lara simmons

One of my college roommates always used to say, "It's the little things." In other words, it's the small pleasures of the day that make life worth living. In college this meant receiving actual paper mail (or better yet, a package), concocting new recipes in the dining hall (microwave Rice Krispie Treats with peanut butter anyone?), or hanging out in someone's dorm room all night playing cards. What does it mean to you right now? What small pleasures do you look forward to now that you might have taken for granted in the past? What "little thing" made your day today?

"Simplicity in its essence demands neither a vow of poverty nor a life of rural homesteading. As an ethic of self-conscious material moderation, it can be practiced in cities and suburbs, townhouses and condominiums. It requires neither a log cabin nor a hair shirt but a deliberate ordering of priorities so as to distinguish between the necessary and superfluous, useful and wasteful, beautiful and vulgar." -- David E. Shi Whew! Finding this quote was like sweet relief. I have been aching for simplicity recently and wondering how to find it. In my head I have a fantasy about a piece of land, far away from everything, and a little house that is off the grid (solar-powered perhaps) where I live with my family, growing our own food, homeschooling the children and just generally "living off the land" as they say. This fantasy only goes so far, however, when I remember that anytime in the past when I have tried to grow my own food, I soon grow weary of all the effo...