Day 4 - We're in Hot Water

Day 4 isn't over yet but I stopped mid-dishes to write. Yesterday I mentioned my time in an African village. One water well in the whole village. Woman and children carry jugs, buckets anything they can to the well for their daily water. While we were there, we were given a small dishpan with a couple of inches of water to bathe everyday. Hair had to be washed with the water in a water bottle. It can be done. All this made a huge impact on me and it was months after we returned before I could take more than a two minute shower. Today, I am up to 5 minutes...and that's IF I wash my hair. The conditioner needs 2 minutes.

In our country neighborhood here, we are on community water. It is very hard and full of minerals. It takes very little time for build-up to take its toll on the dishwasher heating element, so I wash dishes by hand. I do not mind it at all. Having had hand issues the last couple of years I have enjoyed the hot water soaks. I start out with only 1/2 a sink of water. Have you ever paid attention to how much water we waste while waiting for the water to heat up??!! EKK! I now save that running water in plastic bowls and use it to water my herbs! No waste there. If I heat up more water than I need for my afternoon tea, I save that water, too. You will be amazed at how much water we waste in everyday activities. With my 1/2 sink of water I let the plates and saucers soak while I do something else. Then I wash them, placing them in the other sick to rinse all at once. I put in any glass dishes left to soak while I rinse. Again, waiting for hot water, I save it in bowls and rinse the dishes in the hot water over the soapy water so all the new hot water refreshes it, rather than waste it. This is what I was doing when I stopped to run over here to share my Green cleaning tips.

I was hesitant to pour out the hot starchy water left from cooking pasta the other night, so I looked online and, lo and behold, there were ideas for recycling that! Who knew? It can go on the compost pile if nothing else, once cooled of course. I frequently steam veggies in the rice cooker while it cooks my rice. Water used to cook veggies can be saved for soup stock. Pour the cooled veggie water into an old ice cube tray and then you have stock to add to other dishes in serving sizes! One lady said she used her starch water from pasta or veggie to cook her homemade bagels, then uses the leftover water from that to mix up homemade tortillas. That's recycling, friends! You can also use the cooled veggie water for your plants. Think about the vitamins we would be passively giving our animals if we used veggie water for them!

Not only can we make an impact in water conservation but also the energy it takes to cook food by recycling the water/stock while it is still hot from the initial cooking like the pasta/bagel/tortilla lady. She knocked out a lot of things at once saving water and energy. Making double recipes at one time saves on energy, too. Plus we get the benefit of having prepared food for another meal handy. I always make a double batch of rice and can use it in a variety of ways for days. I save left over mashed potatoes for potato pancakes. Leftovers can be exciting and new simply by serving them a different way. I do not like to serve something two days in a row or serve it without making it look new and different. Recycling our food sources is just plain smart! Pleasing our family with new creative dishes is love on a plate!

Bye for now, it's tea time and then back to finish the dishes before my water cools off!! P.S. tea bags go into the compost pile, too, ya know!

Day 3 - A Whole Lot of Nothing Going On

Sunday's are good days! Breakfast with Honey, church, lunch with Honey, mandatory Sunday afternoon nap......light dinner with Honey, a little mindless TV and now headed to bed to read a while before more sleep. What's not to like?

We are not one of those families that fill every minute of the weekend with frenzied activity. We need and want time to just 'be' with one another and relax. Honey had to work some needed OT this Saturday so that makes it all the more important that we take time to veg at home in our grunges with as little activity as possible. A simple life begins and ends with those we love and nothing is better than quality time doing nothing together. At least that's how we see it here at the Hacienda.

For the most part, we all create our schedules. If there is no room for doing nothing together, maybe things need to be re-examined. Remember, living the simple life means we control our environment rather than being controlled by it. Maybe being more selective about what we do or do not allow into our lives and schedules would scale down activity to allow room for quality nothing time.

In 1998, I was one busy girl. I had a full-time job, I was the wedding coordinator at one of the largest churches in Austin, I was taking my Ministry studies, and I was training for my first mission trip to Africa. I already had dropped out of the church choir because there just were not enough hours in the week to do all the things I was trying to do. Life was closing in on me and the faster I peddled, the further behind I got! I knew I was at a crossroad in my life and decisions needed to be made. I felt in my spirit that God kept telling me to wait, not make any important decisions until after the Africa mission trip. I was too busy to make decisions anyway....LOL

In Africa, everyday life is far different than that of the average American. They do not rush around trying to keep a crazy schedule, appointments or march through their day by the dictates of the clock. In fact, it took some getting used to by those of us on the team. They were not getting in a rush no matter how much you want them to. Life moves at a leisurely pace with time made to interact with friends being a priority. Clothes were washed in a washtub of water they had to carry in buckets and jugs and heat over a fire. Meals were cooked over a small fire inside the reed fences around their mud huts covered with thatch cut by the river. Clothes worn usually did not create what we would call 'an outfit' and rarely matched anything else on their person, yet they walked hand in hand with their friends, laughing and sharing. No electrical power or running water or TV's to be had but life was lived, babies were born, old people died and were mourned.

The lesson God wanted me to get in Africa was that I needed to simplify, simplify, simplify! Lesson learned. I came home with a new appreciation for a simpler life. It changed my perspective forever. I set about eliminating all but the most basic and important activities from my routines. I made more time to be with people I loved. Then, as now, we do not have all the toys that some families think necessary. We are not chasing after the latest and greatest technological devises, we do not have fancy phones that do everything but your laundry and we are not slaves to commercials showing us things we can not live without. For the most part, we DO live without them and live well. There is still a long way to go to get to the point I seek in simplicity and minimalism in our possessions but I am looking forward to the journey.

Day 2 - Walking the Line

Today was a good day. Last evening I went and purchased the materials to create my user friendly clothes line. Tho he was dead tired, my Honey did the manly thing and installed it for me anyway. I am the proud owner of a new laundry drying facility with more than 4 times the line space than before and the best part....I can actually reach it!! Yippie! Actually, we ran a 50' line through four different points of attachment to the beams under the porch roof. Since it is really just one long line in an odd trapezoid shape, I can lower the line I'm putting clothes on by putting the clothespin bag on it. As I add more clothes, it gets more and more handy. Then I move the bag to the next side and the filled one raises up and the new line lowers. It is too cool!

I washed a load right before I went to bed, then hung it out early this morning. Something very organic about all that. My cousin, Terry, said I might not be so enthused with it this winter but let's face it, our winters are mild and we do not have a lot of rainy days. Cold wind dries clothes just like hot wind. I prefer cold weather, so I'm not anticipating much trouble with winter.

Admittedly I hung my 'unmentionables' on hangers on the utility room yesterday but now that I have all these new lines they can be hung where my nickers can't be seen flapping in the breeze! LOL!! Did a trial run with Honey's manly man undergarments...works like a charm.

I can see where this will require a little planning ahead.....no last minute, "oops, gotta throw that in the dryer for a little wrinkle reduction" or "I've got nothin' to wear". Must plan ahead but that's ok, I usually do anyway. Have ironing board, will go wrinkle free! Ironing relaxes me and I enjoy the instant gratification of seeing the changes from wiggly to clean lines. Hanging the shirts upside down really allows them to dry with little to no ironing needed anyway. Whoo-hoo! My Honey irons, too! He's a champ!

Benefits: fresh morning air in my lungs, no electric power used to dry clothes, Honey shares my master plan for simpler life, shirts waving in the breeze made me smile

Flip-side: I can't see out into the back yard from back door or my office area when clothes are on line. I have to take 4 whole steps to look out LR window - LOL

Day 1

Changes are coming....some by choice, some by necessity and some are just forced on us. Yesterday, I discovered my clothes dryer had stopped drying mid-cycle the day before and a load of bed sheets were quite soured for it. You just cannot leave semi-wet clothes in the dryer in south Texas in the summer! Ewww. My Honey tried to diagnose the problem and fix it but to no avail. The sheets had to be rewashed, of course, and the load I had just washed had to be hung outside.

We were married four years before Honey told me he liked his jeans hung outside to dry. Likes the feel of them. Not having an official clothes line, I have utilized the fence around our back porch and a line hung under the roof of the porch. The line is too high for my 5' 3" frame, so fence, it is! The fence is to keep the dogs in. I successfully managed to get both the load of clothes and sheets dried yesterday afternoon thanks to the never ending hot Texas afternoons. I am investing in a more user friendly clothes line this weekend. Clothes were hung to dry for a long time before electric dryer came around anyway. I rather enjoy it. One step closer to a simple life on Hacienda Hill.

A while back I read that using dryer sheets can make your towels less absorbent. I did the test to see and it was true. So every three washes or so, I have been hanging the towels out to dry anyway.

Benefit: less electricity used, no immediate money spent to repair or replace dryer and I get more exercise stretching to reach the line!! What a deal.

Welcome to Simple Life on Hacienda Hill

This blog is to chronicle the transition we will be making back to a simpler life. I determined to reduce all the chaos in my world. The chaos closed in on me one day when I felt smothered by all the 'stuff' we possess. The stuff seemed to possess us rather than being possessed by us. A giant light bulb went off over my head and I took a stand…a stand to reclaim my life by eliminating the 'stuff' smothering me. Since that day, I have worked, admittedly not always as consistently as I would like, to pare down our belongings, reduce the clutter and take steps to return to s simpler way of life. To say I have made a great deal of progress would not be true. For every one thing I discard, I uncover three more! EKK, layers and layers of stuff……

Oh, just so you know…Hacienda Hill is my name for our humble abode. We live on a hill in south Texas on the edge of the hill country. Our immediate family includes my husband, Honey, and me with our three four-legged canine kids…Nikos, Chelsie & Pan Dulce.

So, if you have ideas and suggestions, PLEASE feel free to send them. Here's to a simple life on Hacienda Hill.