Six items or less... Its over!

So its now August 31st and that means the end of the six items or less challenge for me! Its been a fun and wild ride but really not as hard as I expected.

I had written out a whole long break down on how this went for me but then my internet connection messed up and I lost all of it. I will be writing a more extensive post later on but for now enjoy the following video about six items or less:

There and back again... on a bike!

I just had to make a reference to The Hobbit aka There and Back Again by J.R.R Tolkien. I still have not read The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings trilogy but I did just add them all to my Kindle and my goal is to read all four books while Michaela and I are in the UK. Should be awesome reading these books in the country where they were written!

But anyways, onto the point of this post. I just hit a couple days ago the one month mark at my job as Volunteer Coordinator for the Campaign to Re-Elect Bonnie Mager! During this time I have managed to put a little over 400 miles on my bike.

Not sure if there is enough time left but I really want to try to hit the big 1k mark on my bike before Michaela and I head off to the UK.

With gas prices averaging around $3 a gallon and the average US car getting 20ish miles per gallon I have saved $60! Of course that is not taking into account the cost of car insurance. Plus this is only for one month.

Basically biking is awesome and I encourage you all to bike at least some of the time!

Six clothes for one month

So today was the first of August and that means I get to start my Six Items or Less challenge. I am actually looking forward to this challenge. Not only is it a great way to help break my own addiction to consumerism but it is also means less laundry! I really hate folding clothes so this will be great for me. But back to seriousness after the break.

Six items or less

Michaela recently showed me this awesome site www.sixitemsorless.com. Starting on June 21st according to the site:

... "a group of people from California to Dubai are going to take part in a little experiment: each participant gets to choose six (and only six) items of clothing and pledge to wear only these six items of clothing for a month."

What is really awesome about this is that everyone who is taking part is encouraged to share their experiences over the course of the month on the Six Items or Less blog.

For the love of stuff (part 3)

Well its been a while since my last post. It seems like the hardest part of blogging is not coming up with ideas but simply the posting of those ideas. But oh well I'm posting now.

For the love of stuff I decided to buy some more stuff. I wonder if one day that may be a commonly used curse... anyways I know I am supposed to be getting rid of stuff but there was a good reason.

My two recent purchases are a lovely new metal lunch-pail and a Amazon Kindle. Though the Kindle was actually a gift from my lovely and beautiful wife Michaela. Thank you my love!

The lunch-pail shown in the picture here will actually help me decrease the amount of stuff I have and purchase. In the past I would use plastic bags or paper bags for my lunch. Now that I have this metal lunch-pail I can stop buying and throwing away all those bags. In addition this lunch-pail is a lot more durable and will last longer then the re-usable plastic containers I used in the past.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July to all!

I know its a day early but Michaela and I are heading out to go camping today. Should be a lot of fun and I will have more posts up when we get back. Enjoy the weekend and again happy Fourth of July!

For the love of stuff (part 2)

I had meant to write this blog post a couple days ago but three flat tires and work took priority. Life has a way for throwing twists and turns into your path in even while doing the simplest things.

In my last “for the love of stuff” post I talked about how I was going to get rid of my extra stuff. I even made a pledge to get rid of 66% or two thirds of my stuff. I realized that I did not really go into why I wanted to do this. I am not crazy really I'm not!

A while back I learned a little bit about the ideas of voluntary simplicity and the transition movement. Both ideas have their differences but essentially they gravitate around the idea that we can live a life style that may have a lower traditional standard of living (in terms of gdp per capita) but will be higher in quality of life. This goes against our traditional ways of looking at the world but here goes.