Monday, January 13, 2014

Keyboards, blueberries and a purcuit of the simple life!



Living simply has been a bit of a focus of mine in the past week, and as I’ve been wandering around the blogging world I’ve been challenged - I’ve read about things I doubt are ‘simple’ and I’ve read things that I wish I could aspire to. 


A living simply philosophy has become a conversation in our house too, which is good. We had a computer crisis, after an electricity surge and our keyboard stopped working. So out came the old USB keyboard (which some simply living advocates wouldn’t have because they wouldn’t keep the old things that clutter),  as we considered what our choices were. We debated purchasing a new Bluetooth keyboard, just using the old USB keyboard, or trying the repair it. Simple living thinking made us question going out the buy something new.... a few days later the wisdom came to us – what else to do but to reboot the computer and keyboard!!! All good – no purchase necessary. 


The event did lead us to question – does a ‘no buy’ policy fit with the simple life we’re interest in? What is the ‘no buy’ policy anyway??  And what about the declutter policy promoting by many simple living authors??? So more reading to be done.... I’ll post more soon on those thoughts.


The other ‘simple living’ activity we did was something introduced to me at little eco footprints. My partner and I went on a date and had a lovely morning picking blueberries. I now have something like 4 kilo’s of blueberries in the freezer. They’re local, grown organically, and we did the labour – we did it together – and they are yummy additions to breakfast, smoothies or an afternoon nibble!


Here are a few quotes from this weeks reading

  • Simply living can be an act of sharing
  • Simple living can be a commitment to a lifestyle response to the highly skewed distribution of wealth in the world
  • Share with others by taking less
  • Be the change you want to see in the world!

Other posts to come soon – my Japanese literature reviews, other books read recently, and some cooking excitement in my new life.... 


Here’s a couple of the new simple living blogs I’ve been following






1 comment:

Jeanie said...

I love my USB keyboard -- better than my laptop keyboard, to be honest. I'm a lot faster with it!

I'm tearing down Christmas. This is where I look at simple and go "Jeanie, you do too much." Do and have. And part of me is OK with it (because I'm sure not buying more!). But as I take things down to the basement, I see things I haven't used in ages. They are targeted for such things as the "collection for incoming international students" and Goodwill. Some are going into pile of "I know X would like this." A stack of books for my nephew who loves film... I've realized that since I stopped working, I don't use very much gas. The store is near -- walking distance if it's not a "big shop" or too cold; even the gym is close. Sometimes things change and you don't even realize they did till you think about it.

I love your blueberry story. It hits everything I like -- shared activities, local, cooking and especially blueberries!