Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Simple Living

20 Ways to Slow Down Your Summer

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It’s summer time and the living’s easy.

Or is it?

For many people, summer looks just like the rest of the year. Same schedule. Same commute. Same cubicle. Even for entrepreneurs, summer can bring the same deadlines and to-do lists as any other season.

Remember those impossibly long summers as a child, when making mud pies, reading novels, and riding bikes up and down the street filled every afternoon? Even with a job and mortgage, you can bring a little slow living back into your life. Here’s your ultimate lazy summer living checklist.

Exit the Fast Lane

Pencil in down time this summer for these leisurely activities:

1. Walk barefoot

Wake your feet up this summer by stripping off your shoes and socks and walking barefoot as much as possible. Walking barefoot not only feels great; it improves your balance and posture and may prevent shin splints, plantar fasciitis, stress fractures, and other injuries. Each of your feet contains 20,000 nerve endings, and grass, sand, stones, and water are all sensory delights for your feet. (Learn more about the benefits of going barefoot and discover how to turn your yard into a barefoot garden here.)

2. Go on a picnic

Parenting pro tip: “Let’s go on a picnic!” is sure to garner more excitement from toddlers and preschoolers than “Let’s go for a walk!” That’s how I ended up turning nearly every lunch into a picnic for several years in my quest to get my boys to walk with me.  Grab a blanket, pack some sandwiches or Mason-jar meals, and head to a scenic spot or nearby park. Pinterest-worthy picnic food not required.

3. Take a nap

How can you enjoy cool early summer mornings and late evenings, skip the sweltering afternoon heat, and get enough sleep in the process? Meet the summer nap a.k.a siesta. Aim to enjoy at least a few of these summer delights, especially on days you know you’ll be staying up later than usual. A nap can interfere with nighttime sleep if you take it too late in the day. But it can also boost alertness and improve work performance. I say, indulge every once in a while!

4. Sleep with the windows open

If you live in a safe, quiet neighborhood, nothing beats sleeping with a soft breeze and the sound of crickets outside. And as a bonus, you may sleep better.

5. Watch a meteor shower

Mark your calendars, the Perseid meteor shower peaks from August 11 to August 13. Depending on where you live and how dark it is, you’ll see a falling star every minute. Don’t forget to make some wishes!

6. Go camping

Spending time away from man-made lights resets the body’s circadian rhythm and improves quality of sleep, according to recent research. That may partly explain why camping can feel so restorative. Find a beautiful spot and leave the demands of your busy life for a few days.

7. Read a summer novel

If your nightstand’s stacked with business or personal development tomes, put them aside for a few weeks and indulge in some fun summer reading. Yes, reading can be an avenue to learning and growth. And it can also help you bring magic, imagination, and leisure back into your life. Looking for some indulgent summer reads? Check out this list.

8. Play a yard game

Nothing says summer like a rousing game of horseshoes, croquet, bocce ball, ladder toss, cornhole, badminton, or lawn bowling. Frisbee, softball, or kickball are also sure crowd-pleasers.

9. Make iced tea or coffee

Icy beverages are some of the true delights of the hottest months. But when you add ice to a hot beverage, you end up with a watered-down, weak drink. Up your iced tea and coffee game this summer by making cold-water extract. To make cold-water iced tea, add 3 to 4 tea bags per quart of cold water. Leave at room temperature for an hour and then refrigerate overnight. To make cold-water coffee, combine one cup of finely ground coffee beans with 4 cups of water, and refrigerate overnight. Serve over ice and enjoy.

10. Swim in a waterhole

Want to take a dip in a natural paradise? No matter where you live, chances are there’s a beautiful, secluded, natural swimming area nearby. Go to swimminghole.org to find one, and follow the common-sense precautions on the website to stay safe and healthy while you swim.

11. Play a board game

When’s the last time you wiled away an afternoon over a game of Scrabble or checkers? If you can’t remember, bring on the lemonade and board games. Our 10-year-old loves board games, so we play a lot of them. Some of our current favorites include the Ticket to Ride games, Battleship, and Clue. If you’re children fight when board games come out, try a cooperative board game, where everyone works together and everyone wins. My kids love Wildcraft: An Herbal Adventure Game, and they’ve learned a lot about plants while playing it. Go here for a list of other cooperative board games.

12. Go to a movie

Whether you’re watching a summer blockbuster or an art film, the movie theater is the perfect place to spend a sweltering summer afternoon.

13. Make a bouquet of summer flowers

Bring the color of summer indoors by gathering sunflowers, daisies, coneflowers, dahlias, zinnias, or whatever blooms are growing near you..

14. Go to a farmer’s market

Stock up on summer’s bounty and support local farmers, then whip together a fresh, flavorful (and preferably simple) summer feast.

15. Lie in a hammock

Forget your to-do list and kick back in your backyard hammock. Want to combine a nap and hammock session? Follow these tips for ultimate comfort: Make sure the hammock isn’t hung too tightly, position yourself diagonally, and arrange a pillow under your head.

16. Go out for ice cream

It’s summer. What better excuse to try one of the season’s new ice cream flavors, such as banana peanut butter chip, blackberry hibiscus, or brown butter bourbon truffle? Or go with classic vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.

17. Eat watermelon

Watermelon is a summer superstar. It not only tastes delicious. It’s full of antioxidants and other nutrients and it’s one of the most hydrating summer fruits. Plus, you could always hold a seed-spitting competition to wile away some boredom.

18. Pick berries

Whether you find them on the side of a mountain trail or growing in your backyard, enjoy summer’s berries while you can. Come January, you’ll miss nature’s sweet treats … unless you head to a you-pick farm and pick enough to store in your freezer. Find a farm at pickyourown.org.

19. Roast marshmallows

Remember perfectly toasted, caramelized marshmallows from childhood camping trips? Me neither. Mine usually turned out to be deflated, charred, and shriveled messes. But now that we’re adults with real culinary skills, we can almost certainly do better — or at least have fun trying. Don’t forget to pack graham crackers and chocolate bars.

20. Host a barbecue

Fire up the barbecue and move the party outside. Remember, the point here is leisure. You have my permission to skip the Martha Stewart-worthy menu and table decor and aim for a relaxed grill-and-chill.

Mission: Enjoy Summer

You may never experience summer the way you did as a child. Mud pies and lemonade stands probably don’t hold the same appeal these days. But that doesn’t mean summer can’t bring a little magic. Before the season slips away, take back your time for some good old-fashioned summer leisure.

[Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published on July 30, 2018]

9 Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Spring

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The spring equinox is March 20 in the northern hemisphere. The sun shines directly on the equator, and day and night are nearly equal. For centuries, people have marked the occasion with celebrations.

How Did Ancient People Celebrate?

  • Fires

In Iran, people purified their homes and leapt over fires.

  • Gathering at Monuments

The Mayans gathered around El Castillo, a ceremonial pyramid. On the day of the equinox, the sun runs  down the northern staircase, giving the illusion of a snake descending. Because of this, their celebration has been called “The Return of the Sun Serpent” since ancient times.

  • Honoring Ancestors

The Japanese spent the day cleaning and bringing flowers to their ancestors’ graves.

  • Celebrating Mothers

In parts of the Middle East and Africa, people celebrate Mother’s Day on the spring equinox.

Benefits of Modern Seasonal Celebrations

The first day of each season is a great opportunity to pause and connect with nature. Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.

It’s nice to take a time-out from the clock’s relentless march forward occasionally to appreciate what’s happening in the natural world: What the sky looks like, what local wildlife are up to, which birds are hanging out at the neighborhood pond, and whether the leaves are budding, falling, or mulching the gardens.

Seasonal celebrations are also a good time to reflect on the lessons the season imparts. Fall teaches us about the inevitability of loss. Winter shows us the importance of dormancy, darkness, and stillness. Spring shows the possibility of rebirth. And the bounties of summer are endless – light, warmth, and lush crops.

Create some spring traditions this year!

What better time than spring to start some new family traditions? Pick activities that you’ll want to do year after year and ones that will make the day relaxing and special for you and your family, but not overwhelming. Here are 9 ways to celebrate:

  1. Decorate

Collect spring flowers, cherry buds, egg shells, a bird’s nest, or whatever symbolizes springtime in your family and display them on a mantle or tabletop. Place bouquets of crocuses, daffodils, tulips, or dandelions around the house. Or surprise your family members by placing bouquets in their bedrooms while they sleep, so they wake up to fresh flowers on the first day of spring.

  1. Observe

The days are getting longer. Go outside on the first day of spring to watch the sun rise and set. Find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

  1. Explore

Go on a walk or hike and identify wildflowers if some are already sprouting in your area. Or visit a local farm and see if you can get a glimpse of calves, lambs, or chicks in the barnyard. What better symbol of spring?

  1. Feast

Make a spring meal with the first crops of the season. Dandelion leaves, steamed nettles, asparagus, new potatoes, dill, mint, and chives may be springing up where you live. Make your dinner more special than usual by adding something new. Eat by candlelight. Eat outside if weather permits. Or have a picnic on a blanket in the living room.

  1. Make

Twist dandelions or clovers into chains, and wear them as spring crowns.

  1. Plan

Gardening season is here! Spend some time planning your springtime garden.

  1. Sow seeds

Have each family member pick a favorite flower or plant to sow in honor of the first day of spring. Designate a special garden, and make a ceremony of it.

  1. Read

These spring picture books are great for little ones:

  • The Gardener by Sarah Stewart
  • Grandma Lena’s Big Ol Turnip by Denia Hester
  • Marty McGuire Digs Worms by Kate Messner
  • Wanda’s Roses by Pat Brisson
  • And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano

The Spring Equinox: Celebrating the Greening of the Earth by Ellen Jackson is fun to read aloud as a family on the first day of spring.

And cold days aren’t over yet, so adults may also want to stock up on the season’s most anticipated reads.

  1. Craft

Decorate hard-boiled eggs with natural dyes. Try beets, cranberries, blackberries, or raspberries for red; yellow-onion skins or turmeric for yellow; parsley, spinach, or red-onion skins for green; blueberries for blue; and coffee, pecan hulls, or black-walnut hulls for brown. Or experiment by trying whatever’s coming up in your backyard.

To make a natural dye, combine:

  • 4 cups of chopped or mashed fruits or vegetables or 4 tablespoons of spice
  • 4 cups of water
  • 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.

Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 30 minutes.

If these ideas don’t resonate, create your own traditions to welcome spring this March 20! I hope you’ll celebrate for years to come.

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[Photo credit: Jeff Kubina, Marco Verch]

Living Big in a Tiny House

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I reviewed Dee Williams’ The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir for Cities Are Now, the Winter 2015 issue of YES! Magazine.

72 Cities Cover

At 41, Dee Williams was a “nor­mal, middle-class, middle-of-the-road woman with a mortgage and a job and friends.” She worked as a state hazardous waste inspector and owned a 1927 Portland, Ore., fixer-upper that she shared with a rotation of roommates. She “went running and climbing and paddling, racing in a thousand different direc­tions at a thousand miles per hour.”

Then one day she woke up in an intensive care unit tethered to a urine bag, IV pole, and heart monitor, and the doctors diagnosed her with a potentially fatal heart condition. “It felt like death, or my mortality, or something bigger still, was leaning into my bed with the moonlight, clat­tering when I moved hangers in the closet, buzzing behind the sound of the shower running or my car idling in traffic,” she writes in The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir.

Soon after her diagnosis, Williams discovered an article about an Iowa City man who built and moved into a house the size of a shed. The idea of building such a little house—the process itself and the paring down it would require to move in—enticed Williams. “Somehow, it would shrink my life into a manageable mouthful,” she writes. Before long, Williams was drafting blueprints for her own tiny house.

Designing a house, even a very small one, involved some “outright panic” for Williams. She planned to live in the backyard of a house belong­ing to friends more than a hundred miles away in Olympia, Wash. Thus the house would need to fit on a trailer and be under 13.5 feet tall per Depart­ment of Transportation requirements. It would also need to withstand the rough shaking that transporting a house on the highway can present.

Excerpt from the book:

I thought I’d find something in all of this, and I got more than I bargained for. I discovered a new way of looking at the sky, the winter rain, the neighbors, and myself; and a different way of spending my time. Most important, I stumbled into a new sort of “happiness,” one that didn’t hinge on always getting what I want, but rather, on wanting what I have. It’s the kind of happiness that isn’t tied so tightly to being comfortable (or having money and property), but instead is linked to a deeper sense of satisfaction—to a sense of humility and gratitude, and a better understanding of who I am in my heart.

I now this sounds cheesy, and in fact, it sounds fairly similar to the gobbledygook that friends have thrown at me just after having their first baby. But the facts are the facts: I found a certain bigness in my little house—a sense of largeness, freedom, and happiness that comes when you see there’s no place you’d rather be.

As she built, Williams experienced sore muscles, bumps, bruises, smashed fingers—and lost her ponytail after she accidentally glued it to her house. She also had a lot of fun. “Risking life and limb every day” distracted her from her potentially debilitating disease. And she erected an undeniably attractive 84-square-foot cedar-and-knotty-pine house that man­ages to look open and airy in photos despite its minuscule size.

In a society drowning in commer­cials, books, and schemes promising to deliver us from hardship, it might have been tempting for Williams to oversell downsizing. She resisted that temptation—The Big Tiny abounds with refreshing honesty, humor, and endearing quirkiness.

Williams admits that getting rid of her three-bedroom house full of stuff was more agonizing than she expected, and living in less than a hundred square feet isn’t always comfortable. She has no refrigerator or plumb­ing. She cooks on a single burner and sleeps with her propane heater off, because she’s afraid her house will catch fire. She estimates she’s happy about 85 percent of the time, about the same amount of time she was happy in her big house.

When she escaped the “mindless rotisserie of work and projects” that guided her in her old house, Williams discovered a satisfaction that came from getting to know herself. “Let­ting go of ‘stuff,’” she writes, “allowed the world to collapse behind me as I moved, so I became nothing more or less than who I simply was: Me.”

The house and its large skylight helped her connect with nature in a new way. “I like the excitement of the windstorms and the rain pound­ing down a thousand different ways, inches from my head,” she writes. She also has more time for drinking tea on her porch and chatting with friends, because she no longer has to juggle bills and worry about constant home repairs.

What Williams celebrates most is that her new lifestyle requires her to depend on others. She lives “in com­munity” with her friends Hugh and Annie, their two sons, and Hugh’s elderly aunt Rita because she’s located in their backyard and needs their run­ning water. Williams happily takes on the role of Rita’s caretaker in exchange for using Rita’s shower and occasion­ally her oven. “If more people under­stood how nice it is to have a sense of home that extends past our locked doors, past our neighbors’ padlocks…we’d live in a very different place,” she insists.

Williams’ enthusiasm for small living and her charming hand-built house have already helped launch a tiny house movement. The Big Tiny will encourage many more people to assess whether bigger and more means happier—proof that making something tiny can ignite something very big.

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13 Ways to Spread Holiday Cheer Without Spending a Dime

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I’m not stressing about the holidays this year. We’re planning to exchange some gifts, go for a hike, and eat a delicious dinner, but mostly we’re aiming for a relaxing day.

Around now, I’m always thinking about where I want to put my attention in the new year, and this year I am zeroing in on our finances and paying off debt. So a simple Christmas is exactly what we need. But we’ll be on the look out for ways to spread holiday cheer all week. If you’re in the same camp, here are 13 ideas for spreading joy without opening your wallet:

1. Leave a note on your mail box thanking your mail carrier for all of the hard work they do over the holiday season.

2. Send an email to old and new friends, catching them up on what you’ve been up to, and thanking them for being part of your lives.

3. Donate some of your extra clothes, books, and/or canned food to a homeless shelter or group home.

4. Give your friends, kids, or your partner the gift of your undivided attention for a few hours. Make a point to really listen.

5. Go caroling.

6. Invite some friends over for dinner or dessert.

7. Write to a few of your coworkers or colleagues and thank them for their hard work.

8. Smile and say hello to everyone you pass.

9. Visit someone in a nursing home.

10. Make a Skype date with a faraway friend or family member.

11. Make paper snowflakes to hang in your windows.

12. Leave a greeting on one of your favorite blogs. (We bloggers love connecting with readers.)

13. Take some time out alone to do something you love doing this time of the year, whether it’s going for a long walk, drinking eggnog, or reading a novel.

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What are your favorite ways to spread joy without parting with your cash? I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

 

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The Cost of Things

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Caped Avengers 009

The past two weekends, my neighbors held a yard sale. Apparently my boys could smell commerce happening nearby, because within moments of awakening, they were at the window. “The neighbor has a tent on his lawn,” Ezra announced. Both boys spent most of the weekends outside asking questions and fondling nicknacks or glued to the window watching people come and go.

“We need a canoe.” “Ball next door!” “Mom, can we go look at the games again?” “My boat.” They managed to tote home a number of odd things from the free box, including a stained white plastic ball that looks like it came from the antenna of a Jeep, a telephone that would have been state-of-the-art when I was Ezra’s age, and a wide-brimmed hat that fits no one in the house.

These finds joined other relics that Ezra’s lugged home over the years, including a couple of other land-line telephones, a broken audio cassette recorder, and a microphone. Apparently our compulsion to collect stuff starts at a young age, and it only seems to escalate from there. On our recent camping trip, I was amazed by all the things people bring to “get away from it all” – super-sized motorhomes, patio furniture, dog beds and crates and yards. Of course, we toted our share of stuff back and forth from our car, although fortunately we were severely constricted by its compact size.

It’s not that I don’t love stuff. Every time I turn on my washing machine, drop into my bed at the end of the day, or turn on my computer, I am thankful for the material things that make our lives better. My goal is not necessarily to have less. I’m not on a mission to pare my belongings to 100 things as many bloggers have amazingly done. I just want to be intentional about what I bring into my life. I want to spend my money, time, and attention on things that bring me happiness and satisfaction. And I want to try to keep in mind a purchase’s entire life cycle: where did it come from and where will it end up?

In this issue of YES! Magazine (all about the “Human Cost of Stuff”) Annie Leonard says it well: “I’m neither for nor against stuff. I like stuff it’s well-made, honestly marketed, used for a long time, and at the end of its life recycled in a way that doesn’t trash the planet, poison people, or exploit workers. Our stuff should not be artifacts of indulgence and disposability, like toys that are forgotten 15 minutes after the wrapping comes off, but things that are both practical and meaningful.” (My review of Judy Wicks’ Good Morning, Beautiful Business is also in this issue. Check it out if you see a copy!)

Visiting second-hand stores helps me be more intentional about new purchases. All those cluttered shelves of hardly used, outdated appliances helps take the sheen off the marketing and shiny newness in box and department stores. Recently Ezra and I wandered through several used stores together. He’s been wanting a Leap Pad learning system, because he loves playing with his friend’s, and I heard used stores tend to have vast quantities of them. When the first three stores didn’t have one, Ezra was desperate to bring home something – anything. He insisted he would be happy with a pair of butterfly wings, a toy cash register, or a toy laptop instead of a Leap Pad. I convinced him to wait until we checked out the last store.

They had exactly what Ezra wanted, and it was just $5. “I’m so glad we waited,” Ezra beamed as he hugged his new Leap Pad. I’m hoping he learned something about being intentional about purchases. And for now, fortunately, the yard sales are over; please don’t let any of our neighbors open an ice cream cart.

Do you try to be intentional about your purchases? Do you have any tips to share? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Redefining Wealth

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“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.” – Henry David Thoreau

“In the new good life, the point is not to have the most toys, but the most joys.” – John Robbins

I was thumbing through a gourmet cookbook the other day, and the author recommended visiting farm stores to procure the most flavorful, just-picked ingredients.

I glanced out at my garden and felt wealthy.

Here we are harvesting fresh herbs, greens, and eggs every day just a few feet from our back door. The early spring sunshine probably deserves more credit than I do for all of this abundance. But I’ve invested plenty of sweat and love into that soil over the years, and I built something that feels very much like wealth.

When I hear the word wealth, I usually think of stock portfolios, IRAs, and 401Ks – the green stuff.

But when I think about what makes me feel wealthy, my mind jumps to other green stuff: my garden, city parks, wide open spaces, and the neighborhood fig tree that gives and gives and gives.

I also think of my close, connected neighborhood; my friends; and walking and riding my bike every day. I think of my kids and our unhurried mornings reading books, watching snails, and counting spiders’ legs.

Wealth is usually defined as an “abundance of items of economic value or material possessions.” But I wonder if it’s time for us to redefine wealth, at least in our own lives.

I’m not knocking savings accounts, retirement plans, or consumer goods. These things are important; they’re just not the whole story.

When we reflect on what makes us feel wealthy, we expand beyond our culture’s emphasis on property, assets, and commodities. We might think about good health, breathing clean air, living in a safe neighborhood, and having access to fresh produce. We might think about having more time.

And by redefining wealth for ourselves, we can ensure that we’re building the kind of lives and communities that make us feel wealthy. They might look a lot different than the ones we see on advertisements and on TV.

[clickToTweet tweet=”We can build lives and communities that make us feel wealthy. #gardens #greenspace” quote=”We can build lives and communities that make us feel wealthy.” theme=”style1″]

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What makes you feel wealthy? I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.