TWO COOKBOOKS ARE ENOUGH FOR ME.

Well, for those of you who haven’t heard from me in months, I’ve been busy changing my home space and continuing – with only occasional stumbles - on my minimalist journey. The change was radical. We bought an old RV. And for the past four months we – my husband and I – have lived in a 30-foot RV along with our one gray, outdoor cat. Our RV is parked in a rather large, tree-lined mobile park. Here, we have all the services and Internet for our general creature comfort. 
 
On the basis of our recent experiences, I can say that  life can improve by living with less - all that depending, of course, on what sort of person you are. For us, the minimalist life is challenging, empowering and fun. Saying no to consumer overkill is a tough skill to acquire, but once we had it, we easily gave up a bunch of things that other people still cling to and started to live life on your own terms. 

As we were to become RV full-timers, we prepared to rid ourselves of virtually everything that we deemed unnecessary. And, for us, holding on to just the essentials is a great satisfaction.
 
What fits, in the way of furniture, are only the original RV built-ins. So, all our old furniture had to go. Other personal possessions needed to be weeded out. For example, my wardrobe is now a third of what it was 12 months ago. My husband's held on to about half of the clothes he had. As for household items, we started downsizing a while back when we still lived in regular housing. We took an audit of our bedding, towels, toiletries, kitchen items, electronics. We kept only the best and what we truly used. We got rid of one of our cars 12 months ago. Now we have only one small car and a motorcycle that gets my husband to work. That seems just right for our life in a small town where almost everything is less than a half-hour drive. 

Despite our efforts to prepare for life in the RV, we had to face the fact that the living space is extremely limited – beyond what we could have imagined. So, for the first two months in the RV, we rented a storage unit for the overflow. We also gave a lot away to friends and to the thrift store. We were still cramped for space. There was a real lack of space for my kitchen stuff. And I thought I didn’t have so much. Well, as I’ve found out, I had way much more than I needed. At first, I had kitchen stuff hidden in every sort of place well beyond the tiny kitchen - into the living area and under the bed. I realized that I would have to sort through and keep just what was the most necessary. And that I’ve done and probably will continue to do over the next few months. 

Also, when we moved in, I knew that we wouldn’t have space for a formal book shelf. Our books had to be tucked away in a couple of overhead compartments. That meant that the total - for me - couldn’t be more than a couple of dozen books. And, as in other areas of my material life, I thought about why I was holding onto treasured things and what would happen if I let them go. I spent a whole morning sorting through and donated about thirty books to a community library. And, now, I am the proud owner of 20 books – 6 non-fiction, 12 yoga and self-help books, and just two cookbooks. (Because of their usefulness, cutting back on cookbooks was something that I found especially difficult.)

Finally, settling down to just two cookbooks.

Anyway, that’s the introduction to what I’m talking about today – the downsizing of my cookbook collection. Just a year ago, I had - maybe - twelve cookbooks of all sizes, shapes, age and content. I had believed - erroneously, I imagine - that twelve was a small number. Twelve seemed to be only a few when compared to some friends who report having as many as fifty cookbooks. (What they do with all of them I really don’t know.) It seems if you love to cook, you probably have been collecting a lot of cookbooks. So, this must be a particularly challenging area for library downsizing. 

Of the dozen that I had in the apartment, I'd kept three cookbooks for the RV kitchen. They were: Better Home and Gardens - classic loose-leaf, 5-ringed edition, Frugal Gourmet, and a really old, paperback Joy of Cooking that I'd been carrying around for decades. I felt rather proud of myself for having eliminated well over half of my collection. Still, after a while, I realized that I didn’t need all three and decided to do something about it. Going only e-recipe cooking wasn't a good option for me. While I do sometimes look up recipes on the Internet, most of the time I prefer the tried and true meals from traditional cookbooks. The recipes that I use tend to be easily made as given or simply modified accorded to my whim or, more often, after the lack of one or another ingredients that are included in the write-up. I also had a collection made up of recipe clips from magazines, Internet print-outs and fully hand-written pages. 

For most of the dishes that I like to make, I choose recipes from cookbooks with traditional American recipes. But then, again, I occasionally want to do some ethnic dishes – mostly Indian, Italian and Mexican. I really don't care much about the photos. Also, fortunately, I had no sentimental cookbook inherits from my mom or grandmas.

What I finally did was keep the Better Homes and Gardens. That was the most useful as it was – minus the meat, fish, and poultry sections that I removed. As a vegetarian, I was 99+% sure that I wouldn't be using anything in those sections. I held onto about forty separate pages of ethnic cooking recipes from the Frugal Gourmet book. It was an old paperback and falling apart, anyway. So, I didn't have to feel so bad about that. I put the Frugal Gourmet pages in the Better Homes and Gardens book, punching holes and separating them into the same food divisions already there.   My diverse recipe clips were transferred to hand-written pages in a special binder that I found on sale at the bookstore. The twenty or so Joy of Cooking pages that I saved were small and fit into plastic page covers in the binder. To tell the truth, a good part of the things in the binder are still in the form of printed pages, computer printouts or magazine clips, awaiting the day, if it ever comes, when I get around to transferring them into nicely hand-written pages.

For those of you who like the idea of cutting back to only a few cookbooks, I urge you to do so. Just start slow and enjoy the activity. Look at one book at a time. Take time to pull the book off the shelf and consider if it's really worth it according to your time and skills. Honor your emotions. Send all those that don't make the cut to someone else, so they'll have a new home. Other books that aren't so valuable  can be donated to the thrift store. You should be happy with the remaining cookbooks. Any other recipe that you might need for some special occasion can easily be found on Internet cooking blogs.

2012 - A GOOD TIME FOR MAKING BUCKET LISTS

One year ago this month, I wrote about vision boards and how the new moon can be the inspiration for their creation. Never could I have imagined that that single post would get more hits than all the other 170 posts in this blog altogether. And the popularity of the vision board post continues in 2012 without showing any signs of slowing down. So, being impressed by this level of readership, I decided to write a sequel to that post. The idea behind the vision board is the creation of a means to focus on our goals and, in the process, find many unsuspected ways to achieve our objectives. Last year’s post apparently motivated a lot of people, and I’d like to celebrate by offering this post about another way to reach our most precious goals. It’s about making a life list, also called a bucket list, a sort of inventory of what each of us hold as priorities for our very existence.

The term, bucket list, signifies a series of things that someone wants to do on a most personal level. The principle of the life/bucket list is simple. You list all the important things you want to do in life and try to do each and every one of them before you die. And that was also the theme of a movie (2007) with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, who portrayed two terminally ill men, who set out together to make happen what was on their bucket lists and the humorous and dramatic escapades that resulted.

It’s about making a list that guides us to make step-by-step progress toward achieving our most intimate goals. For all ages, both young and old, it’s good to be thinking positively about our purposes in life and about how we can push ourselves toward their accomplishment. It’s all too easy to power down, forgetting that there’s a lot of personal work left to be done. And, deep down, we know that we can do a lot more to push ourselves forward to where we want to be in the future. Life changes happen to us for sure, and those unknown events can influence or change our direction. And unwanted changes are especially likely to occur if we’re not ready and willing to use our energy to be where we want to be with the results we aim for.

Some of the items that people often have on their life lists are: travel to a highly desirable, far-off place to live or vacation, establish a successful small business, gain fluency in a foreign language, become skilled as an artist or play a musical instrument. Most of us spend our lives repeating three verbs: to want, to have, and to do. The life list is not so much about wanting or having and certainly not about being a consumer or buying any particular thing. It's about what’s yet to be done in the realm of experiences, and about the corresponding process, where: “Getting there is half the fun.”

What’s on your list?
Your life/bucket list is whatever you want, and it’s completely up to you. What’s important is that each item has real, personal significance and is measurable. Make sure all the items are unmistakable events that can be checked off. You should be able to recognize a triumph and say “YES! I did it!” You’ll do better if you don’t link your goals with actions that are pegged too closely to the decisions of other people. And that goes even for your spouse and the same for your children, although you need to take them into consideration, of course, in as much as their needs should be considered in your timetable. For each accomplishment, ask yourself “Can I make this happen – almost entirely - on my own?” The more people it depends on, the less likely it is to come about.

Make a plan for success and enjoy the process of setting up and completing your objectives. Think big and write it all down. Don’t worry about including something that appears to be unattainable in this moment. Being a dreamer is good. Important things don’t happen without dreams. Embrace the two sides of yourself - the dreamer that can outline the future you want and the rational one who can make things happen, even those that are seemingly out of reach. Just be sure that the “dreams” are things you have every intention of doing and are willing to hard work for. One long lifetime consists of 80 years or more, and each decade should have new things to accomplish – whether you’re getting to be forty or seventy.

Remember you don’t have to share every one of your secret goals with other people. They may not agree with your vision or think that you’re incapable of obtaining those goals. Their opinions should not dampen your enthusiasm. It’s your life and finding meaning in what you do is the route to happiness. But don’t overdo it by thinking up too many life purposes. The smaller your list, the more likely you will respect it. You’ll need to consider the time and money required for each of your goals.

Let your dreams be a little bit bigger than life. The life list is a work in progress, and you won’t be a failure if you never reach one or more of your goals. It’s the effort and joy along the way that’s worth it - not the smug announcement that you’ve done it all. Hey, completing even a good number of items on your list would count for a satisfying and respectable life, assuring yourself with a wealth of fascinating stories.

But don’t let the list deteriorate into a quest for reasons to be admired. Rememberthat your list stands for how you’re going to spend a good part of your life. If you treat your list as things you hope to do to impress certain people, it probably won’t be worth the trouble.

What’s really valuable is the process of investing a good part of your time and money progressing toward one or more of your most intimate objectives - and that’s not for next year but for right now and tomorrow and the day after. You’ll have to make some adjustments in your career, family life, and lifestyle in order for these things to happen. Promise yourself to always be working on at least one item at any given time, and it’s even better if you can manage several at a time. Many failures come from the habit of making excuses. And don’t concentrate too much on completing your bucket list, only on doing the tasks that make it up.

Gearing up for bucket list action.
Find five or more good size buckets. Really, they can be any kind of open containers. The exact number of buckets depends on how many lifetime goals you can think up. The buckets can be round, rectangle or square containers and any colors or material you like – tin, plastic, wood, etc. Label each one according to your most important visions for the future. Be as specific about your goals as you can. (Remember these shouldn’t be consumer wish lists for those who have the $ - or hope to make the $ - to buy expensive things.) For example, my five buckets have these categories.

Relationships (family, friends, community) – objective(s)
Lifestyle and skills – objective(s)
Travel – objective(s)
Finances – objective(s)
Faith – objective(s)

Put 5 large envelopes in each bucket. Four envelopes are for activities or to-do lists. The fifth is a kind of journal for recording progress toward a goal. Write yourself notes and cut-out short texts and images – a running brainstorm collection - and stuff them in the appropriate envelopes. (You'll be making a different sort of clippings journal.)

Envelope 1: This month
Envelope 2: This year
Envelope 3: Within five years
Envelope 4: The indefinite future or “once in a lifetime”
Envelope 5: Notes along the way. A collection of brainstorms, comments, and grumbles about what it all means and why certain things are working out and others are not.

Keep your buckets on a shelf where you can see them everyday - nice, tidy looking containers are better because you'll be pleased to see them on display. When you accomplish a goal, you don’t necessarily remove the bucket. Date your success and put it in Envelope 5. The bucket list is not only about future goals, but also can be a reminder of the impressive things you’ve done, along with motivation to keep on track and do even more amazing things. And there’s no end of follow-up activities that can be done to record and enhance your accomplishments.

Every time you have an idea or a clipping related to one of your goals, be sure it gets to the proper envelope. Each month review the contents of the envelopes and make yourself a summary report of successes and setbacks. Do a more thorough evaluation every six months or yearly.

Related posts
VISION BOARDS AND THE NEW MOON CYCLE.
REDEFINE YOUR PRIORITIES, REMAKE YOUR LIFE
THE NEW MOON CYCLE CAN HELP YOU MAKE LIFE CHANGES
KEEP AN INSPIRATIONAL JOURNAL
DON’T STASH YOUR CLIPPINGS, JOURNAL THEM.
STAY IN THE NOW

DON’T STASH YOUR CLIPPINGS, JOURNAL THEM.

“Life is all memory except for the one present moment that goes by so quick you hardly catch it going.” – Tennessee Williams

Some time ago, I wrote about the advantages of personal journaling. And, now – the same as a few months ago – I suggest that you keep a journal to capture some of those moments that go flying by so quickly. Your journal will help you hold onto the tiniest part of what happens or what you see or think about from day to day.

Most of the time when we speak of journaling, we are thinking about something that’s written – like a diary. But not all journals are a collection of written pages. The kind that I’m talking about here is a binder for clippings – a place to collect all kinds of printed, hand-written, and/or sketched material that can serve to motivate you to carry out new projects.

A clippings journal can save you time and effort.
If you’re like me, you consider yourself a creative person. Creation is everything you do that involves art and dedication. It’s when you make something, cook a special recipe, draw a picture, day dream, sing a song, sew, knit, build, etc. That said, unfortunately, you and I don’t have 12 or more hours a day to be creative. Sometimes we have no more than a half hour or even only a few minutes in a whole day to dedicate to our creative urges. So, we have to make the best use of those few hours or minutes and make sure to jot down any great ideas we come across.

Your clippings journal will be a filing system that allows you to categorize and store ideas for projects in the form of pieces of paper of different types and sizes. And your clippings binder won’t take up any appreciable space in your (probably) already crowded bedroom, dining room or whatever place in the house where you keep your creative materials. And things you want to review will take only minutes to find instead of hours of searching.

What’s in a clippings journal?
A clippings journal can contain prints of all sorts, cut outs, written notes and sketches – anything that can inspire you for your creative projects in the near or distant future. It’s not everything that you come across, of course. It’s just what captures your fancy as you leaf through printed material or surf the Internet. These bits of info and pictures are your “gems.” It’s whatever makes you say: “I think I can make use of this sometime later."

Sometimes useful ideas arrive to our doorstep in the form of cards or mail. Put all those great notes or greeting cards into your binder. Parts of them – their words, pictures, etc., -- can later be reviewed to produce new projects. Other things that can go in the binder include labels, stickers, fabric swatches, yarn samples, stamps – almost any kind of materials that are flat enough to be pressed onto the pages. Don’t worry about if and when these new projects may get done. Your clippings and notes are only another page or section of your journal, and not any kind of commitment.

So, find some kind of binder and make the clippings journal that you think will be most helpful to you. The materials arranged in your journal are some of your favorite things at a certain moment. Those hundreds of bits of media and added comments will surely jog your memory and serve to inspire future creations. Once placed in your binder, you’ll have them for as long as you want. It goes without saying that you’re going to collect a whole lot more stuff in your journal than you can ever use. That’s really not so important. And it’s great entertainment just to leaf through what you collected some months or years later.

You may want more than one.
After doing months of handicrafts and other domestic arts (and blogging about them), I’ve found that it’s handy to have a number of different clipping journals – for recipes, for decorating, for eco-friendly projects, and for handicrafts. I’ve put together two for handicrafts, one related to things for my own home and another for gift-making. (I use large photo album binders for my clippings. Before assembling these binders, I had a collection of all kinds of papers in shoeboxes. I found that the boxes took up a lot of space and weren’t a good way to store or find things later. Binders are much more accessible. When I consider it useful, I also write my own notes beside or under the clippings.)

You can even share your clippings journals with other people from time to time. When friends want ideas for projects, you can tell them: “I have something that you might like to work on.” Then, you can let them see some clippings in your binder. Your friends may not be inspired by whatever you show them. It doesn’t really matter so much. You’ll be sharing your inspirational treasures with them, and that kind of collaboration and the discussion that follows can be a great creative motivation to the both of you.

Related posts
KEEPING AN INSPIRATIONAL JOURNAL.
HANDICRAFT SKILLS - AN INTRODUCTION.
REDEFINE YOUR PRIORITIES, REMAKE YOUR LIFE
COLOR THERAPY CAN HELP YOU REJECT CONSUMERISM