Tag: simple living

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Live Slow

My latest T-shirt
I live in T-shirts & cargo shorts!
This one features a Costa Rica Sloth and
my new way of living.
“And so taking the long way home through the market I slow my pace down. It doesn’t come naturally. My legs are programmed to trot briskly and my arms to pump up and down like pistons, but I force myself to stroll past the stalls and pavement cafes. To enjoy just being somewhere, rather than rushing from somewhere, to somewhere. Inhaling deep lungfuls of air, instead of my usual shallow breaths. I take a moment to just stop and look around me. And smile to myself.

For the first time in a long time, I can, quite literally, smell the coffee.” 
― Alexandra Potter, The Two Lives of Miss Charlotte Merryweather
“Wisely and slowly; they stumble that run fast.” 

― Hugh Howey, Wool Omnibus


“Sometimes our stop-doing list needs to be bigger than our to-do list.” 


― Patti Digh, Four-Word Self-Help: Simple Wisdom for Complex Lives


¡Pura Vida!
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My Biggest Job Nearly Finished – TO SIMPLIFY!

Because of the better sunlight, I photograph most of the album pages
outside on my terrace, one page at a time, soooo slow it seems.
So far it is 7,880 photos taking up 10 GB of space on my computer!
And it is all scrapbook pages from before my birth to 2008, soon to 2014.
It is an incredible personal and family history, but I cannot keep them all!
And 30 boxes of albums is too much for someone to deal with when I die.
I do not have children or anyone who could deal with that many books.

Here is my office/guest room today with just 5 more books to photograph.
Compare this with the photos below a few months ago.
And the new couch makes into a full-size bed for guests.
The old one below was a too-short single bed for little Ticos.
All these boxes have been emptied and contents destroyed
as have all the ones in the next photo by the door of this same room.
All of these are also gone now!
The space is free, the house open and
uncluttered! True joy in removing stuff!

The high quality binders used have been donated to schools, libraries and others. And then I have some genealogy stuff and a stamp collection to deal with and I am truly finished! And remember I got rid of a lot more stuff in Nashville including all my furniture! Plus a lot of art earlier here. I have made real progress! Anytime I want to change rent house, it will be a simple move!

I’m applying the lessons learned in many books read: The Life-changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo  (I read a review copy summary), Celebrating Time Alone by Lionel Fisher, Simplify by Joshua Becker, Freedom of Simplicity by Richard J. Foster, Always We Begin Again, The Benedictine Way of Living by John McQuiston II, Living the Simple Life, by Elaine St. James, Seeking Paradise by Thomas Merton, Walden by Henry David Thoreau and in many ways the Bible. Eliminating “stuff” is so freeing! Now I’m almost ready to die, but think I have a lot of real living to do first! 🙂

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
~Henry David Thoreau 

Charlie Doggett
Retired in Costa Rica (My “Woods”)
Pura Vida! 

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Minimalist?

Catarata Falls, Trogon Lodge, by Charlie

In addition to receiving Christianity Today, now digitally, I also get their weekly blog which ties you into articles on their website. Today’s pulled me into this neat article about getting rid of stuff as I am doing right now: Stockpiling Treasures in My Junk Closet.

And if you guys prefer articles written by men, check out this minimalist blog by Joshua Becker, Becoming Minimalist, who in this post points us to 8 other simple living blogs. Wow! Too much, but my new simple living seems to be popular again. And it is fun to read how others are struggling with it too.

I sold my wonderful Relax the Back Zero Gravity Recliner tonight to the nicest young man who was buying it for his mother! He already has one! And it is fun meeting new people who are all so interesting! This guy has a small car dealership and gives a portion of his profit to give used cars to poor single mothers in the community! Now isn’t that neat!

What neat person will God bump me into tomorrow?

POSTSCRIPT: In 2021 a woman wrote and asked me to add this link to her site on how to ditch cable TV (I did) and yet get streaming or other valuable shows for free or cheap. I do that now in 2021 with no TV but streaming of free YouTube videos and a documentary streaming service called CuriosityStream. The requested link to add is: https://www.killthecablebill.com/ 🙂