Simplifying the Simple Life

Super bowl super fail

(There is no photo. For a good reason.)

-By Lisa

The Stealers weren’t the only losers on Sunday, there was a much more spectacular fail in my house: vegan cheese.

I am vegetarian - not vegan - and Husband is an omnivore, but we've both been trying to cut back on dairy. It doesn't tend to agree with him and I am easing into the Clean diet by cutting down on certain categories.

While I am not the football fan that Husband is, I love Super Bowl Sunday because I adore any kind of celebratory event. I enjoy spending most of the day in the kitchen preparing festive foods. (The fact that he watches football while I cook is certainly 1950s housewife cringe-worthy, but we are both happy so I ignore that part.) I like to make foods that are good football fare but with a healthier twist.

We snacked and pre-gamed for most of the day, and it was lovely. The fried tofu sticks (like mozzarella sticks, but made from tofu) went over like gangbusters. Then it was time for the vegan pizza with a "cheese substitute." It all looked so acceptable; I never would have guessed what was to come. Husband took one bite, gagged, and rushed his plate back to the kitchen.

“I…I can’t eat that.”

Now, this, dear readers, is a shocking phrase. I’ve been with this man for a decade. I’ve never heard him utter these words. This guy will not only clean his plate, but everyone else’s at the table. He studied in China and his American classmates always went to him with their “eat this and tell me what it is” requests.

“Please,” he begged, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I really can’t look at it.”

That was the end of the vegan cheese. Turns out that cheese made from tapioca (which I just learned is the starch extracted from the root of a cassava or yucca plant) does not fly around here. Personally, while I was able to lay eyes on the stuff, I did find the texture to be odd. It might be an acquired taste thing, though, likely not for him.

It makes me wonder about all the things pretending to be other things. Like fake meat products, fake cheese products…is it all a little too manufactured? Might we be better off just eating real things than accepting substitutes for the things we don’t want to eat? Or maybe I just haven’t found the right alternatives?

Any opinions out there? Do you have a favorite fake bacon or do you think textured soy protein is the work of the devil?

For more from Lisa, check out www.justherejustnow.com

Simply good work: Tyler Spencer & The Grassroot Project

-By Lisa

When I began simplifying, I found there to be an almost automatic reordering of my priorities and values. I moved away from consumerism and gravitated towards minimizing my negative impact on the world and increasing my positive influence.

But becoming aware and waking up to life can be glairing. There is so much bad news in the world, so many people are pointing fingers and highlighting the problems that it is easy to wallow in the muck. I am not saying we should minimize the injustices in the world, rather, I think it is important to notice the folks who are doing good work – so the rest of us can gain inspiration and hope from their journey and be reassured that one person really can make a difference.

One of these people is Tyler Spencer.

Tyler is a University of Virginia alum who graduated in 2008. During his time at UVA he spent two summers volunteering in South Africa, setting up HIV prevention programs in diamond mining communities. Tyler did an incredibly valuable thing with those trips: he absorbed the experience of another culture and used that understanding to improve life where he lives.

And so The Grassroot Project was born.

Tyler knew that HIV was a significant issue in Washington, DC-- with a staggering 1 out of 20 adults having the virus-- and he realized the sports-focused curriculum he used in South Africa could be adapted to fit the specific needs of DC youth. Tyler is a sports enthusiast and he uses that to guide the work he does, “I am a very competitive person…growing up, I channeled that through sports, but now I love applying that edge to a cause that is so much greater.” 

Being just a couple years out of undergrad and founding your own non-profit can be a tad hectic. Add to that his recently earned Rhodes scholarship and plans to study at Oxford -- and the guy has a full plate. But Tyler’s passion both motivates him and gives him a chance to slow down, “sports have always been my way of changing pace. I am really looking forward to going back to rowing while at Oxford.”

This year, Tyler launched the Team Up campaign, a sports-based HIV/AIDS education program uniting 15 at risk youth in Washington, DC and Soweto, South Africa. Each student in DC was partnered with a teammate in Soweto, and for six weeks they participated in the same program. The campaign culminated in June 2010 with a ten day trip to South Africa where the teammates were united. The partners participated in an AIDS awareness event and even attended a World Cup Soccer match. “To be able to see our kids from DC interact with South African kids their own age—who are facing many of the same struggles as they are—was unbelievably powerful.”

As with any complicated global problem one of the biggest obstacles to change is apathy. “The more you learn about any given issue, the more insignificant you can feel. For me, I’ve always continued doing public service because I genuinely enjoy it, and I feel that if people just quit when they get frustrated and discouraged, the problems we are working to alleviate will only get worse.” So Tyler focuses on the reciprocity between his organization and the kids he works with and keeps a clear goal in mind, “I simplify my approach by just trying to constantly remind myself that listening and responding to our youth is going to be the most important thing in making any gains in HIV prevention.”

So, what’s next? Closing the loop. Contingent on funding, he hopes to bring some of the kids from Soweto to visit the US.

 “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” –Dr. Seuss

We know it might seem silly to have a quote from Dr. Seuss be the mantra for your website, but we are true believers in it. The issues – about how to deal with everything ranging from HFCS to HIV, childhood obesity to global hunger -- are complicated. But, as Tyler found, when you can break it all down to a simpler answer that is manageable and effective – that’s where we make a real change.

If you want to know more about Tyler and his organization, check out the Grassroot Project website, and the Team Up blog that the kids wrote about their visit to the World Cup in South Africa.

For more from Lisa, check out www.justherejustnow.com

Simply Stupid Award: Target’s back-to-school advertising

By Katherine

I had a root canal last week.

That’s apropos of nothing related to this post or Simplifying the Simple Life, really.

I could make a tortured connection.  At first when I woke up with unbelievable pain and a gray tooth, I thought, this must be from the overnight grinding and clenching I’ve suffered since I was a stressed-out law student and then a stressed out-lawyer. But no. The dentist tells me my dead tooth likely was due to a decades-old traumatic tooth injury—a school bus accident when I was a six.

Oh, I definitely have dental work to blame on my old lifestyle: prematurely receding gums from all that stress-induced grinding that will require me to have grafts done in the next year.

But the root canal just put me in a cranky mood. I feel capable only of complaining, which is why I’m giving out STSL’s second Simply Stupid Award. This time it’s to mega discount department store chain Target for shameless coopting of a really great song children’s song for a really obnoxious back-to-school marketing blitz.

The TV commercial to which I’m referring shows three androgynous kids, first drab in parochial-school-like uniforms and then transformed into jubilant, excited students as they slowly don more colorful, new clothes and accessories presumably purchased at Target. All the while, the song “Free to Be You and Me” is playing in the background.

Particularly if you grew up in the 1970s or 1980s (and especially if you’re a former theater camp kid, like me), you know this song and Marlo Thomas’ cultish show and album of the same name. It features famous folks such as Mel Brooks and Harry Belafonte writing and performing various songs, skits and comedy sketches with the purpose of empowering children to reject socially-constructed gender stereotypes and achieve self-esteem and self-determination.

Free to Be You and Me recently celebrated its 35th anniversary with a newly illustrated storybook and songbook. It makes a great gift for the children (and 30-something former theater camp kids) in your life.

But boo on whomever owns the rights to this stuff and sold out Thomas' original message of tolerance and individuality to a corporate behemoth not only bent on selling us and our kids a bunch of ubiquitous, branded clothing made in China, but also having us believe it’s somehow liberating.

Not since Nike exploited The Beatles’ peaceful, countercultural anthem “Revolution” in 1987 to sell Air Jordans has corporate misappropriation of artful, meaningful music for a marketing campaign seemed so, well, inappropriate.  (Incidentally, Michael Jackson, who owned the rights to "Revolution" and much of The Beatles songbook at the time and made the deal with Nike, performed as a young man on the original "Free to Be You and Me" album.)

I know this stuff is par for the course these days. Every time I turn around, there’s some great rock song from the 1970s helping to hawk new gas-guzzling SUVs on TV. The irony of this music having been composed during the decade of the last major oil crisis—a time when the United States should have started nipping its unsustainable consumption of oil in the bud—can not be lost on everyone.

But this blatantly hypocritical marketing to kids is really hard to swallow, root canal or not.

Shame on you Target.

 

Reconciling luxuries with simple living

By Katherine

Thanks to a doting grandma who sat with our other kid and a reasonably-priced, midweek dinner and room package at the Clifton Inn, Husband and I had the good fortune to enjoy a “babymoon” earlier this week.

If you don’t speak parenthood, a babymoon is when you and your spouse/co-parent escape from baby prep mania for a bit before the big delivery day to remember why you made a baby in the first place.

You hold hands and stare into each other’s eyes, making mental notes of what they look like without the bulging red blood vessels and dark black circles. This is so you can recognize each other later, when you bump heads in the middle of the night doing the nursing-to-diaper-changing-to-swaddling-and-“shushing” handoff routine.

You enjoy one of your last uninterrupted meals and nights of sleep and try really hard not to discuss baby at all. You opt instead to focus on solidifying the foundations of your marriage/partnership, because you might not see each other coherent for quite a while.

Our one night away was glorious, but not guilt free. Though reasonable in a relative sort of way, the infinity pool floating, afternoon tea and pastries, three-course meal and gourmet breakfast seemed far more decadent than our current simple life budget should allow.

But it reminded me of a very reassuring post I read the other day on The Frugal Dad about "intentional spending."

If you’re trying to live a saner, simpler and less resource-sucking life—the kind of existence that gets you off the hamster wheel of making more money so you can spend more money—you can still have your cakes and eat them too. You just need to prioritize the right cakes.

These are the ones that truly make you happy, feed your soul and don’t riddle you with the kind of debt that comes from trying to keep up with mainstream measures of success and our out-of-control consumer culture that leads us to believe buying late model vehicles and participating in retail therapy is patriotic. 

For my family, it’s all about experiences: exotic travels; the occasional fancy dinner out; bottles of wine enjoyed while listening to newly downloaded music; concerts and cultural events (all in moderation, of course). 

These are the luxuries I save for while skimping on things I don’t care about—the latest electronics, designer handbags and jewelry. 

(If it’s the opposite for you, well more power to you and your plasma. Actually, I take that back—plasmas are terrible for the environment. If you’re about stuff, then indulge in a Prada handbag instead. First, though, you might want to review the latest scientific research on the issue of happiness and experiences versus material possessions.)

This partaking of more mindful morsels of cake is a work-in-progress for me. I used to be one of those people who felt I deserved new stuff after slaving away at the office. After years of frivolous, careless spending with no kids and dual income more than double our current intake, Husband and I still struggle with the budgeting part, but these posts, blogs and books help:

Budgeting - getting it all together

Frugal for Life

Your Money or Your Life 

At least I have my priorities straight now: I avoid window shopping. I borrow or buy secondhand whenever I can, and I concentrate on enjoying the extra time I’ve built into my new, simplified life. Time really is the ultimate luxury (that and a few weekly bottles of wine.)