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Grandpa's Desk

My grandfather’s office was the best room in his house. At least, to me it was. His heavy wooden desk was the centerpiece and it was a beast. The office was filled with books, papers, and good things that smelled like education and experience. As a child, I would sit in his chair, hands folded on the desk or holding a pen, acting like I was writing something important just like him. Turning to my left, the chair swiveled perfectly to the typewriter. Clackety-clack. Sometimes , I would pretend to write an urgent memo. But, his office had a special smell. It smelled like a life filled with love. It also exuded a smell of adventure with the African art on the walls or the Indonesian sculptures on the bookshelves; places where various missionary journeys had taken him and my grandmother. The sweet smell of aging paper and typewriter ribbon permeated the room, too. And the way the pencil jar was overflowing with pens was a little bit of heaven that I wouldn’t know to miss until I wasn’t

When a Neighbor's Fence Goes Down

It's been said that fences make great neighbors. I agree and disagree with this. Fences make great neighbors only because they keep them and their stuff in their space and me and my stuff in my space. But, if you're like most neighbors in California, I have met my neighbors once, and rarely speak to them. It isn't because I don't want to, but because we're all too busy to say hello.  Or something like that. I think it has something to do with the fence situation. The part that's supposed to make me a great neighbor doesn't actually live up to the hype.  A few weeks ago, after a wild, windy, and rainy storm, a portion of our back fence fell down. It was an overdue scenario for sure. We'd been propping that part of our fence up with two-by-fours for years. It was over forty years old, and the posts rotted out beyond their use. It was time. My husband and I walked around to confront our neighbor the following morning, a neighbor we had never met despite the

Blogging My Way Through My Slow Living Life │ Introducing Simply Minimally Blog

This year is the return to blogging for me. In case you hadn't noticed.  Oh, but I'm sure you did. I went from writing constantly (about a decade ago) to writing once every six months.  My life of raising my boys, as well as work, side-stepped my regular blog posting. But, I've not stopped writing.  Recently, I baby-stepped back to once-a-month blogging in 2023, and now I'm posting once or twice a week once again. I've come full circle. I've had this blog, A Work in Progress , for almost 15 years. This August will mark a decade and a half of writing my first post , along with my thoughts about books, writing, and random life events. This blog has been therapeutic, a way to keep my writing skills up, and hopefully, an informative place to learn about various things. It's essentially a slow-living blog.  Because, over the years, those are the subjects I tend to cover. There's writing (that was all I wrote about in the beginning); how to write, what to wri

I'm Done Hurrying │ Choosing to Live a Slow Life Amidst the Chaos

My Hobbit Home I'm done with hurrying. I don't know what the deal is, but there is an epidemic of hurriedness in our society and I'm a part of the problem. It's driving me crazy and I aim to do something about it. Now! Quickly! While I can! Okay, see... why is that the first thing I think of? In everything I want to do, whether it's reinstating my blog, unloading the dishwasher, or running errands (all fifteen of them), I don't want to slow down.  I don't want to take it at a snail's pace. I want it now, and I want it fast. But, why? What is it about doing things slowly that hurts so much? There are quite a few books on this subject and in fact, my sister-in-law recommended a book to me called The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry . I knew I needed to hurry up and read it as soon as she told me. But being that I'm on a no-hurrying kick, I went to my library app (because I don't want to buy the book yet. If it's good and I can't live without i

Making Time For the Important Things │ Living a Simple Life

 A couple weeks ago, I stood in line outside of a thrift store I frequent waiting for it to open at 9:00. I'm not sure why there are unwritten rules for this thrift store (none of my Goodwills have this issue) but this thrift store -which is one of the many thrift stores I frequent to source for my online vintage shop - has a long line on Tuesdays. They're closed on Sunday and Monday, so I'm sure that's part of it. Tuesday is also their sale day and people like me who resell vintage, as well as others - many retired folks looking for a good deal - stand in line waiting for the doors to open. I feel very much like cattle being prodded into a pen.   I was standing in front of a woman who reminded me of my grandmother. Next to her, was a young man, maybe 25, who was doing his best to ignore both of us. He was there to do what I was doing: sourcing for items to resell. I think I heard him say something about electronics. The woman? She was there because she was on a fixed

Print Books Versus E-Books: Which One is Best?

Old books, new books, big books, small books.  Dr. Suess could have written a story on the diversity of books and their wonderfulness. One of my best friends and I talk about books versus e-books a lot. Which one is best?  She and I are both writers. This means we write as much as we read, and we vacillate between using actual physical books and e-books. But we've come to terms with these multi-faceted feelings; sometimes an e-book feels better, and other times we grow weary of the digital page. Here's what we always end up saying to each other: "There are days when we have to feel a book in our hands." It's also a way of clarifying that we're not cheating on print books when we choose the e-book. I think a small part of us feels guilty for using our e-readers as much as we do. But why? Books, the smell of books, the look of books, the way books feel in the hand... that's all part of the mystery, charm, and charisma of physical books; I love the pages tur

Gratitude Creates Change

How Writing Down One Grateful Thing a Day Changed My Life For all of 2023, I decided to write down one thing that I was grateful for at the end of every day. We've all heard of this helpful hint to improve our lives; to use gratitude to remind ourselves how good we have it; to write down ten things we're grateful for every day, or to write down five things that made the day wonderful; keep a gratitude journal. I understand the concept. And I fully endorse it. But, for reasons I couldn't explain, I never "found the time" (i.e. wasn't willing to put in the time) to write them down.  I am a grateful person. I am beyond thankful every day for the life I get to live, to do what I love, and to have my family with me. Life is good. I mean, really good. But I decided to change the rules up a little. Instead of making things harder on myself, and writing yet another list, I decided to keep things simple. Simple living is my daily intention. For 2023, I wrote down one t