Simple. Organized. Life.

A One Room Cabin & Beyond The American Dream

David — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:12:58 +0000

If how many dog-eared pages a book has after you have finished it is any indication of how good it is, Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream is amazing. I have never (and I do mean never) folded down that many corners of pages I wanted to revisit later in a single book. And in all honesty, I don’t even want to really say too much about the book because I believe you have to experience it for yourself – I don’t want to inject my interpretation of it too much and possibly spoil it for you. When I started the book, I expected nothing more than a story about a guy who lives in a 12×12 off grid cabin, which is a story I have read 100 times. But this book is not that, not at all – it is so much more and so very different than what I was expecting. It’s about growth, indecision, struggle, and joy while being full of honesty and authenticity. It is hands-down the best non-fiction book I have read this year, without a doubt. Basically, the book is about the author going to stay in an off grid cabin on 30 acres in NC which is owned by a physician who willingly lowered her salary to $11,000 – so she wouldn’t have to pay income tax and thus not fund any wars. The author, who has been a busy international activist for many years, is struggling with being a “man without a country” (I feel like this quite often) and finds the time in this cabin to evaluate his life, his lifestyle, his needs and his wants – oftentimes without expected results.

This book is so much bigger than I expected it to be, and again without giving away too much, I wanted to share a few short pieces from some of my dog-eared pages…

Solitude’s richest gift is allowing one’s own thoughts to flow, and not through mental aqueducts built by others.

Today it’s not the British Empire colonizing us, but a pervasive corporate globalism.

Walking the aisles of the organic Adams Market, I looked around and saw what I might become: a holier-than-thou progressive, carving an identity niche out of being so darn responsible.

I have helped create rainforest-protecting municipal reserves, indigenous areas, and community forests that have successfully resisted logging, mining, and industrial farming. But these efforts have been trounced by the global trend. Have I been merely rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

When I fly over the rainforest into these places, I feel the irony. Planes spew dangerous global warming gasses into the stratosphere that hasten the desertification that fuels rainforest decline.

Ironically, the more I treated my life energy as sacred and lived frugally, the more I was able to indulge myself; I could gush generously where it counted.

I could go on and on with more of my favorite passages, but you really need to read the entire book for yourself. I cannot recommend this book enough; books don’t usually affect me this much, and this one has definitely changed my viewpoint on, and my perception of, life. I plan on rereading it many times over, and will continue to fold down pages and highlight important passages for a long time to come. Thank you, Mr. Powers.

If you are looking for a book to inspire you and change you, then borrow, beg for, or buy this book – you won’t be sorry.

Originally published on The Good Human, but since I just re-read the book I wanted to share it with you guys.

Wunderlist – The Free, Syncing To-Do List App

David — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:21:46 +0000

In October of 2011 I wrote a post about the program SimpleNote, which was my note-taking application of choice. At first it only worked on my iPhone, and then they eventually added a weird work-around for syncing, but I got tired of stuff not showing up on one machine or another… so I stopped using anything at all, reverting back to either a piece of paper in the house or the Notepad app on my phone. A few months ago I put the word out to my contacts that I was looking for a new to-do app that would work flawlessly on both my laptop and my phone, and I received a few responses back. The one that caught my eye was one called Wunderlist, which is marketed as being “task management at its best”, so I decided to give it a try. It’s fantastic.

Why is it fantastic?

It’s free.
It syncs perfectly between my devices.
It’s as simple as it can possibly be.
It allows me to cross off completed items while still being able to see them.
It’s beautifully designed.
I can share lists with others.
It’s cross-platform and available for Mac, Windows, and Android devices

Here’s a snapshot of the list I was working from earlier today:

If you are looking for a desktop or mobile app to help keep you organized, you really couldn’t do much better than this one. Seriously, give your to-do list a makeover and give it a shot. You’ll dig it.

Read This. And Then Read It Again.

David — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:30:32 +0000

My friend Katie runs a site called NorCal Katie, one of a bunch of different projects she is involved in. This post from a few days ago is important and you should read it once or twice. Whenever I have doubts about making all of this work, I am reminded of my friend Katie, who has an amazing outlook on life after going through a life-altering experience.

“Being deathly sick changed my life in the most profound ways. I changed as a person, as a human living on this planet. It changed the way I think and the filter through which I see the world and act within it. It certainly clarified what I am here for on this planet. Although it drives Mountain Man nuts, I have a morbid premonition that my life won’t be all that long, or not as long as the 96 years I once projected. I think of my health issues as a nod to being alive and a constant reminder of my mortality.

When I was still at my full time corporate job, my intuition sat down next to me on my desk her legs swinging back and forth not touching the ground and said, “You need to take some time off. Do something different.”

“But what?” I asked her. “I can’t just quit my job. How will I make things work?”

She was relentless, sitting and swinging her legs all the time. “You need to do something different. You need to take some time off.” is all she would say to me. Nothing else. No advice. Just direction.

Last time I didn’t listen to her, I almost died. So yeah, I’m all ears now.

Please, check out NorCal Katie. Subscribe, comment, tell her how you feel. You won’t regret it. I know I don’t. I’m still not sure how to make this whole “freelance” thing start paying the rent, but I refuse to give up easily.

The Clock Is Running

David — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 17:02:03 +0000

I came across this the other day and thought you all would enjoy it. No idea where it came from, but worth posting for sure.

Make the most of today.

No related posts.

Vermont.

David — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:28:43 +0000

We’ve arrived. And so far, after one week, it’s everything we had imagined it could be and hoped it would be. North Bennington is a little village in the Vermont woods, with just a 175 year old coffee shop/deli/mini-mart store, a lawnmower service shop, a barber shop, and a very elegant dinner place. Oh, and there’s that little thing called Bennington College, which was founded in 1932 and has an incredible campus. Lucky kids.

The entire town is seemingly small enough to sit atop a sheet of plywood and be a decoration for a small scale train set at Christmas, if it weren’t life-size. And if you want more, you have to drive the 5-6 miles down to Bennington where the grocery stores, the old main street with shops and restaurants, and the galleries and museums are. It’s an easy drive, but it makes all the difference in the world being just a few miles up the road. It’s like being in the middle of nowhere while being surrounded by everything you need in life. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, is incredibly friendly and nice here. Too nice, at first — it’s awfully strange for everyone you pass by, everywhere you go, to say hello. Walking down the street? The people in the cars that pass you wave at you. But after a week of being here, you rather enjoy it and you know you would miss it if it weren’t going on. When the sun goes down, it’s dead quiet outside and you can see the stars forever. It’s fantastic. Hearing booming car stereos and roaring motocycles that could raise the dead are now a thing of my past.

I have mapped out our morning 3-5 mile run on picturesque dirt roads by farms and horses, and I even ran into my buddy from high school at the store the first day we were here. (I knew he lived 20 minutes up the road, but what are the chances?)

We are currently renting a furnished condo, and soon we will begin searching for a small house to rent immediately outside of “downtown” North Bennington. Am hopeful for some space to garden, some room to stretch our legs a little more, and a woodstove to warm our bones by on these cold Vermont winter nights.

The beginning of the adventure is starting off on the right foot. Can’t wait to see what’s around the corner. Simple living, it’s what’s for life.

Simplicity – It’s OK To Curate Your Life.

David — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 20:58:39 +0000

If you haven’t read this post by Matt Gemmell on his site, I suggest you go there immediately and do so. Almost every point he makes is something I have been concentrating on doing for the past 12 months, and seeing it written down by someone else kind of validates my own actions. From the post:

A major lesson I’ve learned (which I had to teach myself) is that it’s OK to cut out negative people from your life. Everyone has a right to their opinion, but people don’t have a free pass to be heard by you, particularly if their manner of expression is consistently unpleasant or unproductive.

The truth is, it’s OK to curate your life. You’re allowed to manage your interactions with people, online as well as offline. We make choices every day that limit our exposure to things (or people) that are frustrating, confusing or unpleasant – and you’re still allowed to do that even if you have an audience.

Do yourself a favor and read the entire post. Twice.

Simplicity, by Matt Gemmell.

Whoa Doggy! And Some Other News.

David — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:25:33 +0000

OK, it’s been a while. Best-laid plans don’t always work out, and my plans are no exception to this oft-cited rule. Due to a combination of a bad economy, my looking for work, and several other unmentionables, my plan to hit the road with an Airstream has been put on hold indefinitely. I know, I know. It’s not gone, it’s just… being saved for later. I realized this morning that ever since my last post in October, I have left the site rather dormant and lacking of any news or updates. Thus, this here post, just to let you guys know I am not dead and, in fact, am working on the next phase of what is truly possible, instead of what has to be put on the backburner.

For starters, I have been on the road since October. Not in the fashion that I wanted to be, but I did pack everything up and have been living in 3 different locations since then. I am currently in Florida visiting some relatives, but in just a short while I am off for my (final?) destination — Vermont. And yes, my girlfriend is still here and coming along too.

The goal is to set-up a simple, organized life in Vermont. Yes, in the middle of winter. No, I am not insane. But that’s the goal. Once I’m standing still, I hope to fill my life with writing, working, small-scale farming, honey-do lists, and some general manliness, all on a few (many?) acres of our own. Basically I will be working at keeping it simple, stupid, while also starting over from scratch. It should be fun.

So anyway, in case anyone was wondering, that’s the deal, man. After the holidays I head north in the Tacoma, to set up shop in beautiful Vermont. I hope this is where I stay for a long, long time, as I am tired of being a nomad for so long. Living out of a suitcase has its perks, but you do run out of clean socks rather quickly.

As for the Whoa Doggy!? Well, one of those is in the plans too. Along with some chickens.

Onward. 2012 looks to be an exciting here for me. Simple living, here I come. Hope you come along too.

Smartphones Can Replace These Everyday Items

David — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 23:29:47 +0000

I may have recently written about going back to a simple cellphone instead of my iPhone, but chances are I won’t be doing so anytime soon. I think it hit me the other morning when I realized just how many purposes my phone now serves for me on a daily basis. Sure, it makes calls; but it also replaces many different items I would otherwise have around cluttering up my life and my space. Off the top of my head, here are a few things that my iPhone stands in for perfectly well, enabling me to simplify my life and my belongings:

GPS unit
Kitchen timer
Compass
Radio
Stereo to play my entire music collection
Recipe Book
Map book
Notepads
Calendar
Address Book
Digital Camera
Remote Control

When you think about it that way, $199 for a device that does all that is a pretty good value. Imagine having to buy each one of those items individually? Add in the fact that I can also make calls and check email from almost anywhere and it is an astounding deal. Granted, the monthly access isn’t cheap and that’s why I am looking into switching to an Android phone on Virgin Mobile (75% less monthly cost than what I pay AT&T), but I do believe I need to stay with having some kind of smartphone for the future. What do you think? Do you use your phone to replace several everyday items, and if so what items does it replace?

Simplify and Save Money With Amazon Subscribe & Save

David — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 23:02:32 +0000

I am all about automating as much of my life as possible. My bills are paid automatically, payments are sent to my credit card automatically, and I have my Netflix queue full of at least 100 movies so that I don’t have to think about it for extended periods of time. The latest way I have discovered to simplify things around here is to start buying the standard items we constantly need via Amazon’s Subscribe & Save service.

Just this morning I signed up for yet another item to be delivered every two months automatically — a daily vitamin supplement that we both take. Each bottle contains 120 pills, which means that it lasts us two months. We had been buying it at Whole Foods at first, thinking that was the only place we could get it. Then I decided to check Amazon and wow — it was 50% less than what Whole Foods wanted me to pay. Score! Throw in the free shipping and the no taxes, and this supplement just became a lot cheaper to take every day. But wait, it gets even better — when you sign up to have a product delivered automatically on a schedule, you save an additional 15%. How great is that? What was $49.99/bottle at WF is now $21/bottle!

Not every product is available in the Subscribe & Save section of Amazon’s site, but there are a ton of things in there that chances are you buy on a regular basis at your regular grocery store. Once you sign up, you select how often you want the item delivered and you are billed automatically each time it ships. I mark each delivery date on my calendar so I can skip, move, or delete a delivery of something I may not need right away, but usually the few things I do buy from them come right on time as I am running out. You can cancel at any time, but once you find out how much this helps to simplify part of your life, chances are you won’t. It certainly has made my life a little easier as I no longer have to worry about going without of some of our household standards!

John’s Phone: A Beautiful, No-Nonsense Mobile Phone

David — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:03:40 +0000

No more internet. No more email. No more texts. John’s Phone does what a mobile used to do (and rarely does now, if you own an iPhone like I do) perfectly fine — make phone calls. Self-proclaimed as “the world’s most simple phone”, it has no frills and no unnecessary features such as a camera, text messaging and an endless number of ringtones. You call, you hang up, and that’s it. It is a no-contract cell phone that is compatible with any type of SIM card. The phone has a standby time of more than 3 weeks, and the back of the phone features a small opening with an address book and pen.

While I certainly appreciate all I can do with my iPhone, I also wonder if I could get by with a phone that does what a mobile phone was initially designed to do. In today’s busy, always-on, always-connected world, I dig what John’s Phone has come up with. Priced at 79,95 euros, or about $114 US dollars as of this writing, I would be lying if I wasn’t tempted to try one out. If you are (or have been) looking for a mobile phone that just makes calls and that’s it, you might want to check these out. Priced right and beautifully designed, I think if word gets out about them they could sell a ton.