The joy of Christmas is too often accompanied by over-consumption of presents and plastics. Neither is good for the soul. Over the years I’ve written a number of blogs on simplifying Christmas. Click here to review some of them. This year I offer you Joshua Becker’s list of How to Restore Gift Giving Sanity. BUT, […]
Living Lightly
Susan Vogt on living more simply but abundantlyBrowsing Posts in Days 365+
As we approach the “giving” aka “buying” season of December, my mind turns to a pet peeve – excessive and deceptive Advertising. For example: Specialized dog biscuits geared to cure your dog of halitosis. Really? I love dogs but this seems over the top. Toothpaste boxes that show a huge swirl of toothpaste overflowing the […]
My life has been busy lately. My guess is so has yours. Presumably we are both busy about important meaningful responsibilities. That makes searching for convenient, quicker ways to do things attractive. I get that and I’m a consumer of convenience – to a point. But then there is the dilemma that conscientious consumers face […]
What is kenosis and what does it have to do with living lightly? Theologically speaking kenosis is the act of self-emptying in order to become entirely receptive to God’s divine will. So, what’s this got to do with Living Lightly? I started down this path because my To Do list was getting too long and […]
Last week I had two experiences of being forced to wait with strangers. My first reaction was annoyance at being delayed. But upon reflection, I realized that these were opportunities to let go of my compulsion to not waste time. I like to be on time and to make the most of my time. In […]
How does one count the value of things we give away? (click to enlarge) Originally I had divided this blog into 2 categories: EXPENSIVE GIVEAWAYS. This included a silver/gold chalice, a framed piece of art from France, a fancy metal lighter from Paris, a heavy metal flask with leather carrying case, a large unused candle […]
PRE-CYCLING: Before I address the topic of recycling, it’s worth starting at the beginning. Remember the classic “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra of the early earth friendly movement. Too often we jump to the third “Recycle” option when the “Reduce” and “Reuse” steps would reduce the overall need for recycling. Some call this Precycling. Evaluate a […]
I spent the past 10 weeks going Room by Room to discern additional household items to give away. I then spent 2 more weeks researching where to take all this stuff. Some were easy but some took a lot of searching and time. Here is an outline of my methodology and resources so you don’t […]
I’ve got a big plan for Lent this year which will come in a couple weeks so I’m just catching up on smaller things that came my way recently. Keep your eyes open for opportunities Some give aways come by chance. We hired someone to do some electrical work at our house and the worker […]
What do you do when you buy something that turns out to be a mistake. Perhaps it’s the wrong size, defective, or you just change your mind. Of course you could Return it to the store or Amazon – but that takes time or postage. Suck it up and use it anyway. Or…might you look […]
Before I reveal what “BVG” means, I’d like to share a letter to my grandchild. See if you can guess the BVG. Dear grandchild, Once upon a time, a long time ago, BVG, you may wonder what families did for fun. In my own family we played GAMES. Lots of them were board games. We […]
If politics, hatred, suffering, and the sorry state of the world is cluttering your mind – welcome to the club. It’s easy to become depressed and want to return hate with hate. But that doesn’t solve anything. On my last blog post, Let Go of Trivial Judgments, I promised to move beyond trivial judgments to […]
About 6 months ago I focused on trying to be kinder for Lent. One dimension of this was to be less judgmental of other people. By the end of Lent I realized that it’s harder to actually change my internal critical self than to give things away. Today, over half a year later, I’m noticing […]
I’m a speaker and a writer. That means I care about words. I suppose we all do. I recently attended an international meeting that heightened my awareness of how we use words. Because the meeting included people from 23 countries that covered 5 continents we spoke many different languages and had simultaneous translations into 4 […]
I feel too busy. That seems to be my mantra lately. Maybe it’s yours too. I thought my Taming Time blog post would help me declutter my calendar and life. It did help, but I want more. I’m finding that I’m being led into a deeper dimension of time. Lately I’ve realized that some of […]
Now that we have our solar panels installed, I thought I would be so happy. I am, but the feeling is fleeting. The same thing happened after we got replacement windows, or even when I get a book from Amazon, or the perfect all purpose travel blazer. But it’s not just about stuff. Often I […]
Yea! A couple days ago our new solar panels were activated. This is probably the opposite of my recent Keep it Simple post, because it wasn’t a simple or cheap endeavor, but it was worth it. Over a year ago we started thinking about getting solar panels for our roof. We contacted an installer, got […]
In the spirit of end of the year lists, I’ve picked a dozen favorite snippets from my 2017 blog posts. This was like picking a favorite child but in my ongoing effort to save you all reading time, I forced myself to whittle my original 18 down to 12. Click on the links to get […]
I’m in a time warp. Easter was over 2 weeks ago but I’m still finishing up my Lenten resolve to prune my file cabinets. By Easter I had pruned 2 drawers of my first cabinet. (See here ) Once started, I was motivated to keep going. I have now finished the final 2 drawers of […]
My last blog entry was on the pros & cons of online shopping and how it can save time but create unnecessary waste. Here’s another conundrum for you – When does doing a small good take so much time that it’s not worth it? The culprit: a broken mixer blade The solution: Buy a replacement blade. […]
