Choosing Voluntary Simplicity » Personal

Partly Sunny with the Probability of Happiness

Shirley — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:08:18 +0000

Since we no longer have any local radio or television stations, we depend on the Internet for weather forecasts. We regularly check two sites that follow the weather in our small town and the immediate surrounding areas, and both sites are surprisingly accurate in their predictions. Since the weather forecasts are for the same area, you would expect them to give similar information, and they do... but the difference in the way this information is presented is striking.

Read the rest of this post »

Our Absolutely Amazing Fall

Shirley — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:32:04 +0000

It was a strange summer. This was the year when New England gardeners learned that no amount of expertise or hard work could overcome the weeks of constant rain and too cool temperatures that began in early June and continued on until the end of August.

Read the rest of this post »

Playing at Frugality… or Really Living It?

Shirley — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:33:01 +0000

Readers often tell me that they would like to be more frugal but that they don't want a lifestyle of "living poor" and "doing without." What they don't realize is that there IS another way. Actually, I have serious objections to much of the frugal advice out there because it offers only quick-fix extreme measures that... like a crash diet... can't be lived with for very long. Extreme frugality sets up feelings of deprivation that almost always lead to bouts of spending... the money that you gave up so much to save gets spent impulsively and you're back to square one. To me, that yo-yo cycle of deprivation/splurging, deprivation/splurging is playing at frugality, not living it. Oddly, finding a level of frugality you CAN live with for the rest of your life is much, much easier.

Read the rest of this post »

7 Grocery Shopping Strategies That Work For Me

Shirley — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:05:02 +0000

I keep a well-stocked pantry and an accurate ongoing pantry inventory. A small notebook hanging out of sight on the inside door of a pantry cabinet allows me to quickly update the list as inventory is added or used. This inventory list allows me to see at a glance exactly what is in the pantry and how much there is of each item.

Read the rest of this post »

When I Woke Up This Morning…

Shirley — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:06:51 +0000

When I woke up very suddenly this morning... with the distinct feeling that something had woken me up... the room was lighting up at intervals from lights that were moving around just outside our house. The lights were too low to be lightning and not in the right place to be coming from cars driving past in the road. When I got up and went to the window, I saw two large round lights slowly moving back and forth, covering first one section of our yard and then another. It was still early, only a few minutes before four a.m., and it was still completely dark outside... no street lights here!... and all I could see was the lights. It was very obvious that the lights were not flashlights because the light was so intense and yet so strangely muted at the same time... and that at least two people were near our house doing something they shouldn't be doing.

Read the rest of this post »

Why There Are No Old Bold Mushroom Hunters

Shirley — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:17:57 +0000

One of the interesting side effects of our very wet summer is the huge number of wild mushrooms that are growing in the woods across from our house. Although this year's is a bumper crop, these woods have always been mushroom rich. I used to think that someday I would have learned enough about mushrooms so I could identify which mushrooms are safe to eat.

Read the rest of this post — see the photographs »