Middle age is the awkward period when Father Time starts catching up with Mother Nature. ~Harold Coffin

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.
Charles Dudley Warner

Good Morning from Harmony Acres! Guess what?  It's only 96 degrees at 11:00 a.m. this morning!  Muskogee County is under another excessive heat warning!  I've decided not to whine about it today cause it is what it is.  Instead, I will just sit here under my ceiling fan, oscillating fan, wind tunnel fan and window air conditioner (Becky stays wrapped up in a blanket and a heavy robe while I fry).  At my age (closer to 60 than 55) anything over 76 degrees is like living in an inferno (I expect to see Daniel and the Lions at any moment).  Lord, please send rain.  And lots of it.  I won't whine.  I promise.

Water colored memories from April........

Let me tell you, post menopausal is a life stage all it's own!  I live in my personal climate zone (nothing is cool enough. that weird thing Mom used to do with a wet washcloth hanging on her neck year round , now makes perfect sense to me), stuff that used to be flat and taunt is now fluffy and flabby (say goodbye to bathing suits and short shorts) and to add insult to injury, my attitude can go from sweet and nice to psycho in the blink of an eye.  It ain't easy being me but it is what it is.  Anyone spending any length of time with me had better have a sense of humor and an emergency exit strategy!

It's funny til it happens to you! Real Women! Real Issues!

Anyway, having said all that, let's get down to the business of Simple Living.  I have found that my wants no longer exceed my needs.  I enjoy the slimmed down, new, improved version of life as I know it.  We spend our lives chasing after a material rainbow only to discover it is all an illusion.  Stuff cannot make us happy.  Stuff becomes a burden.  Stuff requires extreme security measures.  In the end, stuff is just stuff.  If it has no practical use or sentimental value (something of Mom's or Dad's), it is just taking up space. My Stuff (or lack of it) does not define me as a person and if that is the measuring stick you use then I feel sorry for you.  The best things in life do not have a price tag attached.  It is what it is.

   

Here is a list of ten things that I can do without to live a frugal and simple life:

1. A new car before the old one wears out. (the last one was running on 3 cylinders before I surrendered it to scrap)
2. A big screen T.V. (the one we have now, has a blue stripe down the middle.  i don't even notice it anymore)
3. A Zero Turn Lawn Mower (the mower I have still runs, sort of)
4. A new wardrobe for every season (I have boxes and boxes and boxes of clothes that I don't wear. why add more to the chaus?)
5. A matching pair of shoes for every outfit I own. (how many pairs of shoes do I really need? I only have two feet) 
6. Matching jewelry for every outfit I own. (how many necks, arms and fingers do I have?)
7. A haircut every month. (at my age growing hair on my head ain't that easy)
8. A manicure and pedicure. (really, I work with my hands in dirt, pooh and other unspeakable stuff. a chipped nail doesn't bother me)
9. Eating out cause I'm too lazy or too busy to cook (not going to happen)
10. A week at a spa and resort. (O.K. I would really like to have this one but it ain't gonna happen).

Well, thats all I have to say today.  Well, there is one more thing.  I know. I know. Yada, yada, yada.  Just shut up.

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot.  In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. 

 ~Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism, 1891