Week Three : Leave no Trace continues...

Week Three: Saturday, May 24th, 2015: Leave no Trace continues

Well, we tried to unplug a bit this weekend, so here I am posting what we did this weekend on a Tuesday morning. It was quite an intense week professionally and emotionally, letting go of some things that were causing distress, so it was good to be at home with the family working on making our lives simple, humble, and happy.

Results so far...after a week of Leave no Trace in our kitchen, we have been pleasantly surprised that not only is the kitchen staying immaculate with what seems like minimal effort, we are also cooking more. Instead of walking into the kitchen and saying 'oh gosh, what a disaster. Who wants ______ for dinner!?'  ______ typically means Pizza Luce, On's Thai, or some other form of delivery. This week we splurged once for On's, but otherwise were busy cooking. I brewed kombucha for the third time this spring, made water kefir and soy kefir, miso soup, soba with swiss chard, homemade seitan and vegan mayo, and then a beautiful faux chicken curry salad from said seitan. Fiona made vegan cupcakes on her own, dropped the first batch on the clean floor, and resolved to clean up and start again. She made $5 selling her baked goods ala lemonade stand outside on a beautiful Memorial Day. We are all amazed at how simple and effective this idea ended up being in the execution and reinforcement of it...and how it led to us actually using the space more.

It was working so well that we decided to continue it for the living room, the room we really do live in the most as a family. I spent the good part of two days cleaning every nook and cranny, organizing books and record albums, rearranging so that the focus of the room was conversation vs. television. We had already gotten rid of our video game console, so now the room is focused on the moment and other people, instead of mindless distractions. Its now so clean that any 'trace' will be obvious and we will avoid it. Also discovered some wonderful books I haven't read in ages, so have a new reading list for the coming weeks.

Overall we are still practicing the 'one shelf, one drawer' rule (with me taking on whole rooms at a time, which has been quite cathartic). This has been working well versus my normal method of cleaning the entire floor of the house in a day. We have another (maybe our fourth so far) pile for the Goodwill piled on the front porch. Removing the things that are no longer useful to us has been liberating.

We also uncovered a handful more 'simplification books' (eight total now) and have again it down to four we think will be most helpful. Will post the new list next Saturday. The irony is not lost on me.