Gidget Goes Home » simple & frugal living

Lately… {on simplifying in the New Year}

gidget — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 22:45:14 +0000

We’ve been struggling a lot with Gigi the last couple of months. Mainly through the hustle, bustle and excitement of the holidays, but even since then, we’ve been seeing some behavioral and anger issues in her that we want to start working though now, so as to hopefully prevent the development of a pattern in her personality.

Of course, even more importantly, in the long run we want to get to her heart, but practically we have some serious issues to work through right now.

Among seeking wise counsel, looking to the Word and how the Lord deals with us and we can model that with our kids, and reading elsewhere, we’ve been seeking some serious simplification. I might say that that is probably our main goal for the new year… simplifying life.

I recently read the book Simplicity Parenting with some other moms from Gigi’s preschool. We are going to continue working through some of its suggestions and meet again next month to discuss it more, because it has been that monumental for all of us.

I hope to elaborate here on what we’ve been doing sometime in the future, but for now, I just wanted to get something written down to commemorate the journey we’ve begun. Between significantly paring down our toy collection and establishing more rhythm, we’ve been making some serious changes around here to try to make life easier and more enjoyable amidst the craziness that is a family of five.

I’d love to hear from any of you who have read the book, or even if you haven’t– what have been some of the simplifying changes you’ve made that have impacted your family the most?

Oh, we’re also working our way through Tsh’s ebook One Bite at a Time, as another encouraging resource for simplification.

*affiliate links included in this post. thank you.*

Lately… {on simplifying in the New Year} is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Family Mission/Purpose Statement

gidget — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 22:59:24 +0000

As we start the year, David and I are really striving to simplify and de-clutter our home and our life. I am so excited to have an awesome tool to help us as we tackle it, Organized Simplicity: The Clutter-Free Approach to Intentional Living, the new book by my “boss”/editor-in-chief Tsh Oxenreider (aka Simple Mom).

I feel like the phrase “simple living” can really be vague and “philosophical” but Tsh’s book is really amazing as it approaches the idea of simple living by giving practical ways to apply the idea of simple living to real life. She’s a realist, and doesn’t think we all need to live off the grid and away from civilization, but rather teaches us how to apply our values to our own, individual lives.

The first thing we decided to do as we prepare to work through the second half of her book (the how-to section) was use her guide to create a family mission/purpose statement. She has blogged about this before so I’ve thought about doing it; in fact over a year ago David and I sat down to answer her guiding questions, but never moved on from there.

So this past weekend, we got out our answer sheets and went through them together, finally coming up with the first edition of the Bennett Family Mission Statement. This could naturally change over the years, but for now, this will be the filter we use to pass through all of our belongings as we ponder them, and in the future as we make family decisions.

We, the Bennett Fam, believe that our purpose as a family is to love God and others, and glorify Him in the way we live.

We will:

reflect the fruit of the Spirit toward each other {love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control}

cultivate a home that is open, laid-back and inviting, and a reflection of our family

aim to live a simple, uncluttered, peaceful life

Our priorities are:

loving Jesus and radiating His love

living a healthy, active, natural/homemade lifestyle

caring for Creation and enjoying the outdoors

having fun together

Hopefully having something concrete like this will help us attain a lifestyle of simplicity and contentment as we raise our children. I want them to grow up understanding why we’ve made certain decisions, and I want to give them the tools {thru modeling} to value quality over quantity.

Do you have a family mission/purpose statement? I’d love to hear yours if you want to share.

Family Mission/Purpose Statement is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Wardrobe ReFashion: the Pledge

gidget — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:48:15 +0000

I’ve been getting a lot more into repurposing/refashioning lately. So, I decided it was time to make a committment. I headed over to Wardrobe Refashion and signed the pledge for four months. That means that from September until the end of 2010 I am pledging to not buy any new clothes. I will repurpose, refashion, and buy second-hand to my heart’s content instead.

If you would like to play along, you have until August 31st to sign this pledge (she opens it up periodically) which will begin on September 1st. Let me know if you’re joining up!

I, Nicole {aka Gidget}, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 4 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings!

Wardrobe ReFashion: the Pledge is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Today on Simple Organic…

gidget — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 04:25:13 +0000

Interested in how you can get “new” clothes, for free?

It’s easy with a clothing exchange! I’m talking about what it is and how to organize one over on Simple Organic today.

Today on Simple Organic… is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Introducing Simple Organic

gidget — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:11:24 +0000

Those of you who’ve been reading here for a while know how much I love SimpleMom. If I had to point out my all-time favorite blog amidst many that I love and try to read daily, SimpleMom is that one.

And the only thing better than SimpleMom, is the thought of there being a family of five blogs all dedicated to Tsh’s vision. SimpleMom and SimpleKids have been established for a while now, and this week marks the launch of three awesome new blogs, SimpleHomeschool, SimpleBites, and SimpleOrganic, where guess who will be contributing!

When I received an email from Tsh about being contacted by the new editor, Katie Fox, of one of her soon-to-be-launched blogs, I was a little excited. And it probably took me all of one minute to respond to Tsh and Katie with a resounding “yes!”– I was honored to be contacted and beyond stoked to be a part of such an inspiring team {seriously, take a look at the army of contributors on all these blogs– I’m amazed to join them}.

Today, you can find my first post over at SimpleOrganic, tackling one of the issues I’ve written about here more than once, finding healthier and safer personal care products. You can also read back a few days to learn more about what SimpleOrganic is all about. I will be writing over there once a month, and reading along daily to learn and be inspired by Katie and my fellow {amazing} contributors.

I’ve had my writings on the green lifestyle elsewhere as columns, guest posts and articles, but the opportunity to write for SimpleOrganic is definitely the best “writing gig” yet for me.

To celebrate the launch of the network this week, Simple Living Media has several awesome giveaways going on! Be sure to hit them all up!

And if any of you are visiting for the first time from SimpleOrganic, welcome! I’m glad to have you stop by and I hope you’ll be back.

Introducing Simple Organic is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Christmas Traditions: Creative Gift-Giving

gidget — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:08:02 +0000

There’s a lot of talk about gift giving these days, to do or not to do Santa, homemade or store-bought, a lot or a little… Here’s a little glance at how we do it (or rather, are going to do it as some of this is new for us this year).

For starters, we aren’t doing Santa, although I treat Santa just like any other “character.” I don’t go around telling Chiquita that Elmo is not real so I don’t do it for Santa either. He’s just a character, and when she gets older we will talk about the history and story behind Saint Nicholas. But in our house, Santa doesn’t bring presents. Mommy and Daddy do. I personally, don’t feel right about the whole make-believing with Santa, but that’s just my opinion. This one of those things that everyone has to decide for themselves.

Chiquita did sit on Santa’s lap at a kids’ Christmas party last night. I’m not outlawing everything Santa or anything. I just don’t want our kids writing lists, asking Santa for things or any of that. Christmas is our time to bless them with something special in the tradition of how Jesus blesses us with so much. It’s her “goodie bag” for attending Jesus’ birthday party. Birthdays will be the time when our kids get lavished on with gifts a little more.

We are also going to start baking Jesus a birthday cake for Christmas. I love this tradition and I know of a lot of my friends kids who are a little older than Chiquita who really love it. We also have a little clear gift under our tree with a poem about it is Jesus’ gift (I’ll post the poem up here later).

Finally, here’s our gift-giving plan. We love stockings in our family. My family grew up with the tradition of practical, fun, cutesy gifts in the stockings, all individually wrapped, with an orange in the bottom of the stocking. I never really knew what the orange was all about, but last week a friend told me that she heard the tradition originated during the depression when a piece of fruit was a true luxury. I like that. We will continue to do stockings in our little family, but they will be from each other, not from Santa.

I’m super excited about our main gifts. One practical reason we want to do things simply is because we know that our kids will receive even more from extended family and we feel they don’t need to be overwhelmed and inundated with tons of material things. I also want our gifts to be meaningful. My good friend told me about her method and I’m totally adopting it! She does three gifts for each child on Christmas to signify the three gifts that the wise men brought to Jesus (and maybe even the Trinity!):

Body: for us this will be a few handmade or embellished clothing items.

Spirit: this is the gift that really speaks to the child’s spirit, something they’ve really been wanting. Chiquita is getting a play kitchen this year made by her daddy. I can’t wait for her to open this as she’s really into “cooking” these days.

Soul: something that will encourage her in her walk with the Lord (a new Bible, devotional, worship CD), etc.

Another similar idea is three gifts actually based on the wise men gifts which I read about in this article.

How do you celebrate Christmas through gift-giving?

Christmas Traditions: Creative Gift-Giving is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Retro Reading~ Boycott Black Friday

gidget — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 14:01:18 +0000

This post was originally published November 19, 2008 and has been slightly updated/modified for 2009.

I love this time of year, because my family has a tradition of camping at the beach for the long Thanksgiving weekend. My dad smokes a turkey and we have a big potluck dinner with our friends and family who are camping with us.

Then Friday, we usually hang around the campsite, often looking at the newspaper ads and laughing about the ridiculous deals that shoppers will have woken at the crack of dawn to chase after. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a bit of shopping on Black Friday (just usually not early in the morning) over the years, but generally shopping is not a hobby of mine.

That said, I wanted to point out a really fun, positive alternative to shopping on Black Friday, whether for lack of a love of shopping or a distinct desire to swim against the tide of American consumerism. If you’ve read my Christmas Manifesto series, you have an idea about how I want to simplify Christmas and make it less commercial, more homemade, and overall, more joyful.

That’s why this year I’m (again) boycotting the rampant consumerism on the day after Thanksgiving. Instead, I’m taking part in Make Something Day, which is a movement that began as “Buy Nothing Day,” a simple boycott of Black Friday. It has, however, grown into something a little bigger, as you can read in the mission as found on the website:

In response to the over-consumptive habits of western culture, Adbusters magazine has been promoting Buy Nothing Day for years now. The Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. is typically marked as the busiest shopping day for Americans. But we live in a world that can no longer handle our consumptive habits here in the west. And while we pile up on things we don’t need a large portion of the world exists without basic human needs being met every day. We applaud Buy Nothing Day… but it isn’t enough for us. We believe that giving is a central part of being human. So, we replaced the negative with something positive: Make Something Day. Go ahead and give gifts this holiday season. As they say, giving is better than receiving. But that doesn’t mean buying something is. So, we encourage folks to avoid shopping on the Friday after Thanksgiving. Instead, stay home, put a log on the fire and try making something for someone.

I’m really excited about being involved in this movement this year, a year when frugality is more common and acceptable than in a long time, due to a failing economy. Now is the perfect time to decide to change the way we think about giving. I’ll be honest and say I love the thought of a Christmas morning filled with fun, store-bought gifts, but I’m sort of forcing myself to refocus my expectations and desires in order to create a more simplified holiday season, and to really enjoy the act of giving.

And on a related note, if you haven’t yet, make sure you watch Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff.

Retro Reading~ Boycott Black Friday is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 5

gidget — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:45:46 +0000

This week I’ve been sharing my thoughts on Christmas. Here are just a few ideas to help you simplify Christmas, and make gift-giving simpler, more sustainable, and/or homemade.

Here’s a great starting point for Inexpensive, Creative and Eco-friendly Gift Ideas.
We all know babies often love the packaging better than the gift… Check out SimpleMom’s list of 11 Cheap (and free) toys for Young Children and give a child one of these, decorated, dressed up or personalized.
If you feel like you can’t make something up to your high standards, check out the amazing homemade goods by the artists & crafters at Etsy.com or check out my sweet friend Lisa’s amazing jewelery.
Everyone loves food (especially when it’s wrapped up pretty!)! Find a new recipe or better yet, an old family favorite and batch-cook enough gifts for all your loved ones. Here’s the recipe for the bread I always give away at Christmas.
Make something homemade yourself! In the near future I’ll be posting links to some cool tutorials.

Please, by all means, share your simple gift ideas in the comments!

Read the rest of my newly published Christmas Manifesto:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 5 is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 4

gidget — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:36:13 +0000

This post was originally published August 18, 2008 and has been slightly updated/modified for 2009.

Celebrating Christmas

We’ve always been as purposeful and personal as possible in gift giving, so our transition to a different way of celebrating Christmas hasn’t been super difficult. I like how McKibben, in Hundred Dollar Holiday, points out that this change can be gradual. It does not have to happen overnight, especially if your kids are older and accustomed to a very commercial holiday. For us, we have the advantage that Chiquita is still so young (2 and a half) and we are therefore just getting starting in creating our own Family Traditions.

We still want gift-giving to be a part of our Christmas celebration, but we don’t want it to be the main focus anymore. Whether we wanted it to be like that or not, that’s often how it turned out. I remember the awe and excitement of coming out to a tree filled with presents underneath. I’m going to be honest and say that presents have been a, if not the, highlight for me at Christmas, and that’s something I feel that needed to change in my heart. It was fun, but I feel like we can make Christmas just as fun without quite that much.

Just like I feel that giving and getting goodie bags is fun at a birthday party, giving and getting a few simple gifts at Jesus’ birthday party will be fun too. But hopefully this way, it won’t overshadow really celebrating Him.

Here are a few of the way that we plan to celebrate Christmas from now on– ideas we’ve talked about implementing or continuing. I’d love to hear your ideas too.

Spend time together making/preparing our gifts to be given, rather than shopping

Give simple, ideally homemade or sustainable (presents we do buy should also ideally be handmade or support an organization) gifts to our family and close friends, spending a minimal, set-amount on all total presents

Continue the stocking tradition from my family (fun, funny and often practical little gifts in a cute, homemade stocking, and always with an orange at the bottom!)

Give gifts to others outside our circle like a family/child in need (like the “Angel Tree” ornaments my brother and I did growing up), or Operation Christmas Child boxes

Spend less time on Christmas morning opening gifts (since there will be less of them); the focus will be on time spent together instead: play games, watch a movie, sing some worship songs together, etc

Celebrate Advent (I did this growing up and I’d like to continue it) as a way to look forward to Christmas with a wreath, a calendar and special activities on the Sundays before Christmas

Decorate our Christmas tree (and maybe make it a living one!)

Go to church on Christmas Eve to our church’s special Christmas celebration, called Christmas Under the Stars, which is a night of Christmas carols and yummy sweets

Food will (continue to) be a big focus! One family tradition we do is make Lefsa, a Norweigan food similar to a tortilla made from day-old mashed potatoes on Christmas morning

Have everyone contribute to the big Christmas lunch/dinner/dunch/linner — chaos could ensue with this many cooks in the kitchen, but it will I’m sure be fun too!

Spend time outside, even if it’s cold, especially now that we’re back in CA!!

We already do a lot of these things, but adding in some new traditions and modifying how we celebrate a little will be helpful in refocusing our Christmas and alleviating some of the stress mentioned in Part 1 of this series. With less time spent shopping and stressing out on gifts, more time will be left to spending with people. Time is essentially our culture’s most valuable commodity these days; it seems we never have enough of it. So why not make that more of a focus during the most special time of year?

If you missed them, be sure to read Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of Gidget’s Christmas Manifesto Series. Stay tuned for one more (republished) post in this series that will include some helpful resources, along with some new thoughts for 2009 (including our specific Christmas gift plans for Chiquita!).

Do you have any other suggestions for simplifying Christmas?

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 4 is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 3

gidget — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:49:41 +0000

This post was originally published August 16, 2008 and has been slightly updated/modified for 2009.

Summary/Review of Hundred Dollar Holiday by Bill McKibben

This short book is packed with information! I want to just give an overview here– the book is such quick read that you’d do better to just read it yourself than for me to go into much detail. I read it to my husband in a couple of hours while we were driving because I liked it so much.

The first chapter is a historical overview of Christmas, mainly in our country. This part was very interesting as I had always wondered about the origin of things like Santa Claus. The main point McKibben makes here is that Christmas is, and always has been, a product of the culture. There is no “perfect/ideal Christmas” that he’s trying to get us to revert back to. It’s simply shifting the focus to where our culture needs it to be.

He then proceeds to describe what the “Hundred Dollar Holiday” is all about. Essentially, the idea is to simplify gift-giving so that the rest of Christmas becomes the focus– time with family, enjoying the outdoors, and most importantly, celebrating the birth of Jesus. McKibben gives lots of great ideas for gifts that cost little to no money, and points out that the title reference to $100 was written mainly for alliteration and that a reasonable goal will vary depending on size of family/friends you want to give gifts to. Obviously a big recommendation is to make gifts, which not only costs less and fosters less of a greedy, consumerist mentality, but also provides a time for your family to be together, making gifts together.

The best analogy he gives in my opinion is the analogy of a birthday party. For whatever reason, we all love to give and receive gifts in honor of birthdays. McKibben points out that we understand the idea that when we go to a birthday party, we get to take part in the festivities, enjoy the cake and maybe even take home a goodie bag, but we delight in honoring the Birthday Girl or Boy, and not ourselves.

This is how Christmas should be celebrated. Jesus is the Guest of Honor. We take part in the festivities– the parties, games, meals, family time– and even enjoy our own little “goodie bags,” like a stocking or simple homemade gifts. But I think that primarily, this is a time for Him to receive the gifts- our love, our lives, our devotion. Christmas can and should be a time of rededication, reverence and reflection amidst all the fun.

McKibben declares that his point with the “Hundred Dollar Holiday” is not primarily to save paper, save money, or save anything else, but rather, to find more joy in the holiday. The economic and environmental benefits, although present, are secondary to the personal and spiritual benefits.

How does this sound to you?

If you missed them, you can read the newly published versions of Part 1 and Part 2.
You can also read a transcript of a live chat with Bill McKibben about the book.

Retro Reading~ Christmas Manifesto, Part 3 is a post from: Gidget Goes Home
Please visit my other blog, Simple Organic.
Gidget Recommends {a few of my favorite eBooks}:

One Bite at a Time: 52 Projects for Making Life Simpler
Healthy Snacks to Go: 20 Real Food Recipes
Simple Blogging: Grow your blog with less time on the computer.
Thanks for reading!