Freedom of Simplicity: Finding Harmony in a Complex World by Richard J. Foster, originally published in 1981; now available in several formats through Amazon, Google Books, and Barnes & Noble, to name the biggies. Foster is or has been a theologian, teacher, pastor and writer, and (I just found out) lives near Denver.
We’ve had the 1989 paperback version of this book on our shelves for many years; I think Jim brought it into the marriage. For some reason I just recently decided to read it and have been challenged and rebuked by many of its ideas. Foster is well known for an earlier book, Celebration of Discipline, with this book being somewhat of a followup.
It would be great if I would follow my own advice. In the chapter on 
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you know that I’m a huge fan of 
I wanted to make a substantial version of tabbouleh for vegetarians. You can do pretty much what you want with this. I give a list of possible ingredients and you can add or subtract at will and to taste. Most tabbouleh recipes are very heavy on the chopped parsley, almost as if that ingredients is standing in for lettuce, but you don’t have to add that much. You could even, if you wanted to, add some shredded cooked chicken, if you have any sitting around that you want to use up, but this is such a good dish for vegetarians (and even vegans) that it’s probably good to leave it meat-free.
“What matters is not what is said, but what is heard.”
We often tend to think of luxury in terms of being waited on or having others do work we find irksome. I’ll think sometimes of how nice it would be to have someone in to clean this house so that I wouldn’t have to worry about it and could just get on with my writing. I know two excellent cleaning women whom I like and respect very much and who could probably use the work. We can afford to pay them. That’s not the issue. But every time I get close to deciding to hire them I pull back. Cleaning house is excellent exercise; no one can sit at a computer for too long without needing to get up and do something else. (Well, no one except my son, whose computer-sitting-tolerance seems to be boundless.) Plus, as we all know if we’ve ever hired anyone to do something, handing the job over to an employee includes the dreaded idea of management. What do you want him to do? How do you want it done? How much time should it take? How much will you pay?
And it also saved me $300. Not bad for around three hour’s work, or $100 an hour. Hey, that’s lawyer pay!
You’d think, wouldn’t you, that by this time in my life I would have figured out some fast, easy organizational tools and habits to use when traveling. We usually take one big trip a year and often do some shorter ones. What has seemed to happen in the past is that the trips are spaced out just enough that I forget how much of a pain it is not to have a system and end up digging around in my suitcase every morning to find what I need. Also, I start out with all these nice clean clothes neatly folded up, but then as I wear them they become dirty clothes, and what is one to do with those? So as the trip wears on there’s a tangle of clothes and a tangle of items, and every morning is just a real hassle.