I’ve been reading (and writing) a lot about this lately.  There are blogs galore of people trying to achieve a simple existence, me included.

I feel like I’ve accumulated more stuff, simply because all those around me have and because it’s something I’m supposed to do as I get older.  I still sometimes feel like my house is less ‘grown up’ compared to others since I prefer to keep ours more basic and sparse.

Even typing that though I feel like a phony when I compare our life now and the amount of stuff we have compared to when we lived in Australia.

We lived in a two bedroom (one was more like a half bedroom since only a single bed would fit in there), one bath, furnished flat.  You want to talk about some ugly furniture!?  But, we didn’t really care.  It came with the flat.  We bought a desk and a computer and a bookshelf.  I think that’s it.  My husband’s family gave us some kitchenware, but nothing fancy by any stretch.  There was one closet in our bedroom for the whole unit.  And we didn’t need anything more either.  We just didn’t have a lot of stuff.

And I really don’t even remember cleaning that place.  I know I did, mind you.  I just think the time it took was so negligible that I don’t remember doing it.

Hence we had a lot of time just to do whatever!  Of course, we didn’t have kids either.  But, that’s a whole other level of stuff that just needs a separate post!

Whether you are de-cluttering or downsizing or cutting out more extra-curricular activities or dumping debt, everybody seems to be wanting “the simple life”.

However, ’simple life’ means something different to each person.

To some people is means getting back to basics like baking your own own bread and making your own cleaners.  Vinegar and baking soda anyone?

To some people or families it means selling (or at least storing) most everything to live in an RV.  Or to some it means paring down to the bare essentials!

There are those who create household management notebooks, which seem like a fabulous idea if I ever actually did it or followed it.

Some are slowing getting rid of childhood collections or selling nearly everything for a new adventure.

For me, being a stay at home Mom keeps our routine simpler.  Also being debt-free as we have less to worry about.  And finally, our attempt to get rid of extraneous stuff is starting to pay off.  The house is slowly but surely becoming easier to manage and to clean

Sometimes I fantasize about moving back to Australia simply so I will be forced to get rid of stuff and start over.  Weird, I know.

What kinds of things do you do to create a simpler life?

Well, the title says it all.  It’s one minute to 10pm on Sunday night and I’m typing this post.  I’m tired and need to go to bed to face another week.

And here is the part where I give you my excuse.  Frankly (and sorry if this is too much information), I was having boob issues.  Mastitis to be exact.  And, if you are a breastfeeding mother and have never had this, trust me, you don’t want to…ever.  I started to get on Friday for the second time this month as I’m trying to wean my almost 11 month old who has insisted on only eating off one side for months.  He was starting to wean himself, which is how I got it the first time, but then on Thursday I must have skipped one too many feedings because on Friday I felt like total shit.  Like I had the flu.  Friday night was even worse.  I finally fell asleep after lying there for HOURS in misery, only to wake up drenched in sweat at about 4am to Little C’s cries.  Lovely.

But, then Saturday morning I felt pretty good.  My body does really well (knock on wood) to fight off illness.  Took it easy though just the same.  I think I’ve got him down to two feedings now, in the morning and before bed.  All of the other times he had started to bite me, so those were taken away.  Sorry baby…no biting allowed!

Hence my not posting since Thursday, or whenever it was.

But, I have a couple of articles that I think are pretty cool that I wanted to share.

Veggie Terrain has a great post all about smoothies.  My son loves it when I make smoothies and I always have to share mine with him.  So, I’m always looking for new ways to make them super healthy to get some extra vitamins and nutrients into his picky little stomach.  She has a lot of other great veggie recipes too, so have a look around her blog.

Yesterday my hubby and I were talking about how well we do minimizing our garbage, but we’ve got nothing on this couple at Rubbish Free Year, who limit theirs to only one very small rubbish bag per year!  Granted, we are convinced they can do it because they don’t have kids, but it’s still amazing and we could all learn a thing or two for sure!

On another note, we took our oldest son to see Up this weekend.  It’s a lovely movie with some very valuable life lessons.  I just loved it.  After all of my travels and my desire to see so much more of the world, it’s a good reminder for me that I don’t need to leave my city or even my backyard to make wonderful memories for my children.  Some of my most wonderful memories are, just like Russell said in the movie, the “boring” ones.  So sweet.

It was a sad week too, with the passing of Michael Jackson and don’t let’s forget Farrah Fawcett.  I feel she sort of got lost in the shuffle and shadow of Michael Jackson even though so many had been following her illness and documentary.  I had a Farrah Fawcett glamor head as a girl that I put makeup on and did her hair.  Hilarious.  She was as much of an icon to me as MJ was, for sure.  Although I have been singing, Wanna Be Startin’ Something all weekend.

Did you read anything great over the last week or weekend?  If so, tell me about it.  Or maybe you have tips on weaning…hey, I’ll take it all.

There has been a lot of Q&A happening around the blogosphere in the realm of Location Independence Living.

This has always been an interest of mine.  I love travel and feel cheated compared to the rest of the world with the measly of amount time off each year that US employees blindly accept.

I used to think about this a lot when I was working and how “there must be something better” than what seemed like the drudgery of the same thing day in and day out.  Just waiting until I could get the time off for a vacation or dreaming about a possible early retirement if I saved my pennies.

I realize now after reading, Free Pursuits’ article on the 5 Categories of Life Plans, that I was a ‘Deferred Lifer’ though I didn’t want to be.

The article states that the, “characteristics of this plan include a job with a modest salary or hourly wage, little vacation time and little control over how, when and where you work.”  He goes on to say that, “people who follow this plan focus quite a bit on their retirement options and look forward to that magic age (usually somewhere between 55 and 68) when they can enjoy life without working.”

I know that not everyone views their days and their work this way, but I always did.  It’s not to say that I hated my jobs, because I didn’t.  I always looked to find something to enjoy about my job and my days.  But, working the 9-5 grind was never a dream of mine and it still isn’t.  I love to work and even more so, to earn money.  I just prefer it to be more on my own terms.

Since our family is a dual nation one, it’s a dream of mine to become more location independent in terms of how we earn our living so we will have more flexibility with visiting family.

At my husband’s workplace, where he works in IT, they are about to launch a new work-from-home program where certain employees can choose to work 1 or 2 (or even more) days from home.  You are supposed to have a dedicated office in order to do this, of which we do not.

So, a dedicated office space (with a closed door) is now something that we are adding to our list of considerations when deciding whether or not to move or renovate in the next 2 to 3 years, in order to foster our working towards a more location independent lifestyle.   Once you can prove to your employer that you can successfully do your work outside of the office, it is much easier to then take it on the road with you as well.

Does all of this sound interesting to you too?  Here are some GREAT blogs with all sorts of things to get your thinking….or dreaming.

Location Independant has a great Q&A article with advice from all sorts of Location Independent People (LIP).  The article also mentions some great LIP who have families.  And, since we have two boys, this is of great interest to me.

There is a lot more to consider when you have kids.  The blogs they mention are Tumblewagon and Soultravelers3 (read their great Q&A post as well).  Soultravelers3 also has a great list of blogs of traveling families in their links section, though many seem to be done with their journeys.

Their seem to be quite a few families who save up financially to travel for a fixed period of time, but not as many who are more nomadic and work as they travel.

I would like to read more about those who work as they travel and how exactly they do this.   More about what type of work they are doing.  I like to read what others are doing because it helps me to think outside the box and stretch my idea of what is possible for us.

For a good start, Free Pursuits has a great list from the survey they conducted listing 64 Ways Location Independent People Earn A Living.  Fantastic list, though I don’t know what some of the jobs are.  I believe he’s planning on writing more about his survey results and go more in depth, which should be interesting.

For those who don’t really want to be nomadic, but who just long for more flexibility in where they do their job (ie don’t want to be tied to an office), Muselife has an article about helping to arrange this within your current job that is quite good.

Then of course, one of the masters of Location Independence, Tim Ferris, and his book and website, The 4-Hour Workweek, is also a great read.  Not practical for most of us, but a lot of good tips in there for efficiency.

You can also find even more info by following the #LIP tag on Twitter.

Do you dream of being location independent?  If so, what are you doing to get there?  Or maybe you already are?  If so, share your secrets!

There are some great things going on in the blogosphere right now, travel-wise.  So, I thought I would feature some of them.  Summer is often the time for travel, after all.  Of course, we probably won’t be going anywhere because of our Christmas trip to Australia, but hopefully we will at least get a camping weekend in sometime!

Travel full-time for less than $14,000 per year at I Will Teach You To Be Rich – a TON of great tips.  A lot easier to do if you are childless, for sure, but there are a lot of families who do it.  I would love to do it for six months to a year and maybe one day when the boys get older we will.  I will definitely be revisiting this post for some great reminders if we do!

Baker at Man vs. Debt, who I’m pretty sure is either in, or on his way, to Australia now wrote 27 Last Minute Considerations Before Moving Across the World.  This family has guts and I love it.  They have ditched most of what they own and are taking a couple of backpacks and their little daughter and moving to Australia, without a work visa.   He’s written a great list of what to consider when you make a move like this.  I wish you luck, mate.

Travel around your own city and your kids  (age 5-12) can earn a prize (if you state participates) with REI’s Passport to Adventure!  Even if your state/town doesn’t participate, you could download their online journal and create your own passport to adventure and your own rules and prizes for your kids.  What a great way to kill boredom this summer!

I like this post asking readers what their dream lifestyle is on Moving To Portugal.  It’s an old post, but since I’m always thinking about what “my dream” is and trying to get my husband to figure out what his is (how can you not know??!!), it resonated with me.  My dream lifestyle is to have our mortgage paid off and to have employment flexibility to be able to travel more and visit Australia for longer periods (or vice versa if we moved back to Oz).  But I would love to take our boys to Edinburgh, where my hubby and I met and loads of other places.

Do you know of a great expat blog that I should check out?  Or seen a great post on travel lately?  Please let me know so I can check it out.

I had a wonderful weekend.  Went to visit my parents on Saturday morning to give my Dad his birthday present, which consisted of goodies and liquor.  He loves it when I get him exotic goodies and some cool bottle of something he wouldn’t think to buy himself.  We got him some Sangria from Spain, which is great over ice in hot weather.

Saturday afternoon we went to a party at a friend’s house.  It was pretty fun.  Though parties where you take your kids are just not quite the same as parties in our younger days, are they?

You can’t drink too much, always have to keep an eye on where your kid is, make sure they eat something decent so they don’t have a total meltdown because of all the sugary drinks and snacks your host has on offer, and leave to put them to bed before the real partying starts.  Oh well, I can’t party like I used to anyway.  I get tired and want to get into my pajamas and watch a movie.  How sad am I?

Sunday I went to lunch and on a garden tour of 9 beautiful gardens with my Mom…my Mother’s Day gift to her.  We had a lovely time.  Some of the gardens had little treats, like strawberries and champagne, tea punch and cookies, a plant sale, and several had music.  It was a beautiful day and I got loads of new ideas for my own landscaping.

I managed to get a bit of reading in too, but mostly this is what I liked from last week.  Enjoy!

First of all, Christian PF is running a contest giving away a Nintendo Wii and an Ipod Nano.  You blog about the contest to get in the running for the Wii and twitter about the Ipod Nano.  Well, I twittered…and now I’ve blogged.  Fingers crossed!  I would LOVE to win the Wii so I could get the Wii Fit package to help with goal to get back in shape.

The Happiness Project has a great interview with Alex Fayle from another of my fave blogs, Someday Syndrome, titled Decide To Be Happier NOW, Not Someday.  This post really resonated with me.  I had recently read a quote somewhere about this very thing.  About how if you can’t be happy where you are NOW, what makes you think you will be happy somewhere else.

I am very guilty of this…thinking, “I will be happier when…”.  This is something I have been working on for the last few years actually and I have found myself to be more content and happier than I have ever been.

I love food blogs too.  I don’t ever really cook much of what I find on them, but reading them and looking at the food photos is pure eye candy.  I love Cookie Madness.  She has a lot of yummy recipes on her blog!

She just posted her version of a Wheat Free, Vegan, Chocolate Chip Cookie that looks pretty darn good.  I have a soft spot for allergen-free recipes, so I like to post good looking ones when I see them.  Although for true allergen free, I would leave out the nuts, use Smart Balance butter and Enjoy Life chocolate chips.

I have also recently stumbled onto another expat blog that I’m having a lot of fun looking around.  It’s called Making This Home.  Katie (American) and Martin (German) live between America and Germany.  They are currently living in the US in this cool tire house.  Katie writes about all sorts of cool things pertaining to green living, which I love.  She is very crafty at being green too!!

I was also honored to be listed in two roundups this week.  Both Man vs. Debt and The Centsible Life featured two of my articles in their weekend reading round-ups! I read both of these blogs, so I was really pleased to find they enjoyed my articles.

Well, that’s all I’ve got for now.  I’m still looking for some new blogs to read, so feel free to leave any ideas of great stuff you’ve read lately.