We are going to do some fun fall activities, explore some new parks, ride our bikes, hang out on our back deck, and take lots of walks in the forest preserve behind our home.

2. Read 30 minutes every day. I’ve been wanting to prioritize reading, but so many other things seem to be more important. So I’ve starting reading for the first thirty minutes of my kids’ “quiet time” rather than saving it for the end when I would inevitably run out of time.

3. Play with my kids when they ask. “Not now” and “In a little bit” and “After I finish this project” and “I’ve got a lot to do right now” are all common responses I give when my kids ask me to play with them – which they do about a thousand times a day. So I’m going to start playing more. I have less housework to do because of the decluttering, less meal planning and shopping due to the zero waste…so I’ve got more time to play!

4. Create something every day. I love involving my kids in art, but I know that it is just as much for me as it is for them. I have always needed a creative outlet. As an adult, I find my creative outlet in different ways than I did when I was in school art classes, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t flex my creativity and make something from scratch.

5. Leave my phone behind. Since leaving social media almost two years ago, I’m on my phone a lot less, but I still find myself tied to it, checking it, carrying it on my person at all times. There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, but my son asked me to put my phone down the other day and I realized that I do have it in front of my face more than I should. While I may need to keep it handy to be reachable or for emergencies, it can stay on the counter or in the diaper bag or in the stroller. It doesn’t have to be on me all the time. I think that looking at my phone less will allow me to notice and experience a lot more.

Karis

Josephine’s [Nearly] Zero Waste 1st Birthday Party

Josephine’s [Nearly] Zero Waste 1st Birthday Party

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 3 Comments

My sweet baby girl turned one this month so yesterday we threw a small [nearly] zero waste dinner party to celebrate.

For my older two kids, I threw big themed parties for their first birthdays. For Evangeline’s ice cream themed party, I made a ton of paper decorations including huge ice cream cones that hung from the ceiling and a “Sweet Shoppe” banner. I also catered the food from a grocery store. For Theo’s Cubs baseball party, I hung a huge stadium backdrop and ordered a photo booth prop package. For both of those parties I served everything in disposable dishes with disposable cutlery and disposable napkins.

Still, I wanted Josephine to have a party that was just as special – but without all the waste. I tried to marry our new “simple living” philosophy with our goal to reduce our waste and what we ended up with was a beautiful party that was inexpensive and elegant.

Here’s how it went:

The Food

I made three roasted vegetable lasagnas, Brett baked two batches of rosemary focaccia [his specialty], and we also served a yellow watermelon we got from the farm share [or CSA, if you’re just now joining us].

Since I made the lasagnas myself, including the noodles, tomato sauce, and ricotta cheese, there was very little waste. The only waste was the plastic bags from the mozzarella and parmesan, which we will recycle. Brett made the focaccia from scratch using the yeast and flour I bought at Walmart a while back [more about that zero waste trip here] and the rosemary from our herb garden on our deck.

Waste: cheese bags [recycled]

The Cakes

I also made all the cakes and frosting from scratch – a total of four different kinds of cake with three different types of buttercream. [Before you go thinking I’m absolutely insane, I had to make a special vegan cake for the birthday girl and my cousin who is on a special diet for health reasons. Then I wanted to make two small special cakes for two other family members who also have birthdays in the same week. And then a big cake for everyone else.]

The butter wrappers cannot be recycled so they ended up in the trash before I found this amazing article about all the brilliant ways to use the butter wrappers [spoiler alert, they still end up in the trash] BUT I probably need to just make my own going forward. The most waste was actually from the piping bags, which were not necessary but made the cakes so pretty. Next time I am going to invest in a reusable option since I am out of disposable piping bags now anyway.

Waste: butter wrappers and piping bags [trash], butter carton and whipping cream carton [recycled]

The Tableware

We used all of our regular tableware. With a guest count of twelve adults and eight kids, we had enough dinner plates to feed everyone, but we didn’t have enough dessert plates for the cake so some people ate their cake out of bowls. But, really, cake is cake no matter what it’s served on, right?

We served the drinks [cucumber lemon water and sweet tea lemonade] from big glass beverage dispensers [one of which we borrowed] and everyone used cloth napkins [well, I don’t know how many people actually used them…why are people so afraid of cloth napkins???].

After dinner, my sweet auntie rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher and we gathered all the dirty napkins and put them in the laundry room.

We even fed the scraps to the dog who was in heaven – but there were very few scraps. Oh, and the watermelon seeds and rinds were composted.

Waste: None!

The Decorations

I decorated with a pallet from my backyard [don’t judge me from having pallets randomly lying around my back yard] and signs from Josephine’s nursery [the flowery “J” and the painted sign with her name that I made for her before she was born and the floral bunting that hangs in her room].

I printed the photos for the typical monthly timeline, but I needed these photos for her baby book anyway, so they will not be wasted. I up-cycled old wine bottles and used mason jars as vases for flowers. I even used some of the small buds that had fallen off the flowers and carnations as “confetti” on the table.

The biggest waste [which I had not even thought about] was the plastic wrapping from the flowers [along with the rubber bands and the flower food packets]. I’m not sure how to get flowers without the plastic besides cutting them from your own garden. At least the film can be recycled by dropping it off at the store, so not a total waste.

Everything else I used to decorate [like the paper and burlap runners] are compostable or recycleable or reusable AND everything was already in my home and therefore technically already wasted.

Waste: plastic sleeves for flowers and paper decorations [recycled]

The Gifts

I asked for no gifts, but I knew that the chances of not receiving any gifts was slim. And I was right. But it was SIGNIFICANTLY reduced compared to what it would ordinarily be. [Also, I have noticed that when I request no gifts, which I always do, people tend to give us practical, useful gifts]. Josephine got two baby board books, a helium birthday balloon, and an elephant bath towel and homemade soap.

Waste: gift bag and tissue paper [which I will reuse] and balloon [which will end up in the trash but will entertain my kids for the next week, so I’m not upset about it at all].

All in all, it was a good party – not because of the small amount of waste, but because we spent time with family celebrating our sweet baby girl being so grown up!

Of course, the lack of waste makes me happy. We didn’t even have to empty our little trash can under the sink. Come to think of it, I don’t think a single thing was thrown away the entire party. [It helps to hide the trash can – and the paper towels.]

That’s a success in my book!

Karis

Lessons in Motherhood and Gift-Giving

Lessons in Motherhood and Gift-Giving

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

A few days ago, my oldest, Evangeline, turned 4-years-old. I had been planning to start a new tradition of making a photo book of the year for each of my kids birthdays – but after going through all my photos and photo books and scrapbooks, I’ve realized I need to choose a more “green” option that jives with my new minimalist lifestyle. So, I put together a quick video of highlights from her first year using the Google Photos app.

Voila! Memories stored for a lifetime! [Assuming there is no apocalyptic event that destroys all power on the planet – and in that case, I probably won’t be strolling down memory lane very often anyway.]

You can watch the video at this link:

Today was the party – a unicorn party.

Even though it was a small “family only” gathering and the majority of our local family couldn’t come, it was still a lot of fun – maybe even more fun because the absence of kids forced the adults to participate in the “Pin the Horn on the Unicorn” game. [Yes, there is video evidence below.]

Because of the changes we’ve been making to our perspective on waste and excess and consumerism and …life in general, we made two changes to how we celebrate birthdays in our family.

First, we emphasize experiences over gifts. On her actual birthday, Brett took the day off so we could all enjoy a day at the community pool [which is more like a water park]. We gave her a gift, but rather than making that a focal point of the day, we set it out in the living room the night before so she could discover it in the morning and then we didn’t talk about gifts again. We focused the day around the activities we were doing together.

To be honest, I’m having a hard time figuring out where I stand on the gift-giving thing. On the one hand, I love to give gifts. Brett and I enjoy giving gifts to our family members on holidays and birthdays and we make it a priority to give a gift to all the nieces and nephews each year. But on the other hand, I don’t want my kids thinking that birthdays and holidays are all about getting stuff, so I prefer that people not give gifts to my kids on these occasions. But I realize that is hypocritical of me, so I am trying to find a solution. I think we are going to try to find a way to give more experience gifts and fewer objects – and whenever possible, give the gift of quality time, which is the best gift we can give to our loved ones.

Second, we gave Evangeline a used gift. It was something she really, really wanted – a baby stroller – and of course, she has no idea that it wasn’t new nor does she care in the least. The motive here is not at all financial. It is sustainability. I don’t care what an item costs. I’m more concerned about the environmental impact of constantly making new things while sending old things to a landfill. I’m committed to buying used toys [just like my commitment to buying used or sustainably sourced clothing] because this just makes sense.

I realize that this won’t always work because my kids will undoubtedly grow up some day [😭] and start caring about price tags and all that [though not if I can help it] and they will want the latest and greatest stuff. But at 4-years-old, my daughter just wanted something with wheels to push her stuffed animals around in. If only life would stay this simple forever.

Happy Birthday, my sweet Evangeline. 💕

Karis

Lessons in Motherhood and Materialism

Lessons in Motherhood and Materialism

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 1 Comment

Yesterday, my oldest, Evangeline [3-years-old], went to the movies with a girlfriend, so my inner mamma bear was immediately preparing to soften the blow for my son [2-years-old], who I assumed would be devastated because he couldn’t go too.

My first thought was to take Theo to Target to pick out a new toy [from the bargain bin, of course – my kids’ FAVORITE]. I was still considering this as a viable option until it dawned on me how ridiculous and hypocritical it is of me to try to comfort my son with shopping.

Here I am, trying to teach my children that happiness does NOT come from stuff that you can buy – or even from the experience of shopping – and yet my first tendency was to have him buy something so he wouldn’t feel sad.

[Side note: This whole plan was based on my assumption that he would be sad. There wasn’t even proof he would be – and of course, he wasn’t the least bit bothered.]

Here was the perfect opportunity to teach my son a lesson about a). how to deal with disappointment and b). what gives real joy in this life and I nearly blew it!

So, when the moment arrived, I held Theo’s hand and said “Sissy is going to go see a movie with Charlotte and you and I are going to go to the park to play. How does that sound?” And he was perfectly happy with that. In those three hours together, he received more focused attention [though not completely because Josephine was also with us] than usual because of the absence of Evangeline. We played and laughed and I don’t think he ever thought about what his sister was doing.

In the end, I think I’m the one who learned a few things, not Theo. I was reminded of two important lessons about motherhood:

1. I don’t need to shield my kids from every disappointment. Even though it’s my natural desire to protect them from every possible moment of sadness, it is my job to show them proper ways to handle disappointments – and retail therapy is definitely not one of them. On the other hand, physical activity is FANTASTIC therapy [and good for you too]!

2. Possessions don’t make you happy. I believe that the greatest sources of joy in life don’t come from getting, but from giving. In this case, giving time and attention to each other, doing something that we love [being outside and active] was way more enjoyable for Theo and I than walking around Target would have been.

It makes me wonder if my children are so stuff-obsessed because that’s what I’ve been modeling for them. Are kids born with the desire to accumulate more and new stuff? Or is that something I [with the help of our consumerist society] am instilling in them?

I clearly have to be more cautious about encouraging materialism in my kids.

Anyway, we had a great day and we didn’t come home with any cheap plastic doo-dads that would be broken or forgotten in a matter of days. Just a few photos of our day together.

Karis

Creating Mini-Minimalists

Creating Mini-Minimalists

by No Makeup Mama ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

What you see in the picture above is one of three identical shelving units we have in our home – all stuffed to the max with toys. There is nothing “minimal” about the toy situation around here, but I realize that these toys belong to my kids and I can’t just go throwing them out all willy-nilly. It has to be the children’s choice.

So, last night, I opened a Rubbermaid container and asked my kids to choose the things that they no longer want and would like to give away and to put them in the bin.

I fully expected my kids to rebel against this idea or maybe put two toys in the container and adamantly insist that they simply must keep everything else.

Boy, was I wrong.

They filled the entire thing.

[If anyone sees something they gave to my kids, please don’t be offended, it has all been well-loved. And trust me, most of what is in this bin is from Brett and I.]

Still, I was doubtful that they really understood what was happening to the toys in the bin, so I left it in the living room overnight and this morning we went through everything again.

They changed their minds about a few things [Eva decided to keep her Moana dolls and Theo wanted to keep the plastic blocks] but everything else was still a firm “give it away.”

It’s not like they don’t have plenty of toys left to go around.

This entire basket is filled with little people and cars and animals – which I didn’t count, but is so obviously excessive – and yet my kids love imaginative play with these characters, so we will keep them all…for now.

And my living room shelving unit looks much better.

It obviously won’t stay this tidy, but they reduced the amount of toys in this unit by 253! That definitely makes a difference! Everything fits in the baskets and cubbies without being crammed and squeezed. And now they can look through a bin for what they want without dumping its contents all over the floor [which they will probably still do anyway, I realize].

After the group of toys were finalized, I sorted them into recycle, donate, and trash piles. I threw out trash and put the recycle pile in the recycling bin, but I am keeping the donate items for a little while just in case someone gets “givers remorse” in a few days. But I bet that none of these things will be missed now that they are out of sight.

Throughout last month, our kids watched us give away tons of things – often wanting to participate. I explained at that time why we were getting rid of the items [we don’t need them or use them] and what we were doing with them [giving them to other people who may need them or use them]. I think this prepared them for giving away their own belongings.

As always, the best way to teach your children a behavior is to model it, and by modeling minimalism, we are creating some mini-minimalists!

Karis