We added a few more autumn details to our house.  I really like the idea of using natural decorations and don’t want to rush into Christmas with so many American and German celebrations to come this month.

Pulling decor straight from nature is easy, refreshing, and just the perfect little touch for the coffee table and other corners.  Plus when the season is over, you don’t have to worry about figuring out where to store everything.  Most goes right into your tummies!

You might remember the arrangement on our dinning table.  Using natural decor just takes a trip to the grocery store.  As we eat one of the squashes or more walnuts, I find myself purchasing new ones to slip into the empty gaps.

Our newest additions are little glass votives filled with nuts and bees wax candles.  Easy and cheap!  Bees wax candles smell amazing, and they seriously lack the toxins of traditional paraffin candles.  Your house can sport environmentally friendly decor and cost almost nothing.

For a few extra touches, have you checked outside? We have little acorns, twigs, and leaves I have picked up from walks in the park.  It’s the little touches that add to our days.  (Bringing a little browns and yellows insideIt’s also a clever way to keep Christmas at bay and savor the Thanksgiving season first.)

November marks the beginning of the sixth or seventh month of the No New Clothes Challenge at our house.  It’s a little surprising to think that I can’t even remember when I stopped going into clothing stores.  But not buying clothes has become such a habit now.

I’m learning that going without new clothes certainly doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to wear.  In fact, time after time, we keep reaching for the exact same sweaters and pants anyway.  Half of the clothes in the little dresser that we share aren’t even being touched, and I wonder if I can even remember what’s in the back of Martin’s pile or if he can remember the back of mine.

By avoiding the purchase of new clothes, I feel like our priorities have shifted in a lot of ways.  We seem to be wanting less in general.

I was a little worried at first.  As a whole, Europeans have far more fashion sense than I do.  I worried about getting caught up in how beautiful the scarves girls wore were or how adorable their autumn coats looked.  I fully expected to have to create some sort of system where I’d take small steps in accepting that I don’t dress like a European.  No purchase could probably change that about me.  I’d still be the only person in a bright coat in a sea of black clothes.

Sometimes I feel silly in my coat.  Does it have “American!” written all over it, even if it’s a German coat?  I’ve discovered that standing out has its advantages.  Every time I bike down six-lane streets, I find myself more and more thankful that cars will see me better.  When I’m trying to meet up with people, they can spot me from a mile away when I climb off the subway.  Plus Martin never loses track of where I am when we run errands together.

I have had to walk into a department store to buy Martin a pair of gloves, but otherwise?  This challenge has eliminated an entire expense for now.  The desire for more is gone.  We find ourselves celebrating what we have instead of feeling frustrated by what we don’t.

A friend of mine always says, “When I die, I want people to remember me for my character, because it’s not like I am going to be able to take all this stuff with me anyway!”

Do you have experiences in going without?  Have any triumphs or attempts you’d like to share?  We only meant to go the summer with no clothes.  Sometimes challenging yourself creates completely new habits.

Catch the rest of the No New Clothes series here, here, and here.  Happy not shopping!

(Images from Hamburg, Germany during a recent visit)

For some people, a busy schedule is essential.  Being busy makes them feel important.  It makes them feel needed because no one else can handle things that they need to do.  So they create detailed itineraries and constantly talk on the phone or check their cell phones for emails and text messages.  The problem is… busyness never ends.

Even when you don’t want to be a busy person, you have things to do.  We will always have to-do lists and projects to finish, emails to write, meals to prepare, and enough to keep our hamster wheel rolling.

So my question is:  Does being busy add to our lives?

A while back when Martin and I were preparing to return to Germany, I felt overwhelmed by lists and really started questioning why I had put some things on our list in the first place.  Which things were essential?  What really needed to be done?  Several of you left wonderful comments about how if projects are really important, they will be taken care of at some point.  Two notes have especially resonated in my mind:

Powerful words, aren’t they?  It’s important to feel at peace at the end of the day.  Being exhausted from busyness isn’t peaceful, just as Amber and Nicole have discovered.

And the funniest thing I’ve discovered about people who like to appear busy is that they spend hours setting up the appearance.  They might spend an hour each day rebuilding their schedules, assigning a time for every duty that needs to be done – right down to “Play with kids: 6:45 to 7:10″.  They might also hang onto unhealthy relationships that actually do damage to their worlds.  But it provides line items on schedules and phone conversations on the subway to fill up their days.

We can control our schedules; it shouldn’t be the other way around.

Over the summer, you may remember that I shared a monthly goal with all of you – things ranging from taking a picture each day to creating a better beauty routine.  This month, I would like to try creating more ideal days.

I’d like to spend less time feeling like I have to multi-task… especially when some of those activities are just busy things I bring into my life (like free magazines at the grocery store checkout that only pile up in our house until I read them). I’d like to connect to the world and to people without being distracted. And those to-do lists?  Well maybe some of that stuff doesn’t really need to be on my list at all.

I think it could be a lovely introduction into the Christmas season – seeing joy in all of the pieces of the day instead of feeling rushed and a need to add one more to-do.

Would you care to join me?  Or do you have any thoughts on beating busyness?

(Images from a visit to the museum this weekend)