We’re all familiar with the learning curve – that slow, hiccuping start we get off to when we tackle a new task. The period where we suck at something, which is the necessary preamble to the period where we kick ass at something.
I’ve watched my two-year-old son wobble, fall, and falter hundreds of times already. So I’m sure I’ve been through the learning curve more than a million.
But, for some reason, I didn’t expect a learning curve when it came to simplifying our lives
About a year and a half ago, my husband and I both worked outside the home. We had opposite work schedules, so we never saw each other. We were both working constantly, either at our jobs, or at home caring for our infant son and trying to tame mountains of laundry, dishes, and bills.
By the time our son was one, we were crazy about him. But we were exhausted and miserable about our lifestyles. We knew we had to make a change.
We decided the answer was simple – simple living that is. We would choose to live on less, allowing me to quit my job and be with our son, as well as focusing on my dream job of freelance writing. We’d make bread. We’d garden and compost. We’d ditch processed foods and restaurants and cook everything from scratch. We’d keep backyard hens. We’d make stuff ourselves and heat our house with wood. We’d hang our clothes on the line. We’d ride our bikes and walk more and drive less.
It’s not as though we lived extravagantly before. My husband and I have both always lived fairly simply. I was raised by thrifty freelance-writer parents. I’ve ridden my bike and walked most places for my entire life. I’ve never been into diamonds or spending weekends at the mall. Shopping has always been low on my list of favorite pastimes. And I’ve long been a fan of the voluntary simplicity movement.
So I assumed we’d love our simpler lifestyle. I imagined it would be relatively easy to pare down.
It wasn’t easy.
Recently, a few things made me realize how difficult it was.
- We went out with friends to a restaurant we used to frequent. (We used to eat out a lot.) The food didn’t taste good. Then the same thing happened at another restaurant. That’s when I realized what had really happened. The food we make at home now tastes really good. We learned how to cook.
- I started looking forward to heading outside on cool mornings to swing the axe around and realized that I’ve become a master wood-splitter.
- I have not used a recipe to make bread in eight months.
- My friend asked me if I missed our car, and I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about at first. Miss our car? Oh, that’s right, we’re not driving our car. I hardly even think about our car, and I usually don’t miss it, at least 95 percent of the time.
The relative ease of cooking from scratch, making bread, chopping wood, and living sans automobile today made me realize that these and so many of our other lifestyle changes were once pretty difficult.
The first few times I made bread felt like conducting a chemistry experiment. And I’m glad you’ll never see my first attempts at chopping wood or taste some of our not-so-delicious attempts at main courses. When my husband first started riding his bike to work, he came home exhausted most days. And I think he probably said, “The simple life isn’t so simple.” at least 50 times last year.
It feels like we’ve been through simple-living boot camp.
We still have a lot to learn. But we’ve gotten physically stronger and more resilient and we’ve honed dozens of skills that serve us well everyday, make us feel better about our environmental impact, and which I hope will help us be more financially secure in the future. As my friend, who’s been on her own journey toward a simpler, greener, thriftier life, quipped the other day, “If I’d lived like this for the last ten years, I’d have $50,000 in the bank right now.”
So if you’re thinking about paring down, trying to save more money, learning to cook or meal-plan, giving up TV, ditching plastic, switching to green cleaners, making your own personal care items, or embarking on some other lifestyle change, I am here to tell you that it may not be easy at first. You will probably have to learn each new skill, just as you’ve learned everything else in your life – slowly and day-by-day.
But you will kick ass at it before you know it.
What new skills have you learned this year? What’s the most difficult lifestyle change you’ve made? What’s the most rewarding?
This may not be a traditional skill….but the most important thing I’ve learned to do in 2010 is to turn down my anxiety about the future. It’s something that I’ve struggled with for a long time and has been a real relief to (just begin to) master.
2011 is going to be the year I focus on two things: learning how to be a better cook and getting back into hiking. I want to be healthier overall and thought if I focused on eating at home more and getting exercise that I actually enjoy it might stick with me this time. 🙂
Hi Lydia. How were you able to turn down your anxiety about the future?
Meditation and cutting out caffeine from my diet. I’m now cutting way back on sugar, too, as that also seems to affect my mood if I have too much of it. The changes have been amazing. 🙂
I’d say the most important lesson learned this year is to roll with whatever life sends your way. Last year I thought I’d be living my new life overseas…yet here I am back in Seattle. Last year I thought I’d be working my dream job, yet here I am still looking for IT work. The difference is in how I see things, I know this won’t last. I know I’ll be able to dream something up and make it happen, and maybe this time it’ll work out like I thought, and maybe it won’t…There’s a line in one of my favorite songs, “If the shadows get me down, I’m gonna roll if I fall.”
I’m working on that one too, Jesse. I like that line. I’ll have to keep it in mind.
I remember how hard it was to start cooking regularly. My husband and I just started living on our own and didn’t know anything about cooking. We started with boxed processed food and over the past seven years or so have become pretty skilled at making gourmet food at home. But boy was it a learning curve. I think a lot of people struggle with this “what’s for dinner” daily and eating out becomes the norm. Check out what meal planning looks like now:
http://domesticobservances.blogspot.com/2010/11/meal-plan.html
Wow! What beautiful meals! That’s a great advertisement for cooking at home.
Nice link, Amynonymous.
For how many people do you cook? What do you do with leftovers that aren’t enough to feed everyone for an additional meal?
The most difficult thing for me this year has been making payments on old bills with no increase in Social Security disability payments. It’s been tough. The most rewarding thing I’ve learned ( or am in the process) is building a cord wood addition onto a camper that we have parked in the woods on some acreage we bought…our little getaway!
Thanks for sharing, Lisa. That sounds like a great little getaway. I’m sorry it’s been a tough year for you financially.
I just cook for my myself and my husband now, but the recipes can feed a family of four (or more sometimes). For now, leftovers are always lunches. My husband’s go to work, mine stay here as I “work” from home (I’m in an accelerated nursing program). Rather than spending money buying “lunch food” there is always an entree in the fridge ready to go.
I’m still working on that baking bread thing, but it’s getting better. I feel like I’ve finally really streamlined our meal planning, and it’s starting to pay off financially–now I’d like to expand that to include lunches. Hands down, the most rewarding change was me quitting my job and getting to stay home with my toddler. Still, a lot of difficulties remain . . . me being able to generate some income from home and still stay balanced and be the type of wife and mom I would like to be . . . and we still struggle a lot with fighting overloading on out-of-the-house committments, such as serving on committees, etc. Thanks for a great post!
Hi Wendy, It sounds like we’re on a similar journey. Baking bread became a million times easier for me when I switched to the recipe in Feeding the Whole Family, which I believe you have a copy of =). It requires you to prepare a starter the night before, which scared me away from it for a long time. But the starter is simple to make, and I’ve found that it really simplifies the process on the day of bread-making.
Great post.
For me the key is: don’t do it all at once, or it will seem overwhelming. If I take living simpler step by step then I have the type of moment you describe, of suddenly realizing I can knit pretty well, or that I know how to darn. Those are lovely moments :).
I have been pretty lucky to have picked up random skills like needlepoint, knitting over the years, but never got particularly proficient until this year.
Best new skill: My husband’s: he makes incredible, to die for gourmet pizza. Best crust ever. #2: My knitting, if for no other reason than it brings me so much pleasure.
Most difficult lifestyle change: not buying new clothes. As a (former) design professional, this is tough, but it’s also been fun to re-mix my wardrobe.
Most rewarding: Ditching cable. We’ve saved money, but it’s also forced us to talk to each other more, and I’ve read more, and we’ve watched more of those movies we kept meaning to see (gotta love dvd’s at the library).
Nice post, Abby.
In our own endeavors towards self sustainability in the last couple years we have had quite a learning curb as well. The easiest thing was giving up TV and the hardest thing so far is butchering poultry. It is also a bummer how most trips to restaurants and the grocery store any more are so disappointing because the food that is available, even when it is really expensive and labeled with things like ‘organic’ or ‘free range’ or ‘local’ isn’t as good as what we have in our home.
Growing and processing our own food, building a house, and cooking from scratch, has definitely not made things more simple, and in some instances it has not even saved us much money! But it is hard to imagine ever going back- I find there is so much more satisfaction in my day-to-day life, and I am more comfortable and aware about how me and the family interact with the wider world around us. And there is just a innate quality factor in all of the little things. I can honestly say that my home cured bacon this year is better than any bacon sold in any market in any upscale-hipster neighborhood in America 🙂
Hubs and I just read this together. We really enjoyed it!
I’ve been staying at home for the past 5 months. For me, finding my identity outside of a paying professional career has been a challenge. But it has also been liberating!
One skill we are working on is how to monetize our time online. We’re just getting started, and it is kicking our ass right now, but we are hopeful that we will find ways to work smarter online in 2011 and help supplement our income, not because we want to buy more stuff (that is SO overrated!) but because we want to put a serious hurtin’ on our debts (car loan, school loans, mortgage).