About 2 weeks ago the world started to change for me. With news of the coronavirus spreading, the cancellations started pouring in. First it was Cincinnati’s annual dance extravaganza, PigTown Fling, then the NCAA basketball tournament. These were sad but not life changing. Then meetings and talks I had scheduled started to be cancelled. Too […]
Living Lightly
Susan Vogt on living more simply but abundantlyBrowsing Posts in Days 365+
Now that ⅓ of Lent is over here are my successes, failures, and 4 lessons I’ve learned. My commitment was to do a daily act of kindness to another person, creation, or myself, i.e Just Kindness. I organized my actions into the following categories. Here’s what happened: Eat a vegetarian diet – This was successful […]
I’ve spent a week pondering how to make this coming Lent count. It has not been a quick or easy discernment. (That’s why last week’s blog was on 6 simple environmental tips. I wanted to share simple stuff before starting on a more rigorous routine.) Are you ready for Lent 2020? In addition to my […]
Life has been busy with little time to devote to serious possession pruning or recycling. My current volunteer priorities of environmental work and addressing the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church have been time consuming. Still, I’d like to share 6 more simple life tips before we plunge into Lent next week. Reduce Paper […]
Sometimes Living more Lightly is short and simple. Of course there are other times when it takes more time than I would like and feels complicated. This week I’ve had a little of both. Simple: Over the Christmas holidays we had a lot of guests. One of our guests treated us to a number of […]
It has been 10 years since I started my Living Lightly blog (Feb. 2010) and I’ve given you all a lot of words. In the spirit of decade reviews, I’m offering you a summary of highlights for those who might feel overwhelmed by looking at even my curated list of posts in the right column. […]
The joy of Christmas is too often accompanied by over-consumption of presents and plastics. Neither is good for the soul. Over the years I’ve written a number of blogs on simplifying Christmas. Click here to review some of them. This year I offer you Joshua Becker’s list of How to Restore Gift Giving Sanity. BUT, […]
As we approach the “giving” aka “buying” season of December, my mind turns to a pet peeve – excessive and deceptive Advertising. For example: Specialized dog biscuits geared to cure your dog of halitosis. Really? I love dogs but this seems over the top. Toothpaste boxes that show a huge swirl of toothpaste overflowing the […]
My life has been busy lately. My guess is so has yours. Presumably we are both busy about important meaningful responsibilities. That makes searching for convenient, quicker ways to do things attractive. I get that and I’m a consumer of convenience – to a point. But then there is the dilemma that conscientious consumers face […]
What is kenosis and what does it have to do with living lightly? Theologically speaking kenosis is the act of self-emptying in order to become entirely receptive to God’s divine will. So, what’s this got to do with Living Lightly? I started down this path because my To Do list was getting too long and […]
Is it better to save time or to save money? I notice that I value both time and money but sometimes that complicates my life because one comes at the cost of the other. For example: Eating Out vs. Eating at Home: Eating out saves preparation time (if you don’t count travel time). Still, it […]
Last week I had two experiences of being forced to wait with strangers. My first reaction was annoyance at being delayed. But upon reflection, I realized that these were opportunities to let go of my compulsion to not waste time. I like to be on time and to make the most of my time. In […]
How does one count the value of things we give away? (click to enlarge) Originally I had divided this blog into 2 categories: EXPENSIVE GIVEAWAYS. This included a silver/gold chalice, a framed piece of art from France, a fancy metal lighter from Paris, a heavy metal flask with leather carrying case, a large unused candle […]
PRE-CYCLING: Before I address the topic of recycling, it’s worth starting at the beginning. Remember the classic “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” mantra of the early earth friendly movement. Too often we jump to the third “Recycle” option when the “Reduce” and “Reuse” steps would reduce the overall need for recycling. Some call this “Precycling.” Evaluate a […]
I spent the past 10 weeks going Room by Room to discern additional household items to give away. I then spent 2 more weeks researching where to take all this stuff. Some were easy but some took a lot of searching and time. Here is an outline of my methodology and resources so you don’t […]
I’ve got a big plan for Lent this year which will come in a couple weeks so I’m just catching up on smaller things that came my way recently. Keep your eyes open for opportunities Some give aways come by chance. We hired someone to do some electrical work at our house and the worker […]
What do you do when you buy something that turns out to be a mistake. Perhaps it’s the wrong size, defective, or you just change your mind. Of course you could Return it to the store or Amazon – but that takes time or postage. Suck it up and use it anyway. Or…might you look […]
Before I reveal what “BVG” means, I’d like to share a letter to my grandchild. See if you can guess the BVG. Dear grandchild, Once upon a time, a long time ago, BVG, you may wonder what families did for fun. In my own family we played GAMES. Lots of them were board games. We […]
If politics, hatred, suffering, and the sorry state of the world is cluttering your mind – welcome to the club. It’s easy to become depressed and want to return hate with hate. But that doesn’t solve anything. On my last blog post, Let Go of Trivial Judgments, I promised to move beyond trivial judgments to […]
About 6 months ago I focused on trying to be kinder for Lent. One dimension of this was to be less judgmental of other people. By the end of Lent I realized that it’s harder to actually change my internal critical self than to give things away. Today, over half a year later, I’m noticing […]
