Our lives are filled with things that make us happy.  In fact, I think that we often have so many happy moments in our lives that we often forget the tiniest gratitudes.  I was sitting at the dining table last night to do my German homework about life stages vocab and grammar when I was confronted by two German words:

1. die Freude:  the happiness or pleasure
2. die Baustelle: the building site or job site

They’re interesting words for a a chapter on life stages, huh?  They’re also interesting when you think about the happiness we get from little moments in our personal building sites – the place where we become who we are – our homes.

So today, pause.  What are the little things that bring happiness to your home and to your life?  Here are some of mine.

1.  The pause right after our family sits down for dinner. We’re together.  We have food to share.  And in that moment, everything is peaceful.

2.  Fresh vegetables and fruits. Sliced.  Arranged on a plate.  Consumed raw.

3.  Walking in the front door after a long day. Being home.  Unloading the school books, the grocery bags.

4.  Standing at the window, watching the people outside with their sleds and children, their dogs, or their cross country skis over their shoulders.

5.  Finding a letter from the United States in our mailbox because that means it isn’t a bill.  It isn’t a project.  It’s just something fun from someone who cares… and writes in English.

Just listing these things makes my day feel sunnier.  I know I’m not alone.  What are the bits and pieces we easily overlook… but mean so much in a really good day at your house?

I am determined to expand my creative journaling.  Between opening a shop to creating a daily December journal that I’ve publicly put out there, I feel really inspired.  My journals were even featured on the front page of etsy!  A big thanks to Cameron at Create Beauty Daily for capturing this screen shot for us:

We’re just about out of inventory!

I think it’s so important to capture bits and pieces of ourselves.  If you have someone in your family who is addicted to Ancestory.com then you know what treasures postcards, photographs, and memorabilia from the past can be.  The amazing thing about journaling is how it also transforms us or reveals a part of us we didn’t even know.

As you know, I don’t have access to American scrapbooking stuff (without paying an arm and a leg!).  I’m playing around a little.  I’m brainstorming.  I’m having more fun with this German date stamp than I thought possible.  Martin, too!  It’s the latest addition in our home – a splash of creativity, a good dose of German order.

Thanks for supporting this journey.  Stay tuned for more projects and more ideas.  In the meantime

learn learn learn.  stamp stamp stamp.

Ever wonder how living with less became a habit at our house?  Or how we learned to manage not to literally step on each other’s toes in the kitchen?  Or think so much about the environment?

Christine over at Simple Savvy did a pretty good job stumping me on all of those and more when she asked me a couple of questions.

Some of the answers might surprise you.  Or at least they surprised me.  I never really thought about why I feel so passionate about not having stuff or a huge house.  I think I need to head over to video chat and send my parents a high five.  Then I’ll do the same with Martin, as he is all the way on the other side of the house right now.

Swing over to Christine’s blog for all the juicy living with less bits.  Christine – thank you for stumping me without a single der, die, or das.

(Der, die, or das – the German language nightmare for English speakers from day one.  All three words mean “the” along with a handful of other options.)

I don’t know if its the new year , the economy, or just another one of those days when I start thinking, “Maybe I could do a little more for the big mamma earth.”  The more I think about greener choices, the more I realize how much they simplify my life.  I love a win-win.  That’s why I keep thinking, “Hmm… what more can I do?”

So if you’re hungry for little changes with big impacts, well here you go – 10 things you can do for the environment.

1.  Use greener, more natural cleaners.

2.  Reduce first.  Then reuse.  And then recycle.

3.  Try walking instead of driving for every errand that within a mile of your house.  It’s really relaxing, and your kids can come, too.

4.  Carry a rolled fabric bag in your purse (like one of these I quickly sewed myself) so you don’t have to turn to plastic or paper bags for various purchases.

5.  Call up catalogue companies and unsubscribe from their mailing lists if their catalogues just land in your trash/recycling pile.

6. Use the dishwasher more and wash by hand less.

7.  Avoid foods with extra packaging.  Even speak up to the department or store manager at your grocery store.

8.  Make water your go-to thirst quencher.

9.  Pick environmentally friendly laundry soap.

10.  When you feel chilled, drink something hot or bake something warm instead of turning up the heat.

What are your ideas for small adjustments that are a huge deal for our little round globe?

(Images for Making This Home – both from back home in the Rocky Mountains)

This morning, I dropped a bag of old clothes into a clothes recycling bin on my route to school.  It felt amazing to donate some items taking up precious space in our bedroom.  I’m sure you know the feeling.  Clothes seem to come into our homes in new bags – which feels good.  They also tend to leave – which feels even better.  As many of you know, we’ve been discovering something else about clothes lately…

Yes – our No New Clothes Challenge continues into the new year!

In May, we decided to pull the plug on all clothes purchases.  We felt like we were constantly coming home with clothes that we didn’t need – which was such a waste of resources, space in our home, and money in our wallets.  ”No More Clothes!” we decided.  The challenge was only supposed to go through the summer.  Yet something happened along the way. (You can read our progress posts here at the beginning, here after 3 months, and here once we were in Europe again)

Today we’re still not buying new clothes.  Well there are the occasional purchases of winter boots, gloves, socks.  These are planned purchases.  And now I find myself thinking, “Well do I really need warmer socks?  I already have ankle socks.”

Changing your thinking from shopping when you want more clothes to when you need more clothes is a radical thing.

Now we’re pulling out the clothes that we don’t ever wear and getting rid of them.  Other things are being worn more.  I’m learning how to mend.  (Here’s a how-to on darning socks.)  In short:  we’re using the stuff we have and ditching the stuff we don’t need.

Before we started the No New Clothes Challenge, I used to frequently walk into the bedroom and tell myself, “Okay.  Go pull out five pieces of clothing that I don’t need.”  If you feel like you have too many clothes, try this.  I love the strategy because you’re not looking at items one at a time, deciding if you want to keep them.  You’re walking into the closet with a plan to purge a little.  It’s so much easier to say, “What can I get rid of?” than “What should I keep?” when you set a goal.

So I’ve got a little challenge for all of you.  Go pull out five pieces of clothing.  Donate them.  Cut them into rags.  Toss them.  Whatever it is you need to do.  Try it this weekend.

Then repeat often.

Do you have any tips for continually purging old clothes?  Or how have you been doing with your own clothes shopping lately?

(Image by Katie of a clothes recycling bin in Denver, Colorado just days before starting our challenge)

I thought we’d deviate a little from our usual simple/green living and surviving a foreign country topics today.  Well actually quite a few of you have been urging me to take on the 10 Things About Me post topic.  Don’t you go thinking I’m about to reveal all by myself over here.  Oh no.  Martin, you’re up, too. Here we go.

1. I didn’t get 100% on my hunter’s education test in 7th grade because I missed one question: can you shoot livestock? I said yes.

2. I’ve only cooked meat once. And I burned it.

3. Martin and I met my first friend in Germany online. She’s an American named Katie; her husband is a German named Martin.

4. Both of my parents had grandparents that spoke German. The language was lost on both sides of my family, as everyone wanted to be American as possible back then.

5. Yet the German food culture was not lost in our family. Since living in Germany, I’ve started discovering just how German my mom’s cooking is – from potatoes to sauerkraut. A couple of years ago, Martin and I couldn’t agree. I said Germany has to have potato sausage (which is basically a sausage that’s stuffed with meat and potatoes). He’d never heard of it. Sure enough, I was right.

6. So it’s no wonder I look so German… even if I don’t sound German and rarely eat like a German today.  Tofu bratwursts?  Tea over beer?  Sheesh.

7. Martin first kissed me in a small airplane. Most people aren’t shocked by this fact.  In fact, people usually assume we fly to Germany in a small plane (especially now that we’re both pilots!).  As cool as that totally would be, there’s the whole issue of the ocean and carrying enough fuel.

8. We’ve never lived in the same place for more than 13 months.  We’re bouncing all over the place like ping pong balls for school and work and, in the case of Germany, experiences.  It gets tough moving so much, so we’re beyond thrilled to have a place we love calling home.

9.  My family teases me for being short. I am the shortest person in my family.  I am 5’9″.  (See what I mean about the whole German genes thing through-and-through?)

10.  I was probably the only kid at school who asked the cafeteria ladies for “white” milk instead of chocolate. What kind of kid freely does that?!

So there you have it.  Anything total surprise you?  How about #1?  There’s a party stopper for ya.  I’d love to hear what random thing you have to share.  Seriously – spill the beans.  I can’t be the only one out there who grew up with potato sausage.  (Oh and bloggers, if you’ve written a 10 Things post, please share the link below.  I’d love to see.)