Day twenty-two...simplicity is savoring.

Last year, we made it a plan to spend more time around the house on the weekends, for some quality rest and relaxation. It has made an incredible difference in our children, in our household organization and in our parental sanity.

But these days, when it is time to get out of the house... the kids are ready, couch-change-stash in hand... ready to spend! You know about couch-change, right? Our kids find coins in some of the strangest places. Under the couch, in the back of closets and all around the kitchen...cocka-doodle-doodle-doo.

This weekend, our get-out-of-the-house-quick trip was to our local natural foods co-op. The kids enjoyed the experience, taking the minature carts around and around the aisles, looking for samples and the most valuable thing they could find to trade in their couch-change. I'm making them sound like little street children, aren't I?

Ashley, my lovely wife, has shown them, time and time again, that it is better to splurge on fine food than a piece of plastic - made in another county, clogging up their rooms with stuff. When the Donahues splurge...we make wonderful meals, instead.

The boys decided to put their money together during this last trip and we ordered a bulk container of dolmas. A taste-filled treasure, dolmas are grape leaves filled with a mixture of rice, onions, currants, pine nuts, mint and spices, and then gently steamed. The boys have often asked to take them in their packed lunch.

Buying this item in bulk allows us the pleasure of being able to send something they enjoy in their lunches but also the time for Ashley to work her magic in trying to make her own. I'm certain, before long, she will be wrapping her own grape leaves, saving us money and most likely adding her own fine, delicious details.

All that said, I'm not trying to make the reader feel hungry, but instead I am trying to point out that our children see quite plainly the things which we value. Is it a weekly family game night, a favorite television show, a favorite meal, playing at a park (and cleaning up that park to keep it wonderful), a clean house, spending money, quiet reading time together? What is your families treasured time?

I have recently been eating a grapefruit every day. When I was younger, I really disliked the flavor, but Ashley showed me that I was eating them all wrong. If you peel away all of the pith, and just eat the fruit...that's powerful stuff. But you have to pull away ALL of the pith. Just one little missed piece can spoil a mouthful, making the experience bitter and unpleasant. This takes quite a bit of time, but each succulent moment is each bite better.

Two major problems with this daily habit:

the cost, at about $1.00 a fruit

and

the annoying, yet charming fact that you can do nothing else while eating a grapefruit properly.

This daily (instead of a habit, I'll start calling it a) discipline has caused me to slow down, increased my daily vitamin c intake and also led to wipe up the table more frequently. It has also allowed time to pause and consider the day. Much of the prewriting I have done for this came from mental notes during my daily devourings.

Slowing down to taste the fruit is so much more important when you have had to work for it. Just like the joy my children are finding in spending couch-change, I too have had to work for those mouth-watering morsels of pulp. I read a great story to my students today about the people of Mali and the work that the people used to put into making just one day's worth of food. Three hours of grinding, just to make prepare the millet flour for the meals. Working for your food makes it taste better, without a doubt.

Certainly, there has been a time in your life when that has been the case. Working towards simplicity in my life has not been easy. I would say, in fact, that it has made my life more difficult at this point. The weeding out, the sorting and the stacking that has gone on at home and at school have been tiresome. When I do get to sleep, I am sleeping quite well.

Tomorrow, I'd like to expand on this with a reading from one of my favorite authors, Mr. Rich Mullins. For today, I will present a challenge.

Take a necessary job or task. Appreciate the joy which you receive by doing just one small task. And take a moment and savor it. You worked to get it to work correctly, now just enjoy the moment of small success.

Feel free to post your task. It will encourage others to tackle the practice of savoring the moment.

Link of the day...
Read more about my darling hippie wife and her concoctions -
http://pinterest.com/ashleydonahue/

Quote of the day...
Meditation on a Grapefruit
Craig Arnold

To wake when all is possible
before the agitations of the day
have gripped you
To come to the kitchen
and peel a little basketball
for breakfast
To tear the husk
like cotton padding a cloud of oil
misting out of its pinprick pores
clean and sharp as pepper
To ease
each pale pink section out of its case
so carefully without breaking
a single pearly cell
To slide each piece
into a cold blue china bowl
the juice pooling until the whole
fruit is divided from its skin
and only then to eat
so sweet
a discipline
precisely pointless a devout
involvement of the hands and senses
a pause a little emptiness

each year harder to live within
each year harder to live without

Bible verse of the day...

"O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!" Psalm 34:8