One Cup-simplicity at work

I want to invite us all to talk more about something that I have been sort of dodging and darting around for some time now, but that is really as firmly entrenched in my values-system as homeschool, homebirth, etc, and that is this:
There are spiraling advantages to simplicity, and as the true meaning of the sentiment known as "appreciation" becomes more a part of people's lives, WHETHER OR NOT DUE TO VOLUNTARY OR INVOLUNTARY FORCES I.E. POVERTY, LACK OF RESOURCES, the results are the same.

Peace. Freedom. Calm. Power. Strength. Purity. Clarity. Insight.

To me, these words embrace and embody the very highest levels of human achievement, the upper eschelon of our journey here. There is a very strong goodness and wholeness that comes from all of this, and there are infinite ways to apply it to our lives, and so I will start with the example I like to call One Cup. It goes something like this:

If you had only one cup, regardless of why, (if it helps, try to imagine camping or a time when you were in financial constraints such as being a college student or something) it would be your Cup. That is your cup. You drink from it. When it is dirty, you wash and dry it. If you were to lose it, you would be out of a cup. If you were to break it, you would be out of a cup. So, by this postulation, you would know where it was. You would take care of it. It is, after all, your Cup. Thats what you drink out of. You might even grow a bit attached to it, a little sentimentality in the name of Value would then be involved. It would no sooner be left in the sun to rot or forgotten at the beach than would, say, your car keys, and if and when something like that happened, it would be a Big Deal.

But somehow, someway, in the mystery machine of Capitalism, and its twin sister Materialism and its evil son Greed, has come a WORLD of people with so many cups, that are not special, that are not cared for, that are not unique, that are not appreciated, that are not VALUED....and still we crave and yearn for this feeling. So we try so wrongly, so ironically, to stop this bad feeling, this feeling that nothing has meaning, by buying more cups, then better cups, then different cups, then Antique cups, why isn't it working? Why can't that feeling come back? Retro cups? Re-issued Retro cups? Vintage? Perhaps a new whole set of cups, and an armoire to hold them all in? Anyone?

This of course goes way beyond cups and you can fill in what you may. Look around your home. Look in your car. I'd even say Look in your Mind, but that might be getting ahead....

What is all that crap? Who bought it? and W H Y? What are we so afraid of, that we pretend we "Like to stock up"? What empty holes in our hearts are we trying to fill with all this crap? Which local mega store chain's current slogan do we silently chant until we believe there is ANYTHING behind it besides profit? SIX dish scrubbers? Really? ELEVEN ladles? Really? EIGHT shampoos? Really? SEVENTY red nail polishes? Really?

We have four kids and they each have a spill proof cup. One. Because when they have One Cup, it is the most cherished thing in the cupboard. When we had a giant drawer dedicated to sippy-cups and their lids and stoppers, they were ALWAYS LOST. Because no one cared. There was a big drawer of them, so who gave a damn? Nobody, thats who. And it was bad. And we changed it. We have two small cupboards and they have enough dishes cups bowls and plates in them for our family. If it is dirty then wash it. Your sink will not fill up because six bowls never filled a sink, but thirty sure does.

What if you had 65 cars, and one got stolen?
What if you had 3000 husbands and one died?
Did I lose you just then?

To be in such a priveledged nation that we have to do little things like "teach appreciation" is kind of grotesque in itself, but we do, and even on our modest salary, we make a concious effort to do this kind of stuff all the time.

Does thinking about it make you nervous?
Do your possessions possess you?
Who are you without all the stuff?
Would you be willing to practice?
What do you look like straight out of the shower, white t shirt and jeans?
Do you like it?
Do you feel the way I do, that the people on Survivor become so beautiful by the end game that to see them on the reunion show (or even the jury) is almost nauseating? Is it the tan, the weight loss? Or something so much more?
Is it the way they gleam of Pure Living has been replaced with pancake makeup, slick chunky hairdos, and a puffy sweater? Is it so wrong to eat fish, fruit, and rice, to drink water, to sleep outdoors and to get in battles of mind and body each day? To take a nap or two? To sit by a fire EVERY night? Not only when the power is off, not only when you are camping, but purposefully, to do something human?

I frequently seek out experiences and activities that, in my modest understanding of history, are historically traditional to being Human. To smell wood burning. To share food you have prepared from whole ingredients.. To discuss and debate. To run and play games. To laugh and cry. To sing. To wonder. To explore. To spend vast amounts of time outside roaming and researching. To love. To mate. To birth when it is time, and to then rear young in the way I see fit. To cherish the older generations. To include the children. To keep animal companions. To set up and take down each day and night. To tell others about what I feel. To be how I am.

cookie afternoon

Today we made some delicious cookies. We modified the Quaker Oat "Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies" recipe by using store brand oats and adding dark chocolate chunks. they turned out great, and I would love to make them even more healthy somehow because I already feel that eating them is akin to eating oatmeal and eating oatmeal is good stuff.

Maybe adding flaxseeds or nuts, dried cherries or other grains?

Cooking is one of the themes for Winter 2007, so, inspired by Steve and Paul, here we go!

Cloth Diapers

Right now our dryer is broken, meaning, it just spins and blows regular air. Its kind of odd to me, that air outside dries your clothes, but yet the dryer can tumble all day and night and they don't seem to ever dry. I have hung up clotheslines all over the laundry room for the laundry to soak up that nice stale smell and turn so rock hard it could cut your skin. Our normally "cool" Landlord has been really slow and shifty about replacing or fixing it, and we plan on mailing him, in lieu of a rent check, a little friendly letter this month! But my point: all this hangin' stuff up on the line has got me really sad for cloth diapers again.

It was around this time last year when I spent $130 dollars on 13 cloth diapers and covers for then 3-month old baby Charlie. He only nursed back then, no food, and so the poo was not very gross at all, and cloth diapering was a snap, a breeze, and something I loved doing. The diapers were so cute, we had yellow, blue, pink and green (A mixed lot bought off of Ebay) and they would come out so fluffy and soft and he never got rashes. I love cloth diapers, and we used them full-time for Mickey, mostly full-time for Casey, and only somewhat for Charlie. They are too small for him now, of course, and a pain in the butt---but not for the reasons you might think. It is not gross, it is not difficult. But what it does do is take up your washing machine, alot! Example: I try to do the wash all day long. as much as I can possibly remember to, in between lessons and spills and meals, as much as I can possibly sneak away for 5+ minutes for, I am changing the loads. I take clothing from the dirty-mountain and put them into the washer. I put the washer clothes into the dryer. I put the dryer clothes onto the floor. then at night, we takes great scoops of clean clothes and fold fold fold them on the table or couch or wherever. Repeat times infinity. BUT WAIT! When you are using cloth diapers, when and how do you wash those? Unless you can afford to have ALOT of cloth, which I did when Mickey was about 1 due to tons of hand me downs from my old neighbor J, you have to be really careful you don't "run out"! EXAMPLE: Say you have 13 diapers. Okay. Baby uses them and at the end of the day you might have, say, 6 or more dirty diapers in the pail or the pile or what have you. If you just wait another day to wash, then you will have a bigger load, justifying the water, sopa, and TIME YOUR WASHER IS BEING USED FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN CLOTHES! YIKES! But, if you wash them right then, a small load of six, then it might seem like you are on track. BUT, hear me out, cause this is where I ran into trouble: So you have six in the washer, one on the baby, and five in the clean pile. Then you have to hang-dry the covers. So in the meantime baby has 2 more dirty dipes. there is One clean, three dirty, six wet and clean....it is day two! You NEVER have 13 clean in a little fluffy pile ever again! And when you go somehwere, you put the dirty thing in a plastic bag in your car--and if you leave it in there on accident, then it might be ruined, due to the ammonia (pee) destroying the fibers. So you lose a few. And again, when do you wash your regular clothes? Well, I need two washers. I have seen it on TV, it isnt a big deal. Some friends have cautioned me that two washers would overload the wash-basin, but I wonder if that is true. So maybe we will use cloth and maybe we won't. But I really really want to make it work!

the wood floors

In the old house, with its carpet-under-the-only table we ate at and schooled at and baked at and crafted at, clean-up time was one of misery, frustration and woe for me and Steve. Cottage cheese, paint, and anything else you can think of got kind of crushed "away" by the trusty old vacuum, so gross, yet what else could I do?

Now we have not only wood floors under our dining room table, but a whole other room and table to use as an alternate for eating and schooling and everything else. Such a blessing!

Clean-up after a lunch like we had today, which was make your own black bean nachos, goes something like this:

Take all the chairs away. Tip and shake the high chairs onto the floor and take them away. By away I mean to another room. Put up the Giant Purple Babygate to "lock" everyone away from the area to be cleaned. Or send them all into a bedroom for a few minutes to play with Casey and Charlie. So then I pick up all the things that go back in the refrigerator, and take the giant push-broom (the kind you use outdoors for leaves and grass) and work all debris in the way of cheese and beans and rice into a big pile in the corner. Then I wipe down the table, wipe down the chairs, and scrub out the high chairs. I replace all the chairs and vacuum the rug which is in part of the dining room that sometimes gets a bit of miscellanea on it. Then I take the vacuumhose and suck up all the beans and stuff! I can now safely take down the baby gate and hear them beg for DESSERT!