My name is Lorilee Lippincott, welcome to Loving Simple Living.  I live with an amazingly patient husband and two kids… who are trying to teach me patience.  I have been trying to declutter and create a simple life.  It has brought me to desiring simple religion, home schooling my kids, and most recently, selling most of our stuff (this was a family thing, I didn’t do it behind anyone’s back) and moving into a small apartment. Turns out I was a minimalist before I even heard of the word.

Being authentic in life is something I am learning and trying to practice on my blog.  It is so easy for me to hide behind fear, and what I want other people to think of me, but I don’t want that to be my life. I struggle, but am excited about learning.   I hope in reading that you can be encouraged to let your true self show as well.

Here is a bit more info on us:

• I am 31 years old and a natural red head.
• My hubby is big and bald
• We are both first children (the worst possible birth order marriage pairing, so I have heard)
• I have lived in 3 provinces, 3 states and even on the other side of the world for 6 months…. my husband has been born and raised in Nebraska.
• In the past few years both our type A, left brain personalities have been exploring a nerdy and artsy side
• I played piccolo in high school because it was loud, but I was super shy and hardly talked to anyone
• We have never been kid people…. but we are trying to learn
• Our dream is travel, I have been to all but about 10 states and 2 provinces and Bryon has been to over half the states.  I have seen 7 countries, Bryon has seen 3.  …. but we are trying to up our numbers  Our kids have been to over half the states.
• We just bought a Prius so we could travel better.
• We travel with a tent and cook our food so we can do it cheap.
• We are self employed (probably because we are so control hungry) in 4 different areas, but construction is the one that pays most of the bills.  My hubby is a building genius.
• Lily is our oldest (just turned 8 ) and loves everything princess.
• Ian is our boy (almost 5) and is teaching me that raising a boy is much harder and scarier than raising a princess.
• I don’t like movies…. I get scared and emotionally wrapped in up them too easy and it is exhausting
• Favorite color is a warm olive green.
• I can hike all day but can’t jog for anything…. and I am learning to accept that.
• I love dark chocolate, fancy olives and decaf coffee.
• I love you!  I do love blogging, but it is much more fun if people are reading, I would love to hear from you and get to know you better.

So this blog seems to be a bit all over the place, but I think it all goes together.  It all goes to together in my head at least.  I talk about minimalism or simple living, feature charities, parenting, spirituality, intentional living, vegan cooking and home schooling.  I think it all fits under the banner of simple intentional living in the home.

Because it does seem to be all over the place and I understand that everyone coming to the site might not be interested in all of it, I have scheduled my topics to specific days.  Lots of blogs out there only update once or twice a week and hopefully I have something for you at least that many times a week

This is my schedule:

• Sunday – Featured Blogs, Book Club, Book Reviews, Giveaways
• Monday - Simple Living Tip or an update of where we are and what we are doing
• Tuesday – Simple Compassion, update or feature from a charity
• Wednesday – Simple Thoughts on intentional living, parenting, spirituality or food… or whatever else might be burning in my brain.
• Thursday – Vegan cooking
• Friday – Home School

Would you like the new post delivered right to your e-mail, first thing in the morning?  Simple and efficient.  Sign up here.   There is perks and you will love it.  Trust me You can cancel at any time.

I would love to get to know you.  Contact Me.  For our complete story check out the My Simple Living blog posts.

(Here is the jist of where we are now and where we were when I started the blog, down at the bottom of the page)

Sep 2011-Starting a new ‘Home’ School Year

Welcome to the blog!  Our live has really opened up since our simplification, and it is still a journey.  I have found I am loving blogging.  As far as simplifying , this week we are taking another work van full of stuff to goodwill to donate.  Now that we have been living in an apartment for a few months it is easier to get rid of stuff that we thought we would want to keep when we moved in May.

How is life different this school year?  For the first time since we started home school (2 years ago) I have had the time to put into it that I want.  My house is clean and not stressing me out.  I have been able to have daily devotions in the mornings.  I have been able to read way more.   Life is still not perfect, but I am loving the simplification, and haven’t regretted moving once.

How much do we miss?  Well, I miss my garden produce and the kids wish they had a pet.  Other than that, I really can’t even remember much of the stuff we did get rid of.  And, of the stuff I do remember, we have done fine without it.

The kids still fight and it would be nice to send them to separate rooms… but I don’t know that them sharing a room has made getting along any worse or better.  They are glued to each other and are best friends and best pests to each other all day no matter where we are.

Our biggest fear with downsizing was that we would have a hard time entertaining guests, but so far it has worked out ok.  We can’t have 30 people over like we could in our other house, but we like smaller groups better.  We have had some friends over so far and it has worked out just as good as it did in our other home…. and the neighbors below us haven’t complained.

Just to be clear, we have downsized our stuff and then downsized our living space (from 2000 sq ft to about 900 sq ft).  Downsizing space without drastically reducing stuff … would be bad.  We now have less than half the space and we also have way less stuff per room than we did before.  Both total space and ‘stuff per room’ simplifying has been life giving, liberating, and has given us happiness… so, it plays into the original American Dream much more than accumulating more stuff.

Where We Started – Dec 2010

I feel like a rat, stuck in a race. The rat race metaphor is pretty realistic. I feel like I don’t know who I really am, I don’t have time to figure it out. I run out of habit, fear, peer pressure and many more reasons but it is the same as running on a wheel. On a wheel I never get anywhere. If I run faster the wheel just goes faster, if I try to slow down the wheel keeps going and I end up falling.

Sounds depressing, but I am not depressed. It is possible to just run all my life, but I keep reading and dreaming about something different. Living intentionally, they way I want to. I dream of knowing myself, my God, my family and my friends better. I dream of doing things because I want to instead of everything society makes priority. I dream of enjoying life instead of always living in the future or the past.

My personality is exactly opposite. I did the test off of the ‘Discover Your Strengths’ book several years ago and it described my personality the best. I am a futurist (or some similar description) that is always planning for the future. My next highest was an maximizer (or something close) that always l look at everything work, family, leisure, etc and try and make it better, or more efficient. Probably the best combination for growing business and climbing a ladder, but to what end? So instead I turn those same traits inward and try and figure out how I am maximize my life. With only one life, and no idea when it might end I want to make the most of it and really enjoy what I am given.

I want to start and do this blog to record and help focus me. I am 30, everything starts slowing down and going down from here J . I am married to a perfect man and have 2 darling and energetic children. We own a nice house in a great area. We run 3-5 different businesses (depending on how you define and break them down) and home school. I feel we have filled our life with what we want but we have over filled it.

So what am I doing about it? In the last month I have read ‘The 4 Hour Work Week” and “The 80/20 Principle”. Basically from both of them it says that lots of what we do, and have is not what gives us the most benefit and most enjoyment. Only a small amount of our work and stuff give us most of our benefit and enjoyment.

So taking this to my life I want to apply it to these areas
My home-I need to seriously cut down on my stuff.  My goal this winter is to trim down at least half (of not more of my stuff).  We have just under 2000 sq ft in our house now and it isn’t full but I really don’t think we need all the space or stuff.  Most of it I don’t really like anyways it just needs to fill the space.

 My family and friends-They want time, respect, and love from me more than stuff.  It is lots harder to give focus than cards or gifts.  I am working on it (without totally neglecting the former… don’t’ worry)

My God-True religion is Love.  God loves people, people need to focus on that and learn to love God back much more than they need fancy books, plans, or church programs.

My health-Health, I believe for the most part is simple as well. It is clearly accepted that most illness is caused by lifestyle.  I think it comes down to fresh air, sunlight and eating foods God would recognise.  (which rules out most of our foods… this isn’t all the time, but more of the time will create more health… just saying).  You can go about it as a evolutionist and eat what a hunter gatherer would eat and it would still rule out most of what we eat and have it much more simple.

My work-This by far is my hardest part.  I am working on figuring out what makes the biggest difference but both me and my husband still spend to much time working.  Probably the problem with self-employment.  We are also trying to figure out ways of working at home or from other locations, so we are working on several different work projects… still working on simplifying this area….