Raising Kids Simply

First let's examine what simplicity for kids is not.

Simple living is not "green living" or otherwise saving the planet. I've read books on raising "simple" kids which focus solely and exclusively on being green. Bunk. Personally I don't care if you impart these values to your children or not — but please note this constitutes a belief, not a behavior. Beliefs may or may not simplify one's life; but behaviors (which after all are based on choices) will make or break a person.

Sorry if this offends, but the statistics are indisputable: an intact home is possibly the single biggest factor to raising secure children who will have the ability to make those critically good choices that will contribute toward a simple life.

Raise your children with a strong moral foundation. Often a religious upbringing contributes to this, but all the churching in the world won't help if the parents don't model strong ethics themselves.

These ethical choices should include keeping one's word, working hard, being honest, being kind, and other important and intangible behaviors. Children who have a strong moral foundation upon which to stand grow up more likely to make good choices as teens and adults. It is astounding how much kids internalize the values of their parents, and how strongly this will influence their adult lives.

NOTE: The concepts in this article might seem old fashioned. They are, and that's because simple lives are happy lives.

Crisis Averted

There's just something better about any disaster or “challenge” when it's written about after the fact, rather than in the middle of the crisis. At least that's the way I feel about it. While I'm given the “opportunity” to stretch myself, discover how my character has a chance to further develop under adversity, I just don't feel much like sharing the news. I'm too taught, wound up and ultra focused on getting myself out of the particular mess that I'm in.

Messes come in all shapes and forms, some are minor but seem horrific at the time, others are life threatening and many are damaging on other levels. This time, I'm just talking about common crises that pop up in most lives, although they may be different colored for different people, depending on their circumstances.

Now that this crisis is over, I can talk about it. Living off the grid, east of the Cascades means that our winters are somewhat colder than those in the Sponge, ie Portland, Seattle and significantly colder than Florida, California etc. Don't like hot buildings, it's much healthier living in European style room temperatures. I like indoor temps around 62 degrees, maybe 65, but any warmer than that and it feels too hot. Besides viruses survive in warmer temperatures.

Living in a log cabin, with radiant floor heating sounds plenty cozy, and it normally is. Except when something goes wrong as it recently did. No noisy furnaces blasting uneven heat everywhere...just a gentle warmth that is everywhere.

The other night, why do emergencies always happen at night? We ran out of water. Nothing new there, we pump from a private well into a 1,000 gallon holding tank. While that system could be automated in a perfect world, there's just something about 40 dogs, horses, cats, chickens etc that keep us from enjoying any type of perfection. Back to the story. When we forget to pump into the holding tank and use all of the water we run out. Sometimes we forget when we pump, since summer brings more water usage than does winter.

I knew that we shouldn't be out of water yet, I remembered this time, because during winter I have the thrill of hauling 300 feet of water hoses around to water animals and then draining that same 300 feet so it will be ready for the next water. About every other day during the winter is what it takes to keep water troughs and buckets full. So running out before that was a clue that something was wrong.

Well trouble shooting what that something is can take awhile. We put on the thinking caps first, checking the most obvious, ruling them out one by one, until we're left scratching our heads. Maybe we better check the radiant floor heating since we noticed our indoor temps starting to drop. OH NO, there was a minor flood. Not a big deal, it's in an unfinished part of the house. Well, ALL of the house is unfinished, but this is in an unfinished AND uninsulated part. Not a bit deal after all, a hose clamp had come loose and pumped out all of our water and drained our holding tank dry. Refilled and watched and waited, but the temps wouldn't start to regain.

When we're already at 62 degrees inside, it doesn't take long before it starts to get a little chilly. The indoor pooches look at us and prefer laying on couches instead of the cooling floor. I put on another layer of clothes, then the hoodies. We just can keep the water temps up going into the heating system, and they're dropping on the out flowing line. Not good.

Bingo, after 2 days, we figured it out. Bleed the lines to get the air out. So we drained the lines, refilled and then slowly watched the temps start to raise. So once again we're smiling.

Yeah, it wasn't a death sentence, temps outside were in the teens and 20's, but what if the temps dropped before we could get things figured out, then we'd be looking at a real potential-pipe-breaking-mess. But then I remembered that old saying:

“bridges you cross before you get to them are over rivers that aren't there”

Labor Day In The Words of Khalil Gibran

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work, you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.

And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,

And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,

And all work is empty save when there is love;

And when you work with love, you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.

Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, “He who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is a nobler than he who ploughs the soil.

“And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet.”

But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;

And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distills a poison in the wine.

And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.