Living like Kings

[nuisance26]

~I've been thinking alot lately about simplicity. Did you ever notice the abundance of details in our everyday objects and pursuits? Just last week I was teasing my dh about the way he'd made the bed up with fresh sheets. He'd put the top sheet with the thick 'decorative' seam side over the edge of the bed. It really dawned on me how silly those details are. Whose idea was it to put a decorative seam on a bedsheet? What does it matter if a bed is decorative? Why does every little thing require a 'right' way to do? I'm not advocating a life without beauty, but it just struck me how we still seem to striving to live like gentry. In the modern age, we are our own servants and our own royalty. It seems like we switch gears a hundred times a day between the roles. So much of what people do is for appearances although we've been brainwashed into thinking it's expected. I'm questioning my long-held belief that I practice frugality to afford little luxuries. Have I been a slave to an ideal that I can never attain so I play-act it whenever possible? I'm really at a point where I'm holding up everything to the standard of what is essential/practical, what is beneficial and what is an illusion. So so what if my bedsheet is crooked? I'm letting the insignificant details go.~

[forHISglory]

I really liked your observation that we are at the same time servants and royalty.

When I was a child, I was out in the fields with my dad, who was hoeing the crops. The hoe was on the back of the tractor, and I believe that it hoed about 4 rows at a time. Dad drove and had to keep it precisely between the rows. My job was to walk behind and clear the weeds out of the hoe when it got close to clogging up. While ambling along, I started looking at the hoe and the tractor. It was strictly utilitarian with no decor at all. Nothing was there except what needed to be used. I remember thinking that it would be silly to have some thing of beauty and just for the sake of beauty on the tractor and hoe, and yet my little mind craved it.

It's similar to the question you posed in your posting. We have some things that are beautiful just for the sake of beauty. Our souls seem to crave that beauty. I would hate to live in a home that was strictly utilitarian.

With that said, it can get out of balance, and then the problems in simplicity start. But I firmly believe that simplicity can also carry beauty.

[Sara Noel]

I used to focus a lot on details. I was in the "make it pretty" industry as a career, so that really stuck on me in my home life, too. But when it came down to prioritizing, so many small details were sucking the life right out of me. I also noticed how often Gabe and I would go back and forth on those right and wrong ways about all sorts of things. It's been tough, but I've learned to let go a bit with that type of thinking and being.

With that said, I still enjoy some details. Some of my best memories are of my mother and grandmother and the small details they lovingly carried out. I'd like to do the same for my family.

I was at a similar point that you are. I became a minimalist. Went through that for quite a few years and now I'm at a point where I'm beginning to welcome and embrace some things again. For example, I'm collecting vintage cookbooks. They're definitely not essential, but still practical. AND I LIKE them. They bring me joy.

However, I'm not frugal to afford small luxuries. There aren't many I care about. That's never been my focus. I'm frugal mostly to be less wasteful, but also to reach financial goals. And of course, often times because I had to be.

And as far as bedsheets go, LOL For me there is a right way and a wrong way. LMAO But since Gabe and I argue that point, It's no longer something I care too much about. LOL But yes, some details are completely insignificant.

Simplicity to me is being able to move through your day/life in a mindful way. In order to do so, you need time and space to reflect. If things are distracting you from that, well it's time to prioritize. Frugality and simplicity completely changed my perspective on life. I still struggle from time to time, but a lot of the noise is gone.

My experience has been that I have always been a perfectionist. There comes a point where that's simply unhealthy. I work on that character flaw daily...perfecting it. LOL

[suzysaver]

I never have really cared about those little details, sheets go on and are clean..I could care less if we sleep between the print. I have better things to worry about then how the toilet paper rolls on the spool. I have mix and match dishes and glasses....I think this drives my mother a bit crazy (she will buy a new set of dishes for me about once a year and I still just mix them up in cupboard and grab whatever. Why drive yourself nuts with all those silly things, as long as things are clean and neat that's all that matters to me and my DH could care less.

[AmyBoz]

I go through phases with regards to caring about the details. Usually, it comes after I've visited someone's home who is much more gifted with decorating than I. Then, after awhile, I realize we're happy here, the house isn't dirty, it doesn't really matter if it's all perfect. Also, I've been becoming more of a minimalist as time goes on and I find that the less we have, the less I need to take care of.

[Sara Noel]

I think about legacy too much to let go of some small details and beauty. When so much of my memories are intertwined and consist of the small details the women in my family carried out, I refuse to not do the same for my family. I consider it a selfless act of showing love.

Some days it's much easier to simply do what needs to be done without attention to small details, but carrying out the bare minimum daily isn't how I want to be remembered.

Not to say I want to be remembered for the gravy boat matching the plate or the toilet paper hung a certain way, but if my kids think back to Autumn and remember how much I loved mum plants because I made a point to beautify our porch each year with them and think of me when they see them or have a comforting feeling throughout their lives whenever they smell cinnamon because I took the time to add it, well what's wrong with that kind of beauty? I think some small details are worth doing and caring about.

I care about pillows and sheets because it's a bed and where family rests and sleeps. I have the most warm memories of my pillows and sheets as a child. They didn't have to be perfectly matched, but the crispness and beauty and warmth of the handmade afghans and the pretty embroidered pillowcases, well it makes it matter to me in my own life and for my own family now. Plus, I want to teach my children how to properly make a bed. What they do later is their own business.

That's not to say those things matter in the grand scheme of things if someone can't afford them or take the time because obviously a hug means more than an afghan (people more than things), but to purposely not care if you have the choice seems, well hollow to me. And I say this sincerely with no offense and only based on my own experiences.

I certainly wouldn't make a big ordeal over sheets being "wrong", and I don't need to accessorize my entire home for the sake of beauty, but there's something to be said about the importance of some small details. But if it's causing you grief or stress, well then it's absolutely senseless.

For example, I won't knock myself out to have the perfectly decorated home because with 4 kids it's silly. I far prefer them being able to relax and be comfortable and romp around than me chasing after them thinking something "important" might break if they're not careful. I've learned I can still love things and not own them. (or dust them, organize them, worry about them, etc)

And the selfless details I do, I do them regardless if it seems anyone cares. That has nothing to do with it.

[cab54]

Constance, I love, love, LOVE your post! And I equally love Sara's because it's where I've always been.

I was born the textbook example of a perfectionist. Oldest child, a girl, a Virgo (look it up), alcoholic father (always trying to 'clean up the mess' and make everything perfect again ), I mean I was the tightest wound person you ever saw.

One day after finally having two beautiful little boys, I was cleaning (duh) the kitchen, after having cleaned up the living area well, and my boys were wathcing TV/playing in there. They were 2 and 4. I came around the corner after hearing a little playful tussling, and saw the room was----not trashed, but a bit of a mess AGAIN. I must have come to the end of my fuse, cause I lit into these two little guys (verbally--LOUDLY) about the big mess they were making, etc etc, and then I caught the looks on their faces. They were holding each other, with BIG eyes, and the little one's lip was quivering.

Now, mind you, my MIL was a screamer. I mean a banshee. She tried to raise 5 boys with an absolutely immaculate house (and beautiful too--very into decor and furniture, etc.--her house is full of Better Homes and Gardens mags, etc)) And she came into my house all the time and sarcastically reminded me of how mine matched up. Her boys only remember that it seemed that she cared way more for the house and decorating ----than them.

I decided right the minute I yelled at my two innocent little guys, that THAT was not my purpose in life. Clean, yes. Immaculate and decorated to the nines? No. I found a plaque at a garage sale that said "It takes a dull woman to keep an immaculate house." (NO disrespect meant to anyone here, I was 'dull' myself). I stuck it on my kitchen wall right next to where MIL always sat. LOL! And I began to let a lot of things 'go. The 'rightness', the perfectness. They are now 22 and 24 and I'm not at all sorry.

I think you are all right to put emphasis on the important stuff and simplify the complicated so you are able to enjoy life.

[Sara Noel]

Now, mind you, my MIL was a screamer. I mean a banshee. She tried to raise 5 boys with an absolutely immaculate house (and beautiful too--very into decor and furniture, etc.--her house is full of Better Homes and Gardens mags, etc)) And she came into my house all the time and sarcastically reminded me of how mine matched up. Her boys only remember that it seemed that she cared way more for the house and decorating ----than them.

My mother always kept an immaculate house. While I don't feel she cared about that more than she cared about me, she did spend an enormous amount of time and energy drilling neatness into me. Thankfully, as adults we do what we want to do and I don't care to spend my hours making everything spotless. That's not to say I didn't try. LMAO I hate when my home is a mess, but if the choice is being with my kids and mopping the floor, well I'm not going to choose the dumb floor. But I so admire the effort my mom made. Our home was always clean and I always tell her, I have no idea how she did it all. She continues to amaze me and in some ways I aspire to be like her and in others, I think she did her job in teaching me some lessons that allow me to be better than she was.

[nuisance26]

~Cheryl, you see right through me, I'm a perfectionist. I really thrived in school because I innerly craved to do everything the right way. You're taught so early on that people are watching and judging what you do that you continue to perform even when no one is watching anymore. It's just stunning to separate the things I do that no one will ever see into what I truly wanted to do and what I did just out of programming. Sometimes while performing a task my mind replays the things people have said to me about the house or the way I live my life, good and bad. I'm trying very hard to ignore the voices and live up to the standards that are beneficial to me, not the false standards my mind has created from bits of this and that. I'm just really becoming conscious of what details I choose to acknowledge. Like the smell of cinnamon you mentioned Sara. So I guess I'm trying to learn how to ignore the non-beneficial details and truly absorb and appreciate the details that I feel matter.~

[cab54]

Sara--I can see your house being clean, but not you being a screaming banshee. LOL!! Like you said--if it's between the floor and the kids.....

With MIL, it was always the house. When I was 19 and started dating dh, she told me which rooms I could walk in, and which rooms not to walk in (even in socks). You don't sound anything like that! LOL!

I totally understand the whole cinnamon and flowers thing. To me, that is the kind of thing I would never give up, because it DOES benefit my kids, and is a legacy also for me. I used to love when my sons would walk in and I'd have their fav (red beans and rice) on in the CP, and bread baking. They would hug me (even as teens) and say 'You're such a goooood momma'. LOL!

And my mom and grandma were the flower queens. I have mums on the back porch right now! I knit things and quilt quilts also, so they will have fond memories, too. I think those things are very important. My kids still talk about how I was the neighborhood snow-day mom. I made cocoa and started baking cookies as soon as school was called off. After they all played in the snow, they came in and had snackies while I dried their outerwear (8-10 of them!). I loved it.

So, yes, there is perfection, and there is 'good momma'. We are all good mommas, I think, even if our sheets are goofy, or we don't like to decorate.

[cab54]

BTW, Sara---The whole dull woman thing was not aimed at people like your mother, but more at people like my MIL who, is outspoken to the point of viscious.

It was just my little 'shot' at her to get her off my back a bit. Sounds like your mom raised a fine family, and is a fine woman.

[Sara Noel]

I didn't take it that way at all. I was only furthering the conversation and sharing my experience in regards to that.

We are all good mommas, I think, even if our sheets are goofy, or we don't like to decorate.

Hope it didn't seem I was implying otherwise. I do know I struggled with finding my stride with motherhood and being married. I waited a long time and had some issues with how I thought things should be and how they actually were.

This thread has me thinking about the quest for balance, too. Balance is something that has been talked about for a while everywhere you look. I chased after it for years in a way that some people chase happiness.

I came to realize what I really craved was soulful-ness. I mean moments that bring me closer to feeling that my life is more than enough and then some. That takes acceptance of my place in this world-- Who I am and being comfortable with it. I struggled and still sometimes struggle with parts of that. But at the end of the day, the fact that I have my family and so much more than I ever thought I would/could in many ways, is great comfort to me and that's my sense of "balance" It has nothing to do with juggling all the busy things and trying to do them all well or having matching appliances or nice decor.

It's accepting that I'm loved. Knowing my capacity to love. Remaining hopeful. Knowing that I'm special whether I'm talented or not. They (connections with others) help make me special. Having the light of my life before me each and every day if I choose to open my eyes and see it as complete and total abundance is soulful.

I don't have it figured out. I am working on not being disappointed when life doesn't meet my expectations. Forgiveness and identity is a tough thing for me, but are areas I'm working on, too. So far, I've realized I'm changing and have changed. So are others around me. Things I thought I felt one way about years ago, simply aren't the same anymore. They've lost their purpose or at least lost the same meaningful purpose they once had.

I think it's about connections. Letting more into my life. Because I've focused so much on saying no and having boundaries, I've lost sight of saying yes sometimes. One could argue that's finding balance. I think it's more about letting myself be loved or even liked for that matter without feeling dissected (again roots with my perfectionism). And so I learned, joy doubles when shared. I pick and choose what really matters. So while some things can get me worked up or unhappy, how much of how I react is not only impacting me, but those around me. That's how I started to let go of perfectionist tendencies and dare I say control. It's accepting that no one is going to do things the way I expect, but allowing them to do them anyway and learning that they try because they care and to stop judging them.

This also leads into my trust of others. If I don't allow anyone in, life is hollow. Yes, people will disappoint me. They might lie, hurt me, use me, etc etc. But if I block out everyone, life loses depth. And inevitably where does that leave me? Less soulful than without them. So while the whole toxic relationships and cutting ties is good, so is recognizing people are human, too. They make mistakes. Just as I do. Connections are so important imo. So to wrap up my thoughts, it's some select small details, mindful moments and connections that help define simplicity to me. Time being the wealth in life that gives me the freedom to enjoy simplicity. Getting that "wealth" (time) by prioritizing through frugality was the path. It's identifying your priorities and knowing what it is that you want that is tough sometimes.

[McD]

Well freakin' said Sara!!!

[familyof3]

WOW Sara! Some great observations you've made here.

nuisance26: I look at it a little differently. I find it easy to get caught up in the "wanting things" mindset. So when I focus on the simplicity of making the bed look good- it's not because the sheets are expensive, but because I took the time to "fix" it nicely and showed that I valued it and myself as a result.

The focus isn't on what I own, but how I own it. Does that make sense? I'm becoming very zen-like in my old age!

[Lady_V]

I think I had my "Um... why" moment a few years ago.

While married to my ex, we were told to live up to our 'station' (aka, the wealthy... something I was never very comfortable with).

For our wedding registry, I registered at Service Merchandise (closed now, but was sort of like a WalMart, little bit of everything -except clothes and food) and Crate and Barrel. I asked for things we needed, like baking pans, spaghetti pan... and a few 'wouldn't it be cool to have' items like a matching pasta serving set.

What I got... was a set of Tiffany table lamps, Waterford vases, glasses and flutes... lets not forget the solid gold flat wear complete with serving pieces.

I opened these gifts... and I liked it. I still had to go out and buy baking pans... but... look... look at all the pretties! I wanted more. 8 flutes simply isn't enough... 12... 12 is a good number!

"Um... why"

Do real people really eat with a gold fork? I've had the set for 11 years and have yet to use it and I have never had 12 people in my condo at any given time.

Why did I feel as if I needed these things all of a sudden?

I live simply complicated life... I still have my 'pretties' oriental rugs, artwork, a 50" inch tv... but they are all second hand, given to me by my ex-inlaws. I don't need these things... but I like them. I wouldn't rush out and spend our money on these things, but they were going to just toss them away.

My sheets... are from the luxurious Kmart