Well, Hello!

My last post was in July? Oh my goodness. Well, my excuse is that I was spending lots and lots of time with my kids before school started back up and blogging was last on my list. But now school has begun again (NOOO!!!) and I am back to trying to simplify things. It's now more important than ever. Why, you ask? A couple of reasons:

1. I am continuing my college education this fall and am only two credits away from being full time. Ick. Don't get me wrong - I really think I'm going to love my courses, but I fully expect to be bogged down with homework most of the time.

2. I have two kids in school this year. Granted, one is just two days a week in preschool, but it's still one more kid to get off to school two mornings a week. My other child is in 1st grade and in full day school for the first time, which means I have to keep up with the bag lunches every evening (along with my husband's, so two total). Plus, there's the expected increase in homework, which we'll need to keep organized and make sure it's completed on time.

3. The preschool is a co-op. I love the co-op system, but it requires more of me and especially so this year since it's our fourth year and I've agreed to a larger role on the school council. I will be spending many hours per month at the preschool, not to mention the preschool business that will be brought home with me for the school newsletter.

4. Both kids have requested at least one extracurricular activity for the school year. We haven't decided on what it is yet, but that will add to our weekly schedule. Most likely we will have swimming or wrestling twice per week and either piano or gymnastics once per week.

This doesn't even include all of the regular "life" stuff and extra events that happen throughout the year. Thank goodness I'm not working right now - I don't think I could handle it! As you can see, I'm going to need as much simplicity as possible. There's a part of me that liked giving up all schedule throughout the summer so we could focus on just having fun. But there's also a part of me who craves getting back onto an organized schedule into a very organized life.

I did spend part of the summer working on simplifying and re-organizing a few areas of the house and I am excited to share those projects with you. I am also beginning the strict weekly practice of meal planning and freezer cooking, which I totally lost throughout the summer. I'll do separate post on that because I certainly have quite a few thoughts about it!

There's just something about fall that makes me want to organize everything and get it all in order. I spent an hour thoroughly cleaning my vacuum this afternoon, for goodness sake! And for some reason, it made me feel like I'd really accomplished something.

Grocery Costs and Food Waste

I let the grocery budget go last month. Not really on purpose, although I was interested to see if sticking to a budget had changed any grocery shopping habits. It had not. In fact, I spent more than we had been last time I let the budget go a few months before that. I have noticed that costs have gone up on a few of our regular items, so I'm sure that was a factor. Also a factor: the boys have both been eating a lot due to growth spurts.   But whatever contributed to the extra costs, I was a little disappointed to see that I hadn't changed any shopping habits.


For June, I spent $677.04. That's $277.04 over my desired grocery budget. I do usually go over the budget to a certain extent each month and that's probably reasonable to expect. The USDA estimates that the standard "frugal" budget for a family of four in 2011 was between $523.70 and $603.10. What I spent for June was still under the "low cost" budget for a family of four. What I WANT to spend is standard for the frugal/low cost plan for a family of two. Want to know more? Check out: Official USDA Food Plans: US Average, 2011.

I'm changing the way I track my food budget, as I discovered that separating food and household basics was taking too long per receipt and making me procrastinate on entering all of the information. So, I'm just sticking to a single amount per month and not worry about what portion goes to food and what portion goes to household basics. The tracking for the first part of this month went a lot faster and looks more straightforward on my tracking page.

So far so good. We have 2 1/2 weeks left in the month and I have just over $300 left in the grocery budget. We're going to have to go shopping soon as we're getting darn close to eating fridge scraps, but there's nothing wrong with using what we have on hand. We throw out too much food. According to the US Dept of Agriculture, the average US family throws out 14% of their food purchases and as a country, we throw out between 25-50%, depending on what studies you read. You can read about it here: Scientific American: Waste Land.

Is this a problem for your family? Does it bother you to throw out the food that you've spent your hard earned money on? Join me in learning ways to reduce household food waste by starting here: EPA.gov: Household Food Waste.

Outdoor Simplicity

As much as we're trying to simplify everything indoors, our outdoors needed a lot of help too. Our entire property was overgrown when we bought it, and that included the small backyard (which is really more of a large patio). There was an ugly, moldy trellis overhang over the main patio portion, so that came down super fast. The backyard only gets light in the morning, so adding extra shade and darkness in back seemed like a confusing decision for the builders to make. Even though we actually took care of this part almost two years ago, I mention it because it's part of the big picture of fixing the backyard space. And it will come into play later because the pieces of it are still stacked in a huge nasty pile along the side of our house. I'm sure our neighbors love seeing that when they look out their kitchen window.

Here's one half of the backyard. See that tree at the end? It was pushing the fence apart so much that the fence started breaking. So the tree had to come out.

You never know how many branches and leaves are on a tree until it's laying in your backyard.

Here's another part of the backyard. The way the property is, we get a lot of rain runoff and erosion. Basically, the backyard was coated in a nice thick layer of mud and rock.

The goal here was to take it once small portion at a time and clear away all the mud and rock, replacing it with new river rock and actually have visible paving stones. It took me a few weekends with a pick axe, but I cleared it all away and made some nice grooves in between all of the paving stones in this section.

Then I took three bags of river rock, spread them all out, hosed it all down (since the river rock comes coated in dirt), and there it was. Simple, serene, dare I say...pretty?

It's slowly occurring to me that by attempting to simplify our home, I'm actually doing more work than before. I mean, why start a landscaping project when I'm trying to make my life easier? That's why it's a process, I guess. I have to work to get the simplicity that I want. I am seeing changes in our home and it doesn't feel as out of control as it did in the past. I'm hoping for the same for our outdoor areas. I want a relaxing, good looking space that our children can actually use for playtime. Our property has been a major source of stress because it's been so overgrown. I was embarrassed by it whenever we had people over. I look forward to the day when I can look out into my backyard and be happy with what I see.