This is a very frequent view in our lives right now. Reheating beans.

This is the air conditioning unit that sits above us when we eat.

This is our latest morning walk – to buy veges. But you’ll notice, as colorful and amazing as this looks, the actual lack of veges in sight. In fact, I can only see carrots, some green beans and some corn. The rest is just amazingly sweet and delicious fruit.

Mika rides in her car.

Oh hi there! This is Mika, hanging out in the door to the office.

Her latest trick!! She stands and she dances! Well, dancing is a stretch. But she’s pretty excited Look at those strong legs!!!

I’m shooting a wedding tomorrow, then we’ll be in full ‘getting ready to leave’ mode, which means getting rid of a few things still, planning any last minute beach trips, having lunch with family and spending as much time together as possible (not hard, considering we spend all day in a small house together ).

I’m actually starting to feel a bit sad about leaving Mexico…but just sad enough to really appreciate everything about right now. Not sad enough to not be crazy excited about Seattle!!

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Listening to: A Wasteland Companion, M.Ward
Reading: By Nightfall, Michael Cunningham (yup, reading!)
Watched recently: Being Elmo, The Lives of Others, Yesterday

Some good reads/finds of late:

A weird risk at the playground

The traces of plastic in our food

I finally got my invite to Duolingo and I am in love. It’s like Rosetta Stone, but free and using real texts from the internet and they’ve turned learning a language into a game!!!

Incase you were curious about getting enough iron as a vegetarian or vegan.

“In exploration, children ask: “What does this object do?” In play it is “What can I do with this?” When a child is confronted with too many new toys they spend too long exploring and not enough time playing. “The theory is that children who play more tend to become more creative, imaginati ve and emotionally secure.” From when toys take over.

Feeling in a rut? Inspiring thoughts from Adele should help.

People are awesome.

A list of films to see before you’re 14.

13 simple steps to get you through a rough day. (That first one really works).

One of Ivan’s good friends and Mika’s god fathers just started a new job in Monterrey, Mexico. He’s got an awesome portfolio, check it out!

If you like maps and birds, check this out.

Despite the fact that this is from P&G (one of ten orchestrators of choice) – it’s quite a sweet video. I got teary.

[image source]

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Since packing up our lives in Vancouver, Ivan and I have been very aware of how many things we own. We’ve packed up our lives 3 times now in the last 2 years or so and each time we try to manage with less and less.

We left New Zealand with 3 very full (and overweight) suitcases. Apart from a couple small boxes with baby clothes and ‘important things’ (notes/love letters/cards etc) that we left at my parent’s home, and a box of nice pots and pans that we had left with my grandma in Vancouver, this was our life. 3 suitcases, a stroller, a ukulele, a diaper bag and a laptop bag.

Now we are packing up our lives again and heading to Seattle and I have been thinking more and more about striving towards a minimalist lifestyle. It doesn’t mean that we are instantly going to renounce all possessions and go live in the bush, but rather that we are going to be proactive in making little changes in our lives and our mindsets to ensure that we never become owned by our stuff.

I’ll accept that because we are traveling this is almost like forced minimalism. By moving so much we are forced to keep trying to lighten our bags for the sake of our sanity (and our backs). But even if you aren’t moving anytime soon, what is the minimum you can survive with and still be happy? That’s the question that we are asking ourselves a lot right now. How can we get by with less? Where can we trim the fat?

I’ve been intrigued in the past by things like the 100 Thing Challenge, which would be a great tool to start minimizing the amount of stuff in your life. I haven’t actually counted the things we own, but I prefer to be guided by this statement from Leo Babauta:

A minimalist is simply one who questions the necessity of things, and who tries to live with what’s necessary, rather than with consumerism.

If this kind of thing interests you, the ultimate resource and best place to start is on one of Leo’s many blogs, here.

I dunno bout you, but this stuff makes me feel so damn good.

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• Cheap good avocados, reliably
• The way that people say ‘que hermosa!’ and ‘mira! que bonita‘ all the time when they see Mika
• How the people from the local store always scoop Mika up the second we walk in and play with her til we leave
• How around 5pm when the sun is low, kids play around the streets
• Sunday lunches with Ivan’s mum and brother’s family
• The great typography and bright colors on buildings and taco stands
• The way that the taco stands all start setting up on their corners just before dark, in anticipation for the families and people who will soon head out to eat
• Fresh corn tortillas a 30 second walk away from our house
• Fresh flour tortillas a 2 minute walk away from our house
• The awesome cinema (with new lazyboy reclining chairs and to-your-seat service) that reliably fucks up every movie at some point so we can keep going back for free
• Being able to leave Mika with her grandma and just pop out to see a movie
• Fresh coconut water from the coconut.
• Evening walks where the warm breeze makes it super comfortable being in short shorts and jandals
• Being able to take Mika to see her little cousins whenever we like
• Hanging out with Ivan all day, everyday, whenever we feel like it
• And for some reason the lack of variety here, making beans and vegetables the most desirable meal option for multiple days in a row will surely have some kind of nostalgic appeal to it one day

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Yesterday we went to the beach for a day. The sun wasn’t shining but it was still 30 degrees out. The water was cold so the swimming was brief (we did both go all the way in though! For some reason baby cried when she saw us each dive in, and kept crying until we’d dried off…).

She was so content all day, just moving sand from one place to another, crawling in the soft sand, moving around the club restaurant, tasting the sand, clambering over the beach chairs. Ivan and I lazed around, listening to the waves and the birds. We did some crosswords, we listened to music and Ivan sipped on a margarita. It was exactly what we needed.

The sand doesn’t taste so good!

I got back from changing into my bikini and I found the two of them dining on wedges and a margarita. Too cute.

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