This week was a lot. Two kids started track and had their first track meet on Thursday. Between them and the other two we also had dance, baseball, rehearsals for a play and a musical, and cooking club. We had horrible rainstorms with hail and tornado warnings almost...
Last year at this time, we were weeks away from a two-week family Christmas trip to New Zealand. This was the trip of a lifetime and in order to pull it off, I found myself saying "no" to a lot of traditional Christmas tasks. I thought the world might implode if I...
I hate shopping. And I hate how my inbox fills up with Black Friday deals around this time of year. As I was pondering what to do about the recent election situation, I read an article from a family who had been living in Ecuador for six years. One of the benefits...
I'm writing this blog post on Labor Day 2023. I usually publish posts on Tuesday mornings. So, by the time you read this, we'll have blown past Labor Day. You'll all be in the midst of the hustle and bustle of a typical school and work day. Or, if you're like us,...
One of the things I’ve been pondering lately is the idea of maximizing fulfillment over wealth. It’s a different way of thinking about intentionality which is crafting the life you really want to be living. A focus I’ve had for many years now. Die with Zero Why am I...
The world opened up again and I got sick. I suppose it was inevitable. My second-grader went back to school with her full set of classmates and brought home a nasty cold. I caught it just in time to spend half of my Memorial Day weekend in bed while I should have been...
This is the fourth and final blog post in my Simplification Series: Take Advantage of the COVID-19 Quarantine to Simplify Your Life for Good. We've already discussed goal-setting (Blog Post #1), simplifying your schedule (Blog Post #2), and simplifying your stuff...
This is Blog Post #3 in my Simplification Series: Take Advantage of the COVID-19 Quarantine to Simplify Your Life for Good. While the lockdown has ended (for now??), many of us are still spending most of our time at home, wishing our houses were less cluttered. Why...
This is Blog Post #2 in my Simplification Series: Take Advantage of the COVID-19 Situation to Simplify Your Life for Good. Today's topic is how to simplify your schedule. COVID is giving us a huge advantage in this area. The hardest part, removing obligations, is...
This is Blog Post #1 in my Simplification Series: Take Advantage of the COVID-19 Situation to Simplify Your Life for Good. There's no point in simplifying your life if you have no idea where you're headed. So, in my opinion, the most important part of simplification...
COVID-19 social norms and government restrictions have essentially forced us all to simplify our lives overnight. Aside from remote work (for the lucky ones still employed) and school, literally everything has been cancelled. Here in Wisconsin, we are about four weeks...