My husband and I used to participate in a huge crafting circuit on the West Coast called "The Harvest Festivals."  We had a 24' Winnebago Class C motorhome and a 25' trailer that we hauled 5,000 lbs. of equipment and product from city to city for 10 weeks every fall.  That experience taught us some very important truths for leading a simpler life.

Anyone who knows that particular style of motorhome also knows it isn't exactly a storage-rich environment.  Besides the lack of physical space, the weight that could be carried without exceeding the saftey levels was pretty minimal.  We learned to exist with much less and surprisingly to enjoy it much more! 

We started to ask ourselves this question when we would consider a new purchase or adding anything else to the motorhome.  "What am I willing to give up if I add this in?"  The new item had to add more to our life than the old one and we had to let go of something we already treasured in order to have a new treasure.  It's a pretty powerful formula for a simpler life if you can grasp hold of it.

Eliminating "stuff" is pretty easy if you work at it, eliminating activites and obilgations is much harder.  Most of us seem to think our time is or should be endless… we add activity to activity, commitment to commitment and responsibility to responsibility and then wonder why our "chassis breaks down".  We have weight carrying limits too, we just can't find them written down anywhere in our "owner's manual!"

In working on the book this series is leading towards ("Finding Peace… a 31 day journey to simplifying your life,) I did some pretty interesting exercises.  Over the course of several weeks' time I kept a simple log of all my activities and the approximate amount of time they took out of my schedule.  I was staggered at the load I was carrying and began to see why I was always wiped out at the end of the day. 

Like fitting a too-large wardrobe into the motorhome's 18" hanging space, I realized that everything I was doing wasn't going to be able to be carried forward into the new life I was aiming for.  The first things I eliminated were those tasks that really were optional.  For example, we lived on a 5 acre property of which an acre was landscaped and 4 acres were orange grove.  It was my responsibility to care for the garden and my husband's the grove. 

I don't really love to garden, so much as I love having a beautiful garden.  I realized that my garden was taking 8-10 hours a week of my time and yet was still only being semi-maintained!  Since hiring a gardener wasn't an option financially (but would have been a great solution could I have done so) I realized my expectations needed to be changed.  I looked at how my choices impacted my time commitment.  I chose to mow the 1/2 acre lawn twice a week because I liked the freshly clipped look, I chose to blow the oak leaves off our large brick patio twice a week for the same reason.  Only when I reduced my expectations and allowed myself to look past the leaves until Friday, did I begin to relax in and actually enjoy my garden more.

Here's just a few of the ways I simplified my gardening chores in order to simplify my life:  

• I eliminated fussy plants that required constant deadheading to bloom. 
• I removed plants that required too much spraying for pests or pruning to hold their shape. 
• I eliminated plants that weren't strong enough to grow without a lot of assistance. 
• I planted things that didn't require staking. 
• I planned new beds that made use of plants such as calla lilies that bloomed almost all year around but required little or no care. 
• I took whole areas that I had been working hard to maintain as flower beds and allowed them to simply return to lawn. 

Every decision, large and small, was made with the consideration of how valuable my time was. Would this decision cost me time or save me time?  After a while it became easier and more natural to do.  Next segment I'll talk about how the choices you make inside your home can save you time as well. 

Now, I have to go help my husband with our project day!  We're packing up the rest of my daughter's belongings to store in our container while she's away at college (I won't tell you how long they've been piled up in the entryway, but it is March and school started in September!!!!)

Audrey Jeanne Roberts