Santa's Workshop

Well we are 2 weeks away from Christmas and I have a new appreciation for Elves... We have made a handful of gifts and have an arm load left to go. Somehow putting little green pants and hats on Dane and Elias hasn't translated into faster gift making. It worked for Santa. Oh well. It has been a great experience of being creative, learning new things and playing on our strengths to make and create gifts worthy of giving. But, I will say the gift I have made for Carissa is probably the gift I am most excited to give this year. Not only that but it is probably the most excited I have been to give her a gift in 6 years of marriage. So stay tuned to a post Christmas post where I can show you all what it was. It is a lot of work. But it has been really enjoyable. We will be sitting in our basement as a family again tonight huddled around the sewing machine and power tools as we continue to create gifts!

The best part about this Christmas for me though... is not having to go to the MALL! YEAH! Christmas shopping is my nemesis.

-Jason

Dueck's 1 - Sophie 0

I have been having a debate in my head for a few weeks now... I have been wanting a Sophie giraffe for our youngest son. He is teething and biting on his fingers all the time. I thought he needed a nice little friend to chew on. I have been trying to find ways to justify getting this little critter for him... first of all I could consider it a safety item, kinda like a soother... totally a need. Also, he seems to be in pain and this could really help. And this is the kicker, we have a gift card, from his baby shower. I SHOULD be allowed to spend this, right?

So today I broke down and went to the mall. We made it a family affair. And I was excited. I walked into Toys R Us and was bombarded with the Christmas wish list items everywhere around me. All of the sudden there were a few other things other than Sophie that I maybe should look at? No, we stayed on course. Just in and out, hopefully nobody would see us and ask what we were buying :-)

We found Sophie for $23.99. She was $3.99 over our gift certificate amount. We stood by the shelf staring trying to decide. There was this other toy that was only $17.99 that we could get instead. It wasn't really what we wanted but maybe it would work, ya it could work.... NO we didn't want it we wanted Sophie. Jason asked, "Is this really what you want to cheat on this year?" A chew toy? Is that how we were gonna go down? with a chew toy? Everything in me wanted that silly chew toy, but I quickly said NO let's get out of here before I change my mind. And we fled!

We walked over to a store that gives kids hangers for free if you ask, but they didn't have any. On our way back we walked past Sophie again. I will say that the erg to pick her up and re-consider was still there. I was hoping Jason would have a moment of weakness, but he didn't and I had to follow his lead. He got in the car and said I'm proud of us. It took me a few more minutes to have the same joy. But tonight I am happy... the score remains Dueck's 1 - Sophie 0!

Realizations

Wow. Carissa and I drove down the same street in Calgary on the same day and came to the same feelings without knowing about the other person's thoughts. We were driving down 32nd Ave, past Barlow TR in the NE in Calgary and the streets were filled with businesses. Not typical for Calgary, I know... (sarcasm). But it felt different because there were no services or needs being met it was all toys-r-us, Pet Cetera, expensive furniture, office supplies kinda stuff, and everyone had their sweet neon sign out front telling me why they are worth coming in and buying things from. Like... "20% off all of the time!" ... so why not just make your prices lower instead of being in a constant state of SALE! Anyway, I know I am just rambling, and I don't have anything revolutionary to say other than CINCO DE MAYO! but we'll save that for May 5th. It was just crazy to think about because I had never thought twice about it. Hope you are all enjoying your day.

Halloween

First of all, happy halloween? I think it gets more terrifying every year. Hah, I thought it'd be funny to say to someone when they said, "Happy Halloween" to reply, "Happy? Did you see all the body parts and ghosts everywhere? It is a little more terrifying than happy" Anyways, maybe thats just me that thinks its funny, regardless our boys were happy to have candy. Carissa was busy, and this time I helped, Dane got a hand-me-down costume of an owl or baby eagle or something with wings. And Elias got to dress up in a home made SHARK constume!! and was he scary, anyways, heres a pic of the shark costume.

In other news, our simplified life has been going great! We are loving the new found time and freedom, not to mention the saved money is a nice added bonus. We were in the mall for some reason, unrelated to buying, and as we left we both thought, wow that was easy, I had no urge to look even. Stay tuned for more exciting developments.

Flyer bomb

Well, some realities set in today. I was fishing on the weekend (I don't get out a whole lot) but I was on the Bow river in Calgary trying it out. First few casts my brother caught a nice rainbow trout. We thought we were in for a good day. 4 hours later nothing else. As we were starting to pack up some other guys came down to the river where we were fishing. They were fly fishing, and they caught about 7 fish in 10 minutes. My brother, dad and I all looked at eachother and said we need to learn to fly fish.

Where is this story going... I can't get a fly fishing rod for a year at least. That is the first problem, 2nd problem is that since then my mail box has been bombarded with Bass Pro flyers, which I never read, but have had a strange desire to take a good long week. I even found myself searching online to see what I would like. Anyway, I guess I will have to learn to catch trout without a fly rod, but the fish was delicious. Until next time.

Robot Creation

I feel like these days I have much more time on my hands. I have found that I ask myself "hey should I be stopping somewhere?" hoping that I might have a reason, but I don't and I found that I like it! Instead I am coming home and it is good. I have more time to do the things I really want to do and need to do. I haven't been so behindin the day to day chores of life and I feel like I have much more time to spend with my family doing new activities instead of shopping at the mall.

Like Jason said we had a birthday party for a little friend of Dane's, so I decided to make him a Robot. I was happy to find that I had everything I needed in my sewing box. It was fun to create.

Bad blogger

Well, I am realizing one thing through all of this... I am a bad blogger. Anyway, here we are and it is October 12th. We are 12 days into this adventure and its been fun. I had my first eye opener... I had to go get some groceries, while wandering through the store I found myself thinking, ooh that's nice, I should get it. Or, Dane could use a new little t-shirt, I like that one. Suddenly it hit me how well I am trained to shop. It was a shocking yet good realization.

Today is the big grocery shop for the week, Carissa is out braving the store with 2 little boys, We will see if she returns triumphant. I am supposed to be off to a meeting, but there has been a mix up with keys and I am stuck at home waiting until she returns.

We also had our first experience of going to a birthday and having had to have planned a head, since we couldn't stop on the way and grab a gift, gift bag and card. I'll let Carissa post the gift idea and the result. I thought it turned out great! It was for one of Dane's little friends. I think he liked it. Anyway, back to being productive.

4 days in

Well, either you all thought we failed to begin or we died when Oct 1st happened. Neither are true. In fact, things are going well. We are underway... Carissa is upstairs in the kitchen blending all our tomato bounty from the garden into delicious soup for the next while.

We are excited right now, and the urge to spend has not reared its ugly head yet, though a few days before it was definitely tempting to go out and get a couple things, which we did not. However, we spent the weekend in Chilliwack, BC with family and I brought home some fresh salmon from the river. That was some fun fishing! It wasn't my catch though. Anyways, we are excited about this next year, there is no turning back now. We are all in.

Reality setting in...

Well, here we are 4 days away from the launch date. We have finished all the birthday festivities for our 2 year old (as of today) and we are starting to think, uh oh... no more new stuff... do we need anything? We have 4 days left how many stores can we hit before we can't anymore. Well actually we found ourselves in the mall a couple of days ago and I said, "I am not going to miss this place"... Well at least that's what I said then. We'll see a month from now, or even a couple days in. We want what we can't have. Hopefully I will be able to break that habit. Carissa's cake turned out great despite the upset stomach, here's a peak:

Dane and the kids loved it. The parents weren't sold on us giving it to their kids... It was a great day. Excited about what is creeping closer and closer. Oct 1 is coming quick, the adventure is imminent.

Cake Shananigans!

The countdown is on but I feel like we have already begun. I went to the grocery store tonight to pick up a few items to make a cake for Dane's birthday. I stood and stared at the cashier after she told me my total was $77 something.... WHAT? I felt like I might throw up. I didn't know what to do so I sheepishly handed over the old MC and headed out the door with my cake mix and candy. How often has this happened to me, where I walk out of the grocery store with a bag full of junk. Don't get me wrong... I love the junk and my little boy is worth every penny and more but could I show him in a different more meaningful way? I know I can. I need to.

- Carissa

Carissa walked through the door after grocery shopping, and I thought she was going to fall over or something. She looked absolutely stunned... I asked her what was up to which she replied, "I spent $70 on a birthday cake, I feel sick to my stomach" As we searched the bag we realized there was a little more to it than that. Eggs, vitamins, milk, yogourt, and some baby needs, wipes etc... So it wasn't all cake, but either way it definitely showed us how quickly wants add up. Quite an eye opener. Looks like we will have a lot to learn.

-Jason

9 days...

Lately we have been challenged to think of what life could look like if it were simpler. Books, conversations, and the desire for a more meaningful life have brought us to these questions. What would we do with ourselves if we weren't frequenting the malls, or taste testing the newest Boston Pizza menu? Could we cut out shopping, and live Simply? What would THAT look like? We don't know but we have decided that this year we will find out.

A couple years ago we read an article about a family of 6 who lived on $35,000/year, you can read the article here. This inspired us, but not enough to launch us into action. Perhaps we were not ready or more likely not willing to make the necessary changes to live simpler.

This year a new friend of mine told me about a year long journey she took with her family of living a "compact life". They took a compact to take a year off of shopping. You can read about their experience here. Their experiment trigger more interest and inspiration in our lives but still not enough to push us out of our comfort zone.

I then read the book "Eat, Pray, Love" and was challenged to live a more disciplined life. Thinking of discipline, I picked up a book that I have read before "Celebration of Discipline" by Richard J. Foster and began to seriously consider a simpler life.

My husband was also on his own journey. Mounting external stresses and the realities of having a job relying on fundraising to get paid had begun to take its tole. He began to talk about the need to buckle down on spending and simplify life for the sake of our family. He was given the book "Freedom of Simplicity" to read. Funny, it is also by Richard J. Foster. We began to talk about what this Disciplined Simple Life might look like.

This is what our next year will look like:

Disciplined and Simple. We have decided to take a year off of shopping.

To take a year to separate needs from wants.

To learn to be creative and resourceful.

To make our relationships more meaningful.

To be generous with what we have been given.

To save money.

To be good stewards.

To grow in our faith.

It is our hope that as we tune out our desire to consume we will tune in our desire to be consumed by Christ. We hope that this experiment will remove distractions in our lives and allow us to live a more centered, meaningful, simpler life.

Feel free to follow us in our 365 day journey. We will begin in 9 days, October 1st.