Living simple is complicated

After returning from a weekend trip away, the cupboard is bare. I always make a point before traveling of using up any fresh ingredients that might spoil while I'm away. But this was a rather whirlwind trip, and it didn't occur to me that (1) it wasn't really long enough for everything to spoil, and (2) there was no time before returning to work to go to the store and replenish the bounty.

As a result, the past few days have been really-creative-meal wise. Determined to eat at home and not order food (having eaten in restaurants for the entire weekend), I was nearly brought to tears standing in the kitchen at 11:30pm on a Tuesday night mashing pinto beans by hand into refried beans (for which I have no salsa or chips) with a red sauce made from frozen tomatoes and a slightly past-peak summer squash on the stove, and a mystery casserole in the oven.

Tears of joy, or tears of pain?
Yes.

It feels pretty good to take a pantry of nothing and freezer of next to nothing and make four full days of food out of it. It is envigorating to make things from scratch; if I have one goal in life it's to make as many things from scratch as possible. And, I feel as though I could definitely survive an atomic bomb or the apocalypse given my uncanny ability to create a variety of meals from dried beans, rice, chicken, frozen tomatoes and slightly off squash.

On the other hand, no one should be mashing beans after 9pm on a school night.

When people lived in a time where everything was made from scratch they had the whole day to mash beans, churn butter, bake bread, whatever. I, on the other hand, am required to spend eight hours of the day with my butt in a chair and have few precious moments between, say, 8 and 11pm to try and "live simply". I'm not saying I work harder; butt-in-chair is not hard, it's just extremely time consuming.

So what, then, is the point? Why do I do this to myself when I could, with a lot less effort and a roughly equal amount of money, eat a TV dinner every night? It almost feels like in this day and age, living "simply" is less simple than living a technological, busy-body, microwaved life. Why does everyone say "I'm so busy," or "I don't have any time" when we spend SO much time sitting on our butts?

Three days sans cell phone

I am not one to follow technological trends, but I love my iphone. I love even more that I was eligible for an upgrade at the same time that the brand new super fancy iphone is due to come out. So I sold my phone on ebay, bought the fancy new phone, and turned a healthy profit. How tech saavy I am! Well, with some help from my partner/personal IT consultant.

Said transaction worked out in such a way that I was without a cell phone for three and a half days. So many times we say to ourselves, "gosh, what did we ever do before cell phones?" Honestly, I think we did just fine. Throughout the course of the day, I'm usually within fifteen feet of a land line and/or sitting in front of a computer with internet access. I found the change to be, I dare say, refreshing.

This morning, we arrived at a retail store-who-will-remain-unnamed to pick up our "pre-reserved" new phones, and, SIX HOURS LATER, walked out with our new fancy appendages. Oh my, it is so pretty and shiny and fancy.

Worth the wait? Not a chance.
Willing to live without an iphone? Absolutely not.

OK... I know that I'm an all country bumpkin, back to basics, make my own syrup and cleaning supplies type of girl, but seriously-this phone is awesome.

Perhaps if I was living in a place where the pace of life was slower and my personal safety wasn't at risk on a regular basis then I would be willing to reconsider this position. In the meantime, I'm sold 100% on this little gadget and where's a techie out there who can write code for the "One Crafty Lady" Ap??