values post

this has been swirling around in my head for a while, so it's high time to put the fingers to keys and pound it out. a couple of weeks ago my sister and i had a 45 minute long conversation about a fringe movement in our collective generations, a return to simplicity and quality in all things we could control. since having my two beautiful nieces, she's switched over to basic cleansers for her home (think dr bonner's soap and water for just about everything), fragrance free detergents, has made a compost pile in her yard and now recycles just about everything she can get her hands on. she makes all their meals (she's currently a stay-at-home mom with a 5 and 3 year old) and avoids processed foods, most meat (this from bacon girl!) and ensures all of them and the family dog gets daily exercise. yes, this sounds like a dick and jane reader or a leave it to beaver episode, but basically she's trying to avoid all synthetic things (including tv, unless it's been tivo'd to avoid ads).

so now you have the back story, the interesting conversation was that after the excesses of the way most of us were raised (and believe me, we didn't have a lot of money growing up and thus not a lot of excesses!!), we both prefer quality over quantity, we want things to last for more than a season and we want to do this to make ourselves feel better about the choices we make and to somehow atone for the wretched things we, as a planet, have done to the planet.

this was not an overnight conversion. neither one of us woke up one day converted to eco-friendliness. we both came to a similar conclusion at different paces. she used to laugh at my (now ex-) vegan-ness and thought i was totally overboard. she now eats less meat then i do. we both came to conclusion that throw-away possessions were not fulfilling and it was wasteful of our time and money to keep replacing $10 tables.

so i wonder, when does this become more important? we were both raised in a house full of antique furniture because it's what my parents got when they were married (thanks oma and opa!). but now it's much more than just furniture and food. it's investing in clothes we love and decluttering our houses, returning to simple pleasures and lasting investments of our time and energy.

there seem to be a lot of us out there with more old fashioned values; for whom our time, our energy, our community and our earth are increasingly more important. i have friends who still write thank you notes and send cards via snail mail.

simple pleasures, vast riches. thank you for being part of that.


(image source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGhRtU_j-50uJNykqigYxP6Pi4UyQNli0nZxiePTdljKgj82CAd-Pu_tTmUdPDGsy0N4IlIMedGGag1MECekunw-ssoS1TlgSd0ODhWEG_MOXjsbrPrCR2BRcbz2oAYe4403_OkA/s400/Celebrity+Homes+-+AWW.jpg)