simple life - Loving Simple Living

Simple Compassion-ADRA Helping Women in Balgladesh

October 11, 2011 in Simple Compassion

I wanted to help raise awareness of some huge world issues by highlighting some amazing things being done. It is easy to feel overwhelmed when I hear of all the pain that so many people live through, but there is so much hope when people allow themselves to be used by God to be His hands. Women especially have a hard time and I am excited to hear how this program is helping. If you know of another great project that is making a difference, let me know! Here is a link to the full article.

SILVER SPRING, Md. – In Bangladesh, women and girls struggle for equality due to patriarchal traditions of the country. This results in a minimized role in decision-making within family and social structures, leading to marginalization in a variety of areas, such as education and health. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) is improving the health status of women and their children through nutrition, hygiene, and skill training programs.

In the slum area of Mirpur, a suburb of the Bangladesh capital city Dhaka, ADRA is training new mothers and pregnant women health and nutrition methods to improve health conditions. Women are taught the importance of taking adequate care of themselves as well as their children through proper feeding, basic hygiene practices, monitoring children’s growth, and properly vaccinating children to prevent disease, such as polio. ADRA’s training has benefitted approximately 2,000 women and 500 severely malnourished children under the age of five, and an additional 10,000 household members indirectly.

For a number of years, a young mother by the name of Nargis (pictured above) and her husband Abdul Goni, have been living in the Chalantika slum with their three young children. Nargis expressed her family did not maintain proper hygiene within the home and admitted hand washing with soap after bathroom use was something they were not familiar with. A significant change in their lifestyle came after ADRA made a community visit to their home. Shortly thereafter, Nargis began attending ADRA’s hygiene, sanitation, and literacy classes.

Since joining, Nargis is now preparing nutritious meals for her family and monitors her children’s growth and health. She boils water to ensure it’s safe for her and her family to drink and has enrolled her two oldest sons into school. Nargis now shares what ADRA has taught her with her neighbors, and through her lifestyle changes, she has attracted many others to ask and learn these simple life-saving methods.

To learn more about ADRA’s humanitarian efforts, please contact ADRA at 1.800.424.ADRA (2372) or give online at www.adra.org

Follow ADRA on Twitter and Facebook to get the latest information as it happens.

ADRA is a global non-governmental organization providing sustainable community development and disaster relief without regard to political or religious association, age, gender, race or ethnicity.

For more information about ADRA, visit www.adra.org

Tags: adequate care, adra, Adventist, adventist development, Â Women, Bangladesh, bangladesh capital, difference, education, family, Health, health and nutrition, Hope, hygiene practices, information, malnourished children, new mothers, Nutrition, proper hygiene, relief, sanitation, Simple, simple life, skill training programs, slum, slum area, world, young mother
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Apartment Update

October 10, 2011 in My Simple Living

Hey, wanted to do an update on how our apartment simplified living is going. If this is the first time you are stopping by the website allow me to fill you in. This spring we sold most everything, rented out our house, and moved into a 2 bedroom apartment because we wanted to live simple (or simpler). The process of getting rid of stuff has continued all summer as well so now we have no trouble at all fitting into our small space.

What I have learned in the last few months living in an apartment:

There is no hidden rooms (to stash stuff or put of cleaning)…. when guests come over they can see into almost every room stepping a few feet from the entry way in each direction.
Every room has to be kid friendly… including my bedroom… the kids (and their friends) get into everything that isn’t on the top shelf of my closet. Our previous house had several rooms the kids wouldn’t go into.
My children are loud
I haven’t missed having a yard or garden to take care of once this summer.
It takes about a half an hour to clean, but I still procrastinate the job.
I have to stop buying food in bulk.
As crazy as the idea was, and as crazy as I felt selling and moving, I am so glad we had the guts to do it.

Stealing my husband’s picture, we are on our simplicity path. This is a road we drove in Kings Canyon, CA this summer. Not a lot of people travel this road and it is impossible with a large vehicle (a.k.a a lot of stuff). Seems crazy and dangerous, but it is beautiful. It curves around into the unknown, but we are traveling as a family and excited about the adventure ahead. It was at the end of this road that we found a waterfall to play in and it was one of the highlights of our whole trip.

It also represents the fact that we still have a long way to go. The easy part was the tangible, the material. The hard part is simplifying my life and head and really learning to trust and follow God instead of society, others, or my own ideas.

I wanted to also share a tip I have figured out with ‘simple’ storage. My husband made me this bed frame a couple of years ago because I wanted to have the sides painted to match the colors of the room. I never used the space. Now however, these few 1 x 8′s store over 3 large tubs full of our seasonal cloths (and the cloths I have bought ahead for the kids). As you can see, I am not really neat…. I should have folded all the cloths, but I didn’t. They are sorted by person, one row for each ofthe 4 of us and one extra row for snow gear.

Tags: apartment, bedroom apartment, buying food in bulk, Canyon, getting rid of stuff, kings canyon, Simple, simple life, simplicity, Simplified, Simplifying
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How We Simplified – By Lily

September 27, 2011 in My Simple Living

(This post was written by Lily, my 7 year old daughter as a home school writing assignment)

This year we did a lot of different things to simplify our life. This is what we did: first we sold a lot of stuff. This is what I remember. We sold lots of books, a bag of Barbies, a set of fake kitchen stuff, a pool, and some tools. The pool was $100. I don’t know why, but someone bought it. Ian and me made $120.

Second, we packed up what was left, and moved to into a two bedroom apartment. Grandma and grandpa helped us move. We rented a moving truck. On the day we moved we bought pizza for lunch. We were still packing when it finally came to lunch time. It was hard work. It was 11:30am when we where finally done. It took 20 minutes to get to the new apartments. It took a while to unpack. Then grandma and grandpa left and we went back and cleaned and cleaned for days. Then we got settled in the apartment.

Another simple thing is daddy got less work and I think it’s great! We get to have more fun with him. We eat supper with him almost every night. I think it’s great here! We can go swimming in the winter too! Yeah! It will be super fun (if it’s not to cold). Yippy! It will be the best winter ever! Maybe the best winter in my life time! We might go on winter vacation to though, either way it’s fun here. When you have time you can come swim here with me.

What I like about our simple life is, it’s easier to clean up our room now. Hip,hip,hurry ! Yeah! Our porch is shady. It’s a short walk to the store and library. There is lot’s more time with my dad.

The best part of our simple live was going on vacation this summer. We went to the Grand Canyon, and saw grandpa AK, and went to the beach. I even became a junior ranger in Canada and the USA. I became a junior ranger three times. Ian became one two times! The End.

Tags: assignment, Barbies, beach, bedroom apartment, canada, Canyon, cats, class, dad, daughter, grand canyon, Grandma, grandma and grandpa, Ian, junior ranger, library, lily, living, Money, moving truck, new apartments, pool, school, Simple, simple life, Simplified, stuff, USA, vacation
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The Bad Side of Bulk

September 21, 2011 in Minimalist Tips

This is a crazy post for me to write. A year ago, this post would have sounded very different so, I guess, this area really shows how my thinking has changed. I have learned that simple living and simple homemaking often doesn’t including buying in bulk.

I used to love bulk. I have never been a hoarder of stuff after I have used it (like kids cloths or craft projects) but I was a big hoarder on bulk items. Before we moved to our apartment this spring I had our house packed with all kinds of things I found in bulk or on sale. We had a year or more supply of stuff from toiletries, to food, to kids cloths (these purchased several years in advance at garage sales). My thriftiness had me buying everything in advance when I could find it. I always shopped through all the clearance sections and found great deals.

While downsizing this spring I ran into the problem of trying to figure out what to do with our years supply of so many things. I found myself selling lots of never touched toiletries and boxes of laundry soap, and donating lots of cloths that they kids wouldn’t have grown into for years. Even now, lots of stuff that we have in our apartment now is left over bulk that I kept that we will hopefully use up in the next year.

What I am coming to realize is that bulk really isn’t cheaper for two main reasons:

First, I am not sure I will really need it. Often I have ended up with more cloths purchased ahead of time than my kids even need for a size and season. I have gotten lots of shampoo that I then decide I don’t like as well as I thought I did. We get sick of a food and there is still lots left in the cupboard.

Second, I am paying for temperature controlled storage for my bulk. It might be cheaper to buy TP for a year at a time on sale, but then I need to have a house big enough to have a place to store it. Most of my basement and bathroom cupboards were full of different bulk products. Now I don’t have the space to keep all these products, but I am also paying much less living expenses and utilities. Having a chest freezer was nice in the house and it was always full, but I am not sure that it saved what we paid for in electricity to run it. Honestly, the stuff purchased in bulk was cheaper, but was it really cheap enough to make up for the costs.

Beyond these there is the hassle of having to sort through stuff and keep it organized.

Probably most people aren’t near as crazy as me. My excuse was that hoarding for the future was much smarter than hoarding other useless items. It has just been a revelation, or a change in the way I am thinking, to realize that this really wasn’t saving me money and that living simply, buying only a few things in bulk or ahead is really, surprisingly cheaper…. and way easier.

If we need to have it all, than couponing or shopping all over town might make it cheaper… but maybe we don’t need it all.

Less hassle, more time. Less stuff, more money. Simple life, more freedom.

Tags: Â Â Simple, apartment, bathroom, bathroom cupboards, Blog, boxes, buying in bulk, clearance, couponing, craft, craft projects, cupboard, Food, freedom, freezer, garage sales, great deals, hoarder, hoarderÂ, homemaking, house, kids cloths, laundry soap, living, many things, Money, need, problem, revelation, shampoo, Simple, simple life, size, storage, stuff, supply, thriftiness, thriftinessÂ, toiletries
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