These are some awesome fabrics that I found at the Thrift store the other day! I was so pumped. I got these and a few others for SIX dollars. I am not sure what I will make with them yet… but I got this book from my Mom and Dad for my birthday that has some fabulous ideas.

It has been over three weeks since we started this Compact and there has been something interesting that I have been learning recently.

The less you consume, the less you want to consume

I have not had the desire to go out and go shopping or really felt any desire to get any thing new in the past couple of weeks. I often forget that we are not allowed to buy stuff because we are doing the Compact and simply forget to want more stuff. Maybe not going into stores helps, but I think there is something much deeper to my lack of desire to buy stuff. I think that the more you detach yourself from the cycle of consumerism the more detached you become from the consumeristic mind set. Which is pretty obvious, but I did not think that my desire for more stuff would decrease so quickly. I thought that I would have to tapper off over a couple weeks or months, but it has been easier then I thought.

Mind you, it has only been 3 weeks and we still have a long time left in this year, but I am pleasantly  surprised that  I have not had as hard of a time with this as I thought I would. I like the feeling of not having anything that I want right now, and I hope that this is something that I can carry on past this experience. I think that it is so ingrained in our society to always be wanting something new, that when we don’t have the opportunity to fulfill that desire we find contentment, and contentment is what I am seeking for in this whole experience.

I hope that at the end of this year I  am able to develop a deep contentment with what I have and who I, which replaces the need to accumulate more “stuff” to define who I am.

It is a very blustery day outside. I love days like this. Especially when I have nowhere to go. Bad weather always makes me feel thankful for what I have. I am so thankful that we have a warm, comfortable home. I have a sweater and slippers that keep me even more warm. We have popcorn to eat and Cars the movie to watch and relax while the weather outside is frightful. I can’t think of one thing that I really need right now. That is a good feeling.

Yesterday I met a friend at the mall for lunch. When I was walking out of the mall I walked by Old Navy and saw many gigantic signs saying COME IN HERE… just joking, they actually said “75% off” which means pretty much the same thing. I gazed in while I walked by, trying to see anything new and beautiful in the windows. I thought to myself, why am I not buying again?? But I was victorious… no buying for me. Amazing how one day is so different from the next with the feelings that go along with not buying. I think that it is key to stay out of the mall.

This is my latest project. He is a spaceman, I made him for Noah J. It was supposed to be for his birthday, but he saw him… so he has him now. I found him on this SUPER great website http://weewonderfuls.typepad.com/

I am so excited today because I found out that my Dear friend Vanessa, her husband James and their family are doing the compact with us this year! It is such a great feeling to know that there are others struggling away trying to break our habit of consumerism! You can check her out at:

www.yearofsimplicity.blogspot.com

Things are going well with me. I think it is easier for me to not buy because I am out in the country a lot of the time, and we only have three channels on TV (and I don’t really watch it!) I know I would be having trouble if I were in the city and seeing advertising on TV. There is so much bait in our everyday world to get us to buy more and more. It is so freeing to just say, No thanks, I can live with what I already have.

One week into our year and I would like to say that it has been completely easy. That I haven’t been tempted to buy anything and have lived a consumer free life. However, I have had the desire to shop in our one week away. I have even been on Amazon.com looking at things I would like for my birthday (in Feb).

The hardest time is on the weekends becuase this is classically the time that Malora and I run around and do all of our shopping errands. We usually spend a lazy Saturday morning eating eggs and pancakes and the afternoon buying stuff that we want. But, we are no longer able to do that and it is hard to break the habit. I think that it will be harder for me to break these habits then Malora. Malora, seems fine not shopping but I feel like I am missing out on something and I already have a list of things in my mind that I need…at least I think that I need them.

I hope that in a month or two from now it will be easier for me, and I can really see the importance of this Compact we are doing. I do not think that I am a consumer addict, but I can see the habits of consumerism that deeply rooted in everything I do. I hope that in this year I will be able to break those habits and become a better person becuase of it. Not just better for myself but better for my family and friends.

We were invited to a Birthday party today that is tomorrow. So, I made a purse for a little person tonight with not a lot of love. It is funny the things that you take for granted when you can just run to the store and pick up a little plastic treasure from China. Not buying, I think, is going to take more planning in advance for things. More organization.

I did get into the creativeness of making the purse once I started. Noah was being creative with Moon sand (and by creative I mean grinding it into the carpet, thanks uncle Seth) while I was being creative with fabric. I want to be a creative family, and I am hoping not buying things will nurture our creative juices. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.

So far this Compact has been pretty easy. It is not hard to go 4 days without shopping or thinking about shopping. I have found that I have a lot more mental capacity when I am not thinking about what I am going to buy next or where I will go shopping. I am able to focus a bit more and I seem to get more done throughout the day. I am sure that this will fluctuate the further we get into this experience. But for now everything seems to flying along smoothly.

However, the monitor for our home computer is slowly dying and we need to get a “new” one. It has been flickering out for a month now, and I think that it is on it’s last leg. It is sort of exciting that this will be the first test of our resolve and creativity. I know that we can not go to Best Buy and buy one, and it will be interesting to see how we get a new monitor (or maybe we can fix it somehow).

It’s also nice to be back home on the Alpaca farm. Christmas was great and I am looking forward to getting back to work.

Day one: so far so good. I am excited to simplify and see what sort of things come from our experiencement. I have been feeling a real inner struggle these past couple of weeks to hoard as much as possible before the deadline of Jan.1. It has been really annoying and time consuming thinking of all the things I need (let’s be honest- want), searching out that something, then thinking - “Should I really buy this? Well, I am not going to buy anything new for a year… so yes I should… but isn’t that defeating the purpose?” And so on. It is a relief to me that the day is here, the game has begun and we are in it.  Bring on the simple life.

Happy New Year. The new year is finally upon us and I am thankful that it is finally here.

For weeks we have been planning, talking, and thinking about this whole compact life experiencement and now it has finally begun. It is a bit of a relief that the year has started and now all we can do is go along for the ride. No more last minute stock piling, no more wondering if we have everything we need, no more guessing what it will be like. It’s here.

We didn’t end up buying anything online last night. Instead we closed the laptop and went downstairs to ring in the new year with Ryan Seacrest and the amazingly odd hijinks of the CBC (they shoot chickens from canons to ring in the new year…a Canadian tradition).  We actually didn’t buy very much extra stuff to prepare for 2008 becuase that would sort of defeat the point.

I am still having trouble explaining why we are doing this to people in a clear way. I talked to some of my parents friends in Estes Park, CO this morning and tried to explain the purpose behind our compact. I still don’t completely know why we felt so strongly led to do this, and so it is a little awkward to explain. I know that we have some goals and some expectations for what we want to see happen this year, but I am sure that God has some interesting things instore for us this year.

I am struggling to convince Malora to write her thoughts and experiences. Hopefully she will share them here soon.