The Simple Joy of Simple Foods!

“I am better off with vegetables at the bottom of my garden than with all the fairies of the Midsummer Night's Dream.” - Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) 'Lord, I Thank Thee'

My, my. . . June offers so many wonderful items from the garden! I do not have a "real" garden. I only have a tomato plant, a bell pepper, and cucumber; yet, I love to shop our farmers market and local grocers for nature's bounty. It is simply a joy to taste of the natural foods that God has provided for us.

Today I want to share with you that my boys love my Eggplant Parmesan. . .we just call is lasagna in our house to hide that fact that it is made from eggplant. I even assemble it lasagna style (picture below is dish 1/2 assembled). This meal is simply made of Eggplant, Italian Bread Crumbs, Spaghetti Sauce, Ricotta and Mozzarella cheeses. I like to have whole green beans (canned) tossed with Lite Italian Salad dressing on the side. Tonight we wrapped it all up with strawberries and blackberries topped with Ready Whip! The great thing about this meal is that it feeds 6-8 people for under $3.00 a serving ( I have a little left over too)! Yes, my entire meal cost me about $17.50. . .simple goodness for a simple price. That is simple abundance!

This journey to simplify my life has me looking at every aspect of daily life even our meals. God designed wonderful foods for us to enjoy. Learning to enjoy these "simple" foods in a new way is fun. I am going to experiment with eggplant more and discover what other dishes I can sneak it in. . .wonder if they will figure it out. . .LOL!

Take a trip to your farmers market or the produce section of your local grocer and try a new fresh food. There are tons of recipes online for all those yummy foods you have been afraid to try. . .simple foods bringing abundant joy to our simply abundant lives. Bon appétit!!

Quick-Fix Vegetarian: Healthy Home-Cooked Meals in 30 Minutes or Less (Click here to check out this great cookbook!)

"I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred, I wish the days to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I love Emerson! I do wish for life to be sacred, full, and fragrant. How about you? Part of learning to live in simple abundance is learning to enjoy the simple joys of life. What simple scents do you cherish?

The picture in today's blog is from the gardenia bush in my front yard. It is so beautiful and fragrant. The scent of gardenias brings back memories of playing in my grandmother's yard with my cousins. . .simple times full of simple joys. Since my gardenia bush has been in bloom I have been going out and bringing in a bloom each afternoon to place in my kitchen. When I awake to prepare breakfast for my family I am greeted by a creamy white blossom dripping with the sweet scent of summer. That is simply a joy!

If you have a scent that brings back fond summer memories then fill your home with that scent. Essential oils are an easy way to do this. You can purchase essential oils just about anywhere.Lavender 100% Pure Essential Oil -10ml (Greenals) Rub the oil on unfinished or unpainted wood. I rub them under my tables and chairs, inside my windowsills, and inside my wooden drawers. My favorites are gardenia, pomegranate, and lavender. I also love to have sachets of cedar (you can find at Wal-Mart in the closet supplies. . hangers. . organizers) inside my closets. . .reminds me of grandmother's house.Giles & Kendall 308 Cedar Sachet Bags

Bring simple joy to your life by bringing fragrance into your home. I promise you. . .it is a simple joy that you will learn to cherish!

June's Simple Pleasures

"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June." -L.M. Montgomery

Wow! It is about to be June 1st. June holds so many simple pleasures for us to enjoy. I am on a journey to simply my life and in doing so I hope to find the Simple Abundance that Sarah Ban Breathnach writes about in Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy click this link to find her book. . .it has changed my life and I know you will like it!

I first read this book after I had my oldest son who is about to turn 12. I put a few of the Simple Abundance practices into my life then, but now I am back at it full force. One of the things that I have tried to do is to savor the simple pleasures of life. This month I will share with you some of the simple pleasures my family is learning to enjoy and I will let you peek into my home as I work every day in some way to bring Simple Abundance to my home.

This weekend we enjoyed a June simple joy. . .watermelon! Some of my fondest memories are of eating watermelon with my family under the shade tree in summer. Go on. . .buy one today. Keep it in the fridge for 12-24 hours then simply cut it into chunks and share it on the porch or under a good 'ol shade tree. What could be better than this simple June pleasure?

Think about some of the simple pleasures that you take for granted. Write them down and begin to appreciate them more. Life's simple pleasures are often the best and the ones your family will remember most. . .welcome to June!

Simply Beautiful. . .try this!

Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort of Joy (This is one of my faves. . .click to check it out)"Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage." - Claude M. Bristol

Do you realize that you are simply beautiful? You are! Right now, today, just as you are. . .you are beautiful. How do you see yourself. When you look in the mirror do you zoom in on your best or your worst trait?

In this quest to simplify my life I have to realize that I am beautiful, deserving, and worthy of a spiritually, emotionally, and physically clutter free. . .simply beautiful life. I believe that sometimes we don't try to change or think we can because we fail to love ourselves enough to try. Women have huge self worth issues. . .I know I happen to be one of those women. In order to love myself I need to like what I see when I look in the mirror. That is both an emotional and a physical mirror. The physical mirror is often the hardest one to conquer. How you see yourself or envision yourself is what you will become, so for the next step on this journey let's work on liking what we see!

This is me. . .the real me! No makeup, no blow dryer. .  ..I am "primped" free in this picture. Guess what? I don't think it is horrible and I happen to see my very best trait. . . deep blue eyes. They are beautiful. . .maybe I can see myself as beautiful after all. . .what about your best trait. . .do you see it?

I dare you to go one whole day with no makeup. . .no "primped" hair. . . .ala natural!!!! Look. . .really look in the mirror and focus on your best trait. Every time you look in the mirror focus on that perfect smile. . .or those cute freckles. . .or that porcelain skin. I dare you to test this and see if that one positive point about yourself doesn't start off a chain reaction. A positive self image is powerful. . .Simply Powerful!

Ok. . .let me know if you took the test and went "simply" beautiful (all natural) for one whole day. . .I promise this is important . . .you have to see yourself and beautiful, worthy, and deserving of a simply abundant life.

Please share this blog with your friends and become a follower of this blog. I promise. . .you won't be disappointed. . .we have got an exciting journey to Simplicity ahead of. . .we have to know we deserve it first though. . .a SIMPLY beautiful life!!

Simplicity Test #1. . .Eliminate the Unnecessary

Simplicity Test #1

"The ability of simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." -Hans Hoffman

How do you downsize from a closet the size of a small room to this closet? I know some of you are cringing at the thought of this, but I did it. I simplified! I mentioned yesterday that we had downsized and bot did we. . .see this picture. This closet has my clothes and my husbands clothes in it. No, this is not all our clothes. This is just our Spring/Summer stuff. The Fall/Winter is in an under the beg storage container and our under garments, shorts, t-shirts, and jeans are in the wardrobe to the right in this picture and the chest of drawers (not pictured).

I did have to "purge" my closet of a lot of stuff. I am a recovering clothes and shoes addict. I am not kidding. You can see here that I still have about 50 pairs of shoes. . .I have away over 1/2 of them. I went through clothes and gave away everything that I don't wear or haven't worn in a year. Yes, gave it away and it felt great! You know what. . .even though the typical American woman has tons and tons of clothes, she wears the same 10-14 things over and over again. That is correct. . .so get rid of the stuff you don't wear. Have a garage sale, take it to a consignment shop, or just give it away (there is someone who could really use what you take for granted).Organize Your Life: Free Yourself from Clutter and Find More Personal Time

So. . .now I have done it. I have opened the world up to my private places. . . my closet! I did this because I am on a journey to simplify my life. This was one very important part of that journey. I am sharing this to let you know it can be done. It really can! You might be like I was and think, "I can't do with that few outfits. . .she is crazy!" Do me a favor and list the outfits you wear for one month. . see how many times you go to the same outfit over and over.

If you are interested in going on this journey, I would love to have company! Follow this blog and share with me your own experiences and we go together into the Promised Land of Simplicity. . .please share my blog with your friends and not that I will share links to certain books and great items that I just can't live without. Check them out!

Wells of Hope!

Organized!!!!

"The ability of simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak." -Hans Hoffman

It has been way too long since I blogged. I hope to make more of a habit of it. We have been so very busy. Will just graduated from 6th grade last week. Matthew and Nathan are finishing up classes today! We are ready for a little break. Mommy will go to school straight through summer. We are praying for all of my classes to line up perfectly so that I will be all done in December. Please pray these details with us.

We have been busy moving. We moved closer to the boys' school. We love it! The move was also a downsize. We purchased a cabin that had been being used as a hunting lodge. It is so masculine, so it fits my family. . LOL! This downsize has given me the opportunity to organize. I had wanted to get organized and now I am forced to do it and I am loving it. We turned a closet into an office. This is where I am writing from right now! It works great. We used an old door from the barn as the desk and put file cabinets under it for filing. We are not finished, but it already is "home" to me. I open the doors to my little office and get excited about writing again.

This summer I plan to go on a journey. . . .a journey to simplicity. I invite you to join me by following this blog and let's see where this journey leads us!

"This is my body given for you: do this in remembrance of me." (Luke 22:19)

Oh my. . .I just realized that it has been a week since I last blogged. I have been so very busy that it is a miracle that I remember where I left my head. . .no it's not. . .I can remember that. . it is on my head!

Remembering is a good thing. Jesus gave us instructions on how to remember what he did for us. Some people call it having the Last Supper, Breaking Bread, or Communion. Whatever you call it. . it is a beautiful thing!

This past weekend my little family spent the weekend at the lake. We did not attend what you might call a "formal" church service. Instead, we gathered in our PJs at sunrise to have communion on the pier overlooking Lake Martin. The sunlight shimmered on the lake and the cool morning air awoke my senses as I watched my sons one by one participate in our private, family Holy Communion service. I listened with tears in my eyes as my oldest son, Will, led us in a prayer of thanksgiving and smiled with joy as I heard his two little brothers chime in, "Amen."

Easter is about remembrance. . .do this is remembrance of me. . .did you take time to simply remember this Easter?